Sour Update

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.