hey

So I'm chilling here thinkin', man sometimes I sweat these 2k and 5k games and people do some dumb **** in there! But a lot of times I'm sitting 2k or something, I'm like well snap, I could have some 10k pots rolling around here and there like money ain't a thang, you KNOW? I mean 10k is a lot of damn money, you can buy serious things with that.

Then I just slap myself in the face and get back into poker thinking mode like w/e it's just a dollar amount that I'll end up having more monies after I beat people in the long run and all that mess. Still I'm curious if people get to a level where they just get frozen by the amount of money that's flying around. I really think I'm just freaking out and need to sac up to 2k for a good amount of time and holler at those fools, but I just think differently when I'm not in the mood to play hyper A+ game. That's not to say I'm not going to get **** all in when I should be, or not playing close edges, I just get worried and maybe tilt faster than I would at 1k, sometimes.

Anyways, you guys know all about that to some extent if you've been playing for a while, pretty sure I'm just talking to whoever will listen about me being scared, idk if people ever find a road block not from skill but from money? W/E, just ship like 80k hands of 2k and things will be things again I suppose.

So here's the reason this blog sounds semi-ghetto in nature (?). I just watched like 2 hours of vids by this fool on youtube.com , mychicity3, his vids are literally the funniest ****z I've ever seen / heard everrrr. Here's my fave, but you guys can search for the rest cuz I'm not tryin to post 30 linx or anything.

CHI CITY SONNN


Also, I'm tryin' to get my chess on lately so I can go to NYC Searching for Bobby Fischer style and beat up on some Laurence Fischberne (sp / idc) MOFO, just think that would be cool.

Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold'em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

SB: $2,346
BB: $886.50
UTG: $1,972
MP: $2,030
Hero (CO): $1,000
BTN: $2,387

Pre-Flop: 6 5 dealt to Hero (CO)
2 folds, Hero raises to $30, BTN calls $30, SB folds, BB calls $20

Flop: ($95) 3 6 J (3 Players)
BB checks, Hero bets $60, BTN calls $60, BB folds

Turn: ($215) 6 (2 Players)
Hero bets $180, BTN calls $180

River: ($575) 6 (2 Players)
Hero bets $410, BTN raises to $820, Hero (tanks for 15 seconds) calls $320 and is All-In

Results: $2,035 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero showed 6 5 (four of a kind, Sixes) and WON $2,032 (+$1,032 NET)
BTN showed Q Q (a full house, Sixes full of Queens) and LOST (-$1,000 NET)

It's important that with a friend you take longer than just the 4-5 seconds that offer the ambiguity of a tough decision and let them actually know by waiting 15+ seconds that you actually have the nuts and you're just laughing on your side of the internetz. With shortstackers, I prefer the 4-5 second ambiguous approach until you incur insults, THEN and only then, can you lengthen your slowroll time as in the example above.

Take care guys, hope you learned from my hard work in this area of poker.

-Reid

OK, didn't mean to take this long to write the trip report about Costa Rica and I'd be lying if I'd say that I've been doing more than learning guitar, lifting, partying with friends, and playing poker and that those things kept me too busy to write about this ****... so they didn't at all. In all honesty, I've been enjoying life too much to blog on leggo, and that's not to sound derogatory to the fellows who are regularly updating and whatnot, I just feel like I've been busy having a lot of fun with the way things are going.

I'll just ship some random pictures from Costa Rica with captions because the rest of the trip was pretty self-explanatory since all we did was party our faces off in luxury mode.

View from basically everywhere at the resort, this particular picture is from one of the two family sized -two floor rooms that we rented.


Gift shop girl. A lot of the employees there looked like this... NOM NOM. Including one who kept thinking I was one of the Jonas brothers or something... IDK what they look like but I guess that's a neat thing? idk. http://img360.imageshack.us/my.php?i...scn0578vz4.jpg

Here was our breakfast almost everyday... It looks kind of gross, but let me assure you it was the best combination of things on EARTH and tasted amazing, especially the traditional beans + rice dish that looks a lot like kitty vom



We (note: fees) paid for a private jet back since the supposedly 45-1hr ride there was a 4hr long hellhole ride of doom that made you want to die of vom style even without the worlds worst hangovers from clubbing until 7am (which was had).




John and me being awesome in the jettttttttttetet on the way back to San Jose.




There are some pics around of us getting massages, during which Derek fed me some strawberry daiquiri (he was trashhhhhhhhhed), pedicures (ship 'em), and various meals / drinks by the heated pools and hot springs of the resort lost amongst the four of us. I missed out of the volcano up close stuff since I was ULTRA sick from a combo of massage / constant partying... but other than that, a truly epic trip. There were also hammocks on the decks that were outside our rooms (one for each of us) so you could chill at night when they turned off all the lights around the resort and see sooooooooooooooo many stars and the glowing orange top of the volcano... I really don't think even a picture would do that justice. It was truly an amazing time, thank you again Fees... you're the ****, I'm glad that I coached you and made you so good that you can win donkaments ;P



For the month, I played mostly heads up since I think I have a pretty solid edge on a TON of the people in my player pool (600nl - 2k) and even had a LITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTLE heads up limit in there (like 1000 hands when I won 2k picking ppl off w K hi all day). I had my best month ever, but I still really think it's much below my potential, which is obvious I guess since I only played about 18k hands.

I don't want to say that I'm becoming complacent with poker at all because that's not the right word, I still look for help here and there and read the forums now and again... but it's becoming less and less who I am as other things kind of come up around me. I want to get better at chess, guitar, getting beasty (gaining more weight), and reading more. All of these things take a ****load of time as well, so if I can make 20k / month sitting on my ass while all of these things progress and I'm having a ton of fun... ya know? why the hell not?

I want to do some traveling soon, too. PCA is coming up, I'll definitely be there since it's always a retarded amount of fun. Lesson learned from last time: YOU NEED MORE FOOD THAN JUST SUSHI BEFORE THE CLUB!!!!!!!! With that little gem under my belt... I see the trip being pretty great. I also want to hit Montreal (maybe move there next year?) and AUSSIE land sometime soon.

I also just got my lip pierced which didn't feel so hot at the time of the piercing, but hurt much less than I thought it was going to hurt after the fact. I've been taking crazy good care of it and while it's a pretty big pain, I'm happy with the way it turned out. I didn't really put too much thought into going and getting it done, so a ton of my friends have no idea that it has even happened or the idea came to mind.

For December... I don't even know what my goals would be. I think poker is going to take care of itself... I could see myself taking some shots at higher games here and there, mostly I just want to have a good time. The holidays are always awesome and they're going to be even better (Turkey day good example) with my brother back from Iraq. It'll be nice to ship the family something crazy awesome with like 1 days worth of "work."

Hope you guys are doing well and I hope your December gets off to a good start!

-Reid

Alright! So I finally don't have anything else to do except write about the rest of the trip. Last time I left off when Fees took down the tourney... as soon as they go heads up, we're all just laughing because we all said if any of us make a 6 figure score that we're going to treat the others to basically whatever they want in Costa Rica and have the most epic celebration evarrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Hats off to Fees for taking the hit and showing us all a ****ing amazing time!

So that night, we heard that Bluff Magazine is having a party somewhere at a club in downtown San Jose. Obviously, we all know it's going to be a huge lol sausagefestival per usual of any poker party, BUT we don't know anywhere else to do except the sketchy bar behind the McDonald's across the street from the hotels... soooo, the seven or 8 of us walk in to a completely empty club at 10:30pm (LOL) and are just kind of perplexed at how clubs in Costa Rica are apparently empty at that time. As I'm writing this, I'm looking everywhere for these damned pix, they're just scattered all over the place!

Here's all of us after we realized that we were the only people there and after we did six or seven rounds of whatever shot anyone wanted to do to start the night off right!


Here's Fees and me standardly popping bottles of goose in the VIP (Fees's begins to have thoughts of strip clubs, but they remain secretive):


We continue to drink infinite and copious amounts of Costa Rica's finest until about 1:30 or so, when I'm walking back from the lobby area and Fees puts his arm on my shoulder and says "Help me round everyone up, let's go to the strip club!"

Now my first thought is basically something like "OK Fees, I'll just make sure you're having a good time" then I'm like wait... we're in San Jose, where are we going to find a strip club / not get shanked cuz Fees is basically an overnight celeb there (maximizing shankability, imo) with a 280k bullseye on him. BUT fortunately or unfortunately, we're all too wasted to think about this set of circumstances any further and hop in some busted honda civic turned cab on our way to some random part of Costa Rica.

We arrive and I **** you not, this Mr. Deeds butler guy opens the door for us, with slicked back hair, black suit, and everything... We don't have any pics of this part of the night (thank Christ), but I'll show you what he looked like:


I'm not even kidding about this comparison because (and especially because we were all wasted) he would just appear out of nowhere behind, beside, in front of us the entire night asking if we wanted a drink or a bottle of champagne for whatever stripper was currently hassling us. Now I don't speak any Spanishsita at all, so I'm just having a miserable time not being able to fend off all these busted strippers. I keep trying to get UMD to help since he is pretty good with the language, but he has his hands full.

All of a sudden I look to my right and Fees is gone. I start laughing and get Derek's attention; we both know what's happening. Just when we start cracking up, we hear "UMDeeZ! I NEED SIX HUNDO!" from the VIP area. We turn around to see a shirtless Fees, yelling down from this balcony surrounded on all sides by gently flowing white sheets, looking down on the strip club like it's his kingdom... and it was.... it was.

Just like that, It's 5am and we're ready to roll home and get some rest since we're to leave (and pack!) for a spa/resort in front of the volcano in Arenal, Costa Rica. I wastedly stumble up the stairs to the VIP... and I hesitate to describe what has to be one of the most insane images I've ever taken in... but if aejones can have fake ****s, I'm sure this is acceptable. I see Fees completely naked in a smokey room, again the one surrounded with the flowing white sheets, one naked stripper bouncing up and down on him and 5 others drinking champagne, apparently in some sort of godlike rotation of fornication. I look over and Derek has happened upon the same scene, and we're both cracking up and trying to get Fees outta there while he's telling us about how he's too wasted to perform... so classic!

We get downstairs and we're light on cash, so we all empty our wallets and put money on our cards since the bill is 6k... obv Fees hits us all back, so it ain't no thang. We survive the night and Derek and I run into Mike (gordo16) and his friend on their way to an early morning rafting trip. I hug him and thank everything around me that I'm still alive, then Derek and I own the breakfast buffet.
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I wake up to the phone ringing, "HOLA" "HOLA SENIOR" it's UMD and it's time to get packed and ready to make the journey to Arenal. I move the half eaten scone and cheese slice away from me and get to work and Derek and I meet Fees and UMD (Ryan and John, respectively) out front of our hotel in our van/cab. Nobody really knows how long it's going to take to get there since we'd all heard anything from 45minutes to 2.5hours. All of us are horribly hungover and sleepy, so we just call it a wash if we can make it alive to the Burger King. We do, but I'm in that mode of hangoverdom where literally anything makes me want to puke... Derek's giant forehead, the Burger King king guy, smell of french fries... etc. I think John's in the same boat since we all finish our meals slowly and carefully and proceed to the curviest roads of ALL time! I just keep picturing this:


in my mind, but every time I open my eyes, we're flying by a corn truck on 6ft wide roads with plenty of oncoming traffic (yes driver is a ****ing psycho) or John reaching for his BK bag, holding back the vomit.

4 and a half mind numbingly painful hours of the worst driving on the worst roads ever FINALLY finishes... we're all physically ill at this point, but are immediately refreshed at the night time view of the resort.

I'm going to have to leave off here, but there are a ton of pictures of the resort for next time. I'll just say that it was so awesome that we were all at least semi-seriously doing the math of how much it would cost to live there for a year after the first day we spent in front of the volcano!
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In non-Costa Rican events, I'm getting stronger, better at guitar, and making more money playing people heads up... so all is going pretty well. I hope it is for you guys too!

-Reid

OK... so after a LOOOOOOOOONG ass time, fees finally gave me the pictures from our trip to Costa Rica, well most of the ones that we had taken. Anyways, I'm tired of waiting, so here's the trip report of doom!

We start off all getting in at various times, our 'group' consisting of Fees, UMD Tennis, Drock, Gordo, and myself. I got in late with UMD and we missed the welcome party, but whatever, I really wasn't in the mood to get lifetilted by Humberto babbling to other retards about charks and other stupid tourney **** like screaming when going all in, etc.

Here's Drock after he nearly escaped with one of said Charks, in interest of achieving BBV legendary status... alas, some covert Humberto entourage member discovered my man, mid-caper



Anyways, we get in late that night, nothing exciting. I run into the drunken Drock and Fees with UMD and we all pass out for the BIG TOURNEY TOMORROW!
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I wake up to the alarm and grind over to the other hotel for the tourney. Drock and I got stuck in the overflow hotel which was about a third of a mile from the other hotel and luckily, a decent bit nicer. I play for about 4 hours with the dumbest people ever. Favorite donk moments include guy insta-checking back a straight on the river when I bet turn with a set (he turned the straight) and I check the river with a rivered boat... only to see him instantly and proudly table the straight as if value betting never entered his pee brain... awesome. THEN another donk who was opening 32o from any position, 98o UTG everytime... just generally going spewtastic style literally looks at me and says "BUT YOU HAD A FULL HOUSE!?!?!" I'm like "yep?" and he's like "BUT YOU CHECKED THE RIVER?!?!"... easily the most tilting thing ever and I'm 100% sure it wasn't a level. I bust a little later getting AKcc all in after the guy who doesn't get check-raising opens the high-jack, a shorty shoves from the cutoff, and I reshove from the SB. Obviously the donk has QQ, the shorty somehow has JJ... I brick off and leave, pissed really only at not having that huuuge amount of chips at the easiest table I've probably ever been at, MAYBE excluding $5 buy in games my freshman year of college.

Here's me after someone had a set after the check-raised me earlier in the tourney on an A73r flop when I was pfr on the button (hence small looking stack of chips for the moment, so try not to hate).


Everyone else had a decent stack when I left in about 178th of 220 or something like that... Oh that reminds me, there was also a $220k overlay or something ridiculous... sigh. So, I'm in shame-spiral mode, order a shame-feast from room service and pass out watching last weeks entourage or whatever is on my computer. I wake up a little before dinner and make 3k online, so I felt fine after that obviously. We take it easy that night since almost everyone else is in the tourney and they want to sleep, so we just pound some bar food and get our sleep on. I think Fees was chip leader at the end of the day? If not, he was second.

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Next two days, I make more online, wait around some, sweat some, hang out by the pool, meet up with Gordo and the other guys who are pretty much all out at this point and prepare for Fees's epic final table sweat. Unfortunately, play starts at noon, so we were all sober for the FT. However, I still think I brough my A+ sweat game, which I'll go ahead and say now that I have to be one of the best sweaters in the game:

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Final table day! We wake up a little late (no biggie, Fees is used to winning this kind of money??) and get to the table about 30 minutes after it starts. We immediately call Fees over and I give him what I know will be the luckiest shirt of all time (pictured in my previous entry). Five or so hands go by with no action, blind steal here and there. Then Fees gets AKss all in versus AKo. Flop is JsTs9s... turn is Qs for the Royal Flush! River is 8s for the ultimate 7 card Royal Flush of ultimate coolerdom, sending that other dude packing in sick fashion!

More hands happen in which people play terribly. Eventually, Fees gets 88 in v QQ. Flop 456... they sweat the turn for five eternities, obv everyone knows that Fees + the shirt are in godmode and he binks the 7 ftw. SHIP.

People play worse and it gets down to heads up after the guy in 3rd raise/folds getting like 4-1 for his last 3bbs preflop... pretty amazing laydown IMO. We're all just laughing and carrying on, finally heads up gets underway after they make the deal. 3 bets / 4 bets a few times from both guys and with almost exactly even stacks, Fees's ATo goes up against the dude's 44o. Flop KQ7, we all start dancing and I yell to Fees that he needs to roll up his sleeves. There are two aces embroidered under the sleeves of this hilarious shirt... turn 6... river A!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Definitely the most standard / movie way to win a tourney and Fees goes to fist pump to Rocky montage music on the stage and do interviews for a while.


I'm going to have to finish this later because I don't feel like typing the rest atm, but the celebration details are next, hopefully some embarrassing final table shots of fees in that ridiculous shirt!

ship like 255k or w/e it ended up being... hilarious novelty checks, rocky music playing as he's on stage, interviews everywhere... we're heading out to a supposedly awesome club tonight for the standard end of event poker party, then going to one of the nicest places in costa rica to ball out of control and get our massages on for a day or 2... pix of volcano and epic suites to follow..

<3333fees obv.

edit: also pix of ridiculous shirt i let him wear that i had for some reason... just too perfect

So about 4 hours into day 1 of the LAPT Costa Rica season whatever... I busted. The tables were obviously soft as **** and I just lost AKcc vs QQ vs JJ all in preflop in a way that I couldn't get away from to get my stack up to about 3x average. My table was soooo weak, so I was really pissed I lost that hand, but el oh el donkaments 1, Reid 0.... that's not true, it's like donkaments 09240923094 Reid 1ish.

The weather here eats a huge one as well. It's the rainy season (whoooops) on the pacific coast and so almost every day it's going to be pouring down. On the bright side, they do have a gym somewhere in the hotel, but if it's just a treadmill, I'll probably go on a rampage.

Patonious2000 is here somewhere, so I'm sure we'll meet up and drink some beers pretty soon. For now, I'm just waiting for Drock, Fees, UMD, or Gordo to busto so I have someone to play with and am not just watching lots of Family Guy.

OK.... Derek just got back, so we're hitting the bars it looks like. Take care guys... we're going to ask around and try to find out what there is to do here.

-Reid

edit: fees, drock, and gordo are still in! fees is second, derek is about 60% average, and gordo is about average. i'm sure there's some site that has all this, but I'm too tired to care right now. glglgl guys!

edit2: fees is first going into the final table... going to be the most epic / drunken sweat in LAPT history.

So I haven't been updating that often as of late. This is probably and honestly mostly due to this being one of my worst months ever... around the 18th or so I was down probably about 13k (8.5k cooler didn't help too much, either).

For the last few weeks, I feel like I turned it on. IDK what it is, but I just kept playing solidly, started playing mostly HU, which I think I'm better at anyways, and got back in the green for the month! Making huge comebacks like that is very good for one's mentality I think. It got to a point where when I pulled up PokerTracker (lol) and I saw the giant red number, that I just didn't give a ****. I was just going in, playing my game, knowing that eventually the results would come. Fun times...

Speaking of fun, Halloween was RIDICULOUS. I was again a giant banana, which sounds awesome, but is not so inconspicuous that when authority figures are searching for you at a bar that you can't be found. Because the bright yellow top towers about 2 ft above my head, ducking to hide is out of the question. We started off at my place downtown, a party in my room and then in the lobby of my building, which was surprisingly fun. Then off to the bar. Basically, one of my friends did something very drunk to me and I was caught in the act, in the ladies powder room... and as I mentioned, a giant banana is conspicuous / not helpful to the hiding process, and so I was not so heroically ushered out of the drinking establishment a few minutes before closing time.

It's kind of exciting and kind of frustrating that I'm packing for Costa Rica today. I'm pumped to go and to see all my poker buds down there, but it's not going to be the best getting out of my routine here. I just hope that there's something that I can do to lift down there... and then there will be lots of tasty food and going out... gg health to some extent I suppose. I'll put up some cool pix from Costa Rica and a tourney trip report when I get back on the 8th, so get ready for that awesomeness!

Well... where to begin. I haven't updated in a while and it's mostly because this month has been going very ****tily. I've run bad every time I've moved up almost, including losing my biggest pot ever heads up by getting flush over flushed in a rr pot when the turn was an ace... just gross. I had a few huge losing days in a row, but yesterday I won a ton and am trying to claw back to *gasp* even on the month. Not down a lot at all, but it's just extremely annoying when AK is your biggest loser for the month and all those great things don't work out for you.

What does this mean for my game? After the first big losing day, i was like WTF I cannot build a good month, but after looking at things a bit, I've become less and less results oriented, and even though it sucks a (aejonesism ahead) fat baby's **** to be down this late into a month... really, it's only 20k hands and really I'm still playing much better than a lot of these retards heads up.

So it pains me to say, but it's only a matter of time until **** turns around and I'm making bank because I certainly understand HU and get the feel of matches a lot better than most of the people I play. So enough of that BS, and on to non-poker fun stuffs!



I've gotten back into the grind with Halo 3 a bit with my roommate, Jon, and it's been a blast. I'm trying to coach some people on expert trash talk. I'm only a student to my brother, admittedly. Once, we sat in a lobby talking J for 30 minutes after a 15 minute game... it's that real.

Bro and I got to hang some a few days ago when my family threw a belated graduation reception for me in the lobby (not roof due to bad weather) of our apartment building. It used to be a bank lobby down there, so there are still certainly worse places for a party. The food, the keg, the family and friends, and the blues guitarist (a friend, Ron, who plays all over the country) were all amazing, I thank you guys soooo much for putting that all together and for coming. After the reception, we took the keg back upstairs to our place and almost took the entire thing out.

I've been eating better and been in the gym 5 days / week and since my last post that was about 2 weeks ago, I've already gained 10 pounds!!! I just bought some protein supplement and hope to pack on some more poundage in the near future. This could be tough with Costa Rica coming up the 2nd through the 8th, but I'm talking to my trainer about making a routine for there in case there aren't weights, etc.

Guitar has been going ok, with all the lifting and whatnot I haven't had too much time to put into it, but I've almost got Neon finished and I'm learning some scales here and there to try to get myself into shape to write something and to jam with rando's, because that's what it's all about SON.

Take care guys, pray Slanksky stops urinating on my life.

-Reid