The Great Chill Out

Trying to get back into it

2011-02-22T13:40:00.001-08:00

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.

Blog Love

2011-01-28T10:35:00.000-08:00

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

Life Update

2011-01-27T11:46:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-27T03:00:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow, let's get it.

The Resurrection...

2010-10-29T18:53:00.000-07:00

...is coming.

I know I've been bullshitting about posting on here but it's been a hectic four months since going broke and going rich and so on...

Gonna get on this shit. If anyone's out there still.

Tonight going out for Halloween in L.A. then flying to Vegas to do it real big with P and the fellas. Will try to put up some pics next week of the breezy outfits that will be present.

Quick update on poker: had a real bad two weeks after running good for pretty much three months so I took it easy the last couple weeks. Going to start playing 40 hrs/week minimum in November.

4 years.

Weekend Goal

2010-09-10T14:40:00.001-07:00

Setting a weekend goal of $7k.

Also mock betting the NFL games to see how I would do, so far I pushed the Saints game.

Good luck to everyone.

Improving

2010-08-18T23:37:00.000-07:00

I'm running much better now and playing pretty strongly with the exception of two big missteps during my last session.

I've been traveling like crazy and figured out that beginning with the second half of May, I've been home less than 50% of the summer. Not the best plan when there's no such thing as paid vacation. Granted, about half of that travel time was to Vegas where I work as well. But half of the time in Vegas I partied too hard, which probably resulted in some poor poker results. Anyways I'm drifting here.

After this last weekend's visit to Vegas (no poker, -800 craps, +900 black crack, +3000 bacarrat, -1200 bottle service) I think I finally have some time to settle in to my digs in Los Angeles and get my routine grind going again. The only problem is that I'm now sick, but hoping to get over it in the next two days because I feel like I've been playing some strong poker lately.

I hope to get back to blogging more regularly and sharing some life stories as well as the poker results, I think that's when my blog is a little more fun. Lord knows I have the stories to share.

So here's the update on my numbers so far, trying to get it get it get it get it...

Day 1 7/27/2010: +$2240 6.75 hrs.
Day 2 8/2/2010: +$240 2.75 hrs.
Day 3 8/3/2010: -$2605 9 hrs.
Day 4 8/4/2010: -$500 8 hrs.
Day 5 8/5/2010: +$3830 9.25 hrs.
Day 6 8/7/2010: +$905 2.25 hrs.
Day 7 8/12/10: +$1835 7.5 hrs.
Day 8 8/13/10: +$9910 11.25 hrs.
Day 9 8/14/10: -$1900 3 hrs.
Day 10 8/16/10: -$500 5.25 hrs.

Total: +$13,455 65 hrs. ($207/Hr.)

You might notice the ridiculous amount on Day 8, which was actually three sessions. I showed up to a home game at about 1 a.m. and won $1200, then decided to head to Hollywood Park because my boy said the game was good. I was at Hollywood Park for only 30 minutes before the game broke and I won $700. Then I went home, went to sleep and went back to Hollywood Park in the afternoon to have a crazy +$6k session. Unfortunately my last two sessions have both been losers. I'm particularly disappointed in my last session, which was Monday night after I came home from Vegas. I was feeling sick and told myself I really only wanted to see if the game was juicy and grind up a few hundred.

I got up $200 and thought about leaving but stayed a bit longer and ran my stack +$1200. Solid. Then I bluffed off $1k. Then I bluffed off another $600 and left down. Must...stay...away...from...the...dark...side...

Listening to some of my old music and I forgot how much I liked what I did with this song...

"My vision is a mystery cuz pleasure brings misery...
I'm in it for the history, the losses and the victories...
The legal and the evil, the money and the people...
The mice and the men and the women and the weasels...
I big time, I small ball, I ride until we all fall...
And I don't have a clue where I'm a end up when God calls...
My phone busy, ain't even in my own city...
I don't trust shit, so I gotta keep my dough with me...
Just roll with me, kick back and smoke with me...
There's no pity for nobody, its all bloody...
And y'all lucky I ain't him cuz we all ugly...
It's all nutty, everybody got a bad side...
And to make matters worse we got a anti...
Somebody waitin for your place, they in standby...
Bad guy, good guy, good try, you would lie...
I never understood why, you wouldn't if you could die..."

4 years.

Life in L.A., Update

2010-08-06T21:58:00.000-07:00

Even though the floorman at Hollywood Park fucked me over in front of my face when I was there, today was a good day. I thought I was pretty cool with him but he basically gave someone my seat in the game and moved me down the list thinking I wouldn't notice. This really pissed me off so I bounced without playing a hand.

Got back from Oakland on Sunday night and I've played a few sessions this week, I think I'm probably up just a little bit but now I'll find out.

Anyways I got a lot done today, it was a real "L.A." day. Woke up at noon, wrote some lyrics, went to the barber shop, went to the car wash, ate, went to the casino, went to record music and now I'm writing this blog before I go see "The Other Guys" at Century City. I'm looking forward to it, Will Ferrell is one of my favs.

Here's the update on the mission:

Day 1 7/27/2010: +$2240 6.75 hrs.
Day 2 8/2/2010: +$240 2.75 hrs.
Day 3 8/3/2010: -$2605 9 hrs.
Day 4 8/4/2010: -$500 8 hrs.
Day 5 8/5/2010: +$3830 9.25 hrs.

Total: +$3205 36.75 hrs.

Day 1: Success

2010-07-28T18:30:00.000-07:00

Day 1 was good. Yesterday I showed up and had to wait around for about an hour. After my shitty session on Saturday that was basically a result of me playing a hand I shouldn't have been playing, I tried to remind myself of the basic fundamentals that have helped me get back on the winning track.

Unfortunately as soon as I sat down I ran my pocket tens into AK on a king high flop (only lost about $100) and then ran my queens into aces and only lost about $200 because the board ran out a flush as well as a one-card straight so the guy slow-played his aces and then couldn't get paid because the board was so strong.

Didn't make it to the casino. I covered the $2k that I was hoping to win in the two days combined yesterday and had a lot of stuff to take care of today. I'm flying up to Oakland for a few days and then will resume working next Monday.

So here was my day 1 of this new plan:

Day 1 7/27/2010: +$2240 6.75 hrs.

Total: +$2240

Good luck, have a good weekend, 4 yearz.

New goals for the remainder of 2010

2010-07-27T13:29:00.000-07:00

Here are my goals that I've come up with today for the remainder of the year:

For the final five months, I'm hoping to make $10k each month. I'm hoping to get in about 25 sessions each month and will look to win $1k each session.

I have two remaining sessions left in July before I leave for Oakland so today and tomorrow my goal is to win $2k combined.

Then once August gets started, I'll start working towards $10k for that month. July has been a GREAT month but I did drop a large amount on Saturday in just two hours.

We'll see how it goes, good luck to everyone.

4 years.

What a week...

2010-07-15T15:29:00.000-07:00

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.

July Update

2010-07-14T13:43:00.000-07:00

So far July has treated me much better than the first half of the year.

Spent last weekend in Vegas for a friend's birthday and didn't play any poker but had a great weekend... Tao and Vanity, XS tried to shit us with a shit table so we headed to Tao, which actually seemed like it was more fun anyways.

As far as poker, things have been going a lot better and I'm trying to keep it going at the 5/10 game at Hollywood Park. The best thing right now is that I'm looking forward to getting big hands as opposed to a month ago whenever I looked at aces or kings I knew I'd somehow find a way to lose my stack. Momentum is everything.

Also been recording some music that I'm happy with.

I'll come back to give some more detailed posts.

Good luck, I hope everyone is winning big.

4 years.

Email to my sister's friend...

2010-06-23T14:17:00.001-07:00

Just wrote this to a friend of my sister's who asked me about going pro....

Hey Santiago..

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply to you. To be honest right now I'm in a huge downswing and I guess it's a good time to let you know about the bad side of playing professional poker.

I haven't really expressed this to anyone but the hardest part about what I'm going through right now is the fact that I told my family and friends that I'm a "good" poker player and that they can believe in me. Now everytime I have kings, someone has aces, if I have a set, someone has a higher set. Anytime I'm in a big pot, I find a way to lose.

And to be honest the hardest thing is not the money. Obviously losing money at a constant rate is terrible, but the hardest thing is acknowledging that I'm failing at what I told everyone I could do. It's very hard to deal with.

I'm not sure what type of person you are or what type of lifestyle you live, but money management is the key to being a successful professional poker player. This is something that I've failed miserably at.

When I have a session where I win a lot of money, or if I'm on a heater, I will spend the money like it's nothing. Then when I go through downswings I think about all the ridiculous things I spent money on and just get pissed at myself.

So I would say if you feel like you can manage the money when you are doing well, go for it. I'm definitely glad that I tried professional poker and I've definitely been a winning player since I started, but I've failed to manage my bankroll properly and now I'm facing some major decisions about what to do with my future.

That being said, I've traveled more than I ever have the last year because of the freedom that poker gives me. I've met hundreds of great people through poker and had some truly amazing experiences through poker.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Kevin

Cougars

2010-06-18T12:33:00.000-07:00

Watched the Finals final last night with a cougar that I met playing poker. She was great company and much better conversation than most chicks that I go on dates with, but I have to say it's a bit awkward being out with someone who's probably 25-30 years older than me. Definitely a lot of situations where I would have made a move on a chick my age but I felt weird doing it in front of people considering she's visibly older than me. I was in the valley though, land of the MILFs.

Fuckin' game killed me. Pau Gaol's missed rebound when the Lakers were up six with 20 seconds left was a dagger to my heart. I covered my losses with a bet on the under, but today USA and Germany both failed me ridiculously and my sports account is now maxed out. I'm gonna stop sports betting and focus on poker. Definitely a good thing.

Going to HP today, peace.

Day 1: The Great Get Back

2010-06-17T04:51:00.001-07:00

Day 1 of the "Great Get Back" was a success.

I flirted with the idea of going to Hollywood Park all day long but I opted to do laundry, get my car washed and go to the batting cages. Traffic on the 405 was horrible so I decided if I was going to hit HP, I'd wait until traffic was over.

Early in the evening my boy that recently started his home game hit me up and let me know that he wants to improve his game by adding house players, which would include me. He also wanted ideas from me on how to improve the game.

So I went over to his condo at the W hotel around 9 pm to play in the game and talk to him about improving it. When I got there, he was there with the dealer. No one else. They were sitting around playing some first-person shooter game on x-box.

For the next two hours we talked about improving his game, which basically meant adding more girls that would flirt with the players and getting more action players, less grinders. The entire time I was wondering 'Is there even going to be a game tonight?' Didn't look like it. It was already 11 p.m. and I was still the only player there. At this point, I was actually getting a little impatient. One of my boys was telling me how good the action was at Hollywood Park and another friend was requesting my help to recruit strippers from the strip club for his birthday party on Saturday. Instead of doing either, I was sitting in this empty condo watching video games.

Finally around 11:30 p.m., a guy called and said he was coming with two friends. That makes four players. Throw in my boy who owns the condo and that's five players. Then the second dealer decided he would play. Six. Then my boy told the security guard to buy in for $100 house chips and play. Seven. We have a game, $5/5 blinds and I'm in for $500.

I told the security guard that I was going to put pressure on him because he's so short stacked. My first button and his small blind, I raise to $20 with Ad8d. He shoves all-in and says "That's for picking on me."

I know he's scared to lose the money and plays super tight. He probably even has AK, minimum. I'm 100% positive that I should fold and I'm way behind. But it agitated me that he said I was picking on him. He deserves a bad beat. So I called the extra $75 and he turned over kings. I told him I needed an ace. Flop: J-4-5. Turn: 3. River: 2. I didn't even think I made a hand but I looked at the board three times and then realized I had the wheel. Goodbye security guard. He was pissed.

Later in the game I won a big three-way all-in pot. My buddy straddled to $10. One of the three other players min-raised to $20. I was in the small blind with QQ and I had been the main aggressor the whole game to this point. I made it $110. My buddy who straddled called. The min-raiser re-re-raised all-in to $250. I went all-in and my buddy called for $280 more. I told him "You idiot, I have queens." He says "You want to just chop it up right now?" I said, "Hell no, you're trying to suck out on me. $100 rebate either way." This is the benefit of home games, you can do shit like this. My buddy tabled J9 of spades and the other guy turned over A-9 off-suit. The flop came jack high to give me a sweat but it bricked out and I won the pot. Finally, after a month of running like dog shit, I have a hand hold up in a big pot.

We only ended up playing for two hours and I won $1300, which was nice. After everyone left I played Chinese poker with the dealer and my buddy and broke even after an hour. Overall, it was a good night for me and the $1300 is a big boost right now.

I'll start tracking my winnings and where I'm playing.

Day 1 (6.16) Home Game: +1300 2.0 Hrs.

Ground Zero

2010-06-15T04:46:00.000-07:00

"Throw dirt on me, and grow a wild flower...
But it's fuck the world, get a child out her...
Yeah my life a bitch, but you know nothin' bout her...
Been to hell and back, I can show you vouchers..."
Lil Wayne

From this point on I'm taking no prisoners and offering no sympathy to anyone in the way. Time to rise up and rebuild. Welcome to my version of every against-all-odds movie that you've ever seen.

"And you can never break my stride, you'll never slow...
The momentum at any moment I'm bout to blow...
You'll never take my pride, I'm killin' the flow...
Slow, venom and the opponent is gettin' no...
Mercy mark my words, ain't lettin' up relentless I smell blood...
I don't give a fuck, keep givin' em hell...
Where was you? When I fell, and needed help up, you get no love..."
Eminem

I'm on Twitter

2010-06-13T12:18:00.000-07:00

What up you can follow me on Twitter here ... I'll be mainly posting new music downloads (hip hop) and updates on life, a lot of which will be poker and my fight to get my bankroll back.

4 years.

Bust. Oh.

2010-06-12T00:07:00.000-07:00

I hate to make this post but I just went through hell and back in a gambler's hand basket.

Running pretty bad for most of the year was the beginning of the storm and the past two weeks in Vegas brought the hurricane in.

The timing is bad but when is the timing for going broke good? Never. After it's all said and done, I really can't complain at all. Shit sucks and it's heavy on the brain but I've learned a hundred lessons in the past year, many of them time and time again. Some lessons I failed to learn and ultimately that was probably my downfall.

I'll add the numbers up over the past year and see what happened, which months hurt me the most and how much money I made and wasted. I know for sure that I was a winning player but my money management is right there with the worst of them. At least I have a lot of nice kicks to wear to my job.

I will definitely keep the blog going.

Right now the plan is to get a job and rebuild my bankroll. I need to find a job pretty quickly and once I find one, I'll look for one that I would rather be at. So if anyone has any job leads in the L.A. area, feel free to let me know. Journalism degree, lol.

4 years, keep going.

Today's Wagers

2010-05-22T03:35:00.001-07:00

I'm opening myself up to some embarrassment here because it's very possible I lose every single bet.. I'm going with all underdogs today. I like all the straight bets (and love them with the odds) and the Angels and Astros have a decent shot at winning.

4 years. damn we're in year 1.5 right now!!

L.A., Paris, Vegas

2010-05-21T07:56:00.000-07:00

In an ideal world I'd tell you that I'm on some wonderful poker tournament tour, but that's not true.

However, I'm on my fourth day of a great family vacation, which is actually better than a poker tour. My immediate family is spread out on the west coast so we don't see each other as often as we'd like and we're taking advantage of my mom's airline miles to visit France.

But enough about that.

When I get back to the States next week, I'm heading straight to Vegas to celebrate my birthday over Memorial Day Weekend. Once that's over, I'll jump into the 1k WSOP Stimulus Event on Monday. I'm basing my stay in Vegas pretty much solely on that event. If I make a decent cash in the tournament, I'll continue to stay in Vegas and play some more small buy-in events and cash games every day.

The truth is I've been getting low on my bankroll. What started as poor bankroll management turned into running bad and playing bad. I'm hoping that some time in Vegas can kick-start me in addition to clearing my mind here in Paris. If June goes badly I might consider looking into working a normal job again in sports and/or writing.

Basically I'm gonna get my partying out of the way Memorial Day weekend and then buckle down for grinding the rest of the month until I'm comfortable again, which would take at least two months of winning. I've been actually winning more in sports than poker.

I started to put together some wins last week, which was nice because I wanted to have some decent money heading to Vegas next week. Then I decided to get one last session in on Sunday. I had two options (1) Hollywood Park, which was a great game as reported to me by a reliable source or (2) a big home game in Brentwood.

I decided to check out the home game first and if it wasn't good I would head to HP. I got there and three tables were full: a 5/10, a 10/25 and a 25/25. I jumped into the 5/10 game and immediately went up 1k within about 15 minutes. My first hand I raised with KcJc and flopped the nut straight. All the home games in L.A. usually have 2-3 cute girls walking around in bikinis or short skirts or even topless. This game had about 15 girls walking around in bikinis. I'd be lying if I said I didn't lose my focus. There weren't even that many good players but I just bled chips away in a game where there were constant blind raises and overbets. Long story short: I ended up dropping $3500 in a game where I was up $1300 at one time and I completely erased my previous three sessions of profit.

As for the home game, it was juicier for players that have bigger bankrolls than myself. Jamie Gold showed up to play in the 25/25 game and one of my boys told me that they had a $100k pot in that game. Pretty sick.

I'm still regretting going to that game though and I'm desperately trying to make some money betting on sports while here in Paris. I'm up about $1900 this week, here's the reason why:
Today I have:

Cardinals -1.5
Parlay: Red Sox, Mets, Cardinals -1.5
Parlay: Cardinals -1.5, SF Giants -1.5

It's funny... I don't blog nearly as much as I should, then everytime I do I have so much to write.

I'll save some for later. Hope everyone is doing well.

four years.

Current Playlist

2010-05-06T20:39:00.000-07:00

Here's the songs I just burned to a CD to listen to in the whip...

I might be the hottest sports bettor in America right now.

If you looked at my picks yesterday, they all hit. Today I hit 2/2 bets and a four-team parlay.

Last night I played a long home game session in Hollywood at a new game at the W condos...a few B list celebs there like Mekhi Phifer, Chris Millz and Omar Gooding. I won $800 in about nine hours. Game was good but not incredible...

...however, today I was card dead for two hours at Hollywood Park until they told me I was next to go to the main game and I was to take one last hand on the button.

I look down at two red aces. I raise to $45 and get two callers.

Flop: AQ3, two clubs. We all check the flop (mistake #1).

The turn is another rag club and they both check to me. I bet $90. First guy folds. Second guy thinks for a while, checks his cards again and calls the $90.

River: king of spades. Guy checks to me and I bet $200 for value (mistake #2). He thinks for a minute and says "raise." He min-raises me and I call, basically knowing I'm making a bad call (mistake #3). He turns over AcTc. F#ck.

About to go on a date at Sherman Oaks Galleria, then I might head out to a club or something. Feel like I need to celebrate all this sports bet winning.

Let's get it.

4 years.

Ran Good for a Day...

2010-05-05T06:45:00.000-07:00

...and it felt fantastic.

Check out these bets (click image to enlarge):

I meant to hedge the Lakers/Jazz bet because it was the sixth leg of my parlay and all five were in the books, but I didn't get it in before the game started. So the Lakers took a 12 point lead into halftime and I decided to hedge it at halftime, Jazz -0.5. This actually worked much better because it gave me a huge window to win both the parlay and second bet. As long as the Lakers won by 6-11 points, I win both bets and they did it. I also got lucky as fuck with the Giants, who managed a homerun in the 9th inning to send the game into extra innings.

During the day I was playing the 300-500 buy-in game at Hollywood Park. This is a $5/5 blind game and for some reason it tends to suck but I've recently been playing lower because of my losing. Anyways I played tight as fuck partially due to myself trying to play tight and partially due to never getting anything. I ended up losing $500 in this game when it broke. Somehow the donks are just dominating this game recently.

I put my name on the list for the $200 game and decided to jump into the $500 minimum buy-in game because it was soft and ended up winning in that game too, after realizing all my sports picks had hit and feeling lucky.

Been running shitty for about two months so the change is nice. At least while it lasts. Now it's 6:50 a.m. and I'm about to crash if I can figure out what to do with all this clean laundry on my bed.

Here are my picks for today if anyone wants to ride with me:

P.S. I didn't go with Halladay last week and he was a beast, throwing a shutout. Doh!
4 years.

Follow him to the promise land

2010-04-26T14:36:00.000-07:00

I really like Roy Halladay and the Phils today against the Giants in San Fran. I took the Phils -1.5. The Giants have been struggling and put up zero runs yesterday against the Cards. Halladay is 4-0 with a 0.82 ERA.

Heading to Hollywood Park.

4 years.

Baseball Bets

2010-04-16T14:32:00.001-07:00

Made a shitload of baseball bets today... To the last guy who bet 2k, don't bet 2k on these games, I don't love them like I loved the Jazz. But here's a head's up, there's a guy on the covers forum that has started the baseball season on fire, so I've gone with all of his picks today and the Phillies pick is my own. The link to the guy's picks are here. Thanks to V for the tip.

Today's picks:
Diamondbacks ML
Giants ML
White Sox ML
Red Sox -1.5 (cancelled - rain)
Twins ML
Brewers/Nats over 9
Phillies -1.5 (this is my big bet)

and this parlay:
Phils
Cards
Yanks
Red Sox (cancelled - rain)
Mariners

I'll revisit this and highlight the ones I won/lost.

Gonna go play at HP today also. Had a disaster date last night.

peace.

Pick of the Day

2010-04-13T11:26:00.000-07:00

I love the Jazz -7.5 at Golden State tonight.

Poker has been going better. I've tightened up and tried to stop bluffing as much but it's so hard not to. Just playing less hands in general. Boring but gotta do it until I get back into my zone.

4 years..

Dealing with Bullshit: 101

2010-04-07T13:11:00.000-07:00

The following is an AIM conversation I had with my "bookie" after I had texted him requesting my payout for the week:

xxx620 (11:58:38 AM): yo
xxx620 (11:59:14 AM): you should text your boy xxx. he owes me money and some of that money he owes me is what i owe you
ME (12:48:04 PM): yo man.. do you realize how unethical this is on several levels?
ME (12:48:24 PM): i understand it sucks that he owes you, but i have people that owe me money and i'm not gonna tell you that once i get paid, you get paid
xxx620 (12:50:57 PM): i don't have any money. i had to spot him 2 weeks ago for not paying
ME (12:51:23 PM): so you have no one backing you?
xxx620 (12:51:30 PM): everyone else pays on time and i can pay the winners, that's how its supposed to be
xxx620 (12:52:39 PM): i've already had to take out my savings because ppl have jipped me before. i'm supposed to get a check in the mail for a few hundred bucks so if its there i'll cash it and pay you the rest tomorrow
xxx620 (12:53:07 PM): i'm sorry about this and i try to make everyone happy but its hard when ppl don't pay me for 2 weeks and i owe ppl.
ME (12:54:24 PM): i dunno i assumed you were working under someone and had a plan worked out, that's how a lot of bookies do it. i mean what happens if you get hit hard and everyone has a good week?

...and that's when he completely stops replying.

Just to educate you guys in the world of professional gambling, the way a lot of bookies and their "affiliates" work is this (and this is based on my rough understanding):

If you can book all your clients wins/losses, you get the full profit.

If you can't, you can make a deal with the bookie over you that he covers the losses and you get 10-20% of the profits, assuming you are making a profit. If this is the deal you have worked out and you have a week where you lose to your clients, you don't start making your 10% again until your clients have started losing again and you're making a profit again for your book.

Apparently the guy I'm dealing with has nothing of the sort and is running a bullshit operation.

Not only that, but according to my short convo with him, he wants me to track down the money that my friend owes him as if that's my job. This is where I have a big problem with the way he's handling the situation.

He should never be revealing how much someone else owes him or how long they have owed him, I don't care if it's my brother or whatever, it's supposed to be private.

This concerns me greatly because if this guy has a week where all of his clients win, he's going to be assed out. I mean, even if he has a week where his clients end up + more than he can cover, what is he going to do?

You can guess what my next move is.

Leaking

2010-03-05T02:23:00.000-08:00

I was sent home early from work today for losing too much money. I've been playing pretty bad. I'm that guy at the table that has flashes of brilliance but overall is playing losing poker. I know this and it's not a good thing. I'm playing well enough to beat the game right now but I'm not adjusting and others are and basically it's leaving me with SEVERAL leaks in my game. And while I'm on the subject, I have several leaks in my life.

Unfortunately this post won't be as long as it should be but I'm going to list my poker leaks for not because it'll help me refocus by putting them down here. It'll also be interesting to revisit this list in the coming weeks.

Leaks:

1a. Leak: Playing too many hands. A friend of mine at the casino called me "Somalius" or something like that because it's a famous online player who is known for playing 50% of hands dealt and still is a huge winner. I don't play quite that many hands but you get the point. I realize no one reading this really knows me but my style would definitely be considered "action player" so the more pots I get in, the more I try to outplay, outdraw and out-bluff people, which many times results in unnecessary big hits to my stack. The benefit is I definitely hit people from the blind side many times but I think I'm just opening up way too much. Today I lost a huge pot with 5-6 offsuit when I turned a missed OEFD (open ended flush draw) into a big river bluff after I check-raised the turn when an overcard hit. Another hand I lost a big pot with J-9 two-pair against T-8 straight. I made a horrendous call on the river when the villain check-raised me huge.

1b. Fix: Limit myself to playing hands in late position and restricting my range to suited cards so at least I'm picking up redraws.

2a. Leak: Calling too many bets and making too many big payoffs. I have now established a reputation as a calling station, which is mainly because I'm in so many hands so I'm also sniffing out a lot of bluffs. However, a lot of players are starting to bet a lot bigger at me when they have made hands and I've been making some bad payoffs. I can think of several occasions where I knew I was beat on the river but I still paid off...kind of by habit. I just couldn't bring myself to make the laydown.

2b. Fix: Develop the discipline to recognize when I'm beat. I have to narrow down my opponent's range and capability to bluff against me. I need to take more time to think about the strength of my opponent's bet and the fact that they know I'm a tough person to bluff.

Alright those are my main two leaks and I'm going to work hard on them. Another leak that really has to do with the first leak is my patience. I've noticed that I've become very impatient at times. I've never been one to blame dealers but now I catch myself looking at the dealer as if it's his/her fault that I'm not winning. I definitely need to be more patient.

Good luck, my March so far has been just like february.. up, down, up, down, up, down. So tomorrow should be up.

My weekend goal is +$6k.

I might head to the Bike because they have a big 150k GTD tournament this weekend so there should be a lot of people there. Not sure, I'm going to hit the home turf at noon.

4years..

February 2010 Numbers

2010-03-02T03:12:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to say that I had a productive month during February at the poker table despite a few disastrous days. However, I'm ashamed to say that I spent all the profits on shoes, sports betting, strippers, and bottle service. I'm going to plug this leak this month by eliminating bottle service from my bad spending habits.

Day of Ugh

2010-02-23T14:37:00.000-08:00

The drive home is the worst part after playing some horrible poker and losing my ass off. Unfortunately it's a drive that I've had many times. Getting lost in thinking about how horrible I played against some pretty bad players (and some good ones) and then noticing that I'm going 95 down the 405 south. Hate it.

I sat down at the Commerce tournament and immediately got a card rush. AA, KK, AK...all held up. I built my stack up then got JJ and the flop came 4-6-7 and I doubled some guy up by the river when his 3-5 was good as gold (obviously). Good play by him since I proved he had the implied odds. The problem was I knew he was playing any suited cards from what he had shown earlier and the flop had two spades (he had diamonds) so I was betting big at him. Anyways that led to my downfall. I played too many hands and got in too many weird spots where I was bluffing too much for a tournament. Exit.

Then I went to another casino and got in a cash game and played horrendously. So bad I don't even want to replay it in my head. Basically made some bad calls on a guy who is a good and extremely aggressive player. First time he made a flush on the same card I made top two with AJ, second time he rivered bottom two pair when I had top/top and sent me on a vacation to value town both times. After this, I resorted to shoving with a flush draw and then giving my money away with middle pair when someone had an overpair. Dusted and disgusted.

Today I made a few sports picks, here's what I have (you can probably make money if you take all the opposite picks):

$100 Celts/Knicks under 197.5
$200 Cavs/Hornets over 200
$200 Suns/Thunder over 204.5

4-Team Parlay
Hornets +11.5
Grizzlies +5
Suns/Thunder over 204.5
Warriors +1

4 years. Refocus.

Playing LAPC Event today

2010-02-22T11:49:00.000-08:00

Today I'm heading to Commerce to play the $200k guaranteed tournament. Hoping the field is small because it's on a Monday.

February has been going pretty good really up and down but more up. I haven't put my numbers together in a week or so so I can do that later.

Been spending too much loot also! Faded T's birthday is this week and we went out on Saturday night. I'm sure there's a good story in there but I gotta get to the tournament. I'll post a better update later.

Peace, 4 years.

Dear San Antonio Spurs...

2010-02-05T00:55:00.000-08:00

First of all, just to get it out of the way: Fuck you.

Due to your lack of productivity and general mediocrity over the past couple seasons, I had completely forgotten my deep hatred for your franchise. I always admired David Robinson for his hard work and solid fundamentals, but I could never respect him. He never had the heart to really give it to Hakeem the Dream. It was like he was satisfied with the stats and didn't care about the fact that he was second best.

Then came Tim Duncan after Robinson was injured for a season and you essentially robbed the NBA of the #1 overall pick in the lottery draft at the best time possible. So obviously you lucked up on your first championship due to an injury and a robbery.

You got lucky when Shaq and Kobe grew jealous of each other and parted ways. You went out of the country to find a French homo and a wild man from Argentina (who is actually the only person on your team that I respect) and you followed a fruit cake named "The Big Fundamental" to a couple more NBA titles.

However, you never showed any heart. Ever. Let's not get it twisted. Your band of crafty old veterans and cheap shot specialists (see: Bowen) never had me convinced.

But today I forgot for a moment. I went through the games of the day:

I knew that Lebron would lead his team past the Miami Heat, even when they were 9.5 point favorites. I believed in my alma mater, USC, to win a pick 'em game against Cal at home. Portland was no match for the Zags in Spokane and I felt good enough about Gonzaga to cover 8.5.

Then there was you vs. Portland. Portland. Brandon Roy, out. Travis Outlaw, out. Greg Oden, out. Joel Przybilla, out. I'm not sure if you knew this, but that's four out of five starters that aren't even in uniform for the Blazers. Your entire roster is healthy. Even old ass Michael Finley suited up tonight.

So I unwisely decided to include you as a two-point favorite as the fourth team in my parlay.

You headed into halftime with a two point lead. This is solid for me and I actually thought you might be able to pull it off.

Nearing the end of the third quarter, you looked to be giving in to the Blazers when Manu hit two three-pointers to close out the quarter up eight points. Eight.

At this point I was happy. USC had just won and I told my friend "Wow, I never thought I'd be rooting for the Spurs." LOL @ me.

In the fourth quarter, you extended your lead to ten. But then, some moron named Popovich decided to bench Tony Parker for George Hill. I know, not even you know who George Hill is but believe me he's on your team. So Andre Miller goes to work and abuses Hill. Martell Webster, essentially the only three-point threat on the court for Portland, is left wide-the-fuck-open in the corner and drains a three-pointer.

Everyone on your shit squad looks at each other with a "Were you guarding him?" expression on their face while old ass Popovich slams his hands on the scorer's table.

Portland takes the lead with a minute left. Then they call timeout, killing all of their momentum and giving you the option to insert TP into the game. Basically they did you a huge fucking favor, you fucking imbeciles.

Coming out of the timeout, Portland and it's crew of second stringers hand the ball to... YOU. And what do you do with it? You give it to Tim Duncan, your all-world "super star" so he can turn it over. Manu does the same and I realize why I have hated you forever.

You have no heart. I made the mistake of betting on you. I woke up from the dream that I could win a four-teamer with you after all my other games easily covered and you led by 10 in the 4th. Not only that, but fucking Miller misses a free throw to give you yet ANOTHER opportunity to tie the game, but you obviously miss a wide open three to tie it.

Fuck you, San Antonio. I knew it was a curse when I realized I was actually rooting for you. Shame on me.

Never again will I bet on you. I don't give a fuck if you are 60 point underdogs to my daughter's YMCA team, I will never wager one fucking dollar on your horrid piece of shit franchise.

Dead games, took an L

2010-02-04T04:03:00.000-08:00

Today I was bored in some dead games. The action was slow and I tried to create more action, unsuccessfully.

Straddling constantly and c-betting into check raises and raises all night long.

Was too bored and unfocused. I can take something out of this session tho. The only saving grace is that I was down $2500 at one point in the 5/10 game and managed to make 1400 back.

Also my poker buddy and I have been playing red/black on the flops for $100 every now and then and I'm up $400 on him so that's a bonus. Good to run good in red/black for $100 per flop.

Some dude that plays the game regularly hit the jackpot last week (like 2k) and left the casino with $8k, then got robbed at a stoplight. Someone followed him, then rear-ended him at a red light. They somehow convinced him to get out of the car in the middle of Inglewood at 4 a.m. to discuss the accident and then robbed him at gunpoint. It's fucked up and has me considering buying a piece or something. There's a lot of riff raff at the casino and they know who's winning and shit and they know I win.

Just trying to get rid of these motherfugging monkey bites so I can go do something. Had to cancel on someone today cuz of it.

February Results
02.01.10 +$4480 (6 Hrs)
02.02.10 +$2700 (7 Hrs)
02.03.10 -$1555 (11.5 Hrs.)

Total: +$5625

2 for 2

2010-02-03T13:47:00.000-08:00

Had another good day at the casino boosted by a set of 4's vs. AQ and J2 off in the BB vs. an ace on a A222 board.

Caught a bad beat last night when I went to the strip club with my boys and got a stripper hickey. WTF.

Cuatros Anos cabrons

February Results
02.01.10 +$4480 (6 Hrs)
02.02.10 +$2755 (7 Hrs)

Total: +$7235

Great Start

2010-02-02T01:50:00.000-08:00

Today I got to my home field casino and it was dead as a graveyard. My normal game was going but there was only one real action player and he always leaves at 4 p.m. I got there at 3 p.m. and was on a list. I decided to drive to Commerce because they have the LAPC going there so there's bound to be a lot of players there. At least I could catch some kind of action.

I took off and was literally 100 feet away from the 105 on-ramp when my boy called me and told me that a big fish just showed up at HP. So I drove back, jumped in the game with him and ended up winning $4480 today. I was happy when I was up $1200 just because it looked like a good winning session to start the month, then I caught a couple hands that I won big pots in and should have won more. I played the rivers soft both times for no apparent reason.

First, I was on the button with Jh9h. Six players called to me and I limped. The small blind raised to $45 and everyone called. Flop: KcThQc. Nice. The SB bets out $75 and gets two callers. I raise to $250. SB calls and one other player calls with only $95 left in his stack (obvious draw). The turn is the 6h and they check to me. I bet $600 and later realized that I should have bet something more like $750/800. The SB called and the other player put his final $95 in. At this point I had the SB on either AK or JJ. The river was the 9d and the SB checked to me. For some reason I thought that we were chopping this pot so I just checked. He turns over TT and I missed a big value bet on the river because he's a player that doesn't give up on his hand.

The next big pot that I won I have Ad7d. The player in front of me raises to $45 and I call before five others call. Flop: 7c7s6c. I decided to slow-play this one. Everyone checked to the original raiser and he bets $75. I call the $75 and so do two others. The turn is the 3s, giving 45 a straight. Everyone checks to me and I fire $250. The fish behind me quickly raises to $500. This is a player that never raises me (he's the same player that flopped a set of tens and only called), so I'm worried about either a straight or full house here and I call. The river is a great card for me, the 6h, giving me the second nuts. My dumb ass checks and he checks behind me. I show my hand and he shows me a 6 and mucks. Another spot where I could have gotten at least $600-1000 on a value bet because he's a huge station.

I'm upset with myself about those two missed value bets but overall I played well and am more than satisfied with the session.

Below is a song my boy and I did a couple months ago, I have the first and third verses... we're on myspace, our site is http://www.thefocusgroupmusic.com ...

"Then a little more sex and I'm back in the lex...
On my way to the game where I'm crackin' the vets...
Raisin' the price up, then waitin' to light up..."

"The Life That I Live" The Focus Group

Good luck, four years! Damn.. we are already on year #2... get it in..

February Results
02.01.10 +$4480 (6 Hrs)

Feb.Forward

2010-02-01T01:22:00.000-08:00

This year I forgot about how dreadful January has been for me in terms of poker. I believe that two out of the last three years I've lost a lot of money every January. The end of 2006 was when I started playing winning poker and that January I had a tailspin. Then 2007 I had a great year in poker, only to buy everyone great Christmas gifts with my winnings and then lose a shitload in January of 08. 2009 was much different as I won $14000 in what was probably one of my best months ever. And... this month I somehow managed to lose only a little over $1k. Although it's never fun for a professional poker player to have a losing month because when you factor in bills and daily expenses (not to mention a shoe fetish and a horrible habit of dropping money on bottle service at clubs), the bankroll looks a lot worse.

So I'm relieved to say that tomorrow (or today) we head into a brand new month.

Besides losing overall in live cash games, I also dropped $200 on Full Tilt messing around in PLO and bought into the first LAPC event twice for $335 each time.

Here's what my month looked like this month:

As you can see, I was pretty much in the hole the entire month. I'd also like to note that this past Thursday I had one of my worst sessions ever. I was up $3k and left down $4500. It was like a hurricane hit me and I was completely baffled by it and tilted for at least 20 hours after. The final nail in the coffin I was the last to call a raise preflop with J9 after there were already five callers (seven people to the flop) and the flop comes KQT rainbow. Obviously I'm worried about AJ but the player that re-raised me on the flop was the donk of the table so I shoved on him and of course he tables AJ and proceeds to talk shit to me.

My goal for each month this year is $15k/month. That will average to $700-800 profit per session, which is doable in my opinion. Obviously I'll have some losing sessions and some bigger wins but I'd love to make it happen, January excluded.

Good luck to everyone.

Revisiting my 2009 resolutions

2010-01-03T11:41:00.000-08:00

As I head into 2010 with a shitload of resolutions, I think it's a good idea for me to revisit my 2009 resolutions so that I can recognize my successes and failures of last year. So here we go, from this post:

1. Get in shape: Fail. I'm in much worse shape now then I was last year.
1a. Eat healthier: Somewhat.
1b. Work out in the mornings: Fail.
1c. Play ball at least four times a week: Fail.
1d. Light weights: Fail.
1e. Run and/or play tennis on the weekends: Fail.
1f. Get my six pack back: Fail.

2. Poker: Success.
2a. Make at least 50k in poker for the year: Success.
2b. Manage my money better: Success.
2c. Win a tournament: Success.
2d. Finish in the money at a WSOP event: Fail.

3. More music: Success.
3a. Make better music, songs with content and direction and at the same time widespread appeal: Success.
3b. Start producing my own beats: Fail.
3c. Start performing regularly: Fail.
3d. Get on a track with a big name: Fail.

4. Money: Success.
1a. Conserve my money and manage it better: Success.
1b. Get a new car this year (Cadillac CTS?): Success (although not a CTS).

5. Family/Friends: Fail.
5a. Keep in touch with more friends: Fail.
5b. Make a better effort to see my family and take a couple trips: Success.

6. Manage my time: Fail.
1a. Keep an agenda/schedule: Fail.
1b. Don't waste time watching tv, on the internet: Fail.
1c. Be punctual: Fail.
1d. Get sleep so I'm more efficient: Success.

Overall I have to say that 2009 was an incredible success for me, both professionally and personally. Besides becoming a successful professional poker player (keep in mind this is only for seven months so far), I learned so much along the way. I spent a lot of time with some well-known poker pros and heard great stories about their experiences together and making it as young poker pros.

I got some traveling in to Vegas about eight times, Seattle a few times, and Hawaii. This year I'm looking forward to more trips but more trips means making more money so I can pay for them. The one definite problem with playing poker for a living is that there's no such thing as paid vacation. Luckily while I was in Hawaii I won a tournament on Full Tilt and that paid for the trip and knocked out one of my 2009 goals to win a tournament. I didn't cash in three small buy-in events that I played at the WSOP although I bubbled in the first event. It really sucked ass. I was walking out of the room and they announced "congratulations players, you've made the money."

As for my music, I'm very happy with what I accomplished in 2009. I probably made about ten songs and have taken a bit of a new direction with my boy that I'm working with and we're still improving and learning how to shape our style. I'm excited that we're working on it and improving.

I'm disappointed in myself as far as my time management and exercise. I'm just not doing anything with either and I need to. Those will be my biggest goals for the year.

But other than that great things happened for me this year - I quit my job to play poker, I bought a new car, and surprisingly I've made it as a finalist for an entrepreneur grant that I have to present for in Chicago this month. Exciting for me and it will be another great learning experience.

That being said, I have so much growing to do. I told myself that 2009 was my year to "make moves" and I did. Quit my job, bought a car, started a new company.

Now, 2010 is my year to "Arrive."

2010 is Here

2010-01-01T19:53:00.000-08:00

Yo yo yo yo...

Sorry about the absence.

The good news is I'm not busto, so we can leave those assumptions alone.

I finished 2009 very strong, had one of my best months ever (or maybe the best ever) in December. I came into the month hurting and set a goal for myself to win $750 per session for 20 sessions and ended up surpassing my goal by a lot. I was running so well that I stopped going to my prop player job to go to my regular 5/10 game and keep playing there.

The prop job actually sucks balls but I'll write more on that in a different entry (how many times have I said that lol).

Anyways I have a ton of resolutions and one of them is to blog regularly so I wanted to make sure I get an entry in here before the end of the day.

Went to a mansion party that was nuts last night in Hollywood Hills. It was a mess getting in and getting seated at our table but by the time we finally did it was a great time, although some purses and shit got stolen but shit happens.

So I'll post my resolutions tomorrow because there's a lot of them, I plan on having a big year. 2009 was my year to "make moves" and I definitely did. I'm tagging 2010 as my "arrival" so I have high hopes for this year.

Happy New Year and peace.

Having a good week...

2009-10-21T13:45:00.000-07:00

There's a bunch of things that have happened in the past week that have been good, including 5/6 winning sessions. Shout out to my boys that kept the positive vibes going (Drew, Viet).

Also went out Monday night and had a good time. Got my favorite phone call "P is in town, we're goin out" and after that it was a wrap but I did spend the night next to the toilet throwing up throughout the morning.

I have noticed that the games at Hollywood Park are literally dying. It seems like they lose a table every month in their poker room. I'm guessing it's a combination of fish running out of money and players moving to other casinos where the service, staff, and games are better. For some reason Hollywood Park doesn't provide better service or food, they just bank on their prime location to keep them running but it's going to end soon if they don't make a change.

I did run horrendous in NFL picks. It was bound to happen. The last three weeks my buddies have asked me which games I liked in the NFL so I gave them my picks and was 16-0 over three weeks. So I decided it was time for me to start capitalizing on this and of course I go 1-5 in my picks. Brilliant!

Also saw a couple movies, Paranormal Activity, which I enjoyed a lot and Where the Wild Things Are, which I thought was so-so and somewhat disappointed with it.

The inside scoop is that if Ivey doubles up at the final table, he's gonna win it.

No Posts = Running Bad

2009-10-16T13:10:00.001-07:00

Let's face it -- I'm a fair-weather blogger. I hate to come on here and tell y'all how bad I'm doing.

Basically I've made several mistakes in my young poker career and I'm not ashamed to say that I've made them, but I'm happy to say that I'm learning from them and growing from them (hopefully).

Let me outline some of the mistakes that I've made:

4. Went to the World Series under bankrolled and entered a few small buy-in events. While I was out there, I gambled on craps, sports and black jack. I probably broke even in these side games because I had a monster day in black jack and craps, but it changed my mentality. I was there for the month of June and stayed in the Bellagio, where they have conveniently placed the craps tables close to the guest elevators. I'm also not a tournament player but I played the first $1k buy-in event and busted on the bubble, which gave me some optimism for the upcoming tournaments, none of which I did any better in. Vegas crushed my bankroll and I was lucky to come back to L.A. and rebound quickly in the cash games in July.

3. Too much traveling at the wrong time. In August, right in the middle of my hot streak in the L.A. cash games, I went to Hawaii and then Seattle for over two weeks. There's nothing wrong with traveling, but in hindsight I would have much rather stayed in L.A. and continued to build my bankroll. That being said, I did manage to somehow make money in Hawaii when I won a small online tournament and another $1k at an Indian Reservation casino near Seattle. However, the problem with the traveling was it completely took me out of my 'grinder' mindset. When I returned to L.A., I still felt like I was on vacation. I took a few extra days off and never really settled back into a good routine in regards to poker.

2. Spending too much money. A lot of my good friends always tease me about my horrible spending habits. If there's a new pair of Jordans, I buy them. If we go to the strip club, I spend a lot. If I go out to the club, I spend a lot on drinks and bottles. When I'm running hot, it's great and no problem. But when I'm running bad and I'm looking at all these shoes that I never wear, I feel like a moron, which I am.

1. Bad prioritizing. I'm gonna be honest here - too much time with girls. If I'm not on a date one night, I'm going out the next night to check girls out. That means $ on drinks, then if I meet a girl, $ on dates. I've gotten (more) out of shape and lazier since I quit my job, which is the exact opposite of what I told myself I would do. I figured once I quit my job I would have much more time for exercising and the gym, but instead my attitude has become way too relaxed towards my own health.

And after all those mistakes it really hurt to run bad for the last month+. I would say I had two winning sessions out of about 15 at one point and also made several mistakes of my own.

The good thing is that I have time to make a change and improve on this. I have the right people around me as far as friends and family and I have plenty of opportunities to make it happen.

I'm thinking about (and probably will) working as a prop player for a few days a week (six hour shifts) to keep a consistent paycheck coming that will pay my bills. I definitely need to see if it's worth it because I would be playing a smaller game ($100-200 buy-in, $2/3 blinds) and making $24/hr. The people I've talked to think it's accurate to assume that at best I would make $25/hr. in a game that small. If that's accurate, I would be fine doing that for a while and playing my regular game at night. However, that's saying at BEST I'd be making $25/hr. + $24/hr. But it will definitely be a learning experience on this poker trail to see the inner-workings of a poker room.

I hope everyone is doing well. I'll try and post more often.

4 years...

Sour Update

2009-09-24T14:31:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of updates for anyone that cares, especially my dude Drew. Appreciate the support and following from everyone.

ANYWAYS...

Let's catch up. So I started that challenge last time I was posting, I don't remember what it was but I failed miserably. I believe after my last post I had a horrible day at Hollywood Park.

I decided to take a couple days off before the live tournaments started at Commerce. I was going to take a shot at their $500k guaranteed tournament. It was an interesting tournament for $220. It wasn't a "rebuy" tournament but you had the option to buy into all three day one's if you wanted. And that's what i did, wasting all $660. The first day I was on a roll until I got aces cracked twice in ten minutes and then got my tens beat by a flush draw when we went all-in on the flop. The shitty part was that it was the same guy.. all three times.. all three times with suited connectors or gappers.

The second day I went pretty deep, and was about 190th (about 1300 I believe started that day) before I busted out. 127 make the money. Ugh.

The third day was the day of the USC/Ohio State game and I had no business playing that day because I was unfocused and really didn't care if I busted out because I wanted to go watch the game. So I busted out in the second level with some reckless/careless play.

The good thing was that Commerce has the "$400" game, where the min/max buy-in is $400. As of last month, Commerce is now the only casino in L.A. that still has the $400 game and this is the game where I really made a lot of my money. So it was nice to play that cash game again and I made a couple thousand or so in two days. I didn't play cash games the third day.

After that, it was downhill. I think I took three or four L's in a row at Hollywood Park.

Now I'm back in Seattle for some family matters.

I plan to post more often when I get back to L.A., making some revisions to my life and that includes posting on here more often whether it's related to poker or not.

Hope everyone's luck is better than mine right now.

peace.. 4 years. stay focused.

I'm in the Fail Lane

2009-09-02T16:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I started off at the no-cap game and it was a terrible game. I lost $500.

I moved to the $3-500 game and grinded my way up about $5/600 when the action started picking up. I won a few good hands and before I knew it, I was up over $1200 at the table, which put me up over $700 for the day and would have got me on pace for my challenge.

Did I leave?

No.

With good reason. Two donkeys showed up to my table and the action picked up a lot. Then the following hand occurred*:

I have AA in the small blind. Super donk in early position makes it $15 ($400 behind). Two callers, then the button makes it $55 ($500 behind). I raise to $170. The original donk-raiser says "Well, this is my favorite hand," and moves all-in. Everyone folds to me and I call. The flop comes Q-T-4 rainbow. Turn 4, river x and the guy turns over 4-7 off-suit.

Not much later I raise with AK and the donk, who's stack has dwindled to about $200, moves all-in on me. Everyone folds and I call. I miss everything and he turns over 5-6 offsuit for a pair of fives on the turn.

Not much later after that I pick up Q-2 of hearts in the big blind. The donk makes it $30 and gets one caller (another semi-donk). The flop comes 7h-Qd-Kh. I check, the donk bets $75 and we both call. I was tempted to raise but didn't want him out if I hit my heart. The turn is a rag heart. The donk checks, the other players moves in, I smooth call and the donk smooth calls. The river is a blank and I push in hoping to get a call (I definitely overbet it) and the donk folds. The other player shows the nut flush.

So by the end of this shit I ended up down $925 for the day.

I took today off and played a little micro stakes PLO on Full Tilt. By the way, Full Tilt put my money back into my account and also gave me $300 for my troubles getting the check cashed. This is pretty sweet considering that's the exact amount that I deposited in the first place before I won the tournament. I would post their email except I don't have photoshop on this computer. The funny thing is my boy ended up calling Ivey to ask him about the mishap and Ivey was like "Why didn't he just get thye money wired to his bank? That's what everyone does..." which makes more sense but I didn't want to give my routing information out over the connection in Hawaii so I just opted for the check. I've also received checks from FT before that went through just fine. I guess I'll try the wire now.

So far:

Day 1: +$270
Day 2: -$925

*does anyone know of a site that converts live game hand histories to html? All the sites that I could find just want the FT of PS hand histories pasted into the converter, but I need one that I can do manually.

Peace. Don't forget: Four years.

Here's the email from FT:

Hi 206change,

You are receiving this email because there is an issue with your recent check withdrawal from Full Tilt Poker. The following transaction(s) are affected:

03961E89 totalling $2000.00.

If you have not yet done so, please do not attempt to cash or deposit your current withdrawal check(s). Due to issues with one of our payment processors, the checks listed above will not be honoured by the bank.

The total amount you attempted to withdraw will be returned to your Full Tilt account within the next 24 hours.

We have now resolved the issue and you may re-initiate another check withdrawal once your balance is restored in the cashier.

We understand the importance of receiving your funds in a timely manner and apologize sincerely for this delay and for any inconvenience caused.

In appreciation of your patience in this matter, we will be crediting your Full Tilt Poker account with $300.00 within the next 24 hours.

Thank you again for your patience and understanding. Please reply to this email for any clarification and assistance.

Sincerely,

Full Tilt Poker Support

Day 1: Fail

2009-09-01T15:03:00.000-07:00

Well just like last time I gave myself a challenge, I failed day 1.

However, I made a little money, scoring a profit of $270.

I'm going back today, now I need to make up for the lost time.

Yesterday a buddy who needs some funds gave me $190 to invest in my poker session. Before I knew it, I was in for $1500 (the buy-in max is $500) so his $190 shrunk to 13% of my buy-in. Luckily I was able to find a fish and fight back to reach a profit and return $230 to him.

So today I'll be in for 100% of myself, which I like a little better.

peace.

New Challenge: 500/Day for 10 Days

2009-08-31T12:43:00.001-07:00

I've come to the conclusion that I play better when I have some sort of goal or challenge that I'm doing.

Therefore, I've set a new challenge for myself: the 500. My aim is to run off 10 straight sessions of $500+ wins. Not easy but definitely do-able.

In other news, I had a weekend full of fails. Most notably, went out on Friday night to a club called "My House" here in L.A. with a few big name poker players and it was extremely disappointing. "My House" is supposed to be one of the hot spots in L.A. but that became too literal when it felt like they had no A/C in there. Basically some bottles arrived at the table, we got settled and started sweating just sitting there at the table, not even dancing or talking to any girls or anything. So we left after about 30 minutes and they went back to Vegas.

Saturday was just as bad. I went with my boy to see some guys he knows perform at the Key Club on Sunset. The venue was packed but unfortunately it was packed with fat chicks and dudes. Full. With no cute chicks. At all. On top of that, the music was insufferable. That's the first time I've ever used that word. That's how bad the performances were.

Hopefully the tables will be more fun. Getting back on my regular grind today.

Still haven't heard back from Full Tilt regarding my check.

4years.

Can't Believe My Eyes

2009-08-28T13:33:00.001-07:00

Had a bad day at work yesterday, lost 1500. Dropped $800 in the no cap game and $700 in a new game that Hollywood Park is spreading, a $5/5 no limit game with a buyin of $300-500. I love the game, just had some bad luck. I think I'm gonna take today off to get everything in order here in L.A...I've been bullshittin this week.

Here's a track that I recorded on Wednesday "Can't Believe My Eyes," I'm on the second verse...

cuatros anos.

Back in Cali

2009-08-27T10:27:00.000-07:00

I got back to L.A. on Tuesday and haven't played poker since. Just been running some errands, relaxing and had a studio session last night that went well. The annual brush/forest fires have started up here in Southern California and the largest one isn't too far from L.A., about 30 minutes north in the valley. Last night I was driving over the Hollywood hill on the 101 and could see into the valley and the scene was just surreal. It was right at sunset and the entire sky was purple and orange. I wanted to pull over and take a picture because it looked like the world was going to end or some shit.

In other news I received my check from Full Tilt, went to deposit it and the bank wouldn't accept it because the account it was from had insufficient funds. So if anyone is planning on cashing out money from FT beware. I've emailed support but haven't received a response.

They better pay me my monies.

Gonna go back to the casino today. Trying to think of some sort of goal to keep things interesting. I was going to use the money from Full Tilt and see how high I could take it in two weeks at a live casino but obviously that's not gonna happen.

peace, 4, years.

Snoqualmie Casino

2009-08-24T18:03:00.001-07:00

Over the course of our friendly hold 'em games in Hawaii, I learned that Real Estate Rob (aka the luckiest man ever) has been going to the Snoqualmie Casino a couple times a week since December and playing black jack. And the rumor is that he's only lost twice. This sounds amazing but if you know Rob, you believe it. The guy runs good.

So anyways I agreed with Rob to make a trip to the casino, which is about 35 minutes outside of Seattle, while I was in town. Last Thursday was the day and we agreed to meet there around 4 p.m.

I was running late getting there because I made a stop at the T.I.T.S. clothing brand office to visit my boys who run the company, but Rob arrived promptly at 4 p.m. By the time I got there, he was up $250 in black jack.

The casino itself is very nice. It's built to look like a snow lodge, the kind you would see as a snowboard/ski lodge. It's pretty big on the inside and is stocked with slot machines, black jack tables and even a couple craps tables.

Once inside, I couldn't resist getting some black jack in with Rob. I wanted to see just how lucky he was. I told him I'd probably lose my $300 in about ten minutes. To my surprise, I ended winning about $400 in 30 minutes or so. And that's after we started catching bad vibes from a dealer who was pulling the 6-card 21's. So we left the table and I told Rob I thought we should try our luck at craps.

We hit the craps table and due to our positioning on the table, we were due up to shoot the dice after about seven guys took their turn first. By the time the dice got to me, I was down to about $200. Forty minutes late my roll was over and I had about $1500 in front of me. Looks like Rob was rubbing off on me.

I left that table with about $1200 or so in chips from the original $300 that I used to buy into the black jack table.

We headed to the poker room, which is pretty small and had two $4-8 limit games going and two $2/5 no limit games going. We put our names on the list and got put on different tables.

My table was WEAK. There was one donkey, about two guys that were willing to mix it up but were easy to read, and four rocks. Perfect. The buy-in was $100-300 and it took me a long time to get something going. I kept trying to isolate the donk but juts couldn't make anything happen and he wouldn't fold if he had any pair or any draw.

But after a few hours I caught a little rush and started stacking my chips. We left around 1 a.m. and I was up about $1100 in the poker game. I'm not sure if the numbers add up on here but overall I left the casino with a profit of $2300, which made my day...or week. So between my only day at the casino and my tournament win on Full Tilt, I made about $4000 on this two-week vacation. Really incredible considering I was planning on spending up to $2000 (which I did.. and more).

Hopefully the luck will continue when I return to L.A. tomorrow. Good luck to everyone else as well. I know V is taking his shot at poker now.

4 years.

Hawaii Home Games

2009-08-18T19:28:00.001-07:00

While I was in Hawaii we played poker probably about six or seven times. There were about six of us that played so we usually had 2, 3, 4, or maybe 5 guys that were willing to start a game up.

Games were very short-stacked.. we played min/max buy-ins of $20 with blinds of usually $.50/1.00 and sometimes $1/2. Overall I was definitely a loser. I played incredibly loose aggressive and was up against "Real Estate Rob" who has also been deemed the "luckiest man ever" by our group of friends. It was nearly impossible to get it all in against Rob and survive the river, no matter the size of suckout he needed (and to his credit he got it all in good many times and obviously no one was able to suck out on him).

I would say I lost around $200 in these games. I definitely bought in about three times as much as anyone else but also was able to build my stack up faster than everyone except for Rob...his stack just grew and grew.

Overall it was a lot of fun and I'm not keeping these numbers in my records. I basically came with a vacation budget and am just including the losses in that budget.

peace!! 4yrs.

Full Tilt in Hawaii

2009-08-18T00:03:00.000-07:00

Right now I'm on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. The island is breathtakingly beautiful but with one catch: There's really nothing to do after the sun goes down. This island has very little (if any at all) night life and besides that, I have no rental car to get me around.

So last night I decided to deposit some money onto Full Tilt and get my online grind going and before I knew it, I was at the final table of the $8.5k guaranteed at 5 a.m. with a monster stack. I battled my opponents and knocked out 6 of the final 8 players en route to winning first place.

Today I played $3/6 no limit and was up another $1200 before I hit some coolers, made some bad moves and ended up losing $600. I decided it'd be smart of myself to cash out $2000 and leave the rest on the site (the $300 I started with), since I could probably put that $2k to better use at a casino then on Full Tilt. It also ensures that I made some money while I was in Hawaii.

4 years..

7k in 7days final results

2009-08-14T23:38:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna be completely honest here. When I said I was going for $7k in seven days, I thought I could do it but I also felt that it was unlikely. It basically meant that I had to win every day an average of a thousand (obviously) without losing. This sounds simple enough but it's very easy to have two, three, or even more losing sessions out of seven sessions. And when factoring that in, I would have to average about $2k per session to counter the losses.

Then my first session I lost, although it was a small loss of under $200. After that I didn't have another losing session and had my best weekend ever (I think).

I played the $500 game at Hollywood Park most of the time. The game is a $5/10 no limit game with no cap. The players are 90% regulars but it's a beatable game and when a fish comes in the game it's not too tough to capitalize. This is where I had my big sessions. One session I was into the game for $3500 (bought in for $1500, then $2000) and ended up over $4600.

I was actually able to take my last day in Los Angeles off to run some errands, pick up some bathing suits and stuff for Hawaii and pack for my two-week trip to Hawaii and Seattle, which I'm in the middle of. I ended up not only making the $7k, but more than doubling my goal, which is great for me considering I was looking at the next two weeks possibly with no poker at all.

Anyways, here are my numbers from my personal $7k in 7 days:

Day 1: -$170
Day 2: +$4320
Day 3: +$810
Day 4: +$1470
Day 5: +$4665
Day 6: +$3680
Total: +$15070

4 years..

Beast Mode

2009-08-09T15:34:00.001-07:00

Short entry because I'm trying to get back to the casino this afternoon.

Right now I'm in beast mode.

Day 4 and 5 were both good. Both days I had to buy in twice. The first day I just had a cooler where I flopped a straight after I raised preflop with Ad4d and a guy caught a boat on the turn with 33. Yesterday I pretty much tricked off my starting stack with loose play and being too sloppy aggressive at a table full of tight/good players. Both days I rebounded well and the results are below. Yesterday I'm pretty sure was my biggest day to date. I'm not positive on that but I think it was. I have two days left and I've surpassed the $7k that I was hoping (and it was a reach) to hit. So I'm extremely happy about that and I'm hoping to take advantage of the heater.

My boy sent me back three of the tracks I recorded and they sound good. I've posted the Poker Face song above at the head of the blog. I'm going to put a link for download too. If you like it, feel free to post it in a forum or wherever. I'd like to see some feedback.

Peace.

Day 1: -$170
Day 2: +$4320
Day 3: +$810
Day 4: +$1470
Day 5: +$4665
Total: +$11390

7k in 7days: Ahead of Pace

2009-08-07T10:22:00.000-07:00

I had a decent day yesterday. Had it not been for a horrendous call that I made on a river, I would have done a lot better. However, to counter that horrendous call I made two great calls. I'll go through all three hands in the order that I played them:

1) Donk straddles, I'm on the button. Three or four callers, I call the button with T8 offsuit. Straddle pops it $100 more. Everyone folds and I call. Flop comes Qxx. Donk insta-checks. I bet out $80 to get a read, I know that he's not folding. He raises to $180. I call with a read that he doesn't have shit, planning to pop him on the turn or river. Turn is a ten. He checks. I check, hoping to induce a bet on the river if I can fade a king or ace. River is another queen. He bets $200, I call and he mucks his hand and I don't have to show.

2) I straddle with Q9 offsuit, five callers. Flop comes Q8x. I check UTG and the whole table checks. Turn is a 9, bringing a second club. I bet out $80. One caller and the button, who is the tightest player on the table, makes it $150 more. I put him on JT and call, hoping to hit my boat or bluff the river if a club hits. The other player calls as well, killing my club bluff on the river. The only other hand I can put the raiser on is 89. The river is an 8, which is pretty much the worst card for my hand. We both check to the button and he bets $600. I tank and finally call with a prayer that he's bluffing and he shows JT of hearts. Like I said, horrible call.

3) Four limpers and I have 55 on the button. I make it $60. The same donk from hand (1) is the only caller. The flop comes J-8-4. He checks to me and I bet $100. He raises to $200. I call, I don't have him on anything. The turn is another jack and almost before the card comes out he bets $260. I call. The river is a 7. He fires out $400 right away and I think for a long time. I'd love to be able to raise him in case he got lucky with a hand like A7 but I only have $150 after the $400. I eventually call and he shows Q4 and the whole table can't believe that I called with 55.

Today I'm working on some stuff for my new business and then going to the casino around 1/2 p.m. I got there late yesterday and missed out on some good action. I think I arrived around 3/4 p.m. and there was a great game going. I got on the list but by the time I got to the game it wasn't that good.

Day 1: -$170
Day 2: +$4320
Day 3: +$810
Total: +$4960

Good luck, 4 years (don't forget)

Off 2 Good Start

2009-08-06T13:29:00.000-07:00

Well Tuesday after I posted on here I was motivated to go to the studio and record so I didn't get to the casino until like 9 p.m.

The studio session was very productive, I recorded four songs including the poker song (that was the worst by far) and I'm waiting for them to be mixed down so I'll post a couple once I get them.

At the casino I doubled up my first hand of the night at the $200 game (2/5 blinds) when I limped in the cutoff with 57 offsuit and flopped the nuts. I just smooth called a guy on the flop and turn and moved in on the river and he had to call.

Then I table changed to a table that had more donks and promptly went down 170. At this point my boy hit me and told me p.i. was in town and ready to kick it so I left to go out and the first night was a loss. Great discipline right? Someone asks me to go out and I leave down.

Yesterday was a different story. I beasted the $400 game ridiculously and was up nearly $3k when the table was about to break. On the last hand of the table I tried to move a tight player off his pocket kings on a Q466x board and doubled him up to drop $900.

The game broke and I went to the $500 game and did well in that game. It was a crazy game with some eccentric personalities but unfortunately I don't have time to write about them. The funny thing is I ended up winning the same exact amount at both the $400 game and the $500 game: $2160.

So far here are my 7k in 7 days results:

Day 1: -$170
Day 2: +$4320

About to go back to the casino now. 4years, peace!

7k in 7dayz

2009-08-04T13:41:00.001-07:00

Here we go y'all.

Another challenge to myself. I really wish I had set a goal when I was in Vegas so that I was more focused and disciplined.

Tryin to make 7k in 7 days.

Basically the reason for this is that next Tuesday I'm flying to Hawaii for a week and then to Seattle for a week. I don't think I'm going to make much money during that time (the biggest drawback of playing professional poker is there's no paid time off) so I need to stack some before I go.

I figure if I can make 7k, that will do.

Right now I'm writing lyrics so I haven't started yet but I'll start this afternoon.

four years!

here's my poker song, I think i'm gonna record it today to lady gaga's poker face beat.

Hook
You wanna play me? Then raise me...
Cuz guess what man I'm crazy...
I don't give a fuck about my cash
Or any odds you lay me...

verse1
I'm sittin at my table, all these donkeys workin' angles...
They don't understand I'm quite willing and able to fanagle...
..I dangle invitations to the soft calling stations...
Then I pop 'em when I flop 'em and they can't believe I'm raisin...
Yeah, I'm a test your patience it ain't safe when I'm involved...
Cuz I might just fuck around, play it blind and bet it all....
Best believe me there's a reason to my rhyme like every time...
Crazy dude I'm makin' moves that will confuse and blow your mind...

verse2
I'm still grinding like Phil Ivey, just as grimey as Jerome...
And I been known to kill a table anytime I'm in the zone...
Mista murda, killa kev I'm on the hunt for any fish...
Friday night you playin' poker cuz you couldn't get a bitch...
Well fuck it now you mine, I'm a catch you with these nines...
Hit a set and stick 'em up your ass until they touch your spine...
Now our chips are all combined, in the middle lookin' juicy...
You keep on throwin jabs but your punches couldn't move me...
And did I mention half the cocktail staff are my groupies?...
Probly cuz they see me with more sets than a movie....

verse2
I get rich, you get poor, there's nothing else to be explored...
Guarantee I'm here tomorrow so come back and give me more...
Yeah, go and ask the floor, how much money I be stackin'...
They livin' off my tips, so they're dyin' for my action...
Yes I give it and I take it, I been called the corporation...
Tax you dummies for your money that's my only motivation...
Hesitations I see faces when they twisted cuz they missed it...
Taking chips like they pics, please come again thanks for the business...

Running good, playing better

2009-07-26T14:16:00.000-07:00

I'm on my a-game right now.

I think it qualifies as a heater now and it couldn't have been more on time. Ten day winning streak and I hope to keep it going... forever. Yeah, Bobby's Room here I come. This is how it works right?

It's funny how winning or success breeds more success (winning) and actually does motivate me to get other shit done in life. In this case I'm talking music. I'm ready to get some business done.

Back to the poker, I've been running good but playing good. I would say almost as good as I've ever played. Everyone at my casino tells me that I'm running good and I like that. I like for people to tell me how lucky I am. Because that means I'm winning. To the outside eye, the guy with all the chips is always the luck box. To me, it's the guy who's willing to push a guy off his AQ with shit on a Axx flop when it can be done. And fold it when it can't be done.

There's two things that I've really been trying to work on the past month:

1) Isolating the bad players, or isolating anyone for that matter. This means a lot of re-raising pre-flop with a wide range of hands. I've done it with K2, JT, etc. if I feel like the original raiser could be outplayed.

2) Playing position against good players. This seems quite obvious but it makes a huge difference in the long run and I think it's easy to fall into early position traps and shitty situations with suited connectors, flush draws, top pair, etc. I'm trying to minimize my early position situations.

This weekend has been a good weekend as my guy big time aka fake drake is in town for the weekend from Wisconsin.

P.S. if you like hip hop, check out the new song I put up top. It goes.

Four Years.

I'm On A Roll

2009-07-23T13:59:00.000-07:00

I'm an ass because I haven't posted yet this week and I told myself I'd be on here regularly.

Good news: I have a session winning streak that dates back to last Monday so that's Mon, Tues, Weds, Thurs, Sun, Mon, Tues, Weds all wins. Much needed. My smallest win was about $200 and my biggest was $2700 with everything in between (although only one session over $2000).

The best part about this (or actually the worst probably) is that Hollywood Park has been pretty dead. The $400 game has been off-and-on ever since I got back from Vegas and the $200 game is full of grinders with a few donks mixed in but rarely have any donks touched the $400 game, which is my main game.

I celebrated with my boy who made the main event final table at the WSOP and he wanted to make sure that I'm at the final table. I've been in the audience three times when he's made the final table and he's won all three times, that includes two wsop bracelets and one WPT championship. So I can't wait until November to see it go down!! The game plan is already in place and I'm full confident that he'll be able to take down if he can avoid two or more bad beats while he's one of the smaller stacks. We're not really the euro-types to start chanting and singing when he wins a pot so we're thinking about just getting some t-shirts printed up so espn can identify his crew without us acting an ass. As my boy said "we're too cool to do that stuff." hahaha.

Hopefully all y'[all are killing the tables.

Peace.. 4 years!!

My WSOP tournament losses

2009-07-15T14:58:00.000-07:00

I played three WSOP tournaments: the first 1k stimulus tournament and two $1500 tournaments. Due to so much missed time on here and me trying to slowly get back into the habit of writing, I'm going to break these up. I've also added a bunch of pictures to the side bar "famous foes," I'm sure you'll recognize some and won't recognize some.

In the first tournament I went deep into the 12th level, which was around 1:00 a.m. on the first day or so. I played fairly strong the entire day until the last couple levels. Basically what happened was somehow we had a huge fish with a huge stack at our table. So I tried to get involved in hands with him and it backfired. I called him down with KJ on a jack high board and he had aces. I was amazed that some horrible players had deep stacks late in the tournament.

This was my first real tournament experience and it's just amazing how many guys shove with A7 or better and get lucky by spiking an ace against any random pocket pair. There was one guy at my table late in the day who treated his ace-rags like they were kings.

Anyways I played day 1a with nearly 3000 players and it was estimated that if day 1b was the same, roughly 500-600 players would be paid. We were down to about 350 players in day 1a when I busted out. The part that really sucked was that when I was leaving the room they announced "Congratulations players, you've all made it to day two." Lol.

One thing that did really suck about the tournament was my first break. I headed to the bathroom to take a piss. I was in the middle of my piss when every single toilet in the bathroom (at least 20 toilets) started overflowing simultaneously. Great. Dirty piss water all over my Jordans.

This would be a sign of things to come.

Quick Update

2009-07-14T13:23:00.001-07:00

I apologize to those who have followed my blog as well as offered their words of support in my poker quest/career.

When I went to Vegas for the month of June, I was expecting to have a live internet connection in my hotel room but due to some technical difficulties, I had no connection at the Bellagio.

My first month pro was good in Los Angeles as I made some money. However, I slipped in a few areas and I'm mad at myself for that. I stopped tracking my numbers by the hour and instead decided to keep a rough count like most of my peers do. You go to the casino with 1500, you come home with 2200, you know how much you made. Simple enough.

I think that not writing my numbers down and recording them made it easier for me to lose.

That combined with the fact that I was getting the worst run of cards in my life in Vegas and not cashing in any tournaments was a bad combination.

Now I'm back in L.A. and grinding again so I'll start posting more often and give this blog some much needed updates.

The good news is a friend of mine won two bracelets at the WSOP and is making a deep run in the Main Event right now. You can probably figure out who he is. He's also 3-0 at winning a final table when I'm there so I'm hoping he makes it to November and I can be present to watch him make poker history.

Peace.

It's official: today is my last day at work

2009-05-01T14:17:00.001-07:00

Today marks the last day and the first day. I'm out of work within a couple hours and after that I'm to HP to earn a real living.

Tomorrow I'll play in the $400k guaranteed at Commerce.

See y'all at the top!

4 years.

Two more days

2009-04-28T17:28:00.000-07:00

The time is nearing. The end and the beginning. And I can't wait.

I'm a bit nervous about a downswing but I have full confidence that if I continue to play the way that I'm playing, everything will be on the up and up.

I spent last weekend in Wisconsin with some of my closest friends and it was a nice time to relax, although Madison, WI is quite a boring place and it rained heavily while we there. But it was definitely worth the trip.

So here I am at work finishing my third-to-last day. All I've been doing is training the guy who is going to replace me.

When I first quit I pretty much held out on telling people what I was going to be doing and simply letting them know that it was "Time to move on," but since then I've given in and just told people that I'm going to be playing poker.

I played one LONG session since my last post and salvaged a $100 losing session after being in for $1600. It was an extremely long session and we were three handed at about 2:30 a.m. and I had $600 and ran it up to $1900 before the table filled up again and I dropped to $1500 before the table broke around 6:30 a.m. Once again my aces failed me when the table donk hit his QT two pair (he flopped top pair) on the river.

Here's a song that I recorded a couple weeks ago. I'm on the hook and first verse. Good luck, peace, four years.

Fruck

2009-04-22T17:10:00.001-07:00

Let's say I'm a cat. Just for a moment, pretend I'm a cat.
Kind of like this:

Last night I got skinned in like seven different ways.
Kind of like this:

I put them all-in on the turn and they rivered me.

So I said 'fuck it, next time we'll do the flop' and they run, run, stunned me.

So I said 'fuck it, I'll just move it in pre-flop' and they still hit me on the river with the two out underpair.

This is a test and I'm determined to pass it.

So yeah, your boy dropped $1800 last night AFTER being up $500 in my first hour. I think that poker Jesus (not to be confused with Jesus Ferguson) was trying to tell me that if I don't follow through with my plans, I won't succeed. The reason I say this is that I finished my hoop game at 9 p.m. and went to HP with the goal of making just a few hundy in a couple hours. Well, mission accomplished... quickly. Did I leave? No.

I stayed and lost it back and then a lot more. Teach me poker Jesus, teach me. Punish me for my sins!

I'll be there tonight if anyone wants to take advantage of my bad luck.

Lol okay that's enough complaining, I'm really not bad at taking losses and bad beats but if I can't vent on my own blog then where can I vent?

The good thing is I feel like I'm playing my best poker right now. Just having a bad run of luck, although I did make one $200 mistake yesterday but that was nothing compared to the other hands that I lost. I was the fourth caller in the cutoff with 22 for $60 preflop. The BB, who was tight had raised it PF. Two callers to me so I call trying to hit the set.

Flop comes J-9-4 and everyone checks to me and I bet $200 and the original raiser smooth calls, obviously with top set. I never bet again and he pushed all-in on the river but I felt like a dumb ass for wasting the $200.

Good luck. four years (really 3.5 almost now).

gone!

Rough take off

2009-04-21T14:53:00.000-07:00

Between Friday and Saturday I lost $3200. Even though I obviously wasn't hoping for it, I pretty much knew that once I quit my job I would lose. I'm still working at the 9-5 for two more weeks but Friday was the first session that I played since I submitted my two weeks, so I guess I'm not a "professional" yet. Hopefully it won't happen twice. It was a rough two sessions though. I think I got my aces cracked four out of four times. I sucessfully convinced a guy that I was full of shit when the flop came 3-4-9 and he shoved on me with TT on the flop, only to river a 10. Then a guy flopped two pair with KQ and I should have gotten away when the turn came a jack but I didn't.

Anyways I'm not complaining at all. I rebounded decently yesterday when I called in sick to the job and spent the day grinding. I came up like $1300 or something and I'm hoping that momentum carries over into my next session.

Celebrated 420 a bit yesterday but it's so damn hot in L.A. that my apartment was uncomfortable and I sent the following email to my roommate today:

I grabbed the fan from the living room and put it in my room at 5 a.m. I woke up with my head covered in sweat and my pillow drenched from sweat and couldn’t fall asleep, I’ve never been that hot in our apartment before.

I'm planning to go back tonight after my hoop game, I'll keep y'all updated.

4yrs.

2009: +$25331
January: 120.75 hrs., +$14,873
February: 77.75 hrs., +$8520
March: 69 hrs., -$1220

April: +$3158
04.01.09: +$978
04.03.09: +$220
04.04.09: +$3620
04.05.09: -$1320
04.09.09: -$1000
04.13.09: +$2470
04.17.09: -$1700
04.18.09: -$1500
04.20.09: +$1390

And so it begins...

2009-04-16T10:02:00.000-07:00

I just submitted my resignation at my job. I'm working through the month of April and then I'm out.

Now the real work begins.

I've been playing poker for about 4/5 years, and for the last 2.5 years I've been playing profitable poker.

I've heard all the negative feedback about quitting my job in this economy yadda yadda yadda and I full understand where that feedback is comnig from as it's quite reasonable and considerate by those giving it.

However, every person has his own life and his own set of circumstances and I have mine. Here are the following criteria that I have been considering for months now:

- I've been at my job for four years.
- I'm still basically in an entry level position.
- By leaving my job, I'm not leaving a great potision that I can't get back, whether it's here or at another company.
- I have a college degree and I now have seven years of work experience in a diverse group of companies that vary from sports writing to radio and television to car insurance to legal work.
- I am tired of the work that I do.
- I have a back-up plan if I fail at poker.
- I want freedom in every day life with my own scheduling and being able to travel when I want to.

Then yesterday a couple of events occurred at my job that really helped push me to over the edge. I was promised a 6% raise in February. This raise wasn't given to me until yesterday's pay day and they promised me the retro pay for the initial raise date. Turns out, they only gave me a 2% raise so the retro pay check was 66% smaller than I thought it would be. Ugh.

Then, at the end of the day I get the head's up that I'm "under the micropscope." Whatever that means, it pissed me off. I almost sent myself an email that said "If you're reading this and your name isn't Kevin, fuck you!" but I refrained from doing so.

My decision was already made but the question that remained was when was I going to leave? I came to the conclusion that if I'm going to go to Vegas for virtually all of June, then I need to have time to grind and build my bankroll back up (I don't have all of the money in my BR). At this point, as you may have noticed, my hours are decreasing at the poker table and to be honest it effects my play.

For instance, if I know that I'm going out of town this weekend and I have a basketball game tonight, that means if I want to get in a session, I have to go play after my basketball game. Not to mention I have to be at work at 8 a.m. so I have to get this session in and make some good money while I'm there. This causes me to have a different mindset when showing up to the casino. I wish it didn't, but it does. A perfect example of this is the QT hand a couple posts ago where my final conclusion was "Fuck it if he has me beat, I'll just go home and take the loss. If not, this will be a great double up." Terrible mindset to have.

So I want to take the month of May to grind on my own time and my own schedule with peace of mind. Poker world, here I come. For real.

FOUR YEARS.

Sigh of relief

2009-04-14T14:33:00.000-07:00

Ever since my last session I've been constantly telling myself that next time I go play, I'm going to minimize my mistakes and do everything within my power to not make any. So last night I went and played and was successful in that.

I can only really remember losing a couple hands at showdown and in one of them I ran my kings against a guy's aces. He was relatively short-stacked (about $450 or so) so it didn't kill me and I also couldn't really get away pre-flop when he went all-in, although he was a tight player.

But the guy in the picture above showed up and turned out to be a HUGE donk. He played for about an hour and a half and literally folded only two hands pre-flop. So he probably played 48/50 hands or something like that. Anyways, he was directly to my right. Here were two hands where I got him:

I have 8s4s in middle/late position. Flop comes K32 with two spades. He bets $10 into a $50 pot and I'm the only caller. The turn is the king of spades. Bingo. At this point I'm hoping he has a king, which is what I'm putting him on. He bets $100 and I make it $200 and he insta-calls. The river is the Queen of clubs and he comes out and bets $100 so I call and he turns over T3 offsuit. True story.

That hand was really the hand that exposed his donkish ways to the table. Before that, everyone was a little wary of him and no one had gotten into a big pot with him. However, the table was about seven regulars, him, and a tight player so clearly everyone was after his stack.

Two hands after I bet him with the 8s4s, another player felted him with AA vs. his K7 when he flopped a king. He rebought for $400 from the small blind.

I'm in the big blind and the table folds around to him. Normally this is a chop situation (actually 99.9% of the time it is) but he is confused as to what's going on when the dealer is asking him if he wants to chop or play the hand and he throws in $15. I tell the dealer it's fine, we'll play the hand out and I check with my J4 offsuit. Then the flop comes J44. This was truly a "WTF" moment for me as I prayed he had a jack or even better a 4. He bets out $10. I have no idea what to do because I want this pot to get bigger but I just call the $10. The turn brought a second club and he bet $20. I contemplated min-raising him but decided if he had any kind of overcard or draw that I wanted him to get there so I just called. The river brings a third club and he bets $60 with about $300 behind. I go all-in and he insta-calls with 3c8c. He leaves the table, the game breaks, and I put him on blast on my blog. End of story.

I went to San Jose for the weekend but just to chill with family for Easter so that's a boring story.

For years..

2009: +$27141
January: 120.75 hrs., +$14,873
February: 77.75 hrs., +$8520
March: 69 hrs., -$1220

April: +$4968
04.01.09: +$978
04.03.09: +$220
04.04.09: +$3620
04.05.09: -$1320
04.09.09: -$1000
04.13.09: +$2470

Pissed @ Me

2009-04-10T10:35:00.000-07:00

Played a somewhat short session last night and just gave my money away pretty much in a hand that more than backfired on me. I'll just go through that hand and you can squint your eyes in disbelief.

I'm in the BB with appx. $750. Tight player in middle position raises to $35 with appx. $650 behind. Button (average player with huge stack) calls. I call in the BB with QhTh.

Flop comes ATT rainbow with one heart. I check, guessing that tight player is going to continuation bet or bet his AQ/AK. He checks. Button checks. Ugh.

Turn is a six, looks good. I bet out $100 to get action and hoping to look like a bluff. Tight player instantly shoves all-in. Button thinks for a LONG time and folds. Based on the way he was going over the hand, I put the button on the other ten so I've ruled out that the tight player has a ten. Now I'm thinking he has pocket sixes and just doesn't want the ace or ten to fill up.

This is where I go into moron stage.

I was already in for one buy-in and had rebought and worked my stack up to the $700. After going over the hand in my head, the only hand I can put him on to shove is either AK (suicide) or 66. For some reason I decide the old "if he has me, he has me," and call and he obviously shows 66. I miss the river and muck.

Then some guy says "You called him with the ace?" and I don't say anything. Then the button player who folded says "I would have beat you with my 9T anyways" and I shake my head at myself in disbelief. I always tell myself to bet out hard even when I have the nuts because based on my table image and the way I look, I more often than not get tons of action and get paid off on my monsters. This would have been a perfect situation to double up through the button player as he would have been trapping me after the flop with the worst hand. Only I let the tight player see the turn for free and gave him my stack.

Ugh. Couldn't believe I did that. Dropped $1000 in three hours for the night.

2009: +$24671
January: 120.75 hrs., +$14,873
February: 77.75 hrs., +$8520
March: 69 hrs., -$1220

April: +$2498
04.01.09: +$978
04.03.09: +$220
04.04.09: +$3620
04.05.09: -$1320
04.09.09: -$1000

Next week I'm gonna attempt to teach myself discipline, which is something I haven't really exercised in my life since high school. It'll be interesting.

Time to Get Paid

2009-04-08T18:12:00.000-07:00

That's the new Great Chill Out anthem. It's official. You can find it on the right side bar with the ill picture that I photo shopped. Play it and find out. You'll be motivated to make some money.

I cashed $300 on the UCONN chix although I haven't received the money yet and there are no guarantees in life.

I'm hoping to make it to Hollywood Park tonight but it's uncertain, I have a basketball game at 7 pm and then I'm going to my boy's studio to put the finishing touches on one song and start another. Yessir! Might have something to put up on here very soon. I haven't been doing shit with music so I'm excited.

What else.. hmm.. I dunno. I'm pumped that baseball is starting but I'm giving the Mariners three weeks before they are out of contention.

I'm thinking about going and playing some of the WSOP Circuit events at Caesar's next month but it's going to be tough. I'm going to San Jose this weekend and Wisconsin in two weeks, which leaves me like four days to run up a better bank roll.

peace.

I know, that was boring. I just wanted to announce that there's an anthem.

Go UCONN Chicks

2009-04-07T15:02:00.000-07:00

I'm not a big sports gambler because I tend to suck at it but I've been making bets with this guy at the poker table for the past week and I'm about 12-2 so I'm putting $300 on the Lady Huskies tonight to cover by 19.5. The spread is huge but I'm getting even money and I think Louisville is a one-woman team.

Anyways that same guy who bets me is a nice guy but very straight forward and a huge guy. He plays pots the same way against everyone, whether it's a friend or an enemy.

So on Sunday he raises pre-flop from the button to $60. He gets one caller, this kid named "G." The flop comes Q99 and G checks to him. He comes out and bets $150. G goes into the tank and asks Mark if he has an over pair, if a queen is good, and if he calls will Mark check it down? Mark doesn't say anything and G calls.

The turn is a blank and G checks. The big guy immediately says "All in" and G insta-calls with QQ. He doubles up and seemingly the hand is over.

The big guy (who is also a very good player) then cashes out and leaves the table. Two minutes later he returns and tells G that if he ever tries to pull that Hollywood shit again, he'll physically harm him (I think he said come across the table and punch you in the face). G is trying to go out and smoke a cigarette but the big guy is making him stay there to let him know he will beat his ass if he does that again.

G is feeling a bit threatened and says he won't do it again. They stop talking but then I see the big guy go outside after G goes out, so I go out to see what is going on. Sure enough, the big guy is again telling G that G isn't taking him seriously and he's not kidding when he says he's going to beat G down if he ever pulls those shenanigans off again on him.

I know that doing the "Hollywood" is a part of poker and I've done it a million times myself, so I don't see where it's acceptable for this guy to tell G that if he does it again, he'll punch him in the face.

Anyways because both players are regulars at the casino, this was the topic of discussion for at least 30 minutes at two tables. Just thought it was interesting because I think 75% of players do this type of acting when they have a monster and I don't see how it's inappropriate.

Back in business, kind of.

2009-04-06T11:54:00.000-07:00

I went to Hollywood Park on Friday night with the plan to play all night and win millions of pesos. My gf was going out with her gay friend for his birthday and I didn't really feel like getting drunk at various gay bars in Hollywood so I saw this as an excellent opportunity to spend the night with overweight obnoxious men talking about horse racing and sports.

The night started off well and I was up about $800 or so when I got in a heated argument with my gf and I was steaming at her, but it usually doesn't effect me when I'm playing poker. It's kind of like basketball for me. Once I get on the court, I'm not really thinking about anything else. So as long as I'm not getting text messages and phone calls from her I'm okay. I just turned my ringer off.

But then I really pissed myself off. I got in a hand with the donkey of the table and the big bluffer of the table.

*** WARNING: IF YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT POKER, YOU'RE GOING TO THINK I'M AN IDIOT (if you don't already) AFTER READING THIS ***

I have pocket sixes on the button. The donkey calls the bb and the big bluffer comes out and bets $60. I call and the donkey calls. The flop comes K-Q-6 with two hearts. They both check to me. Perfect time to bet right? On the button, AK probably check-raising and hoping I'll bet, if the donkey has AK, KQ, KJ, KT, even a Queen or JT/AJ, I'm going to get him to call...

This is where I had one of two serious brain cramps of the weekend that both cost me a lot of money. I checked. If a scare card didn't come on the turn, I was thinking that one of them would come out and bet big on the turn. The turn was a 10 (no heart) so it was somewhat of a scare card because AJ now has me hurting, as do KK, QQ, and TT obviously. The big bluffer bets $150. This is where I had a decision to make. I know how he plays and he knows how I play so I know if I push on him and he doesn't have AJ, he has to fold. But I also know he could easily have AJ, KK, or QQ here. So I just call. The turn is a blank and he bets $210 and I make the call and he turns over TT.

Then my boy starts to tell me how badly I played the hand and I tell him that obviously I'm aware of this. He asks me "Why didn't you bet the flop?" and then the big bluffer, who I'm (casino) buddies with, also says "You know if you bet the flop, I'll fold," sarcastically. So at this point I'm like "No shit to both of you," and decided to leave because I was unhappy about the way I played the hand. I'm sure it looked like I was pissed at them but I was really pissed at myself for letting him hit his set for free.

So Friday was +$220. Of course when I leave the casino I'm instantly steaming at my gf again but that's life. I actually wrote a blog on Friday night while I was smoking a blunt but I fell asleep before I posted it.

Now Saturday I'm like 'fuck this, I'm going to make some money and no one is gonna get in my way.' So I go to the casino at noon, hoping to catch the $500-unlimited game when it starts because there's an old donk that always starts it on Saturdays. Sure enough, he's the only one there ready to play and we start three-handed. I ended up winning $2600 in four hours and moved to the $400 game after the old guy left.

Went to the $400 game and won another $1000 and left.

Sunday I went to the play the $500 tournament at HP and lost flush (turn) to boat (river) of course.

Went down to the cash games and there were some dizonks in the hizouse so I sat down and promptly lost two buy-ins. I then made a horrendous move with JJ against 77 on a flop of 447. Turn was an ace and I had put the guy on an ace and thought I could bet him off it, but that was a miserable fail and my second brain break of the weekend. The worst part is the guy I did it too was a vocal asshole and had been whining about bad beats for three hours straight. After the hand he took a 20 minute break and I got all the chips back on the next hand. When he got back he saw my stack and said "You got those chips back already? When is that horse shoe gonna fall out of your ass?" So I said "You probably think I'm lucky because I don't cry like a bitch when I take a lose a hand," and he stfu for the rest of the day. Then when the table eventually broke at 2 a.m. he comes to shake my hand and says I'm a cool guy and he enjoyed playing with me. I'm sure you did enjoy when I doubled your punk ass up on a flopped boat.

Anyways there's a situation that came up where another player physically threatened someone that I wanted to write about but this is getting too lengthy so I'll write about it tomorrow (hopefully) because I thought it was interesting.

Going to take tonight off and go play tomorrow. Here's the numbers, I'm still on my pace with my goal of ~$7k/month but I need a good April:

2009: +$25671
January: 120.75 hrs., +$14,873
February: 77.75 hrs., +$8520
March: 69 hrs., -$1220

April: +$3498
04.01.09: +$978
04.03.09: +$220
04.04.09: +$3620
04.05.09: -$1320

peace, GL, 4 years, dolla dolla bill y'all!

March Sadness

2009-03-31T17:01:00.001-07:00

Tonight at midnight this beautiful month of March will finally come to an end. I just added up my sessions and I wasn’t nearly as big of a loser and it felt like. I guess the tournament win paired with my last session on Sunday kept me afloat. Without those two big wins I’m looking at a $-6k month. So basically I had so many losing sessions that it felt like I was getting my ass kicked all month long. Actually I was getting my ass kicked.

I finally ran bad taking some ugly beats. One particular in the $5/10 unlimited buy-in game at Hollywood Park. My aces ran up against KJ. Flop comes K-3-4 and I’m sure one of the two pre-flop callers has a king. One guy had made it $40 pre-flop, the button called and I made it $170 in the small blind. Both players called. On the flop I bet $250 to get a call from the king and he did. The turn was a 2 and I went all-in for $800 and he called to river the king.

I had some good luck as well in my last session so I’m not complaining. One hand in particular when I called with 8s4s on the button. The flop comes J-8-3 with two spades. One loose player bets out $50 and another loose player calls. I raise to $170 and they both call. The turn is the 4 of hearts and they check to me. I bet $350 and the initial bettor calls, then the second player puts her last $200 in the middle. The river is the 4 of diamonds and I put the player all-in for his last $400 and he insta-calls with QcJd. The other player claims she flopped two pair but she was blatantly lying. I put her on one queen or 9-10.

Anyways, with some investments such as my car, a new business and some untimely splurging, my month stung financially. I’m looking forward to getting my taxes out of the way and jumping back on the horse in April. Two months until the WSOP kicks off and I’d like to have my bankroll around $30k heading to Vegas that last weekend of May.

Outside of poker I’m playing in three basketball leagues and my game is slowly coming back, although I hate playing the post on all these teams. I never thought I’d be playing down low so much at 6’0” but I’m one of the tallest guys on all three of my squads. My high school program finished #7 in the country overall and ran away with the Washington state title so that’s always nice to see. Somehow I think I’m one of the only people ever to play for my high school and not play in college. Yes, I’m a donk. Or an idiot for quitting my junior year. Or both, obviously.

I was in four bracket pools and had Memphis. I was in first in one of them until Memphis got their asses ran. GG fellas.

I got back in the studio last night and we recorded two of my verses for some tracks that I’m feeling. I haven’t recorded on original beats that I actually own (along with my boy) in a long time so that felt good. All in all, I’m feeling real good heading into April even though March was a hit to my pocket.

Peace and good luck bruddas.

March

2009

The ship is sinking...

2009-03-30T11:09:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the ridiculous lack of updates in the past week+, I've been busy losing money.

Ever since I ate shit in that tournament I've been going downhill but I salvaged the month with a nice win yesterday.

I'll add more detail and updated numbers later today.

Hopefully everyone else is doing better.

peace.

206

2009-03-23T10:22:00.000-07:00

"206" seems to be my number today. I checked one of my bracket standings (the only one out of four that I even have a hope of winning) and I was in first place with a score of 206. In that one I have 13/16 of the remaining teams including Arizona. I had USC and Washington in there as well so I was unhappy about them losing (as well as being a fan of both teams).

Then my doc calls me and tells me that my cholesterol level is 206, which is high. Time to cut down on the fats and salts and increase the exercise. GL to me on that one. I'm pretty infamous for eating horrendously (horrendous is two levels worse than horrible with horrid being the middle level for those that don't know).

And the kicker? I lost 10x206 at the poker table on Saturday. If you're any good at math, that's Pretty Shitty (not to be confused with Pretty Ricky, not sure which is worse in this case).

I'll get around to updating my numbers when I have a few minutes to add them up, but I'm definitely down for the month of March, probably down around 1k-2k this month.

Hope everyone else is doing better than that.

Peace, 4 years!

I'm in the Player of the Year race

2009-03-17T17:25:00.000-07:00

However this was the most frustrating table EVER. I was 2nd in chips when we were down to five. I have two donks in it and two nits. Easy picking for me.

We decide to chop it and I'm due $12k when the worst player (obviously the guy who ended up winning it) says he wants $500 from everyone to chop. All of us are like "pffft you're the fish here and you want money from us?" so we don't chop. I double him up on a bad call by me, then when I'm about 11x the big blind I move in with ace high and he calls me with 6-7 from the small blind and makes two pair, gg me.

Ugh. The upside of this is that I'm not quite the tournament donk that I thought I was (0-2 in tournament cashes this year), although to be honest I should have easily won this tournament when it was 6/5 handed.

(P.S. the POY race statement was a joke for those that missed the sarcasm)

March Madness

2009-03-10T16:41:00.000-07:00

So far March has been up and up and down and down and up and up and down. Should have been up and up and up but I was really in "action mode" a bit too much on Sunday and paid off this horrible player by trying to get her off her pocket ten's on a board that was Q-8-7-7 (flop Q-8-7 and I had check-raised her on the flop).

Sometimes it happens, I made the wrong move on the wrong player.

So now I'm about a third through the month and only up like $900 or something around there.

It's time to refocus because I've been spending some money and I need to conserve it right now.

Last night I had a 'home game' at work with some co-workers. I was playing extremely loose and gambling just to keep the action going because it would have been too boring otherwise. We played $.50/1.00 blinds and for a few hands I was challenging this guy to raise blind with me. So I raise my button blind to $9 and he re-raises all-in from his big blind. I asked him if he looked at his cards and he said "no," I asked him "So you're going all-in blind?" and he said "Yeah." So I say "Okay" and call his all-in blind. Then he goes "Well I looked I have ace-high," and I'm like "Uhh... ok." Then two aces and two kings hit the board and I'm a little hot because it was a dirty play but he can still take the money since I knew I was gambling but he refuses to take the money so I'm not sure what the point of him lying about it was. Everything was cool but it completely changed the complexion of the game and playing for fun with the blind raises. I either won or lost $20, I have no idea because I rebought about three/four times and have no idea how much money I had in my pocket. I did buy everyone pizza and soda so I guess I ended the night down money.

It was nice to see Huck Seed take down the NBC Head's Up Championship, it's amazing how well he plays in that tournament. I can't believe Rousso beat Ivey but she was obviously playing well and went all the way to the 'ship.

I want to know wtf is up with the Antonious/Durrr challenge because it seems like it was a huge publicity stunt at this point. Once April/May comes around there's no way they'll be able to finish it. I think Durrr wanted to achieve living legend status and figured this would be a way to do it and I gotta give him some credit, it worked.

I also read this whole Shaniac/Shannon Shorr shit that was going on between two poker (pros) and I thought it was bullshit. Obviously I don't think Shorr deserves to be in the NBC head's up tournament but at the same time his own blog is his space to vent about whatever he wants so who really cares if he does? Shaniac obviously has nothing of his own to talk about. I have no idea who Shaniac is but he's a name on the internet and has a lot of followers who are happy to co-sign with him. I say get your own life.

My hoop game is going downhill and I'm not sure why. My room looks like it just went through Hurricane Katrina and my new car needs new brakes, not to mention my old car needs a new front bumper because I let my boy borrow it and he casually mentioned that he ran over a cone that ended up being stuck on the bottom of the car.

Time to grind!

2009 Numbers: 218.75 hrs., +$24,543; BR2: +$700
January: 120.75 hrs., +$14,873
February: 77.75 hrs., +$8520

March: 23.50 hrs., +$1150
03.02.09 0.75 hrs., +$105
03.03.09 2.5 hrs., +$900
03.03.09 5.0 hrs., +$1145
03.05.09 1.75 hrs., -$1900
03.06.09 3.0 hrs., +$1730
03.07.09, 6.5 hrs., +$785
03.08.09, 4.0 hrs., -$1615

4 years

I'm Getting Old + Big Loss

2009-03-06T11:16:00.000-08:00

Last night I had a terrible session in poker. I dropped $1900 and left and it was early. Usually I finish playing between 1 and 5 a.m. but last night I lost so quickly that I left at 11 p.m. and was in the mood to lift my spirits, which meant either the strip club or the club club.

I hit my roommate first and to no surprise he was not down to kick it. He's an auditor and works 10 hour days so I don't blame him for wanting to sleep.

I hit up my best friend from college aka Tweezy aka Marky T the Beast and he was wifed up and after a long conversation I got him to admit that he is now only available to kick it about one night per week.

I hit up my other guy who didn't answer the phone, probably because he was asleep at 11 p.m.

I hit up my boy Oogie and he is nowhere to be found. Oogie is usually reliable in these situations but he's a jazz musician that doubles as USC's street pharmacist (he's been an undergrad for 14 years and running now -- no lie) and his life is like one big party. Yet, he's still nowhere to be found.

Next I went with my boy Tony G., who is a well-known perv and would be down fa sho to go to the strip club. He answered on a half-ring but said that he was too tired to go out. At 11 p.m.

I call Big Bank Frank and his phone is off. Ugh, that was my ace in the hole.

My other guy Faded T has his chick in town from Seattle so he's a wrap; My old reliable right hand club guy Ike is engaged and moved back to Wisconsin to be with his fiance; My other guy Big Time is in business school also in Wisconsin (I'm going out there in April to the UPN guy who goes there, I forget who it is); my #1 poker homie was also out for the night with his chick.

So I decided to sit on my couch, smoke a blunt and wait to see if someone would hit me back.

No one.

At this point I realized that I am so old that I can't find someone to go out with. I remember in the glory days when boys were eager to get out and see the world. Now, it is like a chore to go out.

So I'm wondering, what do I do? Do I need to find new friends? And if I do, do they need to be 21-23 year olds?

I still love to get out and see the L.A. night life (believe me it's great) but it's getting increasingly harder for me to get my boys to go out with me. The ones that really did like to go out have moved away or are just too worn out to go out on weeknights when the best venues are having their best nights.

Anyways, this is a rant that last night I realized that I'm getting old.

As far as the session last night, it was frustrating and I had a bad vibe right away.

I had a basketball game and was completely out of it. I just couldn't get into the game; my energy was low and I wasn't excited to play at all. With the exception of a quick eight-point scoring binge in less than a minute in the second half, I played shitty. I was fouled to end the first half and missed both free throws while the other team talked shit from the sideline. Ugh.

After the game I knew I was planning to go play poker but I wasn't in the mood. I went anyways and picked up a Q-high flush draw against a lady that appeared to be bluffing and trying to steal the blinds from the BB preflop. She made it $65 and I was her only caller. The flop came A-K-2 with two hearts. I held Q-5 of hearts (I know a shitty hand but this lady is a complete donk so I was trying to get involved with her). She bets $80 looking real scared and I call. The turn is a four. This is where I screwed up (besides not re-raising on the flop). She checks and I make it $130 with about $120 left. I should have gone all-in or checked. The river comes another four and she bets out $160 looking like she is trying to get me out of there. I'm trying to put her on a hand and I really can't with that bet. If she thinks I have an ace why would I fold? If she had a made hand why would she play the turn like that? So I call with Queen high and she says "Nice call, I want to see your hand." So I show the Queen high missed flush/straight draw and she shows KJ for a pair of kings. When she said "Nice call" I really thought I had her but I failed and played the hand terribly.

Then food service fucks up my order when I'm starving and I have to wait for that for an extra 30 minutes.

Then I finally pick up jacks and get caught in between AK and QQ and fold pre-flop after putting $70 in already.

Our game breaks and I move to the $500+ table. I bleed down to about $700 and this Indian character is a known gambler/action junkie makes it $60 on the button. I'm in the big blind and I call him with 4s2s figuring it's a hand I can either crack him with or get away from easily. The flop comes 53T with two spades. I check raise him and he goes all-in with KT and I call. Turn T, river K and I'm out.

I'm gonna play a lot this weekend, I think I'm gonna try to hit up Commerce and play the $500-$1500 game to see how it is. Plus their waitresses are way hotter.

2009 Numbers: 205.25 hrs., +$23643; BR2: +$700
January: 120.75 hrs., +$14,873
February: 77.75 hrs., +$8520

March: 10.00 hrs., +$250
03.02.09 0.75 hrs., +$105
03.03.09 2.5 hrs., +$900
03.03.09 5.0 hrs., +$1145
03.05.09 1.75 hrs., -$1900

FOYEAHS

Second Session in One Day

2009-03-05T11:56:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday after work I went back to "The Park." I was planning to play a game with co-workers after work but a few people flaked so we cancelled the game and I went to HP to make some better money.

I played the $400 game only and made a nice $1145 come-up in five hours. My table had only one bad player but I was able to pick off a couple bluffs and win a lot of the dead money, which is something that I've been doing a lot more frequently. I'm at the point where I hate to see someone else win the dead money because I know I should have taken it down.

One piece of advice that Phil gave us when we asked him about what we need to be doing is he told us to play micro-stakes with the sole purpose of trying to win every hand. Obviously you can't win EVERY hand, but if you're trying to win every hand, you're going to win a lot more than you would if you're sitting around waiting for cards. I never did this but I think that I do try and figure out ways to win every pot that I'm in. A lot of the time I know that someone has a real hand and I'm not going to be able to win the hand, but other times even if they have a made hand like top pair/top kicker or two pair, I can get them off the hand when a scare card hits or if they are a nit/rock. Anyways, the dead money that I've been stealing has really improved my sessions because it gives me more room to call raises and not be the short stack if I can pick up $35-200 here and there. That's also what P was saying, that the dead money helps to take the hits and coolers when you get them. It's an obvious statement but to hear the best in the game say it, you realize that it really does make that much of a difference.

I've surpassed $25k in 2009, which is monumental to me, especially to do it this quickly.

I've actually been thinking about writing a book about my life and relating it to small stakes grinding (I'm not sure but I'm pretty sure that $3/5 and $5/10 NL is considered small stakes) and what I believe has helped me to be successful. I'm not saying that I will be a huge winner in the end but I've been doing this for several years now and I definitely have a lot to say. In terms of my life, it's nothing special but I think with my writing and emphasizing some experiences it would make the book a better read. In my opinion, it's very boring for me to read most of the poker books that exist about strategy and tournament strat and mathematics. The only poker book I ever read all the way through was "Ace on the River" and that was about Barry's life. Plus I just love to write for myself. Eh, who knows.

Last night I had a bball game that we won somewhat easily and then I decided to take the night off from everything. Just smoked a blunt and chilled out.

This is my stack from my last session:

2009 Numbers: 203.5 hrs., +$25543; BR2: +$700
January: 120.75 hrs., +$14,873
February: 77.75 hrs., +$8520

March: 8.25 hrs., +$2150
03.02.09 0.75 hrs., +$105
03.03.09 2.5 hrs., +$900
03.03.09 5.0 hrs., +$1145

Four years, get it done.

Biggest Suckout of the Year + 2009 Numbers

2009-03-03T11:48:00.000-08:00

I definitely made my biggest/worst/best suckout of the year early this morning to start off March. After the hand I was embarrassed although I'll take the money. My opponent completely outplayed me and got me to put my money in with four outs.

Here's how it played out.

The table is loose-weak with a ton of action. As soon as I came to the table I began raising to isolate the bad players and won a couple hundred right off the bat ($200 buy-in). One player complained about me betting with king high on the flop and hitting the king on the turn in one of my early hands and my table image is loose-aggressive.

I'm under the gun with 77 and raise to $30. I get one caller on the button. It's the same player that I beat with the king. He bluffed on the river when he missed his 6-high straight draw and I called him with a pair of kings.

We see the flop and it's 3-4-6 with two clubs. This is a good flop for me and I bet out $50. He makes it $150 and I call, knowing that a 5 makes my hand and he could also be trying to bet me off my hand. The turn is the queen of diamonds. I check and he moves all-in for $300 and I have about $230 left. I can't figure out why the queen didn't slow him down as I obviously could have AQ. The all-in bet felt like he was trying to get me off my hand. I don't think he put me on a flush draw because I was the pre-flop raiser. Anyways I put him on a pair and a flush draw or a straight draw with a flush draw, etc. I call, the river is a 5 making my straight and he shows pocket queens for the turned set.

Yuck. I'll take it.

Here are my charts/numbers so far this year. I ended up playing an additional session on Saturday because I'm starting a separate bankroll for a different cause, I'll probably play with this second bankroll every third session or so. Basically myself and two other friends put together $3000 for me to play with for a specific purpose. I won $700 in a few hours in the first session with BR2.

2009 Numbers: 198.5 hrs., +$24398; BR2: +$700
January: 120.75 hrs., +$14,873
February: 77.75 hrs., +$8520

March: 3.25 hrs., +$1005
03.02.09 0.75 hrs., +$105
03.03.09 2.5 hrs., +$900

Four! Years!

January, February, Check

2009-02-27T16:05:00.001-08:00

Good news, I hit the goal for the month with a $1010 profit last night. The stack above looks like a lot more than that but I was in for $1200. Early (really early, like first 30 minutes) I pushed with a straight flush draw with 3s4s on a board that had As5sX. I hated pushing like this with the low flush but I was in the mood to gamble and try to double up. Like two hands later I flopped a nut flush draw with Ad7d and pushed again and bricked. It was fun.

So just like that I was in for $1200 but made a nice comeback, most notably bluffing a guy off of his KK when there were two aces on the board. He showed his kings so I showed my K6 just to put him on tilt and it worked like a charm as he proceeded to unravel and lose the rest of his big stack plus another buy-in.

Then with about $600 I raised to $40 with QT of hearts on the button. The small blind re-raised me to $80 and I called. The flop came out three hearts. He bet $80 again. I raised to $160 hoping he'd push with a high heart or high pair and that he did. He went all-in, I snap called and he missed with AK and the ace of hearts (no pair on the flop).

As for my hoop game last night, it was a disaster. We were up 10 points with about five minutes left and lost in overtime. I shot poorly once again and was frustrated with the refs because the other team was gang raping my arms every time I had the ball (I run the point on this team) and I didn't get one foul call. A couple times I had to just pick my dribble up and start swinging elbows which I got a good LOL from because the other team started whining even though they were all over me and reaching in.

This weekend I'm planning on relaxing and staying out of the casino until Sunday. I might mess around on Full Tilt if I have time.

I've put up a new poll on the right sidebar. Basically I'm thinking about paying back my $401k loan in full ahead of schedule (I'm about four months into the cycle) and was wondering what people thought I should do.

Good luck and have a great weekend, 4 years..........

2009 Numbers:
January: 120.75 hrs., +$14,873.00

February: 75.0 hrs., +$7820
02.03.09 2.5 hrs., +$150
02.06.09 5.5 hrs., +$60
02.07.09 3.25 hrs., +$540
02.08.09 11 hrs., +$2410
02.10.09 4.5 hrs., +$75
02.12.09 1.5 hrs., +$315
02.13.09 8.0 hrs., +$2390
02.17.09 4.0 hrs., +$205
02.21.09 6.5 hrs., +$370
02.22.09 4.25 hrs., +$1555
02.23.09 14.25 hrs., -$775
02.24.09 6.0 hrs., -$485
02.26.09 3.5 hrs., +$1010

Interesting I ended up with exactly 75 hours.

Work

2009-02-26T17:11:00.000-08:00

I'm really starting to struggle. My responsibilities at work have changed and I'm doing entry level work all of a sudden and that's probably giving the level of difficulty in my work too much credit.

I'm attempting to tough it out but when I'm making four times the rate when I play cards, it's really tough to sit here and read text messages that say "great 400 game going on."

It's agonizing actually.

Anyways I'm hoping to get to HP and hit for the $200 I need to surpass $7000 this month. After that, I think I'll take a break until Sunday, which is the first of March.

Today I'm really feeling burned out. I'm tired and data entry combined with a shitload of copy and pasting just doesn't get the adrenaline going like flopping a set of fives or bluffing a scare card on the turn.

I need to reset my focus. I'm pretty sure I know why I lost the last two sessions: I'm getting lazy and somewhat sloppy; I'm playing too many hands, which means I'm chasing more draws and trying to crack more opponents with ugly two pairs and inside straights. I need to sharpen up.

I'm not the best player and never claimed to be and I have to realize what makes me better than others. I need to sit at a table and evaluate each player and come up with a strategy on how I can beat each opponent because everyone plays uniquely and thus everyone loses uniquely. To me.

Let's get it done.

Hopefully if you're reading this and you play, you're winning right now or winning tonight or whenever you play again, you win.

I didn't play yesterday. I had a basketball game and we got our asses torched. By 20. And we're supposed to be the best team. It was actually a team of Hollywood promoters (mostly ex-college players) and every one of them caught fire sometime during the game. I played terribly and so did our other two main scorers.

Tonight I have a game in a different league at Bev Hills HS and hopefully I'll hit for 20+ because we're playing the first place team (we're second). Something about the Beverly Hills HS gym that just makes me shoot badly. I hate it but last game I did better so I'm optimistic. My friend feels the same way about Commerce Casino and his poker game. Just one of those things, there's no level of comfort there.

After my game I'm hoping to get to Hollywood Park around 930 pm and hit them for a few hundred. Can't be too greedy.

I realize this is pretty much a ranting entry but I also realized that all my posts were getting so one-dimensional with the poker shit.

Peace and good luck.

Back to back L's

2009-02-25T12:31:00.001-08:00

It was bound to happen sometime and happen it did. Monday I dropped $775 in the $200 game, which I really am starting to hate, and Tuesday I dropped another $485 playing the $400 and $200. Tuesday I actually lost $755 in the $400 and won $270 in the $200.

I had a combination of some bad (not terrible) beats and was really card dead. Yesterday when I sat down my very first hand I bet a guy off of his pocket aces when the board was 6-T-Q-9 all clubs. I had QJ with no club and he had aces with no club and folded on the turn. The very next hand I pick up QsJs and it gets limped to the flop. The flop comes three spades. The guy in front of me bets $40, I call him and the guy after me goes all-in for $400, which I call. He shows pocket aces with the ace of spades and turns the nut flush. I thought it was a bit crazy that I got QJ my first two hands and went up against pocket aces both times. I won the time that I had the worst hand and lost the time that I had the best.

Anyways here's an update on the numbers. Unfortunately the two losses sent me under my monthly goal of $7k so I have some work to do before Sunday.

2009 Numbers:
January: 120.75 hrs., +$14,873.00

February: 71.50 hrs., +$6810
02.03.09 2.5 hrs., +$150
02.06.09 5.5 hrs., +$60
02.07.09 3.25 hrs., +$540
02.08.09 11 hrs., +$2410
02.10.09 4.5 hrs., +$75
02.12.09 1.5 hrs., +$315
02.13.09 8.0 hrs., +$2390
02.17.09 4.0 hrs., +$205
02.21.09 6.5 hrs., +$370
02.22.09 4.25 hrs., +$1555
02.23.09 14.25 hrs., -$775
02.24.09 6.0 hrs., -$485

Here's a couple pics of the car I bought:

4 years!!

The Winning Streak is Alive

2009-02-23T12:44:00.000-08:00

I'm aggravated because I keep my records on an excel spreadsheet on my phone and it erased everything from the last month. I've played three sessions (well really three days and four sessions) since I last posted. All were winning sessions but I don't remember the exact count on the first one, which I think was last Thursday. I think I won about $200 but I'm not sure so I'm just going to leave it off the records. Went to Hawaiian Gardens again, that place has some serious calling stations and sick suckout artists from what I've seen. I actually lost $65 at HG but won at Hollywood Park right before I went to HG so that day I won even though the session at HG was a loss.

The LAPC Main Event is currently running and the team favorite is still in it so hopefully he'll make a repeat performance from last year. I think I'm going to go up there tonight to check out the end of day 3 and see if Phil is on his way to the final table.

With Sunday's profit I've surpassed my monthly goal of $7000 for the second month. I'm getting closer to finishing the month without a losing session/day and I've had some sessions where I thought I was taking an L fa sho. But this year has gone incredibly well for me so far and I bought a car last week with some of the extra money I won in craps. It's a 2007 Lexus GS350 with 19k miles on it. I got it for a good price and it's a lot nicer than any other car I've already had so I'm feeling good about that.

2009 Numbers:
January: 120.75 hrs., +$14,873.00

February: 51.25 hrs., +$8070
02.03.09 2.5 hrs., +$150
02.06.09 5.5 hrs., +$60
02.07.09 3.25 hrs., +$540
02.08.09 11 hrs., +$2410
02.10.09 4.5 hrs., +$75
02.12.09 1.5 hrs., +$315
02.13.09 8.0 hrs., +$2390
02.17.09 4.0 hrs., +$205
02.21.09 6.5 hrs., +$370
02.22.09 4.25 hrs., +$1555

First Trip to Hawaiian Gardens Casino

2009-02-18T15:20:00.001-08:00

I went to Hollywood Park last night and my guy advised me that the games were dead and dry. He wanted to hit another casino and I was voting for Commerce because the action has to be crazy there due to the LAPC but he was set on going to Hawaiian Gardens so we went.

Hawaiian Gardens has a reputation for having a ton of players who are straight up gamblers. Mostly of Asian descent. Basically it has the rep of an action casino and I had never been there so I was content to check it out.

So we went, sat down in the $500-1000 game with $5/10 blinds and before I knew it I was in for two $800 buy-ins and down to my last $160. At this point my boy had already won $1500 and cashed out so he was waiting on me. I thought to myself 'three double ups and I'm even' and then laughed at myself for even thinking that.

Two circuits later and I had doubled up three times with QQ and eventually Q9. The action was pretty sick and there were some ridiculous calling stations. I can definitely see that there's money to be made in this place. A ton of straddling and light re-raises with air.

To make a long story short, I bought in for $1600 and luckily left with $1805. Even though I felt bad about only winning $205 on a donkey table, I'm glad I dug myself out of that hole and actually won some money.

2009 Numbers:
January: 120.75 hrs., +$14,873.00

February: 40.5 hrs., +$6145
02.03.09 2.5 hrs., +$150
02.06.09 5.5 hrs., +$60
02.07.09 3.25 hrs., +$540
02.08.09 11 hrs., +$2410
02.10.09 4.5 hrs., +$75
02.12.09 1.5 hrs., +$315
02.13.09 8.0 hrs., +$2390
02.17.09 4.0 hrs., +$205

Friday night W + Vegas Trip Report

2009-02-17T13:59:00.000-08:00

I had a good night at Hollywood Park on Friday. I went straight from work, was seated in a $200 game and hoping to get in a $400 game (per the usual routine). I won $310 in a short matter of time in the $200 so it was almost a freeroll when I headed to the $400 game.

The $400 game was pretty easy with some semi-tight players who were extremely readable and didn't know how to play their hands. It was a nice win because I was sitting next to my boy and we both made $2k+. I think that's the first time we've both won over $2k at the same table.

I got kinda bored so I built a house for my cellphone. The only thing I don't like about having a huge stack at Hollywood Park is all the riff raff that stops by the table to see how much money people have in front of them. Granted, when I build my stack with this type of architecture, it does draw some additional attention.

VEGAS

Saturday I decided to take my girl to Las Vegas for Valentine's Day. I know, it's not the most romantic place but I go a lot and she has been wanting to go with me so I decided to take her for the weekend since we both had Monday off. We were supposed to leave around noon because I was hoping to buy a new car on Saturday morning but I didn't and of course we didn't end up leaving until 7 p.m.

We got to the Venetian at about 11 p.m. and I ate (she had already eaten) and we just walked around the hotel a bit and hung out in the room. The Venetian rooms are my favorite rooms to stay in because they're big and have two TV's. Of course they don't really compare to the villas at Bellagio but as far as just a regular room goes, I like the Venetian the best.

Sunday the main objective was to get show tickets to "Jersey Boys" at the Palazzo. I woke up at 10 a.m. and bought the tickets. I snuck to the black jack table, lost seven hands in a row for -$450 and then we got out of the hotel by noon to go to the outlet mall. I dropped some money on Nike stuff and a suit. We went back to the telly, ate and went to the show. The show was pretty good and I have a lot of appreciation for those actors who can sing their asses off at the same time but it's just not my thing. I almost fell asleep when the intermission bailed me out and I went and bought a Red Bull and some M&M's.

After the show we stopped at the black jack table. I bought in for $200 at a $25 minimum table and had lost 6/7 hands when they changed dealers and I went on a heater. I ran my stack up to about $1100 when they changed dealers back to the Asian chick who was killing me. Sure enough my stack went back down to about $600 when the deck ran out and she had to shuffle. I told her to cash me out but she said she had to finish shuffling first so I took that as a sign from the heavens to keep playing.

The heavens were right and I ran up to $2200 before going back down to $1600 and cashing out.

We then went to Grand Lux where we got the worst service I've ever had in my life. I ordered Calamari that never came, ordered a strawberry lemonade that never came, and they never refilled my water. And I was thirsty as fuck after winning in black jack. Then, after the meal is done, I tell some waitress "I have no idea where my waiter is but can you tell him to cancel the calamari and strawberry lemonade?" At that point the manager comes out and says "I understand you didn't get your Calamari? We'll bring it right out." I told the dumb bitch that I already finished my meal and who eats Calamari for dessert, just cancel the shit and she says "Ok, we'll refill your water." Thanks! No tip. And I'm a pretty good tipper. The black jack dealers made like $300 off me.

After dinner we went to the craps table. My girl has no idea about any gambling games and has no interest but I wanted her to roll. I basically put the $1600 in chips on the table that I had from black jack. When we left my girl had luck boxed us all the way to $5500. She had the most unorthodox ridiculous rolls ever and was hitting numbers like crazy. Dice were flying all over the place, shooting into the casino chip stacks like missiles, hitting the dealers in the neck, dropping two inches from her hand when the other would go flying to the far wall, it was awesome.

We headed to the room and I was hoping to get out of Vegas by 1 p.m. on Monday. It was going to rain and I was still hoping to get a new car by the time Tuesday rolled around. We ate and then I wanted to try my girl's beginner's luck again. She was extremely reluctant to play because she is a strong believer in winning and leaving, not winning and gambling more or testing your good luck. She was worried we would lose the money back.

But I convinced her and we went back. I put $500 on the table and after the dice went around the table twice, I was down to about $300. My girl was up and we had been there for 30 minutes so I decided to spread the rest of my money across the board ($15 min. table). Twenty minutes later my girl finally craps out and I cash out for $6k. The dealers loved us because they could tell my girl had no clue what she was doing and I was playing a lot of bets for them that they were hitting so it was a lot of fun.

We finally took off and drove home in the rain although we did get into a fight on the way home and didn't speak to each other the whole way, which enabled me to play T.I., Jay-Z, and Joe Budden at high volume levels while she tried to sleep.

All in all, it was a great weekend. I wasn't really expecting to gamble at all because I know my girl doesn't like gambling and has no interest in it but she brought me some good luck and I won a lot (for me), which was just a great bonus to a fun weekend. The cash comes right on time as I can use it for the car down payment.

I'm planning to get back on my poker grind tonight and I'm hoping to keep this February streak alive, good luck to everyone.

2009 Numbers:
January: 120.75 hrs., +$14,873.00

February: 36.5 hrs., +$5940
02.03.09 2.5 hrs., +$150
02.06.09 5.5 hrs., +$60
02.07.09 3.25 hrs., +$540
02.08.09 11 hrs., +$2410
02.10.09 4.5 hrs., +$75
02.12.09 1.5 hrs., +$315
02.13.09 8.0 hrs., +$2390

Action Thursday at Hollywood Park...

2009-02-13T11:15:00.000-08:00

...and I didn't get much of the action.

All day while I was at work my boy was hitting me with texts like "You should be here, Adam Morrison and Jason Collins are giving money away" and "my table is crazy, i'm up 500 already" but I was restricted to my cubicle.

After work I had a basketball game at Beverly Hills HS and I played like shit and we lost. Not really because of me but it definitely didn't help that I was our go-to guy and I shot like 20%.

So after I finally ate dinner and showered, I got to Hollywood Park at 1030 p.m., sat down at the $400 game when my friend advised me that all the action players just left and the game is tight. Great!

I looked at all the $200 tables and they were all full and had a lot of action (Adam Morrison was on one of them just running through buy-ins like they were tic tacs) but I said "fuck it if I'm good I can beat this $400 game anyways" and I told my boy that also.

So I went on to play super agressive (usually not really my style) for about 30 minutes and went up $600 without having to show down.

Then a short stack made quad 9's on my AK (I was drawing dead on the 973 flop when I c-bet him all-in).

Another hand that I was mad about a guy blind raised to $20 five players called. I called in middle position with QT. The flop comes QJ9 rainbow and the original blind raiser bets $40. The guy on my left barely made a move but I felt that he was excited to see this bet in front of him. At this point, I should have folded. But I didn't and I called the $40. The guy on my left raised to $100, the original raiser calls and I have to call, hoping for a king on the turn. The turn is a 4, we check to the raiser and he bets $200 and we both fold. I would have loved myself if I was able to lay that QT down right there as I just sensed a raise coming from my left but I was stubborn and it cost me.

Anyways I was summoned to meet up with some friends so I left around midnight at +$315 to keep the streak alive. The action at HP was great though with Terrell Thomas there (not that he's a bad player), Jason Collins and Adam Morrison, who apparently were both refusing to fold to any pre-flop raises, and the normal HP Thursday night crowd.

The good news is that I don't feel like I've really been winning much but I'm right on pace halfway through the month to hit my goal of $7k/month. Not having a losing session is really helping right now since I've only had one big session so far this month.

2009 Numbers:
January: 120.75 hrs., +$14,873.00

February: 28.5 hrs., +$3550
02.03.09 2.5 hrs., +$150
02.06.09 5.5 hrs., +$60
02.07.09 3.25 hrs., +$540
02.08.09 11 hrs., +$2410
02.10.09 4.5 hrs., +$75
02.12.09 1.5 hrs., +$315

Boring Session

2009-02-11T09:30:00.000-08:00

Let me just sum this up real quick: I played 4.5 hours last night and won $75.

Technically I think I played two sessions because I showed up for 15 minutes and had to leave to do something for a couple hours. In that first 15 minutes, I lost $250 playing like a dumbass. I basically called a guy all the way down with pocket deuces and he had pocket tens. I'm a moron.

I realized that this was a loss and I actually wasn't sure if I was going to go back but I ended up going back and immediately winning $200 in the $200 game before I went to the $400 game. In the $400 game I won $180 in 25 minutes so I was there for 40 minutes and was up $380, but when you take out the original $250 I was down then I was really up just $130.

I left the $400 game because it was dead and went to an action table in the $200 game with some of the classic players at Hollywood Park, guys like Money Train and Deion, and I ran my stack to +$350 before shitting it away on I don't know what. It just went down steadily before I left down $55 on that table.

So when it was all said and done I made $75 last night. Nice to book another winning session (does that count as one session? I'm counting it as one session for the purpose of my own goals... kind of like an infield single during a hitting streak), I guess I'll just try not to lose until I can get another big session. Works for me. I know, very boring.

So let me give some highlights of Deion's table talk:

We're four handed. Deion makes it $25. Guy on the button re-raises to $85. Deion calls. Flop comes A-7-3. Guy puts Deion all-in for $135, Deion says "Fuck it I call." River comes a 6 and Deion shows 7c6c, guy turns over A-10 and says "Did you really think you were good? How can you call that? Everyone knew what I had except you!" Deion replies with "I need money and you got money, that's how I can call that. Why you bullshittin!"

Deion to new player: "I'm a crack you like a breakfast egg at Denny's! Why you bullshittin!"

Player on tilt to Deion: "Yeah you have $950 in front of you and you're still down $1300. I can't imagine how big of a loser you are in this place." Deion: "Yeah, but I'm a winner outside those doors baby! If you gon' tell the story, don't just tell half the story, tell the whole story! Why you bullshittin!"

There were a ton of other quotes but I can't remember them at the moment. He had us in stitches with his shit talking when he was winning. Obviously like everyone else when he started losing he went quiet but it was good comedy while it lasted.

2009 Numbers:
January: 120.75 hrs., +$14,873.00

February: 27.0 hrs., +$3235
02.03.09 2.5 hrs., +$150
02.06.09 5.5 hrs., +$60
02.07.09 3.25 hrs., +$540
02.08.09 11 hrs., +$2410
02.10.09 4.5 hrs., +75

Cuatro Años.

Mission accomplished

2009-02-09T14:02:00.000-08:00

On Saturday morning I woke up late. Actually I woke up at like 4 p.m. on Saturday to a text from my boy that says, word for word: "Look for Adam Morrison at hp."

Five minutes later I found out that Morrison was traded from the Charlotte Bobcats to the L.A. Lakers for Vladmir Radmanovic. The text message that I received was a bit of a joke from my boy who knew that I had played against Morrison in poker at Hollywood Park last year.

Rewinding a bit to Friday night, I played right after work and really didn't get anything going. I grinded for a few hours and was just not getting anywhere so I decided to call it a night around midnight and headed home with a whopping $60 profit. One goal that I have in February is to win every session. It probably won't happen but I remind myself of that goal to try and stay out of the red or making risky plays while I'm playing. Plus, with that goal, it makes winning $60 a little more satisfying when I consider it's another winning session under the belt.

Saturday I was planning to go at about noon to play a nice long session until about 8:00 p.m. I woke up early did some things around my apartment and then fell back asleep until 3:30 p.m. Real smooth, way to stick to the plan.

So I only got a short session in on Saturday but it was much more successful, winning $580 in the 5/10 game but losing $40 in the 3/5 game. Overall another winning session so that gives me some momentum going into Sunday.

Sunday I wanted to make sure I was going to get to HP by 1 p.m. They were giving away a car and I wanted to be there when they called my name for that new Jaguar. They were calling a name on the hour every hour from 1 - 10p.m. Then out of those 10 names, they give a key to one person. Obviously I stayed from 1p.m.-10p.m. and they didn't call my name.

The good news is I had a great session. Especially considering the fact that I was in for $1400 pretty quickly. The last three sessions (possibly four) I've had to play the $200 game (3/5 blinds) while I was waiting for the $400 (5/10 blinds) game. Every time I've lost a little in the $200 game no matter what. I'll be up like $150, then I'll get in a big hand and lose $200 and then they'll call my name for the $400 game. It's like clockwork. So I lost my $40 in the $200 game and then I moved to the $400 game.

The main $400 game was crazy. There was like $15k on the table, which is about five times as much as usual on the table. I was on the must-move table and everyone was trying to get to the main game. I ended up in for $1400 playing the must-move before I changed to the main game. I was battling in the main game when I played a hand loosely and it paid off.

I raised to $35 with Ad2d. At this point I had just taken a couple river beats and my stack went from $1400 to $800. The two donkeys of the table called. The small blind, who is a super-tight player, raises to $135. I'm the first to act following his raise and I call, hoping that the other two players will call also. One of them calls and one folds. The flop comes 10d6d6s. The small blind fires out $300. At this point I know I'm either calling or moving in. I have him on JJ or better and I'm hoping my ace is live but I'm not sure. I decided to smooth call, hoping that the other player will call as well. He thinks for a minute and then goes all-in for about $1200. Wow. Now I have him either on the 6 or a diamond draw as well. I'm hoping the small blind folds so that if we're both on diamond draws and we brick out, I win with the ace high. The small blind mulls it over for a long time (he has the $1200 covered) and eventually calls. I obviously move my final $300 in and I hit the diamond on the river. The small blind had KK and the button had Ac6c and won a big sidepot. I'll take the luck any day and at this point it was either win a huge pot or rebuy and I got lucky.

From that point on I continued to increase my stack size when I noticed none other than Adam Morrison stroll into the no limit section and sit down at the must-move $400 game. Sweet.

When he moved to the table I beat him in a couple decent-sized pots. First I flopped three eights with my bb K8 and he called me down. I'm not sure what he had. Then we both flopped straights in a raised hand. I had 5c7c and the flop came 346 rainbow. Unfortunately for Morrison he had 2-5 offsuit and lost the cooler hand and headed to the ATM for the third time. The guy is incredibly nice and I give him a lot of credit for keeping a calm head at the poker table because he lost a bunch.

The funniest part was when some old guy at our table started talking about the Lakers trade and had absolutely no idea that Morrison was sitting at the table. He started like this "They just made a nice trade. They got rid of that stiff Radmanovic for that kid Adam Morrison." At that point I could tell he had no idea so I kicked him and then another guy says, "You do realize that he's sitting right here don't you?" and the old guy replies "Who's sitting right here?"
Good stuff.

Then the guy next to Morrison starts making small talk with him and asked this brilliant question: "So have you been to L.A. before?"

What the fuck...

"No, I've been in the NBA for three years but I've never been to Los Angeles. Can you show me around?"

Amazingly I ended up yesterday's session $2410 overall, putting me up for the weekend $3010. I find this crazy because after Saturday I kind of figured that I wasn't going to hit my $3k target for the weekend but I was just hoping to have a winning session on Sunday. Then, when I was in for $1400, I figured it was really a wrap and I was just trying to get back to even. Things changed quickly for the better. Here's a look at my stack with the $100 white chips looking healthy.

I'm not playing today. Gonna go to UCLA and play some basketball. I have to keep my other resolutions in mind and can't get overly consumed with poker. I'll go back either tomorrow or Wednesday.

2009 Numbers:
January: 120.75 hrs., +$14,873.00

February: 22.5 hrs., +$3160
02.03.09 2.5 hrs., +$150
02.06.09 5.5 hrs., +$60
02.07.09 3.25 hrs., +$540
02.08.09 11 hrs., +$2410

4years!!

Weekend Goal

2009-02-06T14:50:00.001-08:00

My weekend goal is $3000. I'm definitely going to play two long sessions (tonight and Saturday during day) and hopefully I'll get another chance on Sunday as well. It's raining out here in L.A. so maybe a lot of people will be inside gambling.

Good luck.

February: Session 1 with Coco

2009-02-04T11:02:00.001-08:00

Went to 'the Park' last night and it was looking very grim. One $400 table that was no good, the $500 game was going but looked shitty and there were three $200 tables that all looked tight. Then I saw a fourth $200 table that was more in the $40 NL section and got the only open seat on that table. I recognized a couple players to be action players (not necessarily bad players) so I knew the pots should be good.

As soon as I sat down I picked up that there was at least one horrible player. There was also a guy in the two seat that looked familiar. I kept trying to figure out if I knew him from somewhere when I got a phone call to go outside. I came back inside and he was talking baseball with another player and I realized it was Coco Crisp, who used to play for the Red Sox and now plays for the Royals.

We actually have a mutual friend that I knew was friends with him so it was easy to strike up a conversation that eventually led to him saying he was at the casino to learn the game because the poker games get so juicy on the team plane that he wants to win consistently for side money.

I was surprised that he said this because he was actually a pretty good player. I'd say he was better than at least half the table (I guess that's not saying much considering the Hollywood Park talent pool). But he didn't make any mistakes in the two hours that I played with him. He missed one bet but he had a flush draw/straight draw with two overs on the turn and I think he was just hesitant to bet. A guy with a pair of eights ended up winning the hand.

Anyways just to share the info with the few folks who read this, apparently on the team plane (Red Sox), they have a $600 betting cap because the salary range is so high they want everyone to be able to afford to play. Big Papi (hopefully you know who that is) throws in $600 blind every time. Apparently other high-paid players make similar moves and the best player on the team is back-up catcher Kevin Cash, who always wins. The team poker motto is "Where Cash goes, the money goes."

So Coco is trying to get to the same level as Cash, but it looks like Coco is doing alright. I think he won about $800-1000 from the game, which is way above average. Not to mention that Cash's 2008 salary was $400,000 and Coco's was $5 mil.

Anyways I hand-picked the donkey of the table out and got his stack when a jack flopped and I had AJ vs. his KJ. At this point I was up $300. Not long after I get 77 in the small blind. A bunch of limpers and I raise it to $23. Three callers. The flop comes 2-7-J with two spades and I weak bet $25. One call, then a raise to $100 by the #2 donk of the table. I go all-in (he has about $290 more) and he insta-calls with his ace-high flush draw and rivers it.

The very next hand another guy pushes on me with a club draw and one over and hits his king on the turn.

Lucky for me I get in a huge pot with the nut flush. I have Ac6c and the blinds are raised to $15. The flop comes 789 with two clubs. I check, raiser bets $60 and gets a callers. I make it $120, donkey calls in the middle, raiser and caller both calls the additional $60. Turn is the 3c and I bet out $60. Donkey surprisingly folds, original raiser calls, then the caller goes all-in for $140 more. I only have $60 at this point so I'm in there for $60 and the original raiser says he can't fold and calls with his set of sevens. River is an off-suit ten and I make my money back +100. I ended the session up $150 in two hours and some change before I left to go to my girl's house.

The bad part was that when I left the game got really juicy with my good buddy "money train" sitting down in the game. I'll have to catch you next time Money Train.

I'm gonna start a list of recognizable players that I play against in 2009 on the side panel of the blog just for kicks. Former USC standout and New York Giant defensive back Terrell Thomas is also on there. I played agasint him last week at HP but he's also a friend from my school days at USC and like Coco he's a good poker player as well.

2009 Numbers:
January: 120.75 hrs., +$14,873.00

February:
02.04.09 2.5 hrs., +$150

4years!!

January Wrap-Up

2009-02-03T14:10:00.000-08:00

I'm happy to say that January was a huge success. In all honesty there were times last year that I told myself not to play this January because I was such a big loser over the course of the past two January's. So while my goal for 2009 is to win $7000/month, in the back of my mind I was really hoping to come out a small winner or break even this January.

Not only did I beat breaking even but I doubled my goal of $7000 and finished up $14,873. That number should have been even higher ($16k plus) had I not ended the month with three out of four losing sessions, with the only winning session a very small one ($94) at Caesar's Palace this past Saturday.

In one of my last losing sessions I caught a bad beat when some guy tried to steal with a re-re-raise with K-5 off. I had KcJc and we both checked a flop of 9-7-6. A king hit the turn and I check raised him all-in. He insta-called and I thought he was slow playing a set. Obviously the 8 hit the river and I was in disbelief. But that's the way the game goes. He thought he hit his money card on the turn and that's fine with me. I hit several other coolers during the month as many of the players I've played with have noted, but I'm not here to complain. Overall I've been running well.

Here are my numbers from January through my poker diary at hendonmob:

I ended the month in Vegas, flew there on Saturday morning and despite my intuition not to, I did a lot of gambling on black jack, the Super Bowl and craps. It was extremely up and down but I ended up a big winner (in my standards) of about +8k.

I pretty much broke even in black jack with several losses of $100-200 and one big +$2300 win at the Venetian when we were just bored thinking of what to do.

The Super Bowl was crazy for me. These are the bets I had (if I can remember them all):

Cardinals +7 $1800 to win $1500 (won)
Cardinals Money Line $1000 to win $1800 (lost)
Kurt Warner to throw exactly three TDs $100 to win $500 (won)
Any Cardinal to score two or more TD $100 to win $450 (won)
Any Steeler to score a rushing TD $50 to win like $35 (won)
Fitzgerald first catch to be over 11.5 yards $50 to win $50 (won)
Kurt Warner first pass to be over eight yards $50 to win $50 (won)
Roethlisberger first pass to be incomplete $100 to win $160 (lost)
Edgerrin James to score a TD $100 to win $360 (lost)
Cardinals to get more than two sacks $100 to win $100 (pushed)
Anquan Boldin to score a TD $100 to win X (can't remember) (lost)
Total game score +46.5 $220 to win $200 (won)

I'm sure I had a few more and some of the numbers are slightly skewed but overall I put in about $3000 exactly and ended +$900-1000. If the Cardinals had won, I would have finished up nearly $4000. The second Fitzgerald touchdown was like a orgasm for me because it gave Warner 3 TD passes and Fitz 2 TD scores, plus it gave Zona the lead with like three minutes left in the game. I thought I was good so we headed down to the sports book to get in line and by the time we get there Holmes is on a mad dash to the 10-yard line with a minute to go. I definitely jinxed it. So to all the people of the world that had Cardinals and the money line, I apologize.

I also hit two nice bets on UW vs. ASU ($100) and the Lakers/Grizzlies over (+$200) so sports betting went well this weekend (those were my only bets outside of the SB).

Aight now here's the craps story, which is a good one. The last few times I've gone to Vegas, I've stayed with my boy, who is best friends with a high profile gambler. The gambler is a big craps guy and if we are with him and he's shooting dice, he always has everyone shoot to see who has the hot hand as far as luck goes. Everytime I've taken my turn, not only did I not really know everything that's going on, but I didn't really have a solid way of throwing the dice. Obviously on Saturday night I'm in the same situation. I roll a 7, I hit an 8, then I crap out. If you know craps, it's not good to hit one point, then crap out. Because after I hit the 8, then rolled another point, he spread money across all the numbers.

So I decided that if the craps tables were dead, I was going to try my luck. And lucky I was. Not only did I learn the complete game of craps and all the odds, but I got a nice little roll down and jumped in a game. I basically took $100 to $400, then left. Then I jumped back in and took $600 to $1200 before my boy called me to go eat. Then when he went to sleep at 4 a.m. I decided to stay on the craps tables to work on my style and because I wanted to stay awake until my 7 a.m. flight. That's when it got good and I went on fire, taking my $1200 to $8700. Unfortunately none of my friends were at the table but the other four people that were at the table finally realized they should just leave the shooting to me and we all got rich. One guy placed a bet for me because I was so hot on the hard eight. I hit the hard eight without knowing he had bet for me and the dealer gave me the money. I asked who it was from and the dealer said "Just take it," but at that moment the guy says "You can parlay it if you want!" so I did and hit the hard eight again, making $1k off of a $10 bet that I didn't even place.

Of course as I'm on fire my guy Raheem hits me because we need to catch the cab to the airport so I had to cash out in the middle of my heater but I can't complain -- there's no telling if I would have continued to be on fire or lost the money back. I'll take the cash. That was a great way to start the month of February after a good month of January. On a lucky streak.

I'm going to play for two hours tonight so we'll see how poker starts off in February.

Good luck.

Heater

2009-01-26T10:22:00.001-08:00

Unfortunately they're keeping me busy at work nowadays so it's tougher for me to post on here (at least good posts)...

But January has gone extremely well for me, which is suprising because as I noted the past two months of January have been two of my worst months ever.

I did bust out quick as hell in the Commerce 200k guaranteed opening event of the LA Poker Classic. I had KT, other guy had T7, flop comes TT8, turn 7. But it kind of worked out because I went downstairs and make 1500 in the cash game.

By pure coincidence after I entered my hours from the weekend, I'm at 100 hours exactly for the month. I've dabbled in the $500-unlimited NL buy-in game at Hollywood Park and I haven't lost in it yet, I'm up about $6000+ in that game but I don't want to mess around in it unless I know it's a good game. I'll stick to the $400 for the most part right now.

Another thing I realized this morning is that since I took out the 401k loan for poker, I've made at least $20k, probably $25k off of that initial loan.

Here's some info:

Overcoming January so far

2009-01-14T15:40:00.000-08:00

I'm at work on one hour of sleep going strong so far. Last night I was on a heavy grind session that shouldn't have been so difficult. I played 10 hours on an action-packed table (serious action) with three donkeys and finished the session up only $320. It all boiled down to one huge hand ($1700 pot) that I lost on the river. Here's the action:

I have AcJc in the big blind. A (poker buddy) of mine raises to $35 in middle position. There are two callers to me: the big donkey on the button and the tight player in the small blind. I call and one other calls.

The flop comes AK5 with two spades. The small blind comes out and bets $125 into a $250 pot. I call. Original raiser folds and button donkey calls. The turn is a blank and the small blind quickly checks to me. At this point I don't have him on a strong ace and I bet $200. The button donkey thinks and goes all-in. I don't have him on anything, maybe a weak ace or some straight or flush draw. At this point the small blind says "It's now or never," and goes all-in. The button donkey has me covered for $250 more and the small blind has only $100 more that he puts in the middle. I'm worried about the small blind having AK but ultimately decide that I'm at least 50/50 to be good here and the pot is giving me great odds to call, plus if I have the donk beat, I get a side pot rebate of $300. The river is a spade and the small blind hits his king high nut flush and the button donkey shows KQ for one pair. I get $300 back and the small blind scoops the $1400 main pot.

The action was great though and I really hope to see the action like that in the future. The button donkey reminded me that a couple of weeks ago I called him "the worst player in the casino," and I had forgotten all about it but he was right.

Basically a tight player was on tilt and gambled on a gut shot when I had flopped a set. He missed his straight but ended up making a one-card flush for a huge pot and it slightly tilted me only because of the player that made the play. It's one of those players that always begs everyone to fold and not suck out, then he calls me with a gut shot and hits a one card straight. A few hands later I try to steal a pot on the river and the donkey calls me, then tells the table "It just didn't make sense, why would he bet when the deuce hits the river?" He was actually right in his logic, but I still said "Great, now I'm getting critiqued by the worst player in the casino."

He had no hard feelings and neither did I. The guy didn't even know what a straddle was, but he was winning so I can't knock him.

So far I'm doing alright, especially considering that my last two January's have been horrible. December 08 was my best month ever so I can't hope to match that, I just need to try and reach my goal. I'm just really grinding except for Sunday, when I hit for $1500 in two hours. If I want to hit my goal of $85k, I need to make an average of $7k/month and I'm pretty much on target right now.

1.1.09, Hollywood Park, 0.25, 3/5,-43
1.1.09, Hollywood Park, 4.25, 5/10,+540
1.2.09, Hollywood Park, 2.0, Tournament, -130
1.2.09, Hollywood Park, 1.0, 3/5, -220
1.2.09, Hollywood Park, 6.25, 5/10, +605
1.3.09, Hollywood Park, 2.75, 3/5, -76
1.5.09, Hollywood Park, 3.0, 5/10, -1500
1.7.09, Hollywood Park, 1.0, 3/5, -200
1.7.09, Hollywood Park, 5.25, 5/10, +1680
1.9.09, Hollywood Park, 6.0, 5/10, +170
1.10.09, Hollywood Park, 1.0, 3/5, +335
1.10.09, Hollywood Park, 6.0, 5/10, +240
1.11.09, Commerce Casino, 2.5, 3/5, -200
1.11.09, Hollywood Park, 0.5, 3/5, -60
1.11.09, Hollywood Park, 1.0, 5/10, +1600
1.13.09, Hollywood Park, 10.0, 5/10, +320

3/5: 9.0 hours, -464
5/10: 40.75 hours, +3655
Tournaments: (1) -130

Total: 51.75, +3061

Monday prevails

2009-01-07T16:46:00.000-08:00

I don't have much time to post but I showed up at 830 pm determined to beat Monday and I was crushed for $1500 in the 400 game. I was card dead and ended up loosening up to try and catch a fish and just never hit a hand. Playing too many hands resulted in me making too many moves and chasing too many draws.

The good news is I'm undefeated in pick-up basketball this year going 3-0, 3-0, 2-0 in the three times I've played. Hopefully poker will follow the trend.

2009 Poker
Date, Place, Hours, Game, +/-$

1.1.09, Hollywood Park, 0.25, 3/5,-43
1.1.09, Hollywood Park, 4.25, 5/10,+540
1.2.09, Hollywood Park, 2.0, Tournament, -130
1.2.09, Hollywood Park, 1.0, 3/5, -220
1.2.09, Hollywood Park, 6.25, 5/10, +605
1.3.09, Hollywood Park, 2.75, 3/5, -76
1.5.09, Hollywood Park, 3.0, 5/10, -1500

Total: 19.5, -824

Get it this year

2009-01-02T14:40:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty excited about the new year heading into 2009.

I finished off 2008 on probably the hottest run of my poker career and feel like I'm playing pretty well. Not perfect but definitely way ahead of the competition.

I've told my family that I'm hoping to eventually play professional poker once I have enough money saved up. Everyone has been very receptive of it except for my girlfriend, who is already kind of against all of the time I spend in the casino. I talked to her about it on New Year's Eve and I think I changed her mind a bit. It was basically "Do you want me to always be broke living check to check behind a desk not enjoying my life, or do you want me to make a lot more money doing what I want to do?" and I think she had never really thought about it like that.
She then proceeded to put up an argument that it's not a legit job and I told her "It'd be like if you wanted to be a make-up artist for a living and your parents told you to get a real job, no one is a make up artist for a living," and then she really understood.

Anyways I played one session so far in 09 and it was a mess. I was card dead as hell and anytime I raised preflop with shit like 66, 9s10s, Ax suited, I would completely miss and either fold or get re-raised on my continuation. I was determined to start the year off with a winning session and was down about $800 when I doubled up twice, once with a set of 5's and then with AK vs. AQ on a 446Ax board. I managed to win $500 last night. I lost $43 in the $200 game before I got moved to the $400, where I won $540.

I have a shit load of resolutions and I guess there's no better place to list them than here:

1. Get in shape

1a. Eat healthier
1b. Work out in the mornings
1c. Play ball at least four times a week
1d. Light weights
1e. Run and/or play tennis on the weekends
1f. Get my six pack back

2. Poker

2a. Make at least 50k in poker for the year
2b. Manage my money better
2c. Win a tournament
2d. Finish in the money at a WSOP event

3. More music

3a. Make better music, songs with content and direction and at the same time widespread appeal
3b. Start producing my own beats
3c. Start performing regularly
3d. Get on a track with a big name

4. Money

1a. Conserve my money and manage it better
1b. Get a new car this year (Cadillac CTS?)

5. Family/Friends

5a. Keep in touch with more friends
5b. Make a better effort to see my family and take a couple trips

6. Manage my time

1a. Keep an agenda/schedule
1b. Don't waste time watching tv, on the internet
1c. Be punctual
1d. Get sleep so I'm more efficient

Obviously the last of every list is the high goal of that part of my life. I wish all this would be easy to attain but it's a lot to aim for. Definitely not out of reach though and I think that's important. A lot of it can go hand-in-hand too. The more money I make in poker, the easier it'll be for me to take trips to see my family, etc.

One of the hardest things out of all this will be my time management. That's the hardest part of my life and has been for the past ten years. There's never enough time in the day and I just don't have much down time in my life. I've had a Nintendo Wii for almost a year now and haven't even been able to play it yet, it's still fresh in the box. I even bought Mario Kart because I love it and haven't played it.

I hope everyone else has some goals that they'll reach this year. No reason not to.

I'm going to start the '09 log.

Peace.

2009 Poker
Date, Place, Hours, Game, +/-$

1.1.09, Hollywood Park, 0.25, -43
1.1.09, Hollywood Park, 4.25, +540

Total: 4.5, +497

Holiday hit

2008-12-29T15:21:00.000-08:00

Well I've spent a ton of money in the last week on xmas gifts, birthday gifts...and shopping for myself as well as a plane ticket and other expenses.

So my bankroll has definitely taken a hit but I'm estimating that I'm at about $8k or $9k. I have money in a few spots so I need to take a tally.

I haven't played in a week and I'm going back tomorrow night, hopefully my game will be on point.

I hope everyone had a good holiday.

4years.........

Monday Night Curse... ugh

2008-12-23T14:09:00.000-08:00

It's official. I'm not playing on a Monday for a while.

Last night I dropped about $1140. $1000 on the $200 game and then another $140 on the $500 game.

When I was driving to the casino I was tired and lethargic and thought to myself 'I should just go home, pack and run some errands..." but obviously the little devil on my other shoulder told me to hit the casino and try to come up.

After I lost I remembered that I had lost last Monday as well. I just checked my records and it's a lot worse than that. Here's a look at my last

11.24, 200, 9, -800
12.01, 200, 4, +605
12.08, 200, 3.0, -880
12.15, 15/30L, 0.25, +30
12.15, 200, 1.0, -80
12.15, 400, 2.75, -695
12.22, 200, 2.0, -1000
12.22, 500, 0.5, -140

Wow.

So in the last five Mondays I've lost $2960.

In December I've played on 17 days and had only five losing days. Four of them were Mondays. It's kind of crazy and I don't really understand it but it's enough to keep me away for the next few Mondays. I can definitely attribute some of it to being tired on Monday from a long weekend of playing and then waking up early Monday morning for work. Monday is the first day that I work eight hours and then sit in traffic to go play at the casino. Maybe by Weds/Thurs my mind and body has adjusted to that schedule but not on Monday.

I'm taking a break for a while unless my flight gets cancelled tonight. I'll probably go back on Saturday or Sunday when I'm back in Los Angeles.

Happy holidays.

Been on my grind

2008-12-22T14:34:00.000-08:00

I have been grinding a lot lately as you can see by the session log in this post. Most of my sessions are not marathon sessions but somewhat quick hitters in a few hours or so, although I did pull an all-nighter on Friday night-Saturday morning. I've been running pretty well (mostly avoiding bad beats) with the exception of one hand where this idiot got lucky as hell on me after I had set him up nicely. Let me explain.

There's a guy, who is a skinny white guy with his hat pulled down low to cover his eyes that just sits there and doesn't say a word and rarely ever has to show his hands. He always raises ridiculously high amounts. Like if the pot is $100 and I bet $75 with top pair, he'll raise it $400 more or just go all-in. Believe me after a few sessions playing with this guy I've noticed him constantly doing this and I've been waiting for him, continuously folding decent hands to his huge raises.

So I've already actually told my boy (who's at my table) about this guy and that I'm just waiting for him. I have a pack of Trident on the table and I've put two short $45 stacks (nine chips) on top of the pack of gum. I told my boy I was going to raise blind with the Trident pack of $90 on my button. But when it's my button I notice the big raiser limp under the gun, so I know he's just waiting for me to raise on the button. I tell my boy I can't do it because big raiser limped UTG so I look at my hand and what do you know? Two black aces.

So I laugh and say "raise" and slide the pack of Trident into the pot with the $90 on top. The guy in the small blind calls my $90 (suprisingly) and then I get even more than I expected. The big raiser announces "all in" for $900!! I have about $2000 at this point. I can't believe it and I call immediately. I'm assuming he also has aces to go all-in for $900 like that pre-flop but he has jacks. Of course he spikes a jack on the flop and takes down the $2000 pot.

11.21, 200 (2/5 blinds), 3.0, +230
11.22, 200*, 2.5, -900
11.22, 200, 3.5, -200
11.24, 200, 9, -800
11.28, 2-40 spread**, 2.75, -100
11.30, 200, 5.5, +1140
12.01, 200, 4, +605
12.04, 200, 5, -220
12.05, 200, 3.5, -340
12.06, 200, 0.5, +150
12.06, 400, 6.5, +1955
12.06, 200, 3.5, +935
12.07, 200, 0.75, -510
12.07, 400, 1.0, +2045
12.08, 200, 3.0, -880
12.09, 200, 1.0, -750
12.09, 400, 3.5, +755
12.09-10, 200, 7.0, +600
12.10, 400, 3.25, +1460
12.12, 400, 2.75, +1300
12.13, 400, 1.75, +280
12.15, 15/30L, 0.25, +30
12.15, 200, 1.0, -80
12.15, 400, 2.75, -695
12.17, 400, 8.25, +1740
12.18, 400, 5.75, +1500
12.19, 200, 0.5, +315
12.19, 60sat, 0.25, -60
12.19, 400, 9.25, +250
12.20, 500(no cap), 0.5, +190
12.20, 200, 2.5, -360
12.20, 400, 3.0, +375
12.21, 200, 0.5, -60
12.21, 400, 2.5, +700

BR: 15500 (+500)

Kind of ridic that I'm 11/12 in winning sessions at the 400 since I started playing the 400.

The +500 is because they called my name in the drawing on Sunday for $1000 (chopped it with my boy that I had made a deal with). Also at this point I've spent a good deal of money on xmas gifts and other stuff and I have about $12000 ready to go. I'm going to continue playing the $400 nl until I run up to $20000 (which I can hopefully do) and then I may start taking some shots at the $500 (no cap) nl game, where I'll be buying in for $1000.

I have to say that things are going really well for me and I've tried to leave when I thought I was getting tired or that I wasn't playing my sharpest.

4years!

Tired

2008-12-16T16:09:00.000-08:00

I'm tired.

I had a long weekend and only played two short sessions, both wins. On Friday I got off work at 2 pm and drove straight to HP. I played the $400 for about four hours and came up about $1300.

After the session I had to go to my company Christmas party. It was confirmed that I'm running hot this month when I won an employee award that came with a $1000 bonus check.

On Saturday I didn't do shit until about 4 p.m. when I went to HP for like two hours and came up $280 on the 400 table. That was solid. After that I hung out with my girl for the night we smoked trees and drank champagne.

Sunday I went to the Lakers game. We had some great seats for a boring game (Timberwolves) in the fifth row. Good looks to my boy T for that one.

However I ran into some trouble yesterday almost as soon as I started playing I got a phone call letting me know that my old roommate got evicted from my old apartment. Unfortunately my name is still on the lease so this morning I had to go to court and file a response. They're going to withdraw the eviction but it's a headache. Obviously I tilted and lost $695 last night at the 400 and 80 at the 200.

I'm just tired.

Sorry for the boring and lackluster entry, I'll come back with some ammo next time..

BR: $10075
Fri: +1300
Sat: +280
Mon: -745
NEW BR: $10910

4 years................

Session Logs

2008-12-12T11:20:00.000-08:00

Didn't play last night but here's a log of my sessions from 11/21/08 to date (there were a bunch of winning sessions before 11.21 that I did not record):

Date, Game, Hours, +/-
11.21, 200 (2/5 blinds), 3.0, +230
11.22, 200*, 2.5, -900
11.22, 200, 3.5, -200
11.24, 200, 9, -800
11.28, 2-40 spread**, 2.75, -100
11.30, 200, 5.5, +1140
12.01, 200, 4, +605
12.04, 200, 5, -220
12.05, 200, 3.5, -340
12.06, 200, 0.5, +150
12.06, 400, 6.5, +1955
12.06, 200, 3.5, +935
12.07, 200, 0.75, -510
12.07, 400, 1.0, +2045
12.08, 200, 3.0, -880
12.09, 200, 1.0, -750
12.09, 400, 3.5, +755
12.09-10, 200, 7.0, +600
12.10, 400, 3.25, +1460

*Commerce Casino
**Club Hollywood Casino (Seattle, WA)

2-40 spread Results: 1 session, 2.75 hours, -100
200 Results: 14 sessions, 51.75 hours, -740
400 Results: 4 sessions, 14.25 hours, +6215

Gonna play mostly the $400 this weekend. Good luck this weekend everyone, get some xmas shopping done.

4years........

Did I find my gravy train?

2008-12-11T14:19:00.000-08:00

I played the $400 again last night and was smart enough to completely bypass the $200. Within 90 seconds of sitting down I was up $500 and five minutes later I was up $700. My first hand I sat down and had AdTd in the cut-off so I call the $10. The BB makes it $40 and under the gun calls the $40, as do I. The flop comes something like 4-8-T with one diamond and they both check to me so I bet $80. The raiser folds and the UTG player thinks for a minute before calling. The turn is the queen of diamonds and he checks to me. At this point I'm pretty certain I have him. I put him on a smaller pair than the tens. I bet $100 and he thinks for a while and then goes all-in. I consider folding until I realize I have the nut flush redraw so I call. The river is a blank and he says he missed and I'm up $440 after one hand.

The next hand I get AQ and limp. Flop comes KTJ rainbow and I bet $35. One caller, turn is a blank and I bet $80 and he folds.

Anyways I won $930 before our table broke. I went to a $200 game for two hands and got moved back into the only $400 table where I won $530.

Last night was the first time I played and really feel like I didn't make one mistake, which felt extremely ... great. Didn't make one bad call, raise or fold.

There's definitely a hand I played that I could have played differently (better) right before I left. A tight player UTG raised to $35 and there were two callers before me. I called with 99 and there were a few more callers. The flop comes 883 and the SB, who is a loose donkey (see picture) bets $110. A good player calls his $110. I know the good player could be calling the $110 with any pair seeing as the donkey was making an obvious stab at the pot on the paired flop. So now I have position and I raise to $250. The donkey insta-folds and the good player goes into the tank before calling reluctantly. We check it down the rest of the way and he shows Js8s for trips. Thanks to my table image he said he put me on a higher 9 and I'm not mad at the play that I made to see the free turn and river. In hindsight I definitely should/could have re-raised preflop to at least see where I was at. I'm pretty sure the J8 suited would have folded also and the only callers would possibly have been the donkey and the original raiser but I had position on both players.

This is the donkey, who gambled hard as soon as he sat down and ran his stack up to about $1500 before losing it all back (I only won one relatively small pot from him). He was a nice, overweight guy who was just there to have a few beers and gamble to put some players on tilt. He played every single hand and raised half of them preflop, never failing to bet on the flop. He also offered one of the asian chick dealers a free trip with him for a few days. For some reason she refused.

Yesterday's big day was great for the simple fact that I was really just hitting the casino to kill a few hours and eat dinner while my girl was at her workout class. I was there from 6pm to 945pm and ended up $1460. The session took my bankroll over $10k to $10075. I would have to go back and look at my old blog but I think this is the first time I've been over $10k and I definitely have a better handle on the money management this time so things are looking good (at the moment).

Poker is a beast and I don't want to get too cocky. My good friend who plays for a living is in the middle of a huge downswing and I know it can go either way i.e. he flopped two pair when one player flopped a set and another player flopped top two. Hopefully I'll keep capitalizing while the cards are hot.

4years.

Back to the REAL reality

2008-12-10T15:41:00.000-08:00

Won $600 last night in an 11 hour marathon session. Basically it went like this:

Lost $750 on a $200 while waiting for the $400 game.

Won $755 on the $400 game before it broke.

Won $550 on a $200 game before it broke.

Won $50 on a $200 game before I left at 6 a.m.

I probably tip about $50 during the course of a session like this to floormen, waitresses and porters. Kind of sucks but it's part of the routine.

Sat with a really nice and way too conversational middle-aged asian dude who apparently usually plays MUCH bigger games and is buddies with Phil Laak. I got so damn tired of hearing him tell his stories about how great Phil Laak is and how sick of a player he is. I wanted to clown him and do some bigger name dropping but I didn't, I just listened to the stories of how awesome Phil Laak is.

One story is that apparently before he even played poker Laak was a big motorcycle guy and was riding on some narrow road and was about to crash into a truck head-on. He knew he had no time to get out of the way so "he did a hand stand on the handle bars, did a flip over the car and landed on his feet running." This guy was dead serious when he told this story.

Honestly last night was such a grind that when I was done it felt like a losing session. I think that's a good thing.

BR is now at $8615.

Back to Reality

2008-12-09T16:28:00.000-08:00

Well that was fun while it lasted.

I played on two sorry ass $200 tables last night and ended up down $880 in a short time (three hours).

I made one terrible decision when I called an extremely tight player's all-in with KQ on a king high board and he obviously had AK.

After that I had 52 in the big blind and the flop was 5-2-3 (with two clubs), I bet $40 and got two callers. The turn was a 5. I checked and a guy bet out $60 so I called hoping he would catch a flush and the river was a jack, filling him up with J-5 and I called his $150 on the river.

Then I got my kings cracked by A-7 offsuit after being all-in preflop. I limped UTG with KK and everyone limped to the button who shoved for $120. He got one caller so I went all-in for $300 and he flopped an ace.

So it was just a bad day, hopefully I'll do better next time. I also lost like $34 of my $44 on Full Tilt in two tournaments ($24 17k guaranteed and a $10 KO tourney).

I think I'm going to play the $400 next time I go because it forces me to concentrate a little harder, which hopefully will help me avoid donkish plays like the KQ play.

BR is at $8015 now.

4years.

Strong Weekend

2008-12-08T14:29:00.000-08:00

I have good news and bad news.

Bad news first: I lost $340 on Friday night when I played from 640pm to 1020pm. I didn't play very well and was up $150 early only to lose that and then some. After that I went out with some friends to a club in Hollywood that was off the hook. I wasn't expecting it to be what it was.

Now the good news: Saturday morning I went back to Hollywood Park around 11:00 a.m. Before I left I thought about just playing the $400 game but then decided I should try to win a little bit on the $200 before jumping into the $400 game. By the time they started the first $400 game of the day I was up $150 in my game so I decided to just move to the $400 game. I like playing the $400 game because I tend to play a bit more solid and focus more due to the money involved. The problem is my bankroll is not really strong enough to play that game regularly. I played strong, got a few lucky flops and my stack ended up looking like this:

When I left the $400 game, I was up $1955 after six hours. I joined my guy at a loose $200 game and made another $935 on that game in 3.5 hours before I had to leave to go hang out with my girl. My boy couldn't believe that I was leaving with the way that I was running but sometimes you just gotta go.

I drove home at about 5 a.m. on Sunday morning and contemplated going straight to the casino but two weeks ago I did the same thing and went to Commerce only to lose over $900 in a few hours on a Saturday morning. So I decided to go home and take a nap before I went to play, hopefully around 10 a.m. because I was planning to see my girl again at 3:30pm.

Of course I woke up late at 11 a.m. I took a quick jog before I realized that my running shoes were cutting into my ankle and my fucking leg was bleeding so I walked back home with a gangster limp and took a shower. At this point it was almost 1pm and I was losing the motivation to go play since I only had a couople of hours. My guy texted me asking me if I was going. I told him 'I don't think so' and he said I should just go because I was running hot. So I went and sat down at the $200 game. I was really just planning to get some lunch and watch some football but before I knew it I was stuck $500 and in for $800. The floorman asked me if I wanted the $400 game so I moved to that game for the simple fact it would be easier for me to recover $500 in the hour that I had.

The minute I sat down at the $400 there was an Asian guy with blonde hair in seat 5 going all-in every hand. He was straight up gambling and this old white guy in seat nine was asking to see his hand every time. The Asian guy loses his stack and leaves and another kid tells the white guy that he's an idiot for asking to see all the hands because that's what caused the gambler to leave. The old white guy takes offense to this and they start yelling, threatening to fight each other and the white guy gets kicked off the table. As soon as he leaves, an older black guy tells the kid he needs to respect his elders and then they start arguing and acting like they're going to fight. This is within like five minutes of me sitting there. I had also caught two winning hands and ran my stack up to $700 (once with AA).

About 25 minutes in I'm in middle position with Jd9d. I call the $10 and the big blind makes it $40. There's four callers to me so I call and the button calls. The flop comes Ad10d2h. Everyone checks to the guy before me (the old black guy who is pissed and ready to fight) and he goes all-in for $200. My first reaction was to fold because I didn't really want to give him a bad beat at this point. But I thought about it for a minute and the odds were there for me to call, especially since I wouldn't face a bet from him on the turn. So I called. Then the button calls the $200 as well. I have him on a smaller flush draw. The turn comes a 9h so I bet $200 into the button to get a side pot going in case I miss my flush. I don't have him on any pairs. He's doing all this math in his head and then all of a sudden goes all-in. Hmm.. wtf? He has me covered for my remaning $300 and I'm looking at him like he's crazy and he says "I have a set, I just got lucky on the turn." I know that's bullshit because there's no way he smooth called that flop with 99 so I call his bet and the king of diamonds hits the river. He shows a smaller flush and I stack the chips.

Very next hand I hit the nut flush on the turn for another $200 pot and within an hour I was looking like this:

When 2:50pm rolled around I was up $2045 in the $400 game and I left, leaving me up $1535 on the day in two hours.

Good thing my boy told me to go up there.

After this weekend my BR is looking like this:

$4580 (before weekend)
-$340 (Friday loss)
+$150 (Sat $200)
+$1955 (Sat $400)
+$935 (Sat $300)
-$510 (Sun $200)
+$2045 (Sun $400)
= $8815

Things are going well so far, hopefully I can continue to improve my play and avoid the coolers.

4years.