CARDRUNNERS

So I went to NYC to visit my dad for the holidays (he actually lives in Conneticut, but he thought it'd be a lot more fun for my sister and me if we celebrated the holidays in NYC since Conneticut is pretty boring) and I saw the most unbelievable magic show I have ever seen.  When my dad told my sister and me that we were going to see a magic show we were both extremely skeptical to say the least, but after seeing it I know why he took us; I have seen 3 different Cirque de Soleil's, a bunch of different plays on Broadway, Penn and Teller and a bunch of other huge budget shows, and it's safe to say in my opinion that this magic show with only 50 people in attendance was far and away the best show I have ever seen. 
The show is called Chamber Magic, and the magician is a guy  named Steven Cohen.  His tricks are so good and unbelievable that I feel bad trying to describe them because I feel like my descriptions don't even do them close to justice.  Nevertheless, I'll try to describe my favorite trick as best as I can just to give you guys a taste of how sick this guy is.  He starts off by getting everyone in the audience to write down the name of their favorite drink on an index card and not to show it to anyone.  Then he tells everyone to pass the card to someone near them that they have never met before.  He then picks someone from the crowd to pick four people from the crowd.  Then, one by one he asks each person picked to stand up and tell him what drink is on his/her card.  He then takes this big silver tea kettle and pours whatever drink the person says into a glass and serves them.  He does this with 4 different people out of the same tea kettle with all different kinds of drinks and they are all served exactly how they would be if you ordered them at a bar (hot/cold/with pulp or without etc etc)  the four drinks that he poured were a mojito, pink lemonade, a 1995 cabarnet, and a white russian.  Anyways, he does a bunch of other riddiculous
tricks and I strongly reccomend checking him out if you are ever in NYC.  His website is http://chambermagic.com/. 
Besides that I have a couple other random tidbits I feel that I should address.  A lot of people have been asking me what happened with the situation with my car and the sunroof; shortly after I wrote the blog post about it my Mom (a lawyer) contacted the company that the guy worked for explaining the situation and making some lawerish threats and stuff, the company immediately apologized, payed for my sunroof to be repaired and for my car to be detailed.  Also, I have not seen the guy working on the house across the street since, I assume he got fired. 
A lot of people have also been asking me about a post Alec Torelli made in his blog about me losing my car and buying a new one (if you haven't read the story you are going to have to check out his blog because I am both too lazy and too embarassed to rewrite it here).  People want to know if it is true and sadly it is, I read Alec's post and while he hemmed it up a little bit for entertainment's sake it is basically all true.  Yes, I am an idiot and no, I'm not proud of it.   That is about it for today, it's new year's eve tonight and hopefully I won't lose any cars tonight :).

Happy New Year all,
Isaac

Since I haven't updated in a while (as usual) I guess I'll start by saying how poker is going... Like the whole year it has been extremely swingy.  I had a huge month in October playing and taking pieces of others playing Rail Heaven and also a bit of PLO and won somewhere around 750k.  At the end of October I decided to make a decent-sized cashout, and immediately after that could not win a hand.  Since November I have lost about 500k back playing mostly the same games as well as heads up no limit.  This is how it has been all year and it's been a crazy year especially compared to last year.  While I have profited about as much this year as I did last year it has been in completely different fashions.  Last year was just a pretty much constant upswing, I ran very well in tournaments all year and did not have any extended downswings in cash games and won every month except one.  This year I have had some really outstanding stretches and some really bad one, and also one huge score, it seems like this year whenever I have an extended good streak an extended bad one follows it, luckily the good has outweighed the bad, but still the swings have been brutal.  I feel like there are two big reasons for the difference in the results from last year to this year.  One, poker is way harder, the bad players are all getting better, the good players are getting great, and the great players are getting unbeatable.  The influx of flat out fish is just way less than it was this time last year, and way way less than it was in January of last year.  Two, my focus just hasn't always been there, last year I was on a mission, I played my A game almost always and really just dedicated myself to poker non-stop.  This year, I have lost interest in poker a bit (not to say I have lost all interest by any means, just that it doesn't hold the same interest as it did last year) and because of this I have not always brought my A game.  So basically, what I've taken out of all this is that from now on I am going to do my best to only play poker when I want to play, even if there is a really good game or a really sick tournament, if i don't want to play it I am going to do something fun instead.  Before I had myself convinced that not playing in such a game or tournament is basically losing money, but what I've realized now is that long term I am winning money because I will always bring my best game when I do decide to play. 

Anyways, sorry for ranting, but besides poker I have been very busy.  A few weeks ago, I went to Vegas for my friend's 22nd birthday.  It was awesome to be there not for a poker tournament, I have been to Vegas a few times since turning 21, but each time I was there for a poker tournament.  This time all we did was go to some really sick clubs, eat at amazing restaurants, and gambled.  After that I was home for a week or so for Thanksgiving and hung out with some old friends and relatives.  Then it was off to Florida for the Cardrunners team builder get together.  I had a lot of fun and it was cool to get to know all the CR guys better and meet the Stox guys.  All the Stox guys seem like really cool guys and also all seem to know the game very well.  Since then I have been hanging out back at home and enjoying life, and plan on continuing to do so until I fly to NYC to spend Xmas with my family and then going straight to the Bahamas.  If you see me in the Bahamas holler at me. 

peace,

Isaac

I have been taking it really easy recently, playing a little poker... lost about 200k back of the 600 I was up since October when I was visiting my Dad in CT, but since being home I've made about 100 of that back.  Most of that losing came at Rail Heaven, so while it seems like a ton of money it's really just running bad for a session and losing a little more than a buy-in. 

I really haven't been playing that much poker though, I have been passing on some good games just because I am enjoying taking it easy so much.  I had been so busy, travelling and playing all the live poker tournaments that I hadn't had any time for myself in more than 2 months.  So since I have been home I have just been playing lots of basketball, hitting the gym almost every day (not Sundays, Sundays are the ultimate veg day), and watching a TON of TV on DVD.  I really hadn't watched too much TV on DVD before, but since I got home I have become hooked, it is so awesome and it obviously makes the shows way better than if you just watch them regularly.  I also prefer it to watching a movie because it is so much more convenient, I can watch one episode, go do something then come back and watch another, whereas in movies I feel like I have to finish the whole thing in one sitting.  It is kind of like the difference between playing cash games and playing tournaments, and why I have gravitated towards cash games recently.

My reccomendations for TV series' that I have just recently gotten into are 30 Rock and Dexter.  30 Rock is absolutely hillarious, funnier than The Office (which I also love) imo.  Tina Fey is a genius and Tracy Morgan and Alec Baldwin are absolutely riddiculous.  I also like 30 Rock a lot because unlike a lot of TV shows these days, you don't have to "get into it" to enjoy it, it is one of those shows that you can watch an episode without having ever seen any prior episodes and you will be in stitches just like the guy who has seen every show.  Dexter however, is the opposite of that, it's almost like a movie put into a bunch of different episodes, you absolutely can not enjoy it unless you watch every single episode in chronological order.  I just finished season one and I have to say that it is the best television that I have ever seen.  I watched The Wire and The Sopranos and enjoyed them both, but season one of Dexter is just so awesome that it makes those shows look average in my opinion.  For those who haven't seen it and like crime drama's and thriller type shows, check out Dexter I gurantee you won't be dissapointed.

Isaac

 Right now I am in New Haven, Conneticut, visiting my Dad.  Last night we played a home game with some of his students and colleagues and it was a lot of fun.  It reminded me of when I first started playing poker with my friends almost 5 years ago.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get much going in the game as I was as card dead as I can remember being in a while, I guess I'm glad that it was in that game rather than a high stakes game online, but it's still never fun to lose especially when everyone expects you to win.
As far as poker from a more professional aspect is concerned it has been going great, I had my biggest win ever at Rail Heaven (about 425k) and am up a little more than 600k since October.  Also, the FTOPS is coming up and I'm hosting an event (the 300 rebuy) which I am very excited about.  I've played hardly any online tournaments since the WCOOP and I'm looking forward to another big series of them and I am looking to play my best and have some big results.

Besides poker stuff, I have been playing a lot of golf and have gotten a lot better.  The last time I went out I shot 3 pars and a birdie (it was a par 3 course, but still not bad!).  Also, I started doing yoga at my gym and I like it so far, I am absolutely terrible at it but it is a fun challenge and I like the way it makes you feel after you finish the session.

Finally, expect a bunch of new videos from me in the near future, you can expect a cash video of me playing some 10/20 and 5/10 nl as well as some FTOPS videos, hopefully of some deep runs and victories.   Thats all I got for today... oh and GO OBAMA!!!

Good luck,
Isaac

 So the WCOOP is over and I guess it went alright, it went alright I guess, I made a little bit of money which is always good; but I didn't get any big scores or a victory, I got close in the 200 1r1a plo tournament but lost heads up to Andy Mcleod, a very tough tournament regular.  I also got big stacks in the main event and a couple other big tournaments this Sunday but have nothing to show for it.

Now it's time to go to London to play the WSOP Europe as well as EPT London.  To be perfectly honest, I'm really dreading going on this trip, so much so that if I hadn't already wired my money to the casino and bought plane tickets and a hotel room I would probably bail at the last minute.  I really don't like London at all, the food sucks, everything is overpriced, and unlike most European places I've visited the people aren't very friendly.  Also I have really seen all there is to see there (I lived there for 3 months a few years ago, and have been several other times) so I really have no interest in sightseeing or anything like that.  I do really want to see a soccer match while I am there, I have never seen a European soccer match and that is definitely something that I want to do sooner rather than later.  Besides that I plan on just grinding a ton while in London, normally when I go on a trip for poker I try not to play much poker besides the live tournament that I am travelling to play, and do a lot of touristy, sight-seeing stuff as well as experience the nightlife.  However, since I don't plan on doing any of that in London I am going to try to put in a lot of hands while I'm there and hopefully get some momentum going poker-wise.

Besides that, a strange thing happened to me yesterday.  My roommate Kevin and I are hanging out in the living room watching some TV when someone knocks on the door.  Kevin answers it and tells me that it was some guy who is working construction on the house across the street, a cement pump blew up and some debris got on Kevin's and my car.  The guy says he will wash the cars and if there is a problem with it he will pay for the car to be washed. So no big deal, seems reasonable enough... 20 minutes later I go out to grab a bite to eat, I walk out of my house and just quickly glance over my car in the driveway to make sure that he did a reasonable job washing it off.  The car looks fine, however as I'm getting in my car I glance at the top and see that my sunroof is shattered.  Naturally I assume that this has something to do with the cement mixer blowing up, so I go across the street to see if I can talk to the guy about what happened and what we are going to do to resolve it.  The boss wasn't across the street so I tell his employees what's up and ask if they will call him and tell him to call me.  So I go grab a bite to eat and come home and the guy from across the street comes up and gets up in my face and starts yelling at me "We didn't break your fucking window" "you aren't going to pull a fast one on me" blah blah blah.  I was shocked, I did not expect him to deny it, let alone come at me so aggresively.  This guy basically accused me of breaking my own sunroof (how the hell do you even break a sunroof?) and trying to get over on him by making him pay for it.  As arrogant as this sounds... I told the guy "I'm driving an maserati and own a 2 million dollar house, do you really think I am gonna try and screw you out of a couple hundred dollars," I regret saying this now because of how douchey it sounds but still it's true.  Anyways, because of how unbelievably rude this guy was we are now most likely going to have to take it to small claims court (my car is under waranty so I could get it fixed for free) out of spite.  LOL taking someone to court out of spite, I feel like George Costanza... oh well ya gotta do what ya gotta do I guess.

On a completely unrelated note I would just like to say that Skip Bayless is the by far the worst sports analyst in the history of the world.  How this guy gets paid to talk about sports is just beyond me, he has no knowledge about 90 percent of the things he says, he just screams and yells very assertively and makes tons of bold predictions that are rarely every right but when they are he will talk about how big a genius he is because he made one correct pick.  So if for some reason someone high up at ESPN is reading this please get rid of him, he is a complete laughing stock.

Good Luck,

Isaac

 So, I'm sorry I didn't update from day 2 at the bike, but truthfully it wasn't very interesting, I played one hand bad and lost two flips and was out, oh well.   As for online, well that hasn't been going too well either, for some reason ever since May I can not sustain a winning streak, I seem to always start off the month winning pretty good, then end up losing back all my profits plus a little bit.  Right now, I'm stuck about 200k this month after being up over 200 about a week and a half ago.  I have to admit that in the past when I have read other people's blogs I have found it annoying when they only update their blogs when they are winning.  However, now that I've started to blog I can definitely see why a lot of people do this.  It is definitely a lot more fun and less painful to write a blog when you have tons of good stuff to talk about than when it is just reliving a bunch of losing.  To be perfectly honest though, even though I have been losing a bunch, I feel like I'm playing great.  There was one session I played of 200/400 NL where I played god awful and deserved to lose more than I actually did, but besides that I have been running pretty awful in both NL and PLO.  

Luckily, while I can't win a hand of poker the people I stake seemingly can't lose and one even had a real nice score so financially I am still won in the month of August, although it still feel like I lost.  I am probably not going to play anymore until the WCOOPs start on Pokerstars, some people really grind it out when they are losing and for some that's when they play their best poker, for me however when I'm on a downswing I like to try to stay away from poker as much as possible and have a positive mindset when I start playing again.

I plan on playing all the WCOOP events besides the big horse tourney and probably the smaller limit tourneys.  I am really looking forward to both the 10k NL tournament, the 25k HU tourney and obviously the Main Event, it's pretty ridiculous to think how far along online poker has come even since I started playing, and I've only been playing about 3 years.  To think that you could win 2 million dollars in an online poker tournament back when I was starting out, it's pretty crazy stuff. 

As for non-poker stuff I can not wait for football season to start, even though I am a die hard basketball fan at heart, there is just something about football season that gets me more excited than I do for any other sport.  I'm doing a bunch of fantasy football stuff and for those Fantasy Football junkies looking for a sleeper, my sleeper pick of the year is Selvin Young, he is fast and reminds me a lot of Clinton Portis, who thrived in Mike Shannahan's offense.  A lot of the websites and magazines don't have Selvin rated very high at all, but I think he is going to have a breakout year like so many Denver running backs in the past have.

Today was a very up and down day, but I feel like I played pretty well and definitely had some interesting spots. My day started out at the first table to break, I didn't have many interesting hands at this table and it didn't seem like all that great of a table. When I got moved to my next table I soon realized that I was in for a completely different story than my first table. Besides Amak316 (a good online tournament player) I didn't recongnize anyone and within the first few hands I could tell that it was a juicy table, with a ton of limping, odd bet-sizing and just a bunch of guys that looked pretty fishy. My first big pot came against a guy that I would end up becoming very familiar with. He truly was one of a kind, a player unlike any I have seen, he was a middle-aged guy who was clearly and LA local and was definitely not a professional player. I had only been at the table for about 15 minutes and already I had seen him play almost every hand, limping in almost all of them and playing insane after the flop. He was completely unpredictable and would do crazy things like calling turn bets with no pair and no draw and checking the river behind when checked to. He also merged his ranges unlike any other person I have ever seen (albeit he had no idea he was merging his ranges) he did stuff like making huge overbets with 2nd pair and turning it over when called like it was the nuts. Anyways... this guy was a complete maniac (From here on out I will refer to him as "the nut"). The blinds for the hand were 50/100 and I started the hand with about 28k and he covered. He limped in early position and I made it 450 with A5cc in the cutoff. The button called and the nut called as well. The flop came A88 rainbow, the nut checked and I bet 800, button folded and the nut made it 3k. I called and the turn was a Jack completing the rainbow. He bet 3k again and I called. The river bricked off a 3 and he again bet 3k. I pretty much instacalled expecting to chop a lot of the times and when not chopping expecting to win almost always. Much to my shock he turned over AQ and I felt super owned. Even though I got owned in that hand I feel like against this guy my calldown is super standard and I think you guys will agree when you read the rest of this blog entry. The next hand I played was the most interesting hand I think I played the whole day. With the blinds 75/150 a middle-aged guy who had been pretty active and seemed somewhat aggressive, had been c-betting most flops and had double barreled a couple times opened for 450, the two players to his right called and I called in the cutoff with AJss and the big blind hopped in as well. I started the hand with about 19k and the villain had me easily covered. The flop came Ad9d7s, the villain UTG checked and the guy one to his left a somewhat aggro player bet 1550, one fold and I called. It folded back to the original raiser who said "raise" and threw in 3k, this obviously wasn't enough for a raise so the dealer made him make it 3100, the utg +1 guy insta folded and I took a second and called. The turn was a blank 3 and he bet 6500. I was and am still really confused about this line, I seriously contemplated sticking it all in here but I took a long time and folded. I am curious as to what some people think of this hand. These types of hands are where live experience is invaluable and I why I would like more of it. You just don't see players taking lines like this online and I really just had no clue what to make of it. Since he was a middle-aged white guy I folded, if he had been a different demographic like scandinavian or asian I may have ended up shoving it in. After this hand I went on a really cold streak where I picked up some pretty good starting hands but just lost every pot after the flop. I was down to about 8500 at this point when the nut limped in the cutoff at blinds 100/200 and everyone folded to me in the BB with QJo, i checked and the flop came j92 rainbow. I bet 400 and the nut quickly called. The turn was an 8 of diamonds putting backdoor diamonds out and I bet 900, the nut made it 2k and I called planning on calling pretty much any river. This is far from my standard in a limped pot like this and against a lot of opponents I would give them credit for the Q10 or possibly J8 and pitch my hand, but this guy was far from your average joe. So I called and the turn came a 3, I checked and he bet 4k of my last 6400, I sighed and called and he confidently turned up Q8o and I finally had some momentum going my way. The next big hand happened at the 100/200/25 level. I had about 17k to start the hand. The nut limped in early position and a strange tight player made it 600 to go. I called in the hijack with Q10cc, and both blinds as well as the nut came along. The flop was Kc10s6s, action checked to me and I decided to check and possibly pick up a backdoor draw or get heads up with the nut on a good turn for my hand and call him down. The turn was a Jack and it checked to the nut who bet 1500, I called and the big blind came along as well. The river was the beautiful Ace of hearts, the big blind checked and much to my delight the nut bet 10k, I shoved my last 4k more or so, and I was very happy when the nut didn't insta-call after the big blind folded. He ended up calling and tabling KJ and I had a nice double up. This was a pretty nice donation to get and I felt very lucky to be the one to make a big hand against the nut and get paid off, because it was only a matter of time. From there I played pretty aggressively because the nut had busted and my table was playing very tight, I was able to chip-up well by running some small to medium sized bluffs and stealing a lot preflop and had gotten to about 40k when a hand came up where I raised to 900 at 150/300/50 with AcAh and the small blind (the guy from the 2nd hand with the flop check/minraise) and the big blind, a seemingly decent older player who seemed to play tight for the most part but seemed to take advantage of his image and still pots here and there more than most people his age. The flop came 9d8c2c and they both checked to me, I bet 2k and both guys called fairly quickly. The turn was a K of clubs, the small blind checked and the big blind led for 6k. In retrospect I really fell like if I was on top of my game I would have just folded right here, I really can never see him showing up with anything but a flush in this spot, pretty much no other hand makes sense. However, I called the 6k hoping to maybe bink off a beautiful club or hope that he checks and somehow doesn't have me beat. The river came a blank 7 and he quickly shoved his last 16k and I pretty quickly folded. I feel like the river is a really easy fold and the turn should probably be a fold but I don't think calling is a huge mistake or anything. The last big hand I played came on the last hand of the night, I had 24k and had just recently been moved to a new table. I had raised 2 of the first 5 hands I had been at this table and 2 of the last 3 before this hand, so I probably had a pretty aggressive image. With the blinds still at 150/300/50 I raised JhJc UTG +1, the hijack called and the cutoff, an african american guy probably in his late 20s who was probably a live pro of some sort made it 3900, I felt like my hand was way too strong to fold here, but shoving would be a huge spew. So I elected to call, even though I knew that it would be difficult to play the hand out of position post-flop. The other player folded and the flop came 8h7d6d I checked and the cutoff quickly put out a big stack of 5k chips, enough to put me all in. I tanked for a while and I just could not see him playing AA or KK like this, I know that some live players will make this kind of overshove on these boards with huge hands but most of those people in my experience are amateurs. This guy just did not seem like the type to overbet shove a huge pair, I was very concerned about him having QQ but I felt like 99 and 1010 were both more likely than QQ and AK or AQ of diamonds were also either more or equally likely to QQ. So I called and he showed me 1010 and I doubled up on the last hand of the day to about 53k. Probably pretty close to an average stack so I can't complain. Anyways, it's been a long day, I'm gonna hit the sack, hopefully I pick up where I left off on Monday. Good Luck, isaac edit: I'm sorry about the formatting I don't know if it is because I'm on my Mac but it will not let me put paragraphs into the formatting.