CARDRUNNERS

so im massssssssssssssively tilted because i wrote up a really really long entry and it got erased.  oh well ill just rewrite it because im done with poker for the night.


UFC's biggest card of the year is this saturday.  here is the official site with a ton of good interviews, hype stuff on the major fights:   http://www.92.ufc.com/
It's really stacked and if you are at all interested in mixed martial arts it is a must watch.  then on the 31st is another great card in japan called k1 dynamite 2008.  most casual fans wont recognize a lot of the fighters on that card, but the UFC card is really really huge.

anyway, here are my breakdowns of the fights and what i think are good bets etc.


forrest vs rashad:
forrest is 5 inches taller, will come into the fight prob 15 pounds heavier, has better stamina and much longer reach.  rashad has better takedowns, is faster and has more power in his hands and feet.  but i think forrest wins a UD by just keeping rashad at bay with his massive reach advantage.

betting line:  forrest -130 is a really good bet.  i think he should win upwards of 60%



nogueira vs mir:
big nog has better boxing, muay thai, wrestling, judo, bjj, stamina, heart, chin and huggableness.  mir has no advantage in this fight and probably no chance to win.  nog by sub 2nd round.  if mir wins it should be considered one of the biggest upsets ever.

betting line:  nog is currently around -350, which is a good bet cause he should be -1000 with the odds mir has to win. 



wandy vs rampage:
the real main event of the card even though its not for a title.  winner will almost certainly get a title shot vs forrest/rashad winner.  wandy won the first 2 fights with brutal brutal knees.  however the 2nd fight was very very competitive and rampage was probably slightly ahead before wandy started raining punches/knees on him and throwing him out of the ring.  rampage has improved a lot since then and i think he should be considered the favorite.  however my manlove for wandy prevents me from picking rampage, so i say wandy by 2nd round tko.  but this is one of the best fights of the year and i highly recommend watching the card JUST for this fight.  here is a hype video that will help explain the background between these 2 fighters:

here is the link in case the video doesnt embed right:

  www.youtube.com/watch







betting line:  wandy is a slight favorite, is around -130, rampage is around-110.  id say dont bet it its hard to predict. 


cb dolloway vs mike massenzio:
massenzio has pretty good wrestling and subs from top position, but cb is a better wrestler so massenzio will probably be on his back during the fight.  cb by UD or TKO. 

betting line:  cb -150, i like it.



cheick kongo vs mustapha al-turk:
kongo is the favorite as his striking is light years ahead of al-turks, but al turks grappling is way better so if he gets it to the ground he prob subs kongo fairly fast.  i think the most likely outcome of this fight is kongo by tko.  however, if the betting looks right (+275 or better on al-turk) id probably take a chance on the upset.



on the undercard...

okami vs lister:
lister is a very very good submission grappler and is a former ADCC champion.  however, okami is bigger, stronger, has great gnp, great wrestling and very good sub defense as he lost in ADCC to demian maia by points.  i think okami wins UD or by TKO


other fights.....

hamill > reese.  reese is a smalller, worse wrestler with no power or subs.  terrible chance of winning.
hardonk > wessel.  dont know wessel and dont care, hardonk wins, really good striker
chonan vs blackburn....dont know, i like chonan but people seem to like blackburn so i wont go out on a limb here and say anything.
evenson vs barry....i honestly dont care lol


so thats my picks for this ufc.




Today BJJ was really good.  i really enjoy the tuesday and thursday afternoon classes when there are more blue/purple/brown belts and only a couple of us white belts and there are only like 10 people in the class.  On these days i usually train with Jimmy, a 40 year old cop from jersey city.  hes about my size, a little stronger and a little more experienced.  We did a lot of judo early on in the class and had a good takedown sparring session.  almost all of my takedowns were not judo throws or sweeps but single legs after jimmy messed up and left his leg out after a missed sweep attempt.  im sure my judo and sweeps will improve the more i do it.

after that we worked from the ground.  we started with a position where one person starts standing and the other starts on the ground with his left leg wrapped around standing up persons right leg, the grounded persons right leg is pushing back the standing persons left leg, and hes on his back.  there were a lot of moves to attempt to get to guard or sweep to top position and the standing persons goal is to pass to side control.  we worked a lot of stuff with the position then rolled a bit starting from there.  it was a good lesson and i didnt have much experience with this because most people dont try to pull guard and end up here.

after class ended i wanted to stay after and roll a bit but everyone about my level was rolling already, so one of the black belts who is the assistant instructor, jason tabor wanted to stay warm and rolled with me.  i wouldnt really call it rolling, more like how many times can i sub daut in 6 minutes.  jason is about 5'11 145 pounds, but obviously very very highly skilled.  he got 3rd in the world championships for his weight class when he was a brownt belt a few years ago and obv has only improved since.  im pretty sure he tapped me 15 times in 6 minutes.  there were a ton of different chokes, id say 3-4 gi chokes, a couple guillotines, an anaconda, some ezekials, an armbar, a triangle, a kimura and an omaplata.  all within a 6 minute span.  was really interesting to see what a really really high level person can do to someone who has a vague idea but is not close to his level.  its going to be a ton of fun when im at that level someday (well close to it, i doubt ill ever be quite as good as jason) and can mess around with my friends and do that to them.

after that i stayed and watched the blue belts, a purple belt, a brown belt and jason take turns rolling with each other.  was really interesting to see jason destroy the blue belts just as effortlessly as he did to me.  the purple and brown belt put up a bit of a better fighter and jason wasnt able to capitalize on their mistakes as much but obviously it was only a matter of time til he reached a dominant position.


Tomorrow is xmas eve and we are going to my mom's brothers house.  he has a pretty big family.  hes 13 years older than my mom so he has grandkids already.  he has 4 kids and each of those 4 kids has 2 or 3 kids.  there will also be some other cousins, uncles and people who joined the family through marriage there as well.  after that ill probably come back home around 9:00 pm and play a few hours tomorrow night to make christmas day get here faster.  i havent really bought too many xmas presents this year, only my parents and a few close friends.  for xmas/my moms birthday i got them a new fridge and im going to get the basement finished for them.  and if my dad wants ill get him a snowblower in case im not around to shovel the driveway.  really excited to see what i am getting.

thats it for today. 

So before i get to poker i have a slightly humorous but really kinda awful story that is certainly going to make me look like the biggest asshole of all time.

My dad's sister and her husband came to visit.  my dad is into his 60s, his sister is older than him cause she was the oldest of the 4 siblings, and her husband is about 15-20 years older than her, so hes in his early 90s, which seems weird cause hes my uncle through marriage, and thats older than most grandparents. 

we went to this restaurant Pierre's that is closing down within the next 2 weeks and it has really good food for a reasonable price for a buffet.  anyway it generally draws a much older crowd, most of the people there are into their 70s.  so when we get to the restaurant, we had to help uncle bernie out a bit cause it was pretty icy outside.  we got inside and found our table. 

i sit down and this couple is sitting across the aisle.  now its more packed that usual because its closing down soon, and the guy is coughing uncontrollably.  i mean for like 90 seconds straight the guy is coughing really loudly and violently.  i am sitting there thinking to myself "jesus christ what kind of retard would go out to eat when they are that sick.  stay home and take care of yourself, dont get the entire restaurant infected with whatever disease you have".  after a while he finally stops coughing and i hear "SORRY HONEY" in a really loud and distinct voice.  i look up and its a mentally challenged couple having lunch.  i immediately felt like the biggest dick ever for what i was thinking, but its still kinda lol.


so ive been doing really well playing 2/4 and today there were 6 or 7 really really good 5/10 full ring games going.  it took every bit of my might to not sit.  i decided its better to be disciplined and follow through with making 30-50k at 2/4 before i go back because if i lost 4 buyins in 1000 hands and it took 10 hours to get it back id be pretty meh.

anyway here are my stats pver the last 7 days:



for new years im heading to san diego with clint (beatiful man), josh (reddog), nick (ahh snap), steve (xtcbx), brandon schaefer, jesse chinni (thedegeneral), some of their girlfriends and some of clints friends.  we are probably going to nobu for dinner then either a club or lounge on new years eve, then taking a carnaval cruise that departs from san diego and goes to mexico.  We stop in cabo san lucas, another port, and spend a few days out at sea.  Theres a pretty long list of stuff to do once we get off the boat but im sure ill end up winging it.  should be a lot of fun. 

after the cruise i am not sure whether ill attend PCA or not.  i think we get back into san diego on january 5th and pca starts on the 5th, so im not sure id be able to play.  maybe ill go down and play a side event/hang out, im not really sure yet. 

i dont really have any plans for next year yet.  id like to do a good amount of travelling, play maybe 2 or 3 tourney series where i play a lot of live and dont play much the rest of the year and hopefully play a lot online.  as for goals, id like to learn a new language (either cement the spanish i took in high school and become proficient at it, or learn a lot of italian), get my blue belt in jiu jitsu, make a lot of money and visit at least 1 new continent i havent yet, whether it be africa, australia, south america or asia.  id also like to buy some real estate as i dont have a house yet.  im thinking about getting a place in vegas and maybe a place with ahhh snap in texas or somewhere warm in the midwest.  we'll see.

So I decided to grind out 30k profit before jumping back into the 5/10 full ring games on ftp.  this is probably excessively nitty but ive been making exactly $385 an hour including rakeback in the 2/4 games over the past 68k hands/117 hours so i dont feel any pressure to play much higher.  i know that im not improving my game as fast as i could be if i were playing against better opponents all the time but its hard to move away from somewhere i do so well and will never have a 10k downswing.

anyway i started monday and after 5 days im a little over 1/4 the way there.  here are the stats after 5 days:


And here are my stats over the last 68k hands at 2/4, since i got back from hawaii at end of september:


Overall im doing really well, playing for the most part very well, with some minor mistakes in there that im slowly fixing.  3/6 full ring doesnt run very often so once in a while ill mix in 1 table of it with 2/4 but for the most part ive just been playing all 2/4 cause i dont even bother looking at the 3/6 games.  With rakeback included ive had an 11k run at 2/4 in 5 days when i'm not running that much above expectation.  things like this really make it hard for me to move up to higher stakes cause theres just so much money to be made lower but after a certain point i really should start to try and improve as much as i can so i can play higher before games get even harder.  But for now when i dont have a ton online i think it would be way more prudent to just grind out another 300 hours at 2/4 which should yield me around 100k profit and shouldnt take more than 2-3 months, and play the better weekly tourneys on the side and hopefully hit something nice.


This week I decided to finally invest in 30 inch monitors.  I used 24 inch ones forever but there is overlap when i play 12 tables since I use a HUD and the stats run together too much if i make the tables smaller.  Now i can have 12 tables across 2 monitors with 0 overlap at all and the stats fit perfectly on each table.  I can also put 9 tables on each monitor and the stats are a little jumbled but still useable, roughly the same as they were with 4 tables on a 24" monitor, so if i want i can play 18 tables without any overlap semi comfortably.  I do this once in a while when i get into a nice groove with pandora playing.  Anyway, these monitors are all the more incentive to keep grinding a lot of tables at lower stakes.  Heres my setup, i should have gotten in closer to give you a better view of the megan fox picture but whatever just wanted to showoff the monitors and the 9 tables without overlap.




BJJ this week was pretty good.  I went on monday and thursday and went to the gym on wednesday.  Thursday was a particularly good class because i got to train with a blue belt for the 90 minute class, then stayed after and rolled a few rounds with a more advanced white belt vinny.  I feel like i learned a lot this week about some positions i was having trouble with like defending some guard passes, passing to mount/side control from half guard, and some new judo takedowns.  unfortunately i wont be able to go this weekend because some family is coming in tomorrow, and i generally stay the night in hoboken on saturday and dont get back til around 4-5 on sunday, but im looking forward to the monday class and hopefully getting my 2nd stripe pretty soon.


In other news, it snowed a lot today.  It started around 11 am and lasted til probably 7 pm.  I didnt wake up til 130 and by then the gym was already closed early so i couldnt get a workout in.  I pretty much played all day and lounged around doing nothing and decided to get my workout in by shoveling the 3 inches of snow and ice on the driveway at around 9 pm.  My mom was at a friends for most of the day and drove back kinda late, so when she came up the driveway she really compacted a lot of the snow which made it harder to shovel.  After about half an hour i got half the top area done, which is all i really needed to do so we can get the cars out easily. 

right as i started making my way towards the bottom (which is the hardest part because the snow plows come by and it really pushes the snow up against the entrance to the driveway so its like 3 times higher and really iced over by that point), a guy with a snowplow on his truck drives up and asks if i want the driveway plowed.  i decided to turn him down cause shoveling snow is a pretty good workout and it felt good to finally get outside today.  45 minutes of hacking away at the bottom of the driveway made me wish i had said different.  but i pressed on and got most of the driveway shoveled in about 90 minutes.  i still have to shovel the walkway up to the frontdoor and maybe have another half hour of shoveling to do on the driveway but for the most part im done. 

im pretty happy i decided to do it all myself and not pay someone to plow it.  its pretty easy to justify paying $50 to get the driveway plowed in 5 minutes and use the 90 minutes id spend shoveling snow playing poker to make even more money but the exercise is important and i dont want to just avoid doing things that take some time by using the "well i make X amount more playing poker so im just going to pay someone else to do this".  This could very well lead down a road where i just literally void myself of all responsibilty and become a worthless bum in constant couch mode, paying people to do everything for me.  I get a lot of joy by mixing up my routine and doing some things that are a little mundane sometimes cause theres nothing worse than falling into the rut of a monotonous daily schedule that never changes. 

ill take some pictures tomorrow of the snow and what my street looks like when its light out.

Has been kind of disappointing.  I have been doing really well at 2/4 and 3/6, and pretty awful at 5/10 +.



Kind of hilarious, but some breakdowns:
in 52k hands at 2/4, im up 62 buyins, which is about 6ptbb
in 20k hands of 3/6, im up 29 buyins, which is about 7ptbb
in 19k hands of 5/10, im down 5 buyins, and down another 1.5 buyins at 10/20.

so the result is im not up all that much but my ptbb is really good.  oh well.  i had a pretty frustrating day at 5/10 the other day where i didnt play my best and lost some fairly ridiculous all ins.  i stacked off semi light in a few spots, way too light a few times, and just got coolered/ran bad a bunch.  Here's the best one for fun:


Full Tilt Poker Game #9465472077: Table Petya (deep) - $5/$10 - No Limit Hold'em - 23:59:56 ET - 2008/12/12
Seat 1: br4keaga4n ($1,232)
Seat 2: Ryan Daut ($1,898)
Seat 3: IH8SHORTSTAKS ($2,487)
Seat 4: QuintBogey ($2,127)
Seat 5: kAAto KKatelyn ($2,917)
Seat 6: Storstekarn ($1,531.75)
Seat 7: novel20 ($2,409)
Seat 8: mektin ($1,000)
Seat 9: Rask88 ($1,388)
QuintBogey posts the small blind of $5
kAAto KKatelyn posts the big blind of $10
The button is in seat #3

Holecards
Dealt to Ryan Daut
Storstekarn folds
novel20 folds
mektin folds
Rask88 folds
br4keaga4n has 15 seconds left to act
br4keaga4n raises to $35
Ryan Daut raises to $120
IH8SHORTSTAKS folds
QuintBogey folds
kAAto KKatelyn folds
br4keaga4n has 15 seconds left to act
br4keaga4n calls $85

Flop  (Pot : $255.00)

   
br4keaga4n has 15 seconds left to act
br4keaga4n checks
Ryan Daut has 15 seconds left to act
Ryan Daut bets $180
br4keaga4n calls $180

Turn (Pot : $615.00)

   
br4keaga4n has 15 seconds left to act
br4keaga4n checks
Ryan Daut has 15 seconds left to act
Ryan Daut bets $520
br4keaga4n raises to $932, and is all in
Ryan Daut calls $412
br4keaga4n shows
Ryan Daut shows

River (Pot : $2,479.00)

   
br4keaga4n shows a flush, Queen high
Ryan Daut shows Queen Nine high
br4keaga4n wins the pot ($2,476) with a flush, Queen high
Ryan Daut adds $334

Summary
Total pot $2,479 | Rake $3
Board:
Seat 1: br4keaga4n showed and won ($2,476) with a flush, Queen high
Seat 2: Ryan Daut showed and lost with Queen Nine high
Seat 3: IH8SHORTSTAKS (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: QuintBogey (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 5: kAAto KKatelyn (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 6: Storstekarn didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: novel20 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 8: mektin didn't bet (folded)
Seat 9: Rask88 didn't bet (folded)


the games at 5/10 arent quite as good but still beatable.  i just hate losing like 15k hands worth of profit with a standard downswing whenever i move back up.  i cashed about 100k offline since september so i dont have a lot online and would prefer having more before i settle into the 5/10 games more.  so im going to grind out 30k more profit at 2/4 and 3/6 before moving back into the 5/10 games.  when the rakeback gets included with that ill probably have another 45k or so online by then and ill feel good with 90-100 buyins.


staking has been going really well this year.  we've had some really good wins, here are the highlights:

-martine cashed for 835k after chop when he won ept london in september
-ajkhoosier chopped wcoop main event for 750k ish
-martine cashed for 650k in monte carlo back in march
-blair won wsop event for 510k in june
-bushman won 5k prelim at bellagio back in april for roughly 350k
-mattg won 5k prelim at 5 diamond a few days ago for about 310k after chop
-roothlus cashed for 260k finishing 5th in festa al lago wpt event, and finishing top 50 in the main event for 140k
-bodogari my hero forever cashed for 190k in a borgata deepstack event in may
-sumeet batera chopped an atlantic city tourney with sheets for over 200k
-blake mr trampoline cahail, the only man who has ever RNC'ed me cashed for 180k in the wynn classic in march
-jimmy crushing 5k bellagio prelims gobboboy fricke got 3rd in a bellagio event last week for 80k
-and randal "who needs to be 21 to have multiple sick scores live" flowers had a few nice live scores in ept events, 75k in san remo and another 40k in barcelona.  also the only man besides blake cahail who grinds off his online makeup live


our staking group still hasnt seen a 1 million score but thats ok, we had a good year, and the 15k in vegas is still going on so maybe one of our guys will do well out there.  there were obviously a lot of other tourney entries/buyins and guys still in makeup and stuff, but there were some other pieces of players i took, and lots of other nice 50k+ scores online and live that balanced out the tourney buyins. 

live poker was a disappointment for me playing as i only had 2 small cashes in a little over 100k in buyins.  thats ok, i plan on playing in a bunch of series next year but taking most of the year off from live poker with the exceptions of a few epts, maybe LAPC events+cash games, wsop and maybe one or two of the bellagio series.

so between backing, my live tourneys and my online play, overall it was a pretty good year.  i didnt make the 1 million i was hoping to this year, but i still did very well overall and have nothing to be disappointed about. 

i guess thats it for now, ill post in a week or two with how the 30k townsendlike quest at 2/4 and 3/6 is going.  id like to finish up those hands before the year is over so i can move back into 5/10 games going into 2009.

I havent played poker in a few weeks but i've been going to bjj 3-4 times a week and staying up to 4 hours while im there so ill just blog about that.

Things are going pretty well.  I had been going once or twice a week and just going to the beginners class but i've turned it up a lot recently.  I went to a tournament a week ago, and i went in knowing i would be way less experienced than most of the people there.  I was really surprised at the level of the white belts being as high as it was.  I fought in the 160-169.5 pound division and there were 6 guys in the group.  2 others were from my school, and 3 from other schools.  One was a russian kid named nick who had been doing BJJ around 10 months and really really should have been a blue belt, another was a kid named dave who had been doing it for 12-18 months but wasnt all that active with it, only went once or twice a week, so although he had more experience and had been doing it longer than most white belts he wasnt the toughest and the third was a black kid named denard who you could tell was a good athlete, but hadnt been taking BJJ all that long, maybe 3-4 months.

The first match was my friend mickey vs nick the russian kid.  Mickey is 16, he weighs 185 (no idea why they put him in our division) and hes a good athlete, plays football and used to box in silvergloves before he started BJJ.  He has only been doing it a few months but put up a decent fight vs the russian kid.  But nick was just too much, he was really an animal and i guess since it was the major RGDA invitational (royler gracie and david adivs school) his coaches wanted to keep him a white belt until after the tourney.  Mickey managed to get side control for a few seconds, got the points, then got swept into nick having side control.  nick eventually mounted and armbarred mickey.

second fight was me vs denard.  started out with us clinching a bit, i tried to get underhooks but he switched his outside arm back inside.  as he put his arm under mine he left his front leg out a bit and i went for a single leg takedown but he pulled his leg back quick and took me down and ended up in my half guard.  he was a little off balance at first so i tried to sit up and take his back but he spread his arms out and pushed me back down.  i tried to "oopah" him off so i could create a little room to get back to guard but he kept me in half guard.  I kept trying to sweep or regain guard but he did a good job of keeping me there.  After a few minutes of this stagnant fight he passed my knee and got to mount, and it wasnt long before i got armbarred.  I was pretty disappointed at first cause my takedown attempt was garbage, which led to him getting me in half guard, and i couldnt regain my full guard or sweep him.  But as the competition went on i felt a little better about what happened.

As it played out, denard ended up going 3-0, winning all 3 matches by armbar and winning our division.  i was really surprised to see him beat the russian kid, especially by submission, but i think nick was a bit gassed from the first fight.  I didnt feel so bad after that but I felt like i had a lot to work on back at the gym.  Up until a few weeks ago i still felt kinda clueless in a lot of areas but everything is sort of coming together. 

I've trained about 5 nights since the competition and im improving really fast.  it really helped me notice some holes and it was good to see what the advanced white belts, and all the blue belts were doing in similar situations at the invitational and i've been able to apply a lot of the stuff i saw.  I've worked a lot on gi cross arm chokes when i have opponent in my guard and transitioning from those chokes to either armbar, sweep to mount, or triangle, because i saw a ton of gi chokes happen and i didnt have much experience with them before. 

The past few days i've rolled with a few blue belts and i got to train a little bit with a brown belt who would point out my mistakes after he destroyed me.  It was really interesting to go against the blue belts because they were so calm while i was in the OMG A TIGER IS ABOUT TO EAT ME mode.  The first session i went against Adam who is much more advanced than me so we just practiced rotating between different sweeps and sub attempts from my guard while he blocked them.  He was really calm the whole time and only had to make minimal movements to block most of my attempts.  He showed me a few ways to tighten them up and also to stop some of his pass attempts.

After that I rolled a bit with another blue belt John who wasnt quite as advanced as Adam.  The first time i pulled guard and went for a few subs but he kept blocking them with good elbow placement.  I eventually went too far for a sub and couldnt get my leg back under his elbow, so after a little bit of work he got the pass and keylocked me from side control.  We restarted on our knees and he left an opening and i went for his back, but he didnt let me get my hooks in so i rolled over into mount.  i set his arm up and went to armbar him and at first he held his hands together to prevent it, so i pushed his back arm with my leg to get it loose but the sneaky bastard grabbed onto his gi and i couldnt yank it out, and eventually he got back to his knees and rolled into my guard.  i hadnt seen someone do that yet and its cool to find out new ways to block moves or new moves to use when you go against higher ranks. 

Tonight there werent a lot of people at practice so one of the instructors, brian a brown belt, came and worked with me for the whole class.  it was definitely the most ive learned from a session because you can really see every mistake you make and everything you dont know as well as you think you do when you go against a BJJ player of that caliber. 

We worked a lot of the gi choke/armbar/triangle/sweep stuff, and the last 25 minutes of the session we just rolled, starting with him having both his hands crossed on my gi (real bad position for me) and vice versa.  when i was in his guard, basically i had to hold on to his wrists and pull them apart to prevent from getting choked, while also trying to prevent all the other moves he would do.  for about 15 minutes straight he just continually either swept me to mount, choked me out, worked his legs up and armbarred, or secured a triangle.  i managed to last a minute or so a few times by keeping my elbows out to block his legs from getting inside or over and working the submissions, while also holding my balance and shooting my legs out to prevent the sweeps, but he eventually got me every time. 

when we turned it around and i was on my back i could really feel the power of the position.  i obviously wasnt able to get him unless he sort of gave it to me to teach me, but you can see what a bad spot it puts the top position guy in, and the best defense against it is a prophyalctic one that starts before he gets both hands in and crossed.

anyway im really enjoying it and can finally see a ton of improvement.  i also can see plenty of bumps and bruises lol.  here are some pictures of my arms to show you its not exactly patty cake.



my finger after the armbar.  i guess denard yanked it out when he did it, the pinky was all fucked up and discolored for a few days.



















it looks like little bugs are attacking my arms lol but its just finger prints from the grappling.  small price to pay for the enjoyment of the sport, plus chicks dig bruises.

thats about all.  havent played much poker for about 15 days so nothing to update there.

Since I got back from hawaii I've played a decent amount of poker.  Not too much but i've put in about 1k hands a day average.



Things are going pretty well.  I've been playing really good lately and feel like im back on top of my game for the most part.  I dont think im running above expectation as i've been practicing really good game selection so I think i can sustain this winrate for a longer period of time cause i have been not been playing games filled with good regulars too much.  I wont go on too long about poker but there is one hilarious hand that just happened that i absolutely have to share.


So it's like 9:10 at night and i want to watch dexter more closely which just started at 9:00 but im stuck 1k in a session and dont want to quit down.  i was playing 3/6 6max so i decided to just start fishing really hard on all the deep tables trying to win a 2500 pot so i could quit up.  So here's what happens when you combine fishing to get up and a deep table:

www.liquidpoker.net/h/559890

Full Tilt Poker Game #8784433027: Table Hurt (deep 6) - $3/$6 - No Limit Hold'em - 21:12:03 ET - 2008/11/02
Seat 1: zero2lose ($4,580.90)
Seat 2: XL-Lasse ($2,199.10)
Seat 3: I Win Flips ($1,116.40)
Seat 4: myohmyAA ($1,801.60)
Seat 5: elvis220 ($1,534.85)
Seat 6: Ryan Daut ($1,981.35)
zero2lose posts the small blind of $3
XL-Lasse posts the big blind of $6
The button is in seat #6

Holecards(Odds)
Dealt to Ryan Daut
I Win Flips has 15 seconds left to act
I Win Flips raises to $21
myohmyAA folds
elvis220 folds
Ryan Daut calls $21
zero2lose calls $18
XL-Lasse calls $15

Flop(Odds) (Pot : $84.00)

   
zero2lose checks
XL-Lasse checks
I Win Flips bets $63
Ryan Daut has 15 seconds left to act
Ryan Daut calls $63
zero2lose has 15 seconds left to act
zero2lose has requested TIME
zero2lose folds
XL-Lasse raises to $336
I Win Flips folds
Ryan Daut has 15 seconds left to act
Ryan Daut has requested TIME
Ryan Daut calls $273

Turn(Odds) (Pot : $819.00)

   
XL-Lasse bets $342
Ryan Daut has 15 seconds left to act
Ryan Daut calls $342

River (Pot : $1,503.00)

   
XL-Lasse has 15 seconds left to act
XL-Lasse bets $276
Ryan Daut has 15 seconds left to act
Ryan Daut raises to $1,282.35, and is all in
XL-Lasse calls $1,006.35

Showdown
Ryan Daut shows a straight, Nine high
XL-Lasse mucks
Ryan Daut wins the pot ($4,064.70) with a straight, Nine high

Summary
Total pot $4,067.70 | Rake $3
Board:  
Seat 1: zero2lose (small blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 2: XL-Lasse (big blind) mucked - two pair, Queens and Nines
Seat 3: I Win Flips folded on the Flop
Seat 4: myohmyAA didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: elvis220 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: Ryan Daut (button) showed and won ($4,064.70) with a straight, Nine high

Poor guy, i feel pretty bad but whatever.  Worst part of the whole thing was i didnt even end up watching dexter...lololol. 



ok, so onto mma.  i guess ill talk about whatevers on my mind for now, my bjj sessions and god knows what else.

so my friend showed me this site mmaplayground where you can do lots of fantasy picks in leagues with your friends on different events in mma.  you can also do stuff like pick top 10s in each weight class etc.  ill just ramble on about some of my top 10s and picks ive made cause i have some free time to kill.



Heavyweight:
1. fedor - obvio #1, best fighter of all time, best gnp in the world, amazing subs, strong standup, good chin, best sambo fighter of all time (like a judo/bjj mix with weird scoring).  only weakness is that he cuts.  has never lost a fight except for a stopped fight due to a cut.  has 2 wins vs nog, win vs crocop, crushed sylvia, impressive victory over herring when he was a top contender, subbed mark hunt, wins over semmy schilt (k1 legend), mark coleman, kevin randleman, arona, etc etc the list just goes on and on really.

2. big nog - would be considered best fighter of all time if fedor didnt exist, <3 nog <3.  very good standup, very very good subs/bjj/judo and has the biggest heart and best ability to take damage in all of mma.  is basically unfinishable.  has avenged his only 2 losses to people who arent fedor.  has never been subbed or ko'ed.

3. andrei arlovski - i love AA.  holds nice wins over sylvia, ben rothwell, roy nelson, werdum, etc etc.  has really really sick standup and is a good sambo fighter.  i dont expect him to beat fedor but he has as good a shot as anyone.

4. josh barnett - very well rounded intelligent fighter.  i expect to see some good fights involving him in 09.  has tons of impressive wins on his resume and is one of only people to ever defeat big nog.  only losses are to crocop, nog and rizzo which he avenged with an impressive ko.  def #4 hw right now and looking forward to his next fight.

5. randy couture - it would be criminal to leave randy off the rankings right now.  he looked so sosososo good vs both sylvia and vs gonzaga and i am hoping he brings it just as hard vs lesnar.  if he doesnt put on a good performance vs lesnar ill have to drop him down a ways and add brock to the top 10. 

6. tim sylvia - still one of the best, i mean hes only lost to arlovski, nog, couture, fedor, mir in his entire career.  not bad for a guy with almost nil ground skills.  also has some sick wins like beating AA twice, jeff monson, ricco rodriguez and some others.

7. sergei kharitonov - has some really good wins (overeem, werdum, rizzo) and only 3 losses to top fighters (overeem, aleks, nog).  well rounded and finishes fights from both ground and ko.  very exciting guy to watch, i hope he gets a tough matchup like sylvia or barnett or a rematch with aleks in 09.

8. aleksander emelianenko - hidden in shadow of his brother, hes a really strong sambo fighter.  similar style to his brother but has weaker ground game/sub defense, as shown in his loss to werdum.  could have put him in front of sergei cause of his win against him but just looked too vulnerable in his fight vs werdum to move him up more.

9. alistair overeem - looked soooo good vs mirko.   has had problems with gassing in the past but that was mainly at 205 where i am guessing he had to cut a lot of weight.  he looks really really sick at heavyweight and i expect him to challenge anyone he fights as long as he doesnt gas cause of his k1 striking and good submissions.

10. mirko crocop - please come back to your old form mirko i know you can do it.  i refuse to drop someone as good as mirko from the top 10 yet.  has the best leg kicks of all time and amazing takedown defense.

honorable mention:  fabricio werdum, gabriel gonzaga, cain velasquez, ben rothwell, brock lesnar, junior dos santos, frank mir


notes: 
Left off werdum cause he came in so out of shape vs junior dos santos and just looked awful.  has good wins over aleks, 2x gonzaga, overeem, but has lost the 3 most important fights of his career so when you combine how fat and awful he looked in ufc 90 with his important losses i left him out.  has potential to be a top 5 fighter just hasnt come through in the clutch.  might have best bjj in the whole hw division.

left out gonzaga cause his cardio has been exposed and will wait until he beats another top 10 before putting him back in.  also has potential to be top 5 with good standup and a very very good bjj resume.

cain needs some more fights before he gets in top 10 but i think he has a bright future ahead of him.  same with junior dos santos.

ben rothwell has some nice wins and some big fights but i dont think he has a chance to do damage to the top fighters in the division.

brock, we will see how he does vs randy.  maybe ill put him in after that.  his strength/size are unparalleled and he's apparently getting really good at bjj and his standup is improving.

frank mir, meh, i could put him in, but whatever.  not really a huge fan of him, although you cant question his skills.  he has subbed 6 guys in the ufc with 5 different subs which is an awesome stat.

no honorable mention to shane carwin.  will get beat silly by any real fighter he faces cause he will gas within first half of first round.



Light Heavyweight:
1.  forrest griffin - beat the 2 former #1's in the division.  very well rounded fighter without a major strength but good in every area, has improved so much the past few years.  he beat shogun because shogun came in with a hurt leg and out of shape, he beat rampage cause he out fought him.  i think he has an edge on everyone in the entire division with the exception of maybe rampage, shogun and arona, and he already has beaten 2 of those guys!

2.  rampage jackson- Has some of the best technical boxing in all of mma, really brutal gnp and great slams.  I put rampage 2nd because he has a lot of big wins recently.  2 wins over chuck, a win over henderson, and a 6 fight win streak before his decision loss to forrest is enough to keep him at #2 despite horrible losses to wandy and shogun.  his most famous slam deserves a youtube showing:  almost caught in a triangle by arona, he counters with a brutal brutal powerbomb slam:

 www.youtube.com/watch

3.  lyoto machida - very elusive, good karate, good judo, good bjj.  not like most other mma fighters but his style is effective.  machida deserves the #3 spot cause he has a few nice wins over people like rich franklin, soko, tito, etc, is unbeaten and will give anyone a lot of trouble.  id expect him to be getting a title shot by the end of 2009, as soon as he can get a fight (thiago silva has been perpetually injured)

4.  mauricio shogun rua- the prototype of mixed martial arts.  very good muay thai, very good wrestling, good boxing, very good leg kicks, very good gnp, very good bjj.  hes like a 205 pound gsp but better standup.  doesnt have the cardio gsp did and isnt quite as good at wrestling but hes even more exciting.  i suggest youtubing him to see his fights against arona and rampage they are fucking amazing. 

i left shogun as high as #4 because he just has so many amazing wins in such dominant fashion and his 2 most recent losses were due to injuries.  he lost to coleman cause of a broken arm and lost to forrest because he had a bum leg in the fight and came in semi out of shape as well.  if he doesnt bring it in his fight vs coleman i will drop him a lot.

5.  wanderlei silva - the most aggressive fighter in mma with brutal muay thai and good bjj (although he never really uses it).  3 brutal wins over sakuraba, 2 brutal wins over rampage, brutalized jardine, split fights with arona and henderson.  this youtube will say enough, just goes to show you how good wandy is  to beat a guy i still put #2 on my rankings in that fashion twice.  also has the best staredown in all of mma.

  www.youtube.com/watch


6.  rashad evans - good wrestling, fast, good standup.  had one of the most brutal knockout punches ive ever seen vs chuck earlier this year.  i dont think he has a chance vs forrest but we'll see in december.

7.  chuck liddell - guy is a legend, no writeup required. 

8.  ricardo arona - kind of boring but effective wrestler/bjj fighter.  has fought only huge beastly fighters his entire career.

9.  antonio rogerio nog - twin brother of big nog, very similar but not quite as accomplished.  hopefully he starts fighting some bigger names this year, would love to see him fight tito as he has been fighting some weak opponents lately.

10. luis cane - crushed soko, has very good standup, very good bjj and is a smart patient fighter.  look for him to do lots of damage in the ufc 205 division next year

honorable mention:  thiago silva, keith jardine, rameau sokoudjou, vladimir matyushenko, tito ortiz, dan henderson, rich franklin


Notes: 
ok #5-7 are pretty tricky cause it could def be argued otherwise, but i kept wandy at 5 cause he is still a killer as shown in his jardine fight and will show against rampage!!!, chuck is 1-3 in his last 4 fights even though he beat wandy and looked great in that fight i thought it was enough to keep him lower on the rankings, and rashad did look good vs chuck but im not ready to put him in the top 5.

ok now it was pretty tricky ranking the last 3 because there are so many good up and coming fighters as well as a ton of guys who have been there in the past but are semi inactive but i went with arona, little nog and jardine from the choices.  arona is just a huge beast and has only fought monsters his entire career.  his losses are fedor, rampage, soko, wandy and shogun, and has big wins over overeem, wandy, hendo, jeremy horn, guy mezger, sakuraba, and some people believe he actually won his fight vs fedor.  little nog is also a beast and deserves top 10.  luis cane has never really lost a fight and has looked really good in the fights ive seen so he deserves the #10 spot in my opinion.

i didnt include hendo because i consider him more of a 185 fighter and it was a borderline decision so i went with the straight 205 fighters. 

luis cane is a monster so i decided to put him in the top 10 instead of jardine, who only has real quality wins over chuck and forrest...forrest is much better now, and he wasnt super super impressive vs vera. 

soko does have big wins over arona and little nog but has lost 2 of his last 3 and looked really vulnerable in both fights. 

tito i feel could still be there but needs to show me something in an upcoming fight to get put back in. 

matyushenko is just old so i kept him out lol and rich franklin isnt ready for top 10 yet at 205. 

and thiago silva...i dont know, he doesnt have wins over any top 10 guys so i wont put him in until he beats some real quality opposition.



Middleweight:
1.  anderson silva - obv, best striker in the sport, black belt in bjj under the nogs, very creative and finishes almost every fight.

2.  dan henderson - i think has an edge on the rest of the division.  huge right hand, great grecco wrestler.  has huge wins throughout his career.  defeated big nog, wandy, vitor belfort, and other big names. 

3.  rich franklin - was champ forever, has only lost to silva at 185 twice, but i think hendo would beat him.  good well rounded and intelligent fighter.

4.  paulo filho - sick bjj, has some cardio problems and hasnt beaten the top top competition, but would fair well in ufc for the most part.

5.  yushin okami - besides hendo is probably anderson's biggest threat.  very big, brutal gnp/takedowns.

6.  gegard mousasi - sick sick showing in 185 grand prix in dream.  beat manhoef (sick striker no ground) and jacare (best ground in the world) in the same night which says a ton.  well rounded and solid.

7. demian maia - transitioned so well to mma from bjj.  lets see him vs some sick opponents!

8. jacare - is learning mma so quickly, cant wait for him to get back and start fighting.  his loss vs gegard was kind of a fluke with that upkick, but have to put gegard in front for winning the fight.  very much expect him to be top 5 within a few years.

9. robbie lawler - very very heavy hands and decent wrestling.  i think hes overrated but should have some really fun fights once he comes to the UFC.

10. nate marquardt - very good ground and dont really consider his loss vs thales anything to consider in these rankings.

honorable mention:  patrick cote, thales leites, nate quarry, frank trigg

dont feel like writing anymore lol.


ill post welterweight, lightweight and p4p another time.