I'm leaving in 3 hours for Toronto for a week with Leggos very own Toocrispy.

Should be an exciting time and I'm looking forward to meeting some online players I've never met in person.

If anyone will be in the area and would like to meet up, or has suggestions on things to do then please view the comment section as the appropriate method of letting me know.

Trip reports coming on my return:

Miami
Ann Arbor vs Notre Dame Football game
Toronto

The U.S. Government just charged Fulltiltpoker and Pokerstars...along with AbsolutePoker with illegal gambling charges.

They have seized their .com domain websites. The .net (play money) sites are still operational.

So far, I can still play on the site...not sure how long that will last.


Just a heads up Leggo...this quite literally just happened.

EDIT: Hrere is the DOJ release.

http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pres...dictmentpr.pdf

You should try to learn something every single day.

David Christian: Big History

The video above is a TED Talk by David Christian. In it, he clearly covers the whole history of the universe as we know it...in 18 minutes. It's amazing how much someone can explain in such a short amount of time. Enjoy.


http://www.ted.com/talks/david_chris...g_history.html

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So it's been a long time (a year maybe) since I've actually posted some content here.

I've been pretty far removed from poker this year working on some more acedemic stuff. Its proving hard to focus much on poker as I feel like I can think through any difficult problems in the game. There is little left that is very unknown to me I guess you could say. I'm not saying I'm the worlds best or anything close to it but I think I can take situations and break them down to correct plays or strategy given the assumptions...these assumptions is where the skill comes in like placing a range on a player and is very subjective.

So when I have free time I am typically drawn to learning about areas where there are more unknowns for me to explore. I've been teaching myself to program computers which is going great so far. I think I'll need to take classes as others have suggested but until then, I'm doing really well with the resources I've found online. If anyone wants to swap programming lessons for poker sessions let me know.


A buddy and I will be heading down to the Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg area on August 21st and coming back the 28th. We have a house on Anna Maria Island which sits at the tip of Tampa Bay....Bay (how does that work?). Not sure what to expect but it was a free place to crash and an excuse to travel, so why not? If anyone lives in the area and wants to offer suggetions of what the hell to do around there or wants to meet up...let me know.


As far as Leggo goes I still plan on making videos. I've been saying this a long time and Matt deservedly probably wants to kill me...but it is really something I want to do and enjoy doing. When I get back from Florida I will have much more time to devote to poker.

I'm getting a TON of HU PLO coaching requests.

This is a public service announcment for any potential students.

I charge more for HU PLO and am only coaching HU when I have time and I don't have any 6max PLO students.

I enjoy coaching and helping out the leggo community but I also enjoy the HU PLO games the way they are. Take that for what it's worth.

Odds are I won't take you. Please don't be offended...it's nothing personal. But if you still want to PM me and ask then please include some information on your PLO game and HU PLO game to be more specific..it would speed up the process a lot.


Thanks,

Scott

Just booked our tickets and a hotel/car rental for Dallas at the end of this month. I get to go meet my girlfriends family (well Dads side) and to see a little bit of Dallas as well.

This will be my first trip to Texas so I don't really know what to expect. If anyone has any good advice for things to do in the city I'd love to hear em'. We'll only be there 5 days but we'll have the whole weekend to site see.

Also I'm starting to get really pumped for Michigan football to start (ya...I dunno why either, my hopes are less than high). Fall is my favorite time of year up in Michigan and a big part of that is simply becuase I can sleep in on Saturdays and get up and watch UofM play. I've sort of lost any real interest in all sports lately. Like, I'll obv root for Red Wings/Pistons/Tigers but I don't lose sleep if they don't have a good game/season. I still have the love for Michigan football though and even if they don't win a game for 5 years I'll still get excited at the start of ever fall in anticipation for their first game of the season. This year is a little different though, as they're playing Western Michigan as their home opener, which is where I went to college. Win/Win either way imo.


-me

Was a blast. This was my first time going to watch a PGA tour event and it was awesome. I'm sad it's the last Buick Open since its really the only PGA tour event in Michigan and I only got attend it once. It was a blast.

A friend scooped me up at 8:30am and we headed up to Grand Blanc, Michigan. We had a good group of us just ready to drink all day and watch some great golf and enjoy the weather. Was nice out, calm, sunny just perfect golfing conditions for the most part.

We arrived around 11:00am and watched some players warm up on the range. Then we toured the course and got familiar with the place and waited for the beer stands to open basically.

It was nothing like I expected. First of all there were about 5x as many people as I thought would be there. The crowd that followed Tiger Woods was completely rediculous...it was a full on mob. We camped out a few holes ahead of Tiger and got to watch him up close a few times. We were close enough to here him talk to his caddie and literally coulda reached out and touched him. A ton of people were actually trying to at points but he didn't even acknowledge any of em which was kinda weak I thought. He had a good lead on some no name players and wouldn't loosen up at all and kinda seemed like a dick but I guess when you're so popular things probably change and you can't please everyone.

We also saw jim Furyk, Justin Leonard, David Duval and some other bigger names. I wanted to see Rocco Mediate but we didn't get a chance too.

The 17th whole at Warwick Hills was crazy. It was THE party hole. And its something almost straight out of happy gilmore. There is grand stands the surround the green and its a short par 3 that was near all the beer tents and the on course bar. The whole hole had people around it all day and you could here the roar of that crowd from anywhere on the course.

This was from Sunday, the day we were there. You'll probably have to watch a few times to see it but this kind of sums it up:

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Rant following:

After walking around and seeing all the players a few of us decided to sneak up into the 17th whole grand stands and just join the party. Everyone there had been drinking all day it was just a ton of fun. There was some younger sexy girl doing one of the quiet signs near by and like all the drunk guys in the stands would shout her name and ask her to marry them etc everytime there wasn't a group on the green. She seemed a little embarrassed but took it well and tried her best not to spur them on. They'd also get a wave going after players would tee off. It start in the grand stand and go down the fairway of people lining the whole and when it got to the players most of them would participate which would get a big roar from the crowd.

All in all it was a good time except we saw some cops get pretty far out of line. Tigers in the last group and is on like the 14th whole so the 13 holes before them are pretty much vacated and while they were roped off at the start of the day, since they were done being used people were casually crossing them to get to the action quicker. Well we're walking across a whole and spot a bathroom that had a small line next to one of the fairways and we calmly walk up to it and stand in line with like 5 other people. We're all talking peacefully waiting our turn. Nobody is dicking around or being loud or drunk or anything close to that. Out from behind us, two cops walk up to us literally screaming. We all turn around and one yells at some guy. "You in the blue shirt, hey you in the blue shirt" he screams. We look back at them and they walk right by us to the next in line who just walked into the bathroom right as the cops started shouting. So we thought he had something wrong, maybe stole something or had a cell phone or camera (which weren't allowed) so we just stand there. Cop walks right up the the bath room, opens the door and literally grabs him by the back of his collar and throws him backwards out of the bathroom.

We're all taken back by this like WTF is going on. The kid (maybe 21 years old) is completely shocked and it takes him a second to even realize what had happened. The the cops started shouting to get off the grass because it was suppose to be roped off from the public. Then the two of them walked up the line that was still there kind of taken back by all this and started to shove the other two people in front of us and one guy fell over. We were all stunned and couldn't believe this was happening. I mean they just of easily coulda came up and said that this area was off limits or even just been dicks and been like "get the fuck on the other side of the ropes" which were like 50 yards away and we woulda moved. But no, as we were standing there they just came up and threw one guy to the ground by his collar and started shoving everyone else until we walked away. It was really messed up and it took us a second to even respond to them since it was so absurd which just provoked them even more.

Another incident involved one of the guys we were there with. We grabbed two beers and started to walk to the far end of the course. He's standing out of the way of the walk way just waiting for everyone to get there drinks before we start the hike and some old guy bumps into him knocking his beer on the ground. He gets a little bit on his shirt and my friend I believe stayed dry. Now normally, man law dictates that you offer to buy him a new beer and by basic common courtesy standards he could have at least apologized but he elected to look at my friend and raise his arms in the air like WTF and just turned and kept walking. Now a few people saw this and as my friend wasn't even moving, just standing and waiting and the other guy bumped into him they felt the same way I did and I heard one guy yell out "Damn man, how bout giving him the $5 so he can get a new one at least" and the guy responds as he continues to walk away "Ya, as soon as he washes my shirt". Once again, we were all in shock. Not at the fact that he didn't apologize because some people are just assholes. Or even the fact that he didn't elect to fork over the large sum of $5 to get him a new beer. We were shocked that he actually had the audacity to actually say that in front of a big group of people as he walked away. This actually pisses me off more than the police for some reason.

End Rant.

All in all it was a fun time despite the cops and some old asshole. Everyone had fun, we got to see some big name...

Quick update that probably won't be so quick.

I had written a very long and emoish blog post on a change that has occurred in my life and didn't feel like posting it. Long story short, as of late (maybe the last year) I have become utterly obsessed with learning a ton of stuff that I can barely wrap my brain around. For one reason or another I've been incredibly fascinated with all sorts of things ranging from quantitative finance and learning how to construct, model and apply algorithms to other fields like quantum mechanics or the exploration and research that is revolving around the human genome. I'll stop there but I could probably list 20 topics but they all seem to fit under two categories: Some sort of business/investment analysis and the study of the natural universe. As I read and actually, now find and watch videos online that cover these topics I find more and more things I need to know or want to know and it sort of branches out of control. Basically, its hard for me to focus on one specific topic, even though I'm getting better at it.

So ya, life is good. Which is odd for me to say. I'm normally a pretty pessimistic son of a bitch. A "glass is half empty" type guy. Nothing is ever good enough and I can always do better, blah blah blah.

Last week my company flew me down to Indianapolis to show me around the operations we have there. I was also toured around the city, which is beautiful btw, by a banker that took us out to lunch downtown and just basically wined and dined us. Flying back, I was admiring my Titleist hat I was given at the golf course and reading the Wall Street Journal I snagged from the lobby of Indi's new private terminal, I realized how lucky I am. I mean, I'm sitting 20,000 feet in the air on a private jet reading about how bad the economy was. It was a surreal moment and made me step back and be really thankful because things could be a lot worse.

This is at the terminal


Leaving


This picture sums up the paragraph above




So life is good. I've been playing a little bit of PLO trying to hop back in. I dropped down a stake to grind out some hands and just get back into the flow. I've been filming some low limit sessions hoping to get some good content for a video or three. So far though there really hasn't been anything great I think would help out leggo customers so I don't want to push out some filler type content.

Currently I'm watching Ashton destroy....literally destroy Gus at 200/400 HU PLO. He just said he's up quite a bit today which is sweet but I really worry about this kid sometimes. I've never seen anyone move up and down faster in limits than Ashton and I have no idea how he does it, let alone stay sane. He's won the last 12 allin pots (out of the last 14 hands too, gus seems tilty) which I guess makes things easier, I can't imagine it going the other way and dropping half a mill or something in a day though. One things for sure though, it's fun as hell to watch.

Last bit of poker info. We split the PLO forums up on 2+2 finally. They were getting more and more traffic so it finally got chopped up into Small Stakes and High Stakes forums so feel free to stop by and check them out. Theres been some really good content in both forums so hopefully that trend keeps up. I'd encourage anyone trying to get better at PLO to start posting in the forum.

Jess is also getting into poker which has been very unsmooth. I'm actually really pumped that she is interested and wants to learn but we've been butting heads a few times. I sometimes forget that she is at the very very first level of poker knowledge and I get going on some stuff that goes over her head and she gets mad. So we're taking it slow and I'm not trying to throw too much at her and just basically trying to keep it fun.


She is also cooking me biscuits and gravy right now and I can start to smell em' so it's getting time to eat. So ya, life is really good.

Hopefully I didn't just life jinx myself. Tomorrow I'm going to Grand Blanc outside of Detroit to rail the Buick Open and hopefully watch Tiger crush. This will be my first time actually watching a PGA event live. Obv looking forward to that, I just hope it's not like watching poker live because if so, all I'll be doing is dying to shoot some golf the whole time.



-me

JJ < KK apparently on the final hand.

Very well done Andrew. I know it sucks to hear, but Congrats on the deep run and really impressive WSOP this year. From what it sounds like, he stayed in pretty far on a less than average stack. So well done to take it to 18th place and another 6 figure payday this year.

So Vegas was pretty rediculous.

Started off low key and picked up toward the end of the trip.

Didn't gamble a whole lot while I was there. Played some O8 actually waiting for the 2/5 PLO games to go at the Venetian and did ok. I did pretty well in the 2/5 PLO game but was literally bored to death and realize why I hate live poker. Still though, it was cool to see how great some of those live games are.

Jess and I went and saw KA which is a circ show. It was alright, I mean the shit they did was absolutely amazing, but for some reason I just wasn't very impressed. I think my expectations were just too high and I saw a preview of the show that showed a lot of the stuff that was done. They did do one nifty little act with shadow puppets but I won't go into further detail and ruin it.

I think Shibuya at the MGM was the best meal I had there and probably one of the best I've had in my life. Also we got a bottle of cold saki and was really suprised because I didn't think I'd like it. Turns out I liked it more than warm saki.


We must of ordered at least 8 different rolls all together. This was part of the first order I believe.

Bellagio buffett was rediculous. We had some card to skip the line or else we wouldn't have been able to eat there and it was worth it. They literally have everything you can want. Literally, everything. We feasted on prime rib, elk, king crab and a whole bunch of other stuff I hadn't even tried before.

The buffett at the Venetian we had was much better imo. Can't remember the name of the place but it's located near all the shops and the gondola rides at the Venetian. They had a smaller selection but the food just seemed better for whatever reason.

The last night we were there Jess and I met up with Greg (mynameizgreg) at XS. I got ahold of him at like 11pm or so and had some people going to XS at Encore and invited us to come along. I also got to meet Matt (probability) and his girl (Matt's girl) which was nice putting a face to the screen name. The club was awesome. Everyone was outside partying around the pool and we got a few bottles of some kind of overpriced vodka and basically just got shitty. Also with us were one of Greggs students Joe and his buddies James and Ryan who were all from New York and just basically really cool guys. I also bumped into Chuck Lidell (sp) the UFC guy at the club which was fun. I didn't want to stop and bother him but he seemed cool as other people were approaching him for pics and shit and he was happy to stop and talk with the few people around him.


James, Joe, Greg, Me, Ryan


I think I got those names right, but if I didn't, I'm sorry. Greg was talkin' about how he couldn't bring back a girl to his room because craig was sleeping in there on account he was still in the main event and also talking about how good his game was to Jess and I. Needless to say we didn't believe him and started talking prop bets on if he could close any girl we brought back to the table. Jess and I set out to find someone under the right conditions (couldn't be fat being the only one, lmao) and failed miserably. About 2 minutes into walking the club and talking about the prop bet and the ideal candidate some guys overheard us and asked if I was a poker player (I think they heard prop bet and stopped dead in their tracks). I guess one of them lurked 2p2 and I think new me from the PLO forum. All cool guys, one was from Chile I believe and I didn't want to be rude but we had business to attend to and they wouldn't leave us alone. Jess and I tried to explain to them the situation but they just wanted to hang out and go back to the table and meet the other poker players.



Jess, Me and James

It was getting a little late and we were getting pretty drunk so we just said fuck it and I guess we went back. Memory gets a little hazy but I think a few of us partied till they started to kick everyone out. We had two beds in the Venetian suit and Jess slept in the bathroom and I slept on the floor. My last call on my cell phone was at 5:50am so we were out pretty late. Had a flight at 11am the following morning. Woke up at like 9:30am and in a still drunken hungover foggy haze, we throw everything into our suitcases and were out ther door in like 10 minutes flat. Had to run through the airport Home Alone style to make sure we caught the plane. 1 minute later and we woulda missed it and life woulda sucked.

But it turns out we had got there in the nick of time and life is awesome.

Vegas was fun for the most part. It got old pretty fast though and theres no way I could stay there over a month, let alone live there. Everything is overpriced and it seems to be littered with douchebag type people. I met a few locals who all seemed like nice genuine people but for the most part, it was one big dick measuring contest everywhere you went.


Also, good luck to the leggo players still in the Main Event. I know Clayton, Craig and Andrew were still in but I'm not sure anymore. Craig started today short and I know Andrew is still in as of 10 minutes ago. Be sick to see one of these guys make the final table.



-me