The Great Chillout - "Poker Face Remix"

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Trying to get back into it

Someone told me that it takes 21 days to form a habit and three days to break one. I'm starting to believe that myself as I've broken some habits that I worked hard to establish. In the last month and a half I think I've been to Seattle twice, Vegas, and San Jose three times. All of the travel has resulted in an inconsistent schedule here in Los Angeles. So unfortunately my "work" schedule has been bad and so has my workout schedule, which is a whole 'nother subject.

The good news is that I did reach the goal that I set on my blog and miraculously finished January in the black:



For the last four January's, I think this is only my second winning month and that's not saying much considering I didn't even come close to covering my bills with my winnings.

This past weekend was all-star weekend in L.A. My friends were in town and going into the weekend I thought I was gonna go out to the club and see a ton of good looking basketball and rap groupies circulating from all over the country. Instead, most of what I saw was gross scallywags from all over the country with inflated guts and fake hair. Disappointing to say the least. I did see DeMarcus Cousins get turned down at the door of MyStudio after he had 33 points and 14 rebounds in the rookie game. Life is never easy.

I'm at the casino now waiting on the game to start and we're about to get started, let's see if I can draw the ace.

4 years.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Blog Love


This blog is a beautiful thing.

For some reason everytime I post a personal poker challenge or goal on this blog, things immediately turn around at the table.

Yesterday I was flopping sets, turning sets, making good bluffs and it was one of those days where pretty much everything was going right. Not to mention that yesterday my roommate introduced me to "Jackson Market," which could very possibly be the best sandwich spot in the L.A. area. That's definitely disputable but this place is the truth. It's on some small side street in Culver City behind the Sony Studios but if you're ever in the area you should look it up.

One interesting hand that took place yesterday:

$5/10, I'm in Small Blind (SB).

Everyone folds to button who makes it $45 in an obvious steal attempt. I look down at 99 and consider raising, then decide that I'll let him c-bet any flop and check raise him because I'm 100% sure he's c-betting. Big Blind (BB) also calls.

Flop comes K66 rainbow. I check, BB checks, button bets $80. I check raise him to $200 and he insta-calls. Now I'm guessing he has a king and I'll probably shut down. Turn: 9. Bingo, Bongo, Bango. Or something like that.

I lead for $400, he asks me how much I have and I give him the count ($600 left) and he goes all-in. Call! He turns over 67 off as if it's the nuts and we start stacking.

I love Denver -9.5 in Cleveland and OKC -10.5 at home against he Wiz today.

Four Years mis amigos.

Day 1: +$4430

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Life Update

Damn where to start. First of all, Happy 2011 to anyone reading this. Appreciate the fact that you've even made a return to the chillout. Of course there is the strong possibility that absolutely no one reads this. We'll see.

Looks like I left off in September when I was in the middle of the best three-month run in my life, which I believe spanned over July, August, and through September. October was a down month and November was strong. December, poker-wish I probably finished the month with less than ten sessions so the results are somewhat irrelevant.

...and now I'm at the casino typing this as I wait for the $5/10 game at Hollywood Park. If that doesn't show that I've rededicated myself to the Great Chillout, I don't know what does. Sucks to call all morning checking on the status of the game "No game, looks like a slow day," and "Still no game," then to come here an hour later and have to wait for the best game I've seen all week. I guess that's how it goes. So right now we're rooting for a huge pot with ensuing busto by a nit. Nevermind, no nits in the game. Ahhh fml.

Back to the life update. I believe around July or August I really started partying a lot. I have a good friend who's a Hollywood promoter (well, he actually runs the venues and oversees the promotion teams) and since I was in the midst of my first complete year as a single man in a long time, I started taking advantage of our friendship. Instead of getting bottle service at the club, he would allow me to bring bottles to the club in a grocery bag and have them delivered to us at the table. Much cheaper that way. So when I was going out three, sometimes four or five times a week, I was meeting a lot of those L.A. girls and living a good life. I even had to stop going to my favorite strip club because I had a few too many "friends" there and I started getting concerned about drama. Some nights would go like this:

We sit down at table. First girl I know sits down with us and we start doing shots. Another girl I know sits down and gives me a hug (awkward moment #1) and I offer her a shot. Another girl I know walks by the table looks at me with that squinted eye look and hugs me over the table (awkward moment #2), she then waits for an invitation to sit down at the now crowded table and I pretend I don't know what she's waiting for (awkward moment #3) until she leaves. Then friend #1 says in my ear "I hate that bitch, why is she looking at me all crazy?" and I say "She's cool, I don't think she looked at you crazy." Fast forward an hour when the first two "friends" are gone and friend #3 finally sits down with me and say "Why you talking to those bitches? I hate them, I'm gonna fuck her up if she keeps looking at me like that." So anyways, I've stopped going to the strip club.

A lot of other things have developed in my life. I finished a mixtape and have done a couple performances. I'm not much of a performer but my guy wants to pursue performing so I'm obviously going to be there with him. First performance was great at a USC frat house in front of a big crowd of drunk college kids. Second performance I forgot a verse and "freestyled" my way to the hook that felt like it would never come. That was at a Hollywood club but still glad we had the experience. I'll put the mixtape up for download within a week.

So now that we're up to date, let's really get up to date. In this great month of January, I'm down over $9k. I'd like to cut that down to $3k. So I have five days to make $6k, meaning I need to make an average of $1200 per session. Today is the first day. I'll keep you posted.

Four years (Damn this is year three!!)

Back in Business

Tomorrow, let's get it.