Is where I am now. It's a town of 894 residents, significantly less streets, and my uncle. Ben and I are running the bookstore for my uncle for around two weeks. As my more astute readers may have already guessed, there's **** to do in this town. That being said, I've had tons of time to indulge in simple and for the most part introspective activities like read, think, write, cook, hike and lose money at poker. Most of this drunk. This blog is gonna be kind of a cop out, since I'm having trouble with image shack and concentration. This blog will not win the Pulitzer Prize.

Parting zingers:

-In ww2 German pilots were given methamphetamine laced chocolate bars, called Fliegerschokolade ("flyer's chocolate"). The poor infantrymen? Panzerschokolade ("tanker's chocolate").

-Cock is a phonetic palindrome. Another personal favorite "A man, a plan, a canal, panama."

-The entire nuclear arsenal of the world is 1/10,000th the power of the asteroid which killed the dinosaurs.

(this is what I come up with when I read all day)

So tomorrow myself and my good friend Ben are leaving for a journey across vast swaths of the usa planning on ending up in California/utah/arizona. Since I am bleeding wealth like a sauce-pinata lately to the tune of 800k ( I have lost 20 of my last 21 sessions which coincidentally number the days of september ) I am incredibly content to match Ben's $1300 dollar budget and lose myself in the more simple things in life. These simple things will be: running my uncle's bookstore for a week in the California desert, touring the various national parks: Zion, Bryce canyon, Yellowstone, Joshua Tree, Yosemite, Glacier, and generally being completely without responsibility to read and write with a mind free of poker related stress.

My Rav4 is now stripped of backseats and in the process of being packed full of streamlined bins, containers, duffelbags, and backpacks full of tons of canned goods, hippy dippy Trader Joe's stuff and assorted wilderness expeditionary gear. I also added a medieval lance for good measure inherited from my great aunt barbara which will be devoted for belligerent waving at hitch hikers. We are planning on taking a ton of pictures and keeping a journal, I will attempt to upload some of this to the internet as wifi/time permit.

I will be sure to update you all on the pervasive feelings of adventure and overall happiness/wellbeing that I hope will take the place of the leaden "I just lost 800k, no let's say it the right way, eight-hundred-thousand-united-states-dollars," feelings which are currently assailing me each time I play poker. So yeah, I'm not going to be playing poker for 6 weeks or so. Don't worry hackers, I have updated the security of my various sites and my accounts will be covered in impregnable hacker blocking freezer armor, so don't even try. I am also very seriously considering scaling back my poker activities all together and becoming a nice wellrounded Ben who can play Meat Puppets songs on his guitar and go to a party without myhis mind wandering back to vague expected value problems when really I should be just staring at her skirt. Or something.

Exciting times should be about to commence; the only thing I gotta do is get my metalface off the godamn computer....WESTWARD BOUND

gl on the grind,

Ben

In my 10 dollar rebuy home game. It was no limit holdem some plo some made up random games and I was shoving blind a bit. So I ran bad and ended up stuck 12 bi (120). I decided then that martingaling was an unbeatable strategy. So I did. A bunch of flips later I'm stuck 10.2k and putting on my degen hat for flip number 209378w4389 and beginning to sweat things a bit. Luckily my friend let me buy out for......... wait for it........ 2$$$$$$$$$$. Biggest non-poker fish ever. Anyways the next day to teach him a lesson in his fishiness I sent him 5k, but I will not do so again. I'd elaborate more and stuff, but then again I'm hungover. Also been playin Phil Ivey at 300/600.

Gl,

-Ben

Played a bunch of nosebleed nlh today, mostly hu deep vs Benyamine at 2/4 and 3/6. No incredibly interesting hands in terms of strategic stuff, just kind of ran well and tried to get my money in good. The one really interesting pot was between me and FwF who tends to play very aggressively. I got owned bad.... to be honest I probably should have just stuck it in preflop here, I think my preflop gambooling skills have gotten a bit worse maybe from playing so much hu and from playing nosebleeds way underrolled, but these days I can tempt variance a bit more than I used to if I think its a clearly profitable spot. Meh.

FullTiltPoker Game #7826165699: Table Canfield (6 max) - $200/$400 - No Limit Hold'em - 18:06:33 ET - 2008/08/27
Seat 1: David Benyamine ($54,325)
Seat 2: xDRAGONLADYx ($8,000), is sitting out
Seat 3: SamH133 ($50,194)
Seat 4: DaEvils ($86,415)
Seat 5: PrtectYaNeck ($42,514.50)
PrtectYaNeck posts the small blind of $200
David Benyamine posts the big blind of $400
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to PrtectYaNeck [Kc 5c]
SamH133 raises to $1,400
DaEvils raises to $4,800
PrtectYaNeck has 15 seconds left to act
PrtectYaNeck raises to $9,400
David Benyamine folds
SamH133 folds
trex313 stands up
DaEvils has 15 seconds left to act
DaEvils has requested TIME
DaEvils calls $4,600
*** FLOP *** [5h 3c 7d]
PrtectYaNeck checks
DaEvils has 15 seconds left to act
DaEvils has requested TIME
DaEvils checks
*** TURN *** [5h 3c 7d] [8c]
PrtectYaNeck has 15 seconds left to act
PrtectYaNeck checks
DaEvils has 15 seconds left to act
DaEvils checks
*** RIVER *** [5h 3c 7d 8c] [6h]
PrtectYaNeck checks
xDRAGONLADYx has returned
DaEvils has 15 seconds left to act
DaEvils bets $77,015, and is all in
PrtectYaNeck has 15 seconds left to act
PrtectYaNeck calls $33,114.50, and is all in
Uncalled bet of $43,900.50 returned to DaEvils
*** SHOW DOWN ***
DaEvils shows [9d 8d] a straight, Nine high
PrtectYaNeck mucks
DaEvils wins the pot ($86,827) with a straight, Nine high
PrtectYaNeck is sitting out
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $86,829 | Rake $2
Board: [5h 3c 7d 8c 6h]
Seat 1: David Benyamine (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: xDRAGONLADYx is sitting out
Seat 3: SamH133 folded before the Flop
Seat 4: DaEvils (button) showed [9d 8d] and won ($86,827) with a straight, Nine high
Seat 5: PrtectYaNeck (small blind) mucked [Kc 5c] - a pair of Fives



And an obligatory graph:




Gl all,

-Ben

Turning Stone which pops out of the middle of nowhere upstate NY is where I first won at no limit hold em. Before I ever got serious about online poker I drove here on weekends from Umass and slept in the backseat of my car bent up and draped in masses of sweatshirts windbreakers and blankets from my dorm while snow piled up in drifts around my car. I'd calculate my gas expenditures+food+tolls and compare my hourly which of course was grossly and indulgently inflated: and it was still a close thing. I also looked even sadder than the upstate NY degens, but one weekend I managed to win 2k in my 100nl game in one of my characteristic 30 hour sessions. I graduated to a hotel room.

Anyways so from then on I've been graduating my way on up the poker shcene I suppose and now even the biggest turning stone games (5/10 no limit, and UNCAPPED!) seems sort of shrunken. Which is on the whole kind of awesome, but leaves me a bit bored in practice. Even more arresting is the fact that I now stand out from the crowds of stubbly, hoodie wearing college kids who descend on turning stone every tournament weekend and my poker advice is treated with something bordering on awe. Weeiiirrrddd. What they are actually getting more often than not are just sort of pseudo-wise slurring which arises from not sleeping for 36 hours and trying to form a sentence...

So on to more poker oriented stories. This run I played the 5k tournament where I had moments of actual A game interspersed with gross lapses of discipline where I just **** it my chips into the pot out of boredom. But I think I made some progress in this area relative to other live outings. I can't really think of any tournament hands of note except for some fun spots where I was using physical reads to my advantage. There was this really cool stretch of maybe 3 hours where I knew everyone's relative hand strength every hand pretty much, but I was too shortstacked to play back so all I could do was kind of observe and wait, sigh.

The most interesting two hands were in the 5/10 PLO game I was playing. Stinger was also up for the weekend, which was cool because he's a fun guy to drink a beer with and for the fact I had a chance to sort of pick his brain PLO-wise a bit and generally just chat about the state of nosebleeds online. There were a couple cool deep stack situations in PLO which really made me think and get better, playing against a smart player. There really wasn't a ton of image to speak of in these spots: more the fact that Brian knows I'm pretty inexperienced and so he's probably more likely to monkey around and the fact that we are both playing 5/10. Though neither of us are on any sort of visible tilt or playing overly stupid.

First hand:

Brian opens the CO to 35, I make it 135 from the SB with AKJT one suit and he calls.
Flop: QT6 (not sure about the 6) with diamonds. I bet some medium large number, let's call it 220 and he calls.
turn: 9, bringing a heart draw as well. Now at this point I had to stop and think a bit because pot is 675 with 2400 back. One thing I've been thinking about PLO when out of position is controlling when the last bet goes in/stack sizes when playing smart players: and Brian's range is very wide here so I decided to check. He bet 550ish and I considered check/raising, but now in hindsight I think that's pretty bad in this spot against his range because::::
-with these stacksizes he's rarely betting a set on the turn
-he may bet a 2pair+combo draw on the turn but I don't think THAT often
-KJ makes up a large chunk of his value range, and many times with a redraw bigger than my gutter
-bluffs and thinner semibluffs are EVERYWHERE (as in a bare FD with a pair type semibluff)
Soooo, I check/called planning to check/call most rivers...

River: 9, for QT699 with no flush coming

Hah, I'm gonna go and leave this open ended: leave comments on what you think I should do and why.



Second hand is a bit more straightforward:

I think there was a 25 straddle on 5 handed? He opens in the CO and I 3bet his 75 open to 260 or something from the blinds with AAT4 spades, he calls.
Flop: Q32r with around 3900 stacks. I bet 320 he makes it 1100 with 2800 behind. I think for quite awhile and call, planning to c/f turn, I think this is close enough that I can fold without the gutter and runner runner FD. Brian knows my range contains a whole bunch of stuff which isn't AAxx or big pretty rundowns and with these stacks even though it's slightly transparent I think he is bluffraising or thin semibluffraising a ton cause stacks are terrifying for aces and I think he thinks that I know I'm bad enough at PLO to just muck so I thought he was bluffing a lot. Also, I think he is a bit less likely to follow through on a blankish turn (of which there are a lot) because he knows I'm smart enough to tank for a long time and call the flop raise with 333 222 or qqq A LOT, specially given the KJ hand.
Turn: J check check
river: Q, check check, he mucks. Whew!

It's just so much more intense to make these kinds of floaty calls on earlier streets in big pots in PLO because there is so much backdoor equity, specially when a strong player raises you. I think my play is correct here, but I'd have to talk to someone a bit more mathematically saavy to know for sure.

Today I'm gonna meet up with Clayton, Andrew and Rob to make a Leggo vid hopefully, with a crystal clear mic so you can hear my beautiful voice.

Later,

Ben

Leave in 15 minutes for a 5day trip around Amsterdam/Holland. I'm really pumped to do a 2-3 day biking tour of some smaller towns/villages cause Amsterdam is a dangerous place to be.


will I survive Amsterdam part 2? Only time will tell...


Poker-wise things have been going almost absurdly well while on vacation. I grinded out a few hands while working on Leggo stuff, and some pretty big nl action was running for once. I'm also getting my feet wet in omaha and "paying my tuition" in the 200/400 game for the most part. I think my poker instincts are keeping my afloat and I'm also running just absurdly hot in PLO lately and am by no means even close to a top player. I'm basically in love with PLO right now from a fun standpoint, and I'm putting in the time/effort to hopefully become a top 25 player in the coming year (and get ready for the inevitable Vegas nosebleed games once I'm 21 next summer).


Also, and I'm definitely going to expand on this later, since I've been out of school recently I have been putting in some work to diversify my reading material. In the past I had always leaned toward fiction and often stuff which for me at least was "easy". Reading has always been my favorite form of entertainment/media, over movies or anything else, and I've always typically read a ton of interesting science fiction and fantasy as well as sort of adventure type novels, think of Lord of the Rings, Ender's Game, John Le Carre, and then some 20th century novels Steinbeck type stuff, with some more challenging literature thrown in as well for sure. And some more out there world literature like Murakami and Gael Garcia Marquez type ****.

Anyways I never really liked nonfiction until recently and it's still a bit of a struggle for me at times, but I'm really enjoying what I'm reading now. I'm in the middle of A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, The Age of Unreason, and The Republic. All of these deal with popular thought/history and sort of leads me along avenues of exploring the evolution of political thought as well as cultural/philosophical trends and advances over the years. Specifically, if you have never read a history book in your life check out Howard Zinn. He doesn't pretend to portray the fullness of American history, but his viewpoint is extremely well-researched and he writes with a ton of charisma. It's interesting to see the flipside of American history and the subtle cover-up of various American indignities and atrocities contrasted with the moderate and hard fought success of some of the most uncompromising grass-roots movements no one tells you about in school. At least American school. Bah, I'm not being very articulate right now, I'm in an airport.

But what prompted this little string of thinking was a conversation with our cab driver on the way to the airport. Someone needs to write a book on cab drivers it would be fascinating but that's another story. He was an older guy, maybe 60 and a father of 2 children from Iran, but living in Stockholm. He used to be a marine and a semi-pro soccer player growing up, but was eventually placed in a desk job. His job was censorship and the mailing/stamping of letters and other orders and memoranda. Pretty dull stuff. His political epiphany then came in what I think is a pretty unique way. Iran's policy was to demonize Israel and the United States (much like ours is to demonize Iran) and orders filtered down from his superiors that he was forced to erase the label "made in Israel" and "made in the USA" from incoming imports, but of course still allow these imports into the country. Delicious irony in my opinion. He didn't describe any more specifics but said he spent four years in political jail before being exiled and ending up in Sweden. His conclusion: it's all about money: God, Muhammad, Democracy, Terrorists, Freedom, or to quote one of my favorite hiphop lines: "Isms, schisms all lead to pugilism (Jeru the Damaja I think?). Whowouldathunkit tho? I guess the sort of cynicism and apathy and possible semi-dormant anger the average American feels at our leaders political and religious is most certainly mirrored by those of the average working-class family-man from whichever nation. That's inspiring to me at least, as is hearing an Iranian say "I have no use for Muhammad", in the same weary way I can say "I have no use for Evangelical Christians". And I'd have to agree with our cabdriver and Howard Zinn at this point, it sure does appear to be all about money....

So I didn't take my laptop to Copenhagen and during the 5hr trainride I began to fiend for action. I turned to my dad and said "let's play fish" but we didn't have any chips. So I thought and thought and devised a new little system. In my bag I had two books: Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, and You Shall Know Our Velocity! The first clocks in at a cool 650 pages, the second 350. So instead of chips I said for every pot we lose (with a 100BB cap for maths sake) we each turn X pages in a book. First one to finish their book loses. I gave him first pick and he still wouldn't play. waddafish.

Now back in Stockholm for a few days than off to Amsterdam.

gl all,

Ben

So the family is at this sweet hotel in Stockholm which has a good internet connect so I decided to play some hands. Luckily for me I ran like jesus since I got here and in the past 4 days am up... god... i dont even know cause stars and prima aren't importing but at least 300k. bankroll is peaking again and all is right with the world.

played a few different sessions of note: hu 300/600 nlh vs Urindanger, hu 500/1k nlh vs Durrr and some 200/400 plo with Patatino in the lineup. Also played some 25/50 nlh wiht our very own Lwrunner or TheAshman103 which was fun as well.

First thing I want to mention is that I'm very impressed with TheAshman's play. I played him awhile ago hu at I think 10/20nl and remembered him as kind of a stupid aggro kind of guy who was frankly a bit clueless about my handrange in a lot of spots. I didn't employ anything more than a tight solid game against him and expected to be a big favorite. Anyways, after reading his blog a bit he seems to have the best possible attitude (besides using the AIDS that is pokerEV) to become a big winner at HS and nosebleeds online. Thinks hes a fish (and ppl probably do view him as a fish), he knows hes learning, and he has a huge ****ing tolerance for risk. GL!


Well I played him again today at 25/50 four tabling hu. I actually wish I had videotaped it for leggo as it was a very interesting match with some tough spots. His game has really improved dramatically recently and though I still had an edge I was forced to throw some fancier plays in there to keep him off balance. Easily the toughest hand of the match was this one:

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

BB: $13,735.75
Hero (SB): $11,075.25

Pre-Flop: 8 9 dealt to Hero (SB)
Hero raises to $200, BB calls $150

Flop: ($400) 9 7 8 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $300, BB raises to $1,100, Hero calls $800

Turn: ($2,600) 2 (2 Players)
BB bets $2,300, Hero calls $2,300

River: ($7,200) 7 (2 Players)
BB bets $10,135.75 and is All-In, Hero folds

Results: $7,200 Pot ($0.50 Rake)
BB mucked and WON $7,199.50 (+$3,599.50 NET)


I'm reasonably sure I made the correct fold here and I think I kept his range as wide as possible on every street. Though very few big pots where I didn't have the betting lead were getting to showdown so it's very difficult for me to assign an accurate bluff % here. anyways guess I'm weak-tight. Comment on this cause im still not sure I have it figured out....



I've also started splashing in the 200/400 PLO game. Basically I think its Party-esque in its softness at certain times and even though I'm still really in the infancy of learning PLO I'd love to think my poker IQ makes me a favorite in this game. Or I may be in for paying an expensive tuition in PLO. Either way I game and seat select religiously and control my stacksize relative ot my opponents well enough I hope I am not going to do anything catastrophically bad.

I'll definitely be taking some shots at big games and tough opponents in the next few weeks/months and I think most of the poker community expects me to fail. Maybe I will. Wish me luck!

-Ben

So from july 31-aug 22 I decided to take my parents and cousin (who is 26 so i have someone to party with) to Scandinavia with some of my poker winnings. Since I am a lazy degenerate I delegated the planning of the trip to her and she wanted to go to Iceland and THEN Sweden. Naturally I was skeptical, but after familiarizing myself quickly with Icelandic culture via google I concluded it would be a sick trip. There were really two tipping points:

1. Their most famous work of literature is called Egil's Sage and is extremely badass. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egils_saga

Cliff notes: main character is a lawyer/poet/murderous drunk who's grandfather was a werewolf and makes his first axe murder at age six.

2. The local Icelandic newspaper I found in a coffee house had a tourist section with the heading "Warning: Nykur". I figured this would be some kind of water-borne illness which would turn my intestines into guacamole but in fact it is an idiosyncratic mythical beast!

http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/nokk2.htm





So, yea, I immediately warmed to the idea. After some long plane flight we arrived in Reykjavik, the Icelandic capital. From there we went on a whirlwind tour of basically everything Icelandic which I will narrate with pictures and blurbs because I have almost no memory of these occurrences cause I didn't sleep for more than 4 hours a day and was midway between vomiting all over the sidewalk and ****ting my brains out at all times.



<-------- Just in case you didn't know




So Iceland is a relatively recent development geographically. It bubbled up in some gigantic tectonic struggle a few zillion years ago but not as many zillion as everything else so it has never connect with any Eurasian or American landmass. Cause of this it has no mammals except the arctic fox and lots of sheep vikings brought over. Also there are these cool volcanic hotsprings harnessed by intrepid Scandis who made them all attractive looking and built a bar in the middle so you can float around in steaming hot spring water and sip beer. Pretty sweet. Its called the Blue Lagoon.






Here's a view of Pingvellir national park where a bunch of stuff was founded. Really I'm trying to stress the just incredible beauty of the Icelandic landscape, specially when its sunny all day long and only mildly cold (it was like 50-65 the whole time). We did a ton of really cool and more intense hiking than this and I managed to somehow climb this cliff and arrive at the summit of Esja peak when four old ravens where cawing at each other around this rockpile at the top. It was seriously eery, these birds sound like they have forks stuck in their throat and can make a huge range of sounds. Plus they have silver streaks on their heads which gives them a feeling of being thousands of years old and about to turn into a witch, though this may be related to the fact I was on a remote mountaintop. There were also geysirs and waterfalls and lots of salt fish as well as pints of guiness. all good stuff. But enough Iceland!


This morning I decided to play some poker. I couldn't get much action to start out with, but to my surprise I saw the 500/1k cap game was running with a lineup of Jimmy, Durrr and Steve Sung. Since this game is too huge for me I knew I had to sell off some action so I checked my aim buddy list and no one was on. damn. So I played anyways, cause I'm on vacation. Or a degen. Or both. I ended up hovering around even for most of the session and then taking like a 150k nosedive before clawing my way back to a 65k win when the game broke. Here's a couple interesting pots:

Full Tilt Poker, $500/$1,000 NL Hold'em Cash Game, $30 Betting Cap, 3 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BB: $94,476
Hero (BTN): $115,600
SB: $217,998

Pre-Flop: 8 A dealt to Hero (BTN)
Hero raises to $2,555, SB folds, BB raises to $6,600, Hero calls $4,045

Flop: ($13,700) 2 8 J (2 Players)
BB bets $4,400, Hero calls $4,400

Turn: ($22,500) K (2 Players)

River: ($22,500) 9 (2 Players)

Results: $22,500 Pot ($1 Rake)
BB showed Q A (Ace King high) and LOST (-$11,000 NET)
Hero showed 8 A (a pair of Eights) and WON $60,499 (+$49,499 NET)

Durrr was playing really nutty today so I thought the preflop peel given the odds I'm getting and the fact I can go broke a bit more than 1/3 of the time made this a marginal but good call.

Full Tilt Poker, $500/$1,000 NL Hold'em Cash Game, $30 Betting Cap, 3 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): $45,635
BTN: $70,680
SB: $194,629

Pre-Flop: K 5 dealt to Hero (BB)
BTN folds, SB raises to $3,000, Hero calls $2,000

Flop: ($6,000) 5 4 6 (2 Players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($6,000) 5 (2 Players)
SB bets $4,210

River: ($6,000) 7 (2 Players)

Results: $6,000 Pot ($1 Rake)
Hero showed K 5 (three of a kind, Fives) and LOST (-$3,000 NET)
SB showed 5 A (three of a kind, Fives) and WON $59,999 (+$56,999 NET)


ANGER



Full Tilt Poker, $500/$1,000 NL Hold'em Cash Game, $30 Betting Cap, 3 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): $38,049
BTN: $93,137
SB: $179,777

Pre-Flop: K 8...

played just an unreal session today. I don't even want to post that mcuh about the humdrum win some lose some 100k swings that come along with hucking money back and forth at nosebleeds. But this was different, this was personal.

First as a preamble, I just dled pokergrapher so you could see my 200k swings, but then it got all ****ed up and not only didn't recognize any hands from July, after I closed it it DELETED all hands from July from my database. WTF. If anyone can help let me know. I also lost all the HH to this session making this blog less entertaining and my tax records incomplete....


anyways, i play an average session, run well and made around 60k before an unknown to me Akula, sat at 100/200 on full tilt. we played from 9pm to 5am mostly straight through one tabling. During our first session he won many many many pots and ran his 20k stack up to 180k (tho i think he was in for 55 or something). A few highlights

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

Hero (BB): $21,792
SB: $101,943

Pre-Flop: A A dealt to Hero (BB)
SB raises to $600, Hero raises to $2,400, SB calls $1,800

Flop: ($4,800) K 2 7 (2 Players)
Hero bets $2,400, SB calls $2,400

Turn: ($9,600) 9 (2 Players)
Hero bets $6,200, SB calls $6,200

River: ($22,000) 5 (2 Players)
Hero bets $10,792 and is All-In, SB calls $10,792

Results: $43,584 Pot ($0.50 Rake)
Hero showed A A (a pair of Aces) and LOST (-$21,792 NET)
SB showed 2 5 (two pair, Fives and Two) and WON $43,583.50 (+$21,791.50 NET)

here's a little trap I set for him during the beginning of our second session

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

Hero (SB): $82,693.50
BB: $14,061.25

Pre-Flop: K 7 dealt to Hero (SB)
Hero raises to $600, BB calls $400

Flop: ($1,200) K J 3 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($1,200) 5 (2 Players)
BB bets $1,200, Hero raises to $3,200, BB calls $2,000

River: ($7,600) 4 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $78,893.50 and is All-In, BB calls $10,261.25 and is All-In

Results: $28,122.50 Pot ($0.50 Rake)
Hero showed K 7 (a pair of Kings) and WON $28,122 (+$14,060.75 NET)
BB mucked J Q (a pair of Jacks) and LOST (-$14,061.25 NET)



From here he won just every pot until he built his stack up to these beauties::

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

Hero (BB): $69,229.25
SB: $74,276

Pre-Flop: T Q dealt to Hero (BB)
SB raises to $400, Hero raises to $2,200, SB calls $1,800

Flop: ($4,400) A 9 J (2 Players)
Hero bets $3,200, SB calls $3,200

Turn: ($10,800) K (2 Players)
Hero bets $9,400, SB calls $9,400

River: ($29,600) K (2 Players)
Hero bets $21,200, SB calls $21,200

Results: $72,000 Pot ($0.50 Rake)
Hero showed T Q (a straight, Ace high) and LOST (-$36,000 NET)
SB showed K J (a full house, Kings ful) and WON $71,999.50 (+$35,999.50 NET)


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

Hero (SB): $102,019.25
BB: $41,488.50

Pre-Flop: J 7 dealt to Hero (SB)
Hero raises to $1,200, BB calls $1,000

Flop: ($2,400) 9 8 T (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $1,800, BB calls $1,800

Turn: ($6,000) 2 (2 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $5,200, BB raises to $21,600, Hero raises to $99,019.25 and is All-In, BB calls $16,888.50 and is All-In

River: ($82,977) 2 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $82,977 Pot ($0.50 Rake)
Hero showed J 7 (a straight, Jack high) and LOST (-$41,488.50 NET)
BB showed J Q (a straight, Queen high) and WON $82,976.50 (+$41,488 NET)


This picture nicely sums up my feelings on the match/day/month::




Sooooooooooo now I'm down 220k to this guy one tabling and life is not good. however, through some superhuman act of will I decided not to quit and managed not too tilt badly and clawed my way back. This is what I'd call the major turning point::...