CardRunners

For the past month and a bit, I have been caught in some sort of weird PCA Bahamas mental mind trap.  After having a couple really rocky live poker trips, my confidence (and bankroll) was rattled.  I turned to tournaments and focusing on getting myself a Star's PCA Bahamas package ($14,300 value).

By the time I was done grinding tournaments for a few hours and failing numerous close calls for a PCA package, I was so resentful towards poker in general I just didn't feel like playing hardly ever.  I don't know what was wrong with me.  I became so lazy.  So unmotivated.  And why?  Because of a downswing?  Because of a few bad plays (probably more than I realize) and a lot of dumb bad luck?  I thought I was better than that.

It was like I had a fog over my brain that was dragging me down and making me really depressed when it came to poker.  That is just so....weak.  There is no excuse.

Anyway, I have been talking past tense because....

Boom!  Fuck you PokerStars!!!!  I know you hate me but you let one slip by!  Holy crap, and what a horrible day I had of just having the Poker Dogs taking elephant-sized dumps all over me for 12 straight hours.  I actually managed to get up to 3rd in chips with 45 left in the $650 PCA which gave out 12 packages, but ended up donking out in just 32nd.  Then I ran into AA for the 8th million time in the $100 PCA rebuy, then was left tearing my hair out (actually I just sit and dumbly stare at the screen as my rebuys tick off one by one) playing the last $33 rebuy of the day.  I got to the break with the minimum (well, I had 9k, and the minimum is 6k which is virtually no difference in this thing).  And I can't even remember any hands but I sucked out a lot, held a lot, and somehow won.  The final two hands was 44 holding against A5 to take out 3rd, then immediately A5 dinking off a sweet turn against AK.  Oh man, that 5 on the turn was the most beautiful thing I've seen on my tables for a long while.

Anyway, I'm babbling cuz I'm excited and just so damn relieved.  But, back to what I was saying before, it shouldn't have taken this to clear my head.  I do feel re-energized and re-motivated, I can totally feel it, but it should not have taken winning this package to do it.  Hopefully lessoned learnt, but either way I gotta stop being such a lazy retard and start grinding some hours again at the cash tables and getting things rolling.  I also have a lot of crap that needs doing around the house, and Xmas stuff, and geez, I really got in a fog there for awhile.

So, long story short I've been "poker depressed" (rest of my life is great), I've won a PCA Bahamas package, I'm still in the biggest downswing I think I've ever had, and I plan on getting my shit together and changing that starting immediately.

On another note, on my flight back from Vegas with my wife, I had another extremely interesting plane conversation with my neighbour.  On my left sitting by the window (which I didn't realize for the entire first hour of conversation) was Dave Chomiak, Minister of Justice.  He was just getting back from taking a mini-vacation and visiting a friend who is a chef in Vegas that he hasn't seen in 20 years.  He seemed exhausted, however kept up our conversation throughout almost the entire flight.  Really interesting and humble man.  Lots of intelligent questions about poker, and I think he was particularly interested in hearing a different side of the whole Barca story and hearing the viewpoint of the players/dealers/etc and all the people who got dragged into that whole mess with the bust early last year (I was not one of them, however I am very close to many who were).  Anyway, it was fascinating hearing about his career and future plans and I was surprised when he handed me his card after I finished talking about my future plans (which is honestly just mostly a big question mark) and said we should go for lunch sometime.  I just may take him up on it.

As for Vegas itself, good times as usual.  We hit up Criss Angel Cirque de Soleil.  I wrote what I thought on the PCH message board, cliff notes is "terrible, don't go".  Saw David Copperfield too which was worth the time and I have absolutely no clue whatsoever how he could pull off some of the tricks.  And the De la Hoya vs Manny fight was awesome, but I'd never pay $1500 for a boxing ticket ever again unless I get filthy loaded.  We showed up at 3:30pm for all the first fights and I was amazed at how dead it was.  Little eerie seeing two guys fighting in the middle of a gigantic empty arena.  I had the majority of my bets on Pac by decision, so by the 6th round we were just cheering for De la Hoya to hang on which obviously didn't come close to happening.  I finished about even.  Good times though and I'd like to catch a UFC out there sometime.

Also golfed Bear's Best and destroyed Bercier for an amount so outrageous I won't even say it.  I shot an 83 with strict rules and terrible putting as per usual.  For not hitting a ball in months, my tee to green game was as good as ever.  Weird.  If I could putt like a normal hack I probably would have been damn close to par playing from the back tees (and there were 5 sets).  Weather was as perfect as you could get until the sun disappears over the mountains, then bam, it gets cold.

Instead of all the stuff I wanted to start getting done tonight I ended up just writing here for most of it so I'm off.  I will try to update more often.

What a couple months it has been....sigh....at least I got this damn package now.  You shoulda seen me jumping around and yelling and fistpumping.  LOL.  That is one thing tourneys have going for them is you can't match final table excitement.

Peace.

 Hey guys.

Well, what can i say?  BC went horribly.  I played a couple small winning sessions and one more losing one, but after playing two more tournaments I added to my losses from the horrific first night.

In the $2700 main event I actually got lucky enough to double up on the 4th hand against a tight lady who would obviously go broke at any point in the tourney with any sort of made hand.  I hit a nice A62 flop with AA vs her AK and after getting a flop call for 850 chips from her, I knew it was go-time and overbet pounded the turn for 3700 and the river for over 11k to stack her for 15k.  I was up to almost 33k within 20 minutes of the start of the tournament.  Unfortunately, I finished Day 1 with a meager 13k after going card and flop dead through the entire last 4 levels.

I grinded Day 2 for about 4 hours building my stack to 35k without a showdown.  I then took out a 10k shortie with JJ vs 55 and had over 45k with average around 60k with 150 players left (69 or so paid I think).  Then two hands later, this chubby kid (who ends up taking down 3rd in the tourney by some miracle) opens for 4500 UTG.  This is about his 5th raise in 2 orbits, the first 4 folded around.  I reraise to 12500 with AK hearts.  He smooth calls it and I'm a little worried about being trapped by AA/KK.  Anyway, it becomes a mute fact when the flop is Q high with two hearts and I easily shove for about 30k when he checks and after about 3 seconds, he calls.  And what does he have?  Q7 offsuit.  In fact, when he sees he is winning (well, he's not even ahead but whatever), he throws out the smartass "I was trapping" comment.  And, of course, it holds against my overs, flush draw, and turned straight draw.  Ship the 90k pot to Q7o.  Nice hand.  What a way to get doinked out after about 14 hours of play.

Then about 2 hours later, I started the $1100 6-max shootout event.  David Williams was at my table.  He was a nice enough guy, and I thought his play was quite straight forward.  He was to my left but didn't make my life very miserable.  Actually, I was somewhat surprised (as I usually am) to see a seasoned professional getting so visibly agitated at a bad run of starting hands.  Anyway, nice enough guy.  He donated to my AA by calling my flop raise all-in with TT on a Q high board.  Then I took him out with AQ vs AT a couple hours later.

(Okay, this is the point I had written up to on my flight back from BC.  It is now a week later and I just don't feel like elaborating much anymore.)

So here is BC cliffnotes:  got mortally crushed first night, floundered around even all week, got deep in all tourneys and didn't cash in any.  In that 6-max shootout, I played a really horrible, old, tight guy heads-up for at least 3 hours.  He had no clue how to play heads-up and I worked up to a 4:1 chip lead on TWO DIFFERENT occasions, and still lost.  I gotta admit I really felt like I sucked that night.  All the big cooler hands went in his favour, what a grind.

So, yah, Regina good, BC shitty.  And as far as Canadians being friendlier than average, NOT in Niagara Falls and BC casinos they sure as hell aren't.  Much better atmospheres in Vegas, and honestly, I didn't find it much different than Commerce in LA.  Regina always has a pretty good group though.  The end.

Since being back, I've basically been having a great time with my family and mostly just played tournies and PCA Bahamas qualifiers.  Those freakin' damn mind-blowing $30+rebuys and $100+rebuys Stars PCA Bahamas qualifiers.  Those lucksack you have to run like, no, BETTER, than God $30+rebuys.  The $100s are not so bad.  I have now finished 2nd, 4th twice, 5th, 6th twice, 7th, and 10th twice.  I run like a retarded donkey at the final tables.  I'm 8-10 more failed attempts away from paying for the package through qualifiers, but alas, no package.  This is not a pleasing thought, but what can I do?  I can complain.  And now I'm done.

Yesterday I went through the Sunday torture of tourneys.  I went real deep in both the Stars Million ($215 entry) and PartyPoker's King of the Tables $2 million guaranteed tourney ($640 entry).  I lost dominating hand after dominating hand in the Sunday Million to get bumped in 450th (out of 8000) for a chump prize.  I got a huge stack early in the Party one, ultimately dwindled below average as per my usual, and grinded that onto the final 2 tables (field started with 3500).  9th was $24k and grew really fast from there finishing at $365k for 1st.  I wanted final table so bad I just can't properly describe.  Honestly, the blinds were ridiculous.  They really needed to slow the damage down in the latter stages of the tourney.  At least 7 players at my table had 20BBs or less.  Anyway, my TT ultimately ran into QQ and I was done in 19th for a $5700 profit which only booked me a small win for the day after paying for all sorts of other tourneys and qualifiers.  Pretty disappointing.  I'm getting really sick of constantly just having the "Oh....darn.....so close!" line over and over and over for years.

Oh yah, and I managed to spend $750 in hyper-turbo qualifiers to win a Stars Sunday 500 seat, and of course, didn't win one.  There's a great move.

One positive, I think my tournament game is improving.  I'm feeling more comfortable, and I doubt it's not just a coincidence I'm getting deeper much more consistantly lately.  I know I still need work on my mid-to-late game, and maybe it could result in a couple more final tables.

So, overall, the last two months has created a real weight on my shoulders pokerwise.  Little rattled, but okay.  Last two months I'm down about 30% of what I made in September alone.  But I need to get rollin' soon, I need a new focus.  And I've decided that focus will be on the occasion tournament, and most Pot-Limit Omaha.  I just downloaded 11 of the best looking and most relevant Cardrunner videos and am going to blast through them all.  Mostly 6-max and HU stuff.  I like Hold'Em and will still play, but for the next while it's going to be PLO for cash games.

I'm sitting here trying to think about something exciting to write, but I just don't do much these days.  I hang out with my boy and wife a lot, and I like it that way.  I play video games sometimes, but that's not too exciting to write about (I doubt anyone is up for any NHL 09 or Halo strategy talk).  I get some exercise 3 times a month playing hockey, watch all sorts of downloaded TV shows, and play the same 10 songs over and over on the guitar sometimes.  I hang out with friends and try not to lose touch with everyone I care about.

As for TV shows, back on Survivor with my wife again.  Good times.  Dexter was getting a little bland but has come back to life.  Prison Break is ridiculous, but I love it.  I don't know what the fuck is going on in Heroes but it's still fun.  Everyone says Entourage is so hilarious, guess I'm going to give it a proper try sometime.  If I've never said it before, I recommend The 4400 to any sci-fi fans.  If you like prison stuff, you gotta see Oz.

Love my new Macbook.  Nice machine.  Sort of a pain in the ass not knowing how to do anything and being really slow poking around on it, but I'm getting there.  Not sure the brightest idea for a poker player being as so many poker apps are solely Windows based, but regardless, good product.  The touchpad rocks too.  First time I've preferred using it over a USB mouse.

So, there ya go.  Was that interesting non-poker stuff?  I'm going to bed.

 Hey guys.

Well, where did I leave off?  I can't remember and don't feel like reading back, but I'm sure I was just off a huge win or huge loss or huge donation or something, as has been the case for the past two months.  Since my big upswing on Pinnacle in September, I have pretty much been breaking even over the past 2 months, perhaps slightly down.  This is really, really annoying, especially since I've been on 3 separate trips throughout that time (Niagara, Regina, and now BC).

On a good note, Regina was super.  I seem to run quite well in the cash games there all the time, and as a result (along with working the local regulars) I scraped together almost $15k in the $1000 cap $5/10 game in just three medium length sessions.  I went deep in the $1,050 main event tournament just to have 99 beat up by J5 for a pot that would have put me more than double average.  I busted shortly after to finish on what would have been the true bubble if not for the field deciding to pay out $1000 to 3 extra spots.  That seems to be a pretty common trend in Regina tourneys and the big stacks never seem to mind which is cool.

My buddy Chris Bercier ended up taking the tournament down for almost $50k which was awesome (plus I had 10% of him which makes it even better!).  Congrats Berc!  Well deserved win from a very down-to-earth, respectful, and solid player.

I think I mentioned in my last entry about my interest in becoming an Air Traffic Controller possibly.  Well, once again, that has gone by the wayside as I came to reality about some things.  I think we are valuing the flexibility poker affords my family too much.  Especially with another baby on the way, this is so valuable.  I was hoping if I could get into something else that I'd still have a decent amount of time to pursue my poker, but that is just so unrealistic once I started thinking about it.  With the intense year of ATC training (without any guarantee of actually getting in), a new baby, and all sorts of other stuff we'd have no life and no flexibility to do any of the things we enjoy.  I love poker and the lifestyle when it's going well, I just gotta suck it up when it's going badly.

Which brings us to right now.  First off, I'd like to mention an experience I had on the flight out to BC.  I sat in the middle seat of the 1st row of a Westjet flight, right next to an older lady (age 78 I later found out) named Loraine.  She was born and raised her whole life in Winnipeg, and just 2 years ago decided to move out to Vancouver to be closer to two of her three kids.  She said she wished she had of made the move 7 years ago when her husband died and couldn't talk enough about how much she loved Vancouver (though she did not bash her lifelong hometown of Winnipeg).

We talked back and forth for at least 80% of the 3 or so hour flight.  Her stories and wit were incredible.  She seemed so interested and caring about everything I said, and though she had no idea about poker, her questions were very intelligent and her assumptions of the pros and cons of such a lifestyle were usually bang on.

At one point we didn't speak for a few minutes while I went back to my book and she watched some TV.  Then out of nowhere she asked "Are you religious?".  And being a little surprised by the question (just out of the blue like that), I stumbled around what I wanted to say but the jist was "not in the typical sense, I just like to hope there is something more for us and if we lead a "good" life it will be granted, but that I struggle with the notion of blind faith and the concepts of many religions don't sit well with me".  She just nodded and I found myself a little disappointed that I felt she was judging me negatively for the first time in our conversations over something as stupid as religion.

After a minute or so, I asked her the exact question back to see what she had to say, "Are you religious?".  She didn't say anything for about 20 seconds, I wasn't even sure if she heard me.  Then she said "I've seen a lot of bad things in this world, some intentional, most not.  All of it pointless and I don't see it fitting into any sort of plan.  I spent my whole life believing in God and was raised with those principles.  It has helped me grow old.  I don't know what the real answers are, but I think as long as you believe in something, anything, anyone, you'll be ok.  If you leave this world and have made it a better place than when you started, you'll be ok.  Fill your life with love and you'll be ok Travis."

When the flight landed, I walked her to baggage, met one of her daughters (who laughed and said it must have been one LOOOONG flight with her Mom), hugged Lorainne and told her it was one of the most enjoyable conversations I've ever had (and I meant it).  Wherever you are Lorainne, may whatever God there may be bless you.  You are an incredible and beautiful lady.

Now, in a perfect world, I'd leave the airport after that great experience on the plane, go to River Rock filled with good Karma and clean up.  Well, ummmm, that didn't quite happen.  I jumped on a $10/25 table around 10pm, and to make a long story short, I got worked like I never have before.  My Niagara experience just continued right into River Rock, but even worse.  Every single big pot I got turned or rivered.  I hit the nuts on the flop (be it top set, straight, whatever) at least six times and lost (most of which I folded before showdown, but am pretty sure I was beat everytime).  I dropped every penny I made in Regina including the horse bonus from Bercier.  I completely busted before I even checked into my hotel room (I had to leave my luggage at the front desk since I didn't have a key and Zenni was in a tourney when I got there).

Between borrowing a little cash to save a trip to a bank, and getting a little cash from someone who owed me out here, I have slightly under $10k to work with now.  I played some $5/10 last night and saw the game is much, much softer but the stacks are still close to what they were at $10/25.  Much more profitable game (though running so shitty in the $10/25 sort of skewed my impression of it).  Anyway, I scraped together a tiny profit last night (not even quite paying for the tournament I played and got screwed out of).  I would have made more if not for the world's worse fold of KK to an underboard against a tilting player.  I don't know what I was thinking.  Hard to not get a little gunshy after getting worked over in so many hands recently.

So anyway, after dumping a little more trying to qualify for Bahamas PCA, I'm significantly down on this trip and it's feeling like a long road to recovery, but I'll see what I can do.

One good blip of news is we discovered the leaking in our basement is NOT the foundation, but a simple puncture hole from a nail in the sump pump pipe which was caused by the carpenter who put in the new bedroom/office in our basement (most likely when nailing back in the baseboards).  I'm hoping Handyman Connection's insurance will cover all damage and repairs necessary.  But even if they don't the repairs will be under $1000 probably, plus some new carpeting.  That's better than $30k of foundation repair.

So, that's that.  Not much else to say.  Back to the grind.  Got a good sleep for once, and am planning on pulling about a long session today and try to recoup some of the disaster I got myself into here.  Sigh....I gotta admit I miss the days of marathon sessions and enjoying every second of it.  But, right now I just gotta focus on making good plays and hopefully things turn around.  My play so far has been mediocre at best, though it's tough to evaluate properly when I'm just dealing with crappy setups at every turn.

The $2,700 main event is tomorrow.  I'll try to update again later in the trip.  Take it easy guys.  Peace.

Hey guys.

Well, times are rough.  Since the Niagara trip I've been struggling finding the desire to play online.  I just never feel like it.  Regardless, I've plugged through a few sessions and have just been getting my ass handed to me over and over and over and over.  The cooler train was just getting warmed up in Niagara and has rolled on into my online world too.  Since the start of Niagara I've gone on the worse downswing of my life totalling about $30k now.

So, October marked my 2nd losing month of the year (March was the first).  I'm really feeling the wear.  November hasn't started any better.

Today, I ran the Sunday gauntlet of tourneys on Stars, Tilt, and a couple elsewhere.  I went 0/6 on flips that were for above average chip stacks and just got 5 outted to finish bottom rung in the only one I cashed in (Stars $215 NL/Limit Mixed).  I'm still in the Mulligan on Tilt in a 4-way tie for 1st in chips with 380 left (100 pay, 1st $47k).  So hoping I can pull out a miracle here.  I missed my hockey game tonight to finish up this tourney so hopefully it's not a complete waste.

I've noticed quite a depressing trend amongst my group of local poker playing friends.  It seems we're all struggling, to put it mildly.  I organized a game last week, played awful, and still made about $2500 (should have been at least $8k if I didn't make the world's most retarded play in one hand).  So, maybe that's what it takes, play bad, run good.  I'm running so crappy online I'm not even sure how well or bad I'm playing anymore.  I think I've definitely let tilt get the better of me a few times, a habit I thought I'd curbed in the past year.

Everytime I run bad like this I begin mulling over serious life changes.  I have a few ideas, none of which will make close to the money I've made this year with poker, but maybe that's ok.  It doesn't mean I have to quit playing poker, I sometimes forget that.  Hell, as it is now, with the amount I FEEL like playing, I'm not even logging all that many hours anyway unless I'm on the road.  We'll see, we'll see.  I'll talk more about it when I get some sort of actual clue what I want from "work".  I've watched a lot of guys come and go in poker circles.  I guess I view doing something else BEFORE I've attained my goals in poker as a failure of sorts.  That's a bit absurd, I know.

On top of crappy poker, it seems everything I touch lately breaks or malfunctions.  Multiple Xboxs, laptops, cameras, etc, etc, etc.  Now our basement is leaking in the corner.  I lost money online last night, had more "technology" problems I was screwing with for hours, came upstairs grumpy to find a FEW nice little piles of puppy diarhhea taking up residence in all the fibers of the carpet.  Things just seem to roll like that sometimes.  Trust me, the last thing you feel like doing after getting oversetted for a massive 300BB pot online is clean up after your annoying dog's liquid bum.  Anyway, sorry about that little detour...

Regina is looking iffy in a couple weeks, but I'm definitely going to River Rock in BC for a week.  Finalize plans on that in the next few days.

Dwindled to 15th in chips with 240 left in the Mulligan.  I'm not exactly in the mindframe of having high hopes in these things, so I don't think I'll be very crushed if it doesn't work out again.

Woo, just won my first decent flip of the day to get back to 4th in chips, then another medium hand to get to 2nd!  Good sign good sign.  I'll update when done.

Take care guys.  Like I always say, I'll try to get on here more and write about non-depressing interesting stuff, but who knows.  Peace!

Update:  Donkeyed away all my chips to finish 35th.  Made two separate pot odds calls hoping to be racing, was dominated both times (once by bigger A, once by bigger pair) and basically handed them my chips.  I wanted a final table so bad.  I was actually standing behind my chair and dancing around hoping for my cards to hit and verbally requesting big hands when the cards were being dealt.  So after all that, end result just another $2k down the drain for the day.  Sigh....I just really want out of this slump.

Gonna play a little NHL 09 before a late night session, though my Xbox probably won't work...

P.S.  I know I'm whining and feeling sorry for myself, but fuck it.

Hey guys.

Well, Niagara sucked.  I mean, the games were always between decent to great, but I just couldn't get anything rolling.  I lost pretty much one or two gigantic pots a night to a complete cooler or suckout.  I won't even bother detailing them, who cares.  I will be going through a few of the hands to stir up some debate about them on the PCH message board in my forum:

I finished up a bowl of soup in cash games and dropped $3600 in satellites (not coming even close to a WPT seat in 3 attempts).  So, overall, I finished slightly down and you can add $2-3k in expenses on top of that.

This marks my first losing live trip in at least 3 years.  I don't know how I really feel about that, I guess I knew it was coming at some point.  I wish I had of been playing the $25/50 out there the whole time.  I didn't realize until the last few days of the trip how soft it was at times.  I even got ton of hours in playing some total fish 3-4 handed which was awesome.  However, between running completely card/flop dead for hours on end and the coolers I mentioned before, I found it hard to run any stacks up too big and maintain them.  Despite that, I felt I played pretty solid throughout the trip and took the beats reasonably well.  I guess it's pretty solid that I probably lost 8 of the 10 biggest pots I played (none of which I terribly regret) yet still turned a small cash game profit.

It was funny how it came down to my very last hand on my last night to determine whether or not I made a small profit on the trip or not.  I managed to get in a 3-way all-in with AKs vs ATo vs AJo for a $8k pot (which happened to be the only hand I backraised pre-flop the whole trip).  The AJo was only a shortstack for about $1600 of the total.  Unfortunately, in standard fashion ATo took the whole pot with a rivered straight.  It was this Greek regular who I battled with for at least 30 hours in the past few days of the trip and just absolutely had my number in the big pots.  I was so frustrating because I was working this guy and he kept hitting ridiculous shit on me (and it didn't help I drained money cuz he would get dealt AA every single time I got TT/JJ/QQ), however in true donkey fashion he would backraise preflop almost all the time and tip his hat completely.  One other thing he did was almost always muck his cards as soon as I'd touch my chips or start playing with them after he checked to me in a pot I raised preflop (which is almost all of them playing short-handed).  So, basically, I knew exactly when I should continue bet and when I should not, and when I should fastplay and when I should not.  It was honestly hilarious that he never picked up on it.  So often I'd grab my chips, shuffle them awhile, notice he wasn't making any sort of motion to muck, so I'd just check.  Anyway, despite all this I still couldn't beat this guy and still had to endure him bitching to the dealer every single hand he lost.  God, I tell ya, old traditional Greek guys can tip the scales on the entertaining side of things at times, and REALLY topple the scales on the annoying side at other times.

MY BC trip out to Comox and Tofino was excellent.  What a beautiful area.  My brother-in-law's wedding was on the beach, and though it was pretty chilly, it was my first beach wedding and it was very cool.  I'm definitely happy to be home for a little while though.  Niagara was a real wear on me, and though BC was fun, was quite hectic.  Enjoying just vegging on the computer and spending time with my family and friends again.  Gonna get into some serious online in the weeks to come.

You're hearing more and more talk around about the difficulty of the online games.  I try to not let that get to me, though I know it's so true in the back of my mind.  However, you can complain and complain, or you can learn how to beat good players and practice top-notch game selection and find any fish that are out there (cuz they'll always be somewhere).

Next up is a Regina and BC (River Rock) trip in mid-November.  My family will be joining me for at least a week in BC, and we'll probably extend the trip a bit after the poker and go to some new places.  We have lingering thoughts of a possible move to BC in the future (maybe near, maybe far, I dunno), so maybe we'll check out some areas and properties.

So, despite the crap run in Niagara I'm still up an okay amount in October due to some reasonable online sessions.  I made almost $1000/hour in September.  LOL, why the hell can't I do that every month?!?  THAT I could get used to.

I want to win a major tournament.  Something.  Like, I know EVERYONE wants to win tournaments, of course.  But.....I just REALLY want to win a somewhat major tournament.  Something $50k+, preferably $200k+.  I've begun really studying my tournament game and I'm planning on dedicating much more time to them online.  I will also continue playing any live events I can afford or qualify for, and concentrate on being more focused on them.  I feel like I try hard, but I get to wrapped up in cash game I sort of veg out in tournaments.  I'm not the same kind of player at all, I never talk.  I don't know why that is, but I'm going to try mixing things up a bit more.  I play so loose in cash games no matter how I play tournaments I just feel like such a rock.  I really need to have music during tournaments that allow it.  Why I haven't gotten on top of that is beyond me and has probably cost me money...

Anyway, that's enough.  I always have great stuff I want to write about, but by the time I'm done with updates I've had enough writing or it's long enough.  I'll really try to get on here more often.

Oh, I'm going to be at the Marlborough on Saturday for their deep stack charity tourney organized by the guys in the NSPT forum on the PCH board.  Come say hi if you see me.

Peace!

Okay, so I'm normally a pretty non-critical and patient guy in general, especially when it's come to things poker-related.  I like to give props to good venues and well run poker rooms. However, in this case, I have something different to say.

The poker room here in Niagara is an absolute fucking joke.  They have no clue.  It's easy to blame the staff working, but I'm sure it's not really their decision about how things are run.

First of all, where the hell are all the tables?  They are granted a WPT event which could potentially be such a huge money maker.  What are they thinking?  They haven't added a single table to their room.  I just got back from the casino and here's the situation:

2/5 NLH:  3 tables, list is maxed, not taking anymore names, must be almost 100 on list.
5/5 NLH:  4 tables, also maxed list
5/10 NLH:  2 tables, huge list
10/20 NLH:  1 table, huge list
25/50 NLH: 1 table, 8 on list but not moving at all
$460 SNG Satellites:  3 running at a time, huge list (at least 5 hour wait)
$1240 SNG Satellites:  4 running at a time, huge list with same wait

And that's it, about 18 tables across all games, filled to the nuts.  The players are frustrated (understandably), the staff is losing it and obviously agitated by all the complaints, the place is crowded, it's just a joke.  I'm wondering where the hell the tournament is going to be played starting tomorrow.  In this same room?  Is there even going to be cash games going during it?  I heard they have three Day 1s across the next 3 days which should be unecessary if they had adequate table numbers.

There is so much space available just outside the poker room too with blackjack tables and other casino games with totally empty seats all day and night long.  Why the hell aren't they clearing those out and putting in at least 15 more tables, AT LEAST.  They'd all be packed.  Such a horrible setup.  Plus, you have to get your own chips from the cashier, money doesn't play on the table, dealers are constantly held up processing small rebuys for those not going to the cage, no food service, etc, etc, etc.

I heard rumours there wasn't going to be the WPT event here this year, and I'm pretty damn certain it won't be back next year.  No one is happy here.  I guess Fallsview Casino just doesn't like making money, nor pleasing their customers.

Alright, that's enough.  Guess I'm going to fire up an online session and wait until I'm a little further up the lists to head back to the casino (but that's a huge guessing game on when to go back, I have a guy who will text me when i'm close, but who knows if he'll notice).  It's really great I spent all this money and time away from my family to play more online poker.  What a joke.

Get a clue Niagara!  Barca would have run a better WPT show than this (and I'm not exaggerating).

Last night I grinded a little online and made a couple Gs, then hit the sack again because I still had recuperated from the 40 hour stretch of being up on the trip here.  Today I headed down to the casino around 6pm and was luckily immediately seated in a pretty fishy $10/25 NLH game (I'm not sure why I got an immediate seat cuz there was quite a list....Joe said he'd been waiting 5 hours).

I played my standard raising half the hands I was dealt and just never getting played back and getting paid when I hit.  Then just before 2am I limp with As8s along with a bunch of others and see a nice little 753 all spades flop. Action goes this old asian guy bets out $75, I raise to $250, button raises to $650 with 75 (he claimed later), and to make a long story short the young Internet SNG kid in the BB wakes up with 6s4s for the flopped straight flush.  He smooth calls and I immediately have a horrible feeling.  Anyway, turn is a blank and I double him up for about an $11k pot.  If we are playing deeper I'm pretty damn sure I check the turn and just call any bet on the river because I was so sure he was slowplaying.  Whatever, what a fucking cooler.

After that I lose a few hundred in another dumb pot, fold 2 more hands, and just got the hell out of there while I still had a small profit left on the session.  So annoying.  I mean, I still made a little money so could be much worse, but still freakin' annoying.

Not sure what I'll do now, maybe hit up a little online.  That hand sort of zapped the poker urge out of me.

Pretty crazy how it is constantly drizzling here because of the huge amount of mist coming off the Falls.  Definitely a neat area which I should try to explore one of the days here.  Maybe I'll do a little shopping tomorrow which I need to do because I brought nothing to wear for my brother-in-law's wedding in BC where I'm heading straight from here on the 17th.

I'm really getting an urge to play the WPT event even more now.  I wish I hadn't of lost that huge cooler tonight.  Oh well, see how the next couple sessions go.  Problem is the tourney buyin is half the money I brought out here and I don't want to leave myself too short for cash games if the tourney doesn't work out.

Anyway, just felt like ranting about that dumb hand.  Take it easy guys.

Hey guys.  It's been awhile.  Not sure why I haven't been writing in here lately, but nevertheless, I'll try to make it more frequent.  It hasn't really been lack of things to write about, just mostly laziness in all honesty.  I just arrived in Niagara Falls earlier today.  I've been sleeping most of the day because I didn't sleep at all last night as I was in an intense battle with some glitchy software (stupid Windows Vista) trying to get a DVD slideshow and music CD prepared for my brother-in-law's wedding in a couple weeks.  What a pain in the ass that was but I got it finished before having to leave.  Of course, I continued my streak of losing sessions in the Winnipeg airport before boarding the plane.

I've decided I am no longer going to regularly discuss dollar amounts in relation to my play.  I have a variety of reasons, but basically I don't see it as being crucial in maintaining an interesting blog.  I think at this point I've proven to myself and others that I'm a relatively successful player and publicly detailing the amounts I'm making just isn't necessary.

With that said, and after all this time has passed and my last post only eluded to some big wins, it's a little anti-climatic to just say September was my best month since 2006, maybe ever, without mentioning any amounts.  But regardless, it was good.  One session I more than doubled my previous best result.  Especially after having such a frustrating and swingy August, it's been great to rebound so strongly.  I sort of feel like this previous paragraph was much lamer without results, but whatever.

In the past month, I've also had one of my more....hmmmm, awkward....experiences in a live poker game.  It was a local game so I'm not going to mention any names out of respect to those involved.  However, it involved me being invited to this gentleman's house to play just a fun big tourney qualifier (where everyone gets a piece of the winner who goes on to the WPT event here in Niagara).  The night ended with myself, two other guys, and the host playing an intense $2/5 NLH session.  Don't be fooled by the $2/5 blinds, the standard preflop cost was randomly distributed between $50-$400 with tons of post flop action.  The host was drinking rather heavily and spewing chips all over the place.

For the first time, I actually felt some pangs of....I don't know if guilt is the right word, but something along those lines....for being invited into this home and taking advantage of the situation and leaving with a pretty good chunk of money.  Don't get me wrong, this guy can afford it a million times over and we're all big boys risking our own money.  One or two unfortunate cards and I could have walked out with my pockets empty (and I showed up with plenty of firepower).  Regardless, I felt like the host simply did not realize how deep he was getting into the game after multiple $5k reloads.  The night ultimately ended in an awkward family incident, and myself and another guy walked out with a rather large debt owed to us. I don't believe I crossed any sort of morality line, but lets just say it was closer than I'm normally comfortable with as I like to think I'm usually a relatively "good" person in general.  Anyway, that's the nature of the beast I guess.  But, I must admit, at times I tire of the realization that I spend all my working hours taking from others.  As glamorous as some think a professional poker player lifestyle must be (though there are others who think the exact opposite I know), it really isn't sometimes.  You see some ugly stuff sometimes and have to deal with staying focused on how to take advantage.

Anyway, that was one of 4 live sessions I've organized locally.  We've played at three different homes and have plans to move it around even more.  We have a fun group of guys, however at times the game can get rather challenging.  I've definitely been pretty stumped in a number of tough spots.  We've been playing the 2-7 game regularly and that rocks because I run awesome at 2-7.  It's nice winning the $200-$300 bonus from everyone, but it's even better taking down the pots (which tend to grow fast when you're bluffing 2-7).  No one ever seems to pick up anything all that great against me which makes it easier to bluff.  One hand I even managed to 90% stack Rosie while playing board with 2-7 by pulling off a river bluff raise when he only had 10% of his stack left.  But, he folded his K high missed draw.

In another session I lost $13k or so pot to Joe Williams by running KK into his AA in a pretty aggressive game.  I 3-bet Rosie preflop that hand, and Joe 4-bet, then pounded the flop where I ultimately jammed and he snapcalled.  I should have let it go.  I almost folded preflop to shove it in his face that I got away so cheap and instead I doubled him up.  Not great poker.  When a hand plays out in a way that allows you to get away from a cooler, you gotta take advantage...

A good chunk of my September profits came from Pinnacle which has seemed to dry up a bit already in the past couple weeks.  I honestly haven't been playing much online since my last update, so we'll see.  I just setup two new 30" Dell Ultrasharps monitors which I love.  I had to unexpectedly spend $800 on a new video card and video cables, but it's worth it.  My plans are to start 8-10 tabling primarily Party and Titan to start.  One of my highest hourly rates is on PokerStars which is odd because I always figured the play was much stronger there, however it's a pretty small sample and I was probably running well.  Regardless, I might go back to Stars and Tilt and see what's up on those sites too.

I was disappointed to here from Joe that Niagara Fallsview poker room only had one 10/20 game running at midnight with TONS of players on the list.  However, the room was filled with capped 2/5 and a few capped 5/10 games so no tables are available.  I hope the action is at good this year as I've heard it has been in the past.  But considering Joe opted to come back to the room and play online is not a good sign.  Supposedly they had a $25/50 going last night which I may consider if there are at least a couple fish playing.

I'm really getting the itch to play the main event out here, we'll see how the next couple days go first though.  $10k sure is a lot to slap down on a tourney.

I have more to blab about, but I'll save it for another entry.  Think I'll go check out Niagara Falls up close (we have a great view of it out our Marriott hotel window).  It's my first time here.  Then down to the casino to start the grind.

Peace!

Oh yah, check this out, best poker commercial ever:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9X3h-avdFE