So other than running the $3 rebuy multi entry turbo Rush tourney streets (most miserable tourney ever?) poker has been going pretty terribly. January was by far my worst month ever as it seemed everytime I had AK someone had AA and lots of other things. Obviously these things, once again, reared their ugly heads when I was playing higher stakes sad face.

Anyways, enough bitching. The cool thing about getting destroyed monetarily, if there is one, is that it shakes you out of being complacent. After I wrote my book wherein I went over tons of hands picking out good and interesting ones and tons of math on all sorts of spots to explain my examples and theory discussions, I felt like a theory beast. My game was razor sharp around last September. The only problem with doing so much theory is that I missed out on putting things into practice by playing.

Now it seems like I'm on the other end of the spectrum and it's time to get back to basics, tweeking my game, and fixing up some more of the nitty gritty. Don't get me wrong though, I still feel great playing about anyone who plays 5/10 and most of the 10/20 winners when I'm on my B+ or better game. The main thing is that I'm hungry again and I'm ready to get back to improving my poker game where lately I've been improving only other people's games.

The new group coaching has gotten underway and it seems like this time I have a solid bunch of students who are ready to learn. We're taking a cool approach at things this time and I'm letting them make their own curriculum. So what's going down is they're asking me about whatever they want, planned out before our lessons, and we're going to drill the topic with hand histories and recordings to boot. Fun times as always. I love meeting the guys. A friend and I were talking and it's actually almost always fun to meet someone who plays MSNL or higher. I think like in life, if you can deal with all the BS that poker throws at you AND survive it all, you just have to have a certain easy-going personality and the ability to throw down if the situation warrants it; that's a sick combo for a personality.

So back to how sick I am at Rush Poker: if you guys haven't checked out the LeggoPoker video where I play 100% of my hands pre-flop (unless someone has shoved before me), check it out HERE. It's one ofthe only videos I've seen on Leggo that held a 10/10 and I think it shows a great strategy to Rush Poker that most people intuit a bit, but fail to take it home while they're playing the game. I've written an article that will be in CardPlayer magazine very soon. I have bi-monthly articles there to start because poker players are "bad at deadlines" and this is my trial run. Who knew :P ?

A lot of people ask me about playing Rush and moving up and I'd like to say to all you guys thinking the same thing: STOP YOU RETARDS! It's a completely different game and I have no problem playing it for fun and messing around (see above $3 retard tourney), but you just don't learn the same things you need to learn to move past MSNL. Every play in Rush Poker is more or less in a vaccuum and you miss out on tons of metagame, the meat of "real" poker. If you're serious about moving up, I'd recommend avoiding the Rush tables. If you need the money or just like clicking buttons, be my guest gentlemen.

Non-poker things have been going awesome. I've just gotten back from Tahoe where my friend Derek and I went snowboarding (see them pix?)






I also got to visit with a friend from high school who lives close to Derek in San Fran who I hadn't seen in a while, so that was sweet. We talked a long time and caught up with the bros. Very solid time.

I've bought SO much alcohol in the past few months. My bar is better stocked than every place in Charlotte I've been to now as far as quality alcohol and variety go. I'll make a drink blog for you guys sometime. I've been saving up some pictures of some cool cocktails. I can't make / drink them all in one night because I'd die. Maybe I'll have a cocktail making party and dress everyone up speakeasy style? Who knows?

Life is going pretty well outside of the poker run bad, so it's been pretty easy to put down the mouse and look around and be like well, whatever, I'm still balling and and having tons of fun with lots of people I enjoy.

I hope you guys are doing well. See you in Vegas this summer where I'll take my Rush run good to the FELT.

-Reid


I know you guys might have seen it before, but if you click the link above on my blog where it says "Life and times of REID YOUNG" that's the link to my twitter. I figured if chewy is getting in on the shameless self-promotion, I can too :P