so although i had planned to have a 100k month in june, i had to settle for one in july. i'm really happy with how i'm playing lately and hope to have continued success and continue moving up in stakes. i'm also pretty happy that poker still interests me despite all the grinding i've been doing lately, and after i get over strep i'm eager to get back on the grind.

i'm going to make some videos(already made two) and will make a few more over the next few days, so if anyone has suggestions/requests feel free to tell me. off topic but baskin robbins makes realllly good smoothies.

anyway, i'm back home in northport for a week or so having returned a few days ago from chicago where i was seeing lollapalooza with some friends. was fun for my first experience at a music festival but man are they(festivals, specifically 3 day ones) physically draining! lots of walking and standing, by the end of each day you're ready to pass out for sure. after my week in northport expires, i'm back on the road for a while - first stop will be NC for a jack johnson concert, then back to turning stone for the august series, then indy to chill w/ the one and only AEJONES. after that in the beginning of september i'll be in macau, where i'll then head over to barcelona, and finally london for ept/wsope before coming back to North America in middish october for WPT niagara.

that's all for now, i'm definitely excited for some of these big live tournaments and hope i can bink a nice score real quick.

gl at the tables,

-andrew

so, lately i've been on the massive grind, putting in lots of hands(mostly all hu nl) in attempt to constantly improve my game and increase my roll. first things first, i'll just say how funny it is how many regulars will literally ONLY play johnny123456789, and i imagine if he raised the button more than 2 times in 10 hands he'd get quit too. but whatever, it is what it is, they're protecting their bottom line by not playing in bad games and i can't really blame them for it, it's just infuriating sometimes when they get the fishes action and i don't get the fish(or them). fortunately i feel like this happens less often than it doesn't. anyway, at this point i'm enjoying the challenge of playing just about anyone, and have only really run into trouble in a few spots which makes me feel pretty good about myself. if i can make roughly a million before the wsop starts next year i'll be feeling really good.

on a different note, the summer is winding down and i'll be leaving the beach house and jersey for good. i'm looking to get a place with a friend somewhere in a place like florida/cali/hawaii. any thoughts are welcomed, that's all for now, gl at the tables kids.

a few days ago at the beach while we were skim boarding(which is quite fun and i would recommend anyone tries) we kept moving further down the beach to get to better areas of the shoreline to skim. after we finished up and were walking back, as we got to the area where we put our stuff down we saw it was all ruffled and moved around. obviously being the optimist i am i thought dan took our stuff back to the house, but that was just wishful thinking at it's best. unfortunately but fortunately, we immediately got word from one of the people sitting near our stuff that two kids ran up, quickly took me and steve's wallets and phones and ran away. that said, they did give us a fairly descriptive description of the kids and as we were walking towards the boardwalk one of our friends was holding steves wallet and said the kids had thrown it in one of the many trashcans after taking all the cash out of it. this gave me a glimmer of hope as i don't really care about the $160 some odd dollars i had in my wallet nearly as much as i care about my license, credit cards, health insurance card, etc etc. after checking the same trash can though i was left sifting through random peoples garbage and no wallet.

we walked down the boardwalk a little while and reported the situation to a cop who basically told us that there is little to no chance of getting our stuff back, which is understandable and i'm glad the cop was honest rather than bull****ting us that everything will turn up blah blah blah. so at this point i'm just furious that some ***** kids are going to make me go out of my way to do a ton of work to get my stuff back. i decide my best bet is to walk back to the part of the beach where we found steves wallet, and check the other garbage cans nearby. the first i check is a swing and a solid miss, but jeff(jschnett) immediately sees my wallet sitting atop a pile of garbage in the first can he looks at. luckily all my stuff is still there with the exception of the cash obviously.

so at this point all me and steve are out is ~$260 and our phones, which is a bigger deal for him than me cause he has an iphone and i just have a ****ty nextel. after coming back to the house i sign online and get a message from my dad telling me that my phone is at a store on the boardwalk and i can go pick it up. i get there and the owner tells me they are closing and someone was there but didn't leave the phone there, which i wasn't too worried about because i couldn't imagine not getting the phone back after someone went out of their way to get in contact with me and help me out. sure enough the next morning i went back and they had the phone there, luckily, because it had died at that point. steve still hasn't gotten his phone back yet and it doesn't look too good at this point, but there is a new iphone coming out in a few weeks which he likely would have upgraded to anyway.

all in all, i realized plain and simple that i'm just not careful enough. i don't protect my stuff as well as i should and it never worried me until this. it's sort of one of those things that i never worried about too much because i just(stupidly) never thought it'd happen. i mean, i obviously knew there was a chance it could always happen, but it was never a priority in my mind to be as careful as i should be for whatever reason. i suppose it may have been worth it for me to lose that $160 if it prevents me from losing more money/more expensive stuff in the future.

mocking seabeast, obv. =]

so on saturday i finally got to the beach house in jersey and so far it's been awesome. the beach is really close, the kids we're hanging out with are really chill, the area seems great, and the simple idea that 4 of us can support ourselves and have the financial freedom to do basically whatever we want because of the dedication we put into poker is really satisfying(for me at least). as far as poker goes, i'm really going to try to put a lot of volume in over the next couple of months and hopefully the results follow. i've actually decided to have a 100k month, so let's hope i can do that. gl at the tables fellas.

Hey everyone, I hope all is well because I'm doing quite alright myself. A week and a half ago I made the somewhat last minute decision to go to lapt(latin american poker tour - run by pokerstars) san jose, held in costa rica, the second ever lapt. It was definitely a fun time overall and I'm glad I went. The hotel I(and everyone I knew for the most part) was/were staying at was not more than a 5 minute walk to the tournament area which was nice, and the hotel itself was a very nice establishment(and they give you warm cookies when you check in which is just about the coolest thing ever).

Some other cool things about the hotel were that it was not entirely an 'indoor' place, if that makes sense. There were a lot of areas were there was an awning or something to protect you from rain(because in the rainforest, which is were costa rica is, it rains just about every single day) but you are essentially outdoors and there are cool plants or trees all around you. Secondly, there was a bar built into the hotels pool and stools built into the pool around the bar, which I was looking forward to enjoying but unfortunately it remained closed all week.

The tournament itself was boring, it was a $2700 buyin and had a nice structure - a bit fast in the beginning but seemed to have a nice amount of play when it got deep. I lost the vast majority of my chips in a standard hand on day 1 where Andre Aakari(team pokerstars pro and tournament legend!) opened the cutoff to 1200 at 2/4/50 and I found KTs in the BB and happily jammed for my ~8k, he called ATo without too much thought and I was left with 1 SB which didn't last me too long although I managed to get it up to 6 BB's before shoving Q5o in mp and getting called by AK.

My friend Steve known online as 'zugwat' managed to get really deep in the tournament and entered the final table with the chip lead. I was obviously pulling for him because he's a really nice kid and a hell of a tournament player(and overall poker player) in his own right, and we had swapped 2.5%! Unfortunately, he took some absurdly sick beats at the final table, specifically getting a hungarian to 5-bet T5s AI and run out a flush vs his kings for what was easily 75% or more of the chips in play which would have gotten him heads-up with a huuuuge chip lead as he had some chips left behind. Then later on, still 3 handed, he managed to get it in with 55 vs the hungarian's 22 for what was likely roughly 1/3rd of the chips in play only to lose to another backdoor flush, which although obviously all the chips went in pf it's still an emotional roller coaster and extremely devastating to be such a huge favorite and have to progressively watch the tournament slip away as each card is dealt(hell, it even had my heart racing on the rail) - in live tournaments at least, where it's all slow and dramatic.

The night life in costa rica was quite a disappointment after how much I enjoyed myself at PCA, but it just didn't compare in my opinion. Mainly because just about every girl was a hooker and I'm just not into that. The whole idea of paying money for sex just seems a bit silly to me. Same thing with strip clubs, because now you don't even get anything but cock tease. That being said I've never been to a strip club(though I plan to go in the future) so I don't know that much argument holds much weight because I might enjoy myself.

Lastly, I'm really jealous of everyone who's 21 and heading out to vegas for the series about now. Next year I'll be out there though as my 21st is in September. That said I'm really excited about the summer because I'll be living in a beach house with 3 friends I've met through poker, known online as randallin, zugwat, and kingdan. I'm moving in soon, probably in a week or less and am really looking forward to it. Obviously the beach/party scene should be great, but besides that I think I'll be motivated to play more poker(though this hasn't been as much of an issue as it was in the past) as being around people who have the same goals as me should help with any motivation I was lacking. I also think we'll all become better players being able to constantly bounce ideas off one another, especially since I respect the games of all 3 of them to begin with.

is a funny movie, but has nothing to do with this blog!!

sup guys, haven't updated in a while. let's see where i left off...i guess after i got back home from boston i kinda chilled around home getting everything settled w/ the car and tv(pics sometime i promise!!). then about two weeks ago i went into the city and met up with two friends, one who lives on LI as well and one who lives in the city, and we planned to eat at carmines and see ironman. carmines was fantastic, strongly recommended for anyone in the area or if you ever go to nyc. it's a family style Italian restaurant for those who don't know, and all the dishes come in large portions. then we saw ironman which i thought was really cool.

after the movie we went back to my friends dorm at NYC and chilled for a few hours until we took the amtrak to DC to meet up with some more people and see the wizards game on whichever friday it was. the wiz got kinda owned by the cavs but it was a cool game nonetheless. the atmosphere in the arena of a playoff game is pretty intense, since it was the first i've been to i enjoyed it. we stayed in DC for a few days until most of us headed up to turning stone for a small tournament series. turning stone trips are always fun, not so much for the live poker, but just chillin around with friends you don't get to see that often but talk to on a regular basis. as far as results go i prob won an insignificant amount of money overall.

i woke up at 1pm on sunday and we all played sunday tournaments. i had no scores of note unfortunately. we stayed up all night and took the 8am amtrak back to the city, where i then took the LIRR back to LI. when i got home i was quite tired but decided to be a degen and stay up until 9pm so i could play the ftops 1k cause it's a huuuuuge tournament w/ a ballin structure. despite my efforts i busted at the 300/600 level but fortunately i placed 3rd in the only other tournament i played that night, the stars 100k, which was good for 18 dimez.

that's all for now, imma try to update this on a more regular basis cause that's what blogs are for!

g'luck at the tables ya'll. peace.

or in my case, vice versa.

i've always been what i guess you could call the stereotypical opposite of most online poker players in the regard that i don't spend money recklessly/wildly, and certainly not in comparison to what is generally assumed of a 20 year old with my financial situation.

that said, lately i decided i should probably treat myself to some cool new things. last week i bought a new tv to replace my old 17' one that i've had for like 7 years. it's a 40' sony and i really like it, hd channels are the illest. i also paid for it to get calibrated but have to wait about 2 weeks for the tv to get 'broken in'. for those who aren't familiar with tvs like myself, basically calibrating a tv makes it so that the video settings are really sharp/perfect. it costs ~300 i think and from what i've heard is well worth it.

that's not all though. yesterday i finally decided which car would be my first, and that is a certified pre-owned bmw 330xi w/ silver exterior and black leather interior. i hopefully get to pick it up tomorrow, but more likely monday and tuesday at the latest.

i also went to visit my man jimbob aka alusivpnkbny up in boston a few weekends ago as some of you may know if you read robs blog. it was quite a fun trip despite not being there for too long. it involved a lot of poker and a few other fun activities, concluding in us going to a nice steak house the last night for a sweet dinner. the crab cakes we got were phenomenal and i got lamb for the first time which was also really good. all in all a fun trip and a good time.

i guess that's all for now, i'll try to update more frequently and maybe eventually finish up the pca tr, though the chances of that happening at this point seem slim.

peace out ya'll.

So, I ended up not being able to go to San Remo but was totally at fault for it. Basically, I waited too long to book everything and by the time I decided to organize the trip the tournament was sold out. Fairly disappointing but like I said I have no one to blame but myself. I was thinking about going to Monaco(EPT finals Monte Carlo Millions), but it's a really expensive tournaments and I've heard it's also a pretty damn tough field. Not that I don't think I'd be +EV in it, but I don't think it's worth it for me. I would obviously have gone if I had qualified, but alas, no luck. Which kind of sucks because I heard the night life/area in general is really awesome, but also really expensive if I were to go without having won a package(which along with the tournament seat includes a room).

In May however, I plan on going to the turning stone series and the LAPT San Jose being held in Costa Rica. I feel fairly confident I can qualify for Costa Rica online but if not it's only a $2500 event and I will be going regardless, especially since I know of quite a few friends going.

Anyway, that's all for now, peace everyone.

OK, maybe not. But at least maybe some of you! Here's my trip report for day 3 of the PCA -

So since I took it pretty easy Saturday night I woke up around noon on Sunday and James was out somewhere, so I headed out to see if anything interesting was happening and met up with James while I was walking to coral where I saw Charder. We chilled in his room for a little then went over to Queso’s room where him, DJK, and Zugwat were playing some of the early Sunday tournaments. Queso was playing the $5k WTA freezeout and probably because PCA and Aussie were going on at the same time there were only 8 entrants.

He busted that particular tournament while I was there when he flatted Strassa’s button open 4 handed in the BB with about 3700 and 7d8d(strassa has like 7k-8k). The flop was 2h9dTh and he c/r’d 500 to 1700 and called a shove. My initial thought was that bet/folding the flop is the best line because on such a coordinated board Strassa will probably respect our lead a decent amount and I doubt he floats ace high’s and probably just folds 33-88(at least some of the time). Another reason I don’t really like c/r’ing all-in is because since Strassa is such a good player he’s not going to just monkey c-bet a flop with this texture with a very high frequency. I imagine he’ll recognize that our flatting range in the BB likes this texture often and will check back weakish hands that have showdown value fairly frequently. On top of all this our draw is very weak, and when we c/r and commit our range contains a TON of draws, so we basically have the bottom of our range in a spot where I don’t expect to get folds that much. For what it’s worth, I only like a bet/fold because of how weak our draw is. If we had QJ or hearts I think c/r’ing although he will still know we have a bunch of draws in our range is still okay because we have better equity vs. one pair. That said, I don’t hate his play or anything, just felt a possibly more optimal line was in order. It’s also important to note that these stacks are bad for b3b’ing all-in with a draw because he will probably never raise/fold to our shove, so had we led it’s hard to represent strength especially to an excellent hand reader. Still I think he might just surrender his whiffed hands often enough on a board texture like this.

I hung out there for a little while until probably around 4 or so and then James and I went back to the room and got some room service and just chilled for a bit. At around 6 we went back out and I decided to check out the poker room to see if the 10% I had of Joel was doing well, and if anyone else I knew had built up any stacks. I walked around the poker room for a little and then saw Kcannon playing the $1k side event. I unfortunately must have brought him bad luck as he busted only a few hands after I started talking to him. We walked back to coral and just shoot the **** for a little while. After a little while having not eaten all day, James and I decided to head back to the room to get some room service. We just hung out for a little while watching T.V. and later on I decided to shower and go down to chill in my man Jimmie G’s room where all the cool kids were hanging out.

Upon arrival they decided they were gonna go to coral and get some shots in the lobby (basically across the hallway from where his room was). Being incapable of taking shots without feeling like complete **** I just ordered a goombay smash and basically pounded it. Then I ordered another goombay smash and a kalik which I brought back to the room. It’s also worth mentioning that the bar in the lobby didn’t have shot glasses so they took shots out of actual glasses lol. Anyway back in the room I drank the GS/kalik somewhat quickly and was feeling pretty buzzed. If you’re thinking I’m a lightweight, guilty as charged. Someone had the idea to play Chinese poker and despite my not complete sober mindset I still jumped at the chance to play with these fish. So, Gabe P, my man gp333, the professional life liver himself, Starkey, Triplo, and AEJONES head out to the lobby and set up shop at one of the empty tables with three chairs and a couch surrounding it. Someone continues to order kaliks and I get pretty drunk while we play. We played for $10/point and I ended up losing like $130 I think.

Some hilarity that ensued during the game which was recapped to me at a later date was basically me trying to convince everyone to go over and talk **** to mkind who was deep in the million. Truth be told, I think mkind is a nice guy who I’ve met before. If you’re thinking I might be an angry drunk, well, guilty as charged x2. Anyway as I was told which I only vaguely remember was telling everyone to just go talk **** to him. As far as I know I didn’t want to talk any **** to him, I just wanted to see others do it and watch and laugh. Pretty hilarious in retrospect because it is completely out of character for me but lol alcohol.

After the game wound down and people went back to their rooms I think I went back to my room then went back down to the lobby after I was too drunk to sleep and wanted to see what was going on in the lobby. Well, it turns out mkind ended up going really deep in the million and final tabling it. Turns out I was live sweating it as is evidence here - http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...d.php?t=144574. It seems as if the original picture is no longer up, but a slightly different version a friend of mine made still is, just scroll down a little. I think you can figure out who I am.

Anyway, as the night came to an end I went back to the room still feeling pretty drunk and passed out, ready to take day 2 of the 2008 PCA by storm.

Hey everybody, I'm really lazy and haven't updated in a while. I may or may not finish the PCA trip report, probably will try to at some point cause some hilarity ensues later on in the trip.

Lately I've just been chillin. I went to turning stone for a week and basically overslept almost all the live tournaments(ended up playing 2/5 and came 16th in one for what ended up being $425 after dealer tip) but still had a fun time just hanging out w/ friends.

I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be going to EPT San Remo in the beginning of April which I'm excited for, but not 100% yet. I guess that's all for now, just wanted to update so ya'll know I'm alive. peace out and gl at the tables.