What a week...

It had to be about a week ago when I predicted on twitter that I'd have a great week and it's come to fruition. It's about to end where it started: Vegas.

Okay that's a lie, my good week actually started last Tues when I took the scraps that were left of my bankroll and played the $5/10 no cap game at Hollywood Park. I ended up winning $6k, which basically tripled my bankroll. Since then my sessions have looked like this:

7.6 +$6625
7.7 +$1160
7.8 +$540
7.9 +$2515
7.13 +$2700
7.14 +$1870
7.15 +$3200*

You might've noticed that there's an asterisk after the last session. Why? Because I haven't received the monies yet.

Last night I went out to an ESPY party in Hollywood, got drunk as fuck, spent too much money and then went to an all-Armenian home game in the valley. I'm disappointed to say that I was truly the only player that wasn't Armenian at the game. This was my first taste of the infamous home games that L.A. poker players hear about all the time. I've been to several home games but never anything like this.

The players are all spewy and deep stacked, they turned a 5/10 game into a 10/20 game with a straddle every hand of at least $75 from any spot on the table, so essentially it was a 10/20/75+ game. They only spoke Armenian to each other and they spoke english to me. I had no idea what they were talking about 95% of the time so I just ignored it. The players were all completely easy to read but at the same time, many of them didn't play against each other or gave money back when they won a hand. So basically, all of the other players were playing against me, while every one of them had probably two or three allies at the table. It was an interesting experience that I don't think I'll revisit. And here's why: I won $3200 and didn't get paid. They give out a shitload of markers in the game and told me that once they pay the markers they'll pay me, no later than tomorrow. I could write probably five blog entries about this game. The players were terrible, they were pissed when I won, they were pissed when I left. At one point they told me that I was required to play another 30 minutes because you're not allowed to leave shortly after you win a big pot. I wanted to say "Well why don't you tell his dumbass not to bluff off $1200 on the river with airball," but I just agreed with them and told them it wasn't a problem for me to play another 30 minutes.

Speak of the devil. The guy that runs the game just called me as I was typing this. I answered expecting to hear "Hey I have your money when you're ready to pick it up," but instead he says "I just wanted to let you know that they're still playing if you want to come back." Right. I'd love to come back to a game that hasn't even paid me out yet. As soon as they said they weren't ready to pay, I knew that they were going to use that to try and get me back to the game.

So here's where I stand on the issue: I want my money, but I'm prepared to chalk it up as a loss. They gave me my $2k cash buy-in back so there's no way I'm taking a loss on this, but it will be extremely disappointing if they don't pay me.

So much more to write about this but...

Some of you might know that Phil Ivey made the final table of the WPT Bellagio Classic today. He's a friend of mine so I'm heading to Vegas in an hour to sweat him for the final table and hopefully celebrate the win tonight. I was there when he won the LA Poker Classic, two of his WSOP bracelets (see side pic) and also when he busted out of the WSOP ME final table last year. Hopefully he takes it home.

Then gonna fly back tomorrow to watch the Angels play my home team, the Seattle Mariners. It's amazing how three weeks ago I felt like I was in the gutter with no way out and now I'm feeling like life couldn't be much better. It's all due to one hand that turned it around last Tuesday, which hopefully I'll have time to write about.

Take care, have a great weekend.

4 years.