The Resurrection...

...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

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

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

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

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

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...

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.