CARDRUNNERS

Not that I really care.  Although I would like to know if the groundhog saw his shadow or not.  I dunno if I can take 6 more weeks of winter.

School started up last week and I've been a really good student so far despite the frigid weather.  Walking to class in 5 degree weather isn't the most fun thing in the world, but I've been really motivated for some reason.  I think it's because I really like my classes and professors this semester.  I'm basically done with required courses and now have the freedom to choose between lots of things, so that helps.  Also, my professors are for the most part all good lecturers who are really passionate about their subject material, which is nice and refreshing and certainly hasn't always been the case in my classes, some are just in it for the research.  I'm taking Economic Development, Experiments and Games (econ course that deals with game theory), History of Rock and Roll, and Intro to Social Psychology.  Honestly, the only class I haven't really gotten into yet has been Rock and Roll, and only because we're still at the roots stage listening to stuff from the 1930s and '40s, although I've even liked a few of these songs.  I'm really pumped to be learning about stuff that I actually want to learn about and I think it's going to be a good semester academically.

Fitness-wise I've been doing pretty well.  I've been lifting 3x every week, doing a solid amount of cardio, and (mostly) eating well.  I've cooked dinner 3 times so far this semester and 2 have turned out great, for the other I tried cooking steaks for the first time on a skillet on top of the stove and they came out rare when I was going for medium rare-medium, fine by me but not for the others whom I cooked for.  I blame the damn meat thermometer for taking too long to warm up.  I'll get 'em next time.  Also, I played my first intramural basketball game last night.  We were supposed to have 8 players or so on our team but a few couldn't make it and we wound up with just 5.  This meant I had to play two full 20 minute halves (continuous clock, but still) with just one 30 second timeout allowed per half.  Also, the team we played was made up of all varsity baseball players, ran 10 deep, and decided to full court press us and make us tired.  Well it certainly worked, I can't remember the last time I was so exhausted.  I thought I was going to throw up when I tried to drink water after I got home.  Fortunately that didn't happen.  Hopefully we get more players next week and I learn how to shoot on the weirdo rims they have.

I've watched pretty much every game of the NFL playoffs but have been doing a poor job picking games.  I did think NO and Indy would be playing in the big game, but I picked NO and NYJ to cover last week and neither happened.  Oh well, fun sweats.  Plus I'm gonna make up for it this Sunday.  Go Colts! (and 7,7!)

I've been playing less poker since school started, but still a fair amount.  Results have been up and down, I had a nice PLO session the other day winning about 370k at 200/400 but I've had a few losing sessions as well.  Won 26 big bets at Stud 8 playing 1k/2k OE the other day, that made me happy.  Nosebleed PLO has started to run a bit lately, if that continues I hope to play and beat these games.  We'll see.

The final part of my new PLO series comes out tomorrow.  I know there were some audio issues with the first 2, but I made some adjustments this time and it should be better.  The series is at 1/2 6max and I think it's a good watch for low-midstakes PLO players who are looking for ways to exploit regulars and just define their edge.

Hey everyone,

I'm sure most of you have heard about the tragic earthquake that struck Haiti this week.  The projected death toll is in the hundreds of thousands and the country is in shambles.  It's a really terrible thing, and Full Tilt Poker is offering several options to players in order to help.  The below instructions are copied and pasted from an email from FTP:

1.     Aid For Haiti tournaments: Starting tonight and running through Sunday, there will be a number of “Aid For Haiti” tournaments at a range of buyins for players to participate in. The first one is at 2PM ET (under an hour) and it’s a $5 + $5 ($5 from every entry will be donated).

2.     Aid For Haiti “no-play” tournaments: These are “fake” tournaments that won’t run. For anyone that wants to make a direct donation, they can enter one of the 10 different tournaments (all “scheduled” for Sunday at 6pm ET, 3pm PT) and not worry about playing a tournament.

3.     An “Aid For Haiti” user has been set up for direct P2P transfers. Anyone can transfer any amount greater than $5 to that player ID.

All money raised will be matched by Full Tilt Poker and sent to various charities, so for every dollar you donate, an additional dollar from FTP will be directed toward helping the cause. Personally I will be making a direct donation, as well as possibly playing in some of the tournaments.  I urge anyone who can help, even a little, to do so as well.

Poker in the new year has been going pretty well for me.  After not playing much the first few days due to New Year's hangovers and friends spending their last few days around before going back to school, I've been logging a solid amount of playtime the past few days, mostly at mixed games.  Aside from a cap PLO session the other day where I ran 85k below AIEV (hate hate hate cap PLO lol), it's been going pretty well.  I'm very pleased with how my mixed game is coming along.  I even won 42k in a rotation of 1.5k/3k HEROS (no NLH or PLO) yesterday.  I definitely have some room for improvement, particularly in Omaha hi-lo, which is clearly my worst game and which I'm stuck over 150k for the year so far in, but I'm on the right track and improving every day.  I feel like I'm a winner in most mixed game lineups at even the highest stakes right now, but then again who doesn't, haha.  Here are some of the biggest pots I've played so far in 2010:

1. weaktight.com/1892754
tough river call vs durrrr in PLO that worked out well

2. weaktight.com/1892755
this river call worked out less good

3. weaktight.com/1892757
absolute monster pot for 100/200 PLO, I'm 58.3% on the flop here 3 ways

4. weaktight.com/1892763
river of dreams for me that allows me to get 3 more bets in here in LHE

5. weaktight.com/1892767
tough runout here in O8, unfortunately I suck at this game so not many fun winning hands to post :(

6. weaktight.com/1892768

biggest NLH pot so far in 2010, I 'hold' with 37.2% equity because that's how I roll

7. weaktight.com/1892774
tough calldown with 1 pair to scoop a big Stud Hi pot....don't bluff me :)

8. weaktight.com/1892777

thin value vs Gus in Razz

9. weaktight.com/1892783
more thin value, this time in Stud 8

Hope you guys enjoyed the hands.  As for life stuff, I'm heading back to school tomorrow, but only for rush week, I still don't start class for almost 2 more weeks.  Break has been fun but I'm about ready to go back.  I know I promised some party bus pics, there are some good ones but I think this blog is long enough already, I'll post some next time.  Good luck at the tables everyone, and remember that any donation helps, Haiti certainly can use it.

Brian

edit - not sure what happened with the links, I'll get 'em fixed asap.

double edit - I know it's annoying but for now if you just copy/paste the "weaktight.com/1509850" (or w/e the number is) into your browser, you can still see the hands

triple edit - further details from FTP at   http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/aid-for-haiti

The three charities selected to receive the donations are: Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, and UNICEF.

Money should be on its way to these charities on Monday, perhaps a day or 2 later but no more than that.

final edit - links are fixed, thanks support

Happy new year everyone!  I had an amazing time last night, I rented out a party bus and a bunch of my friends and me went out to a few different bars in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area.  I cannot stress enough how much fun this was.  I will post pictures when I get some, some of the girls who came took lots of them thankfully.  I hope everyone else had a fun New Year's Eve as well!

Since my big win earlier this month I've been taking it pretty easy pokerwise for a few reasons.  Mainly, I've been really busy, I had finals then came home for one day before flying out to Chicago to go to a Bulls game and the CR Christmas Party with Taylor, Wiggins, and some other good friends.  Unlike the last time I went to Chicago in the winter, the weather held up really well (actually 10 degrees warmer there than in the northeast when I was there).  I had a great time and I'm really becoming fond of Chicago.  One big reason is that the people just seem friendlier, small sample size but I've heard others say this as well.  Also, another quick story that shows why I like it - I was leaving my hotel one day around noon to catch a cab and head to the CR office, but I decided I wanted a quick bite to eat first because I was hungry.  I asked the doorman at the hotel and he told me there was a great deli a block away.  I went to said deli, which was a small, family-owned Italian deli, and had one of the best subs I've ever had in my life.  I just think being able to do stuff like this is awesome, I realize it's not exclusive to Chicago but having never lived in a big city before I just think it's so cool.  Chicago is definitely an option for living after I graduate this coming December.

Since returning from Chicago I've been spending lots of time with friends and family.  I'm only in PA for a few months a year anymore so I'm trying to make the most of this time.  It's not that I haven't wanted to play poker, it just hasn't been a priority.  Similarly, I planned on catching up on Mad Men this break and have watched a grand total of zero episodes so far (I've previously seen S1).  I did watch the Hangover for the 4th time though, such a great movie.  I'd imagine I'll spend most of the remainder of my break spending time with friends and family as well since everyone is home and looking to hang out as much as possible.  I've also been hitting the gym pretty hard over break and I expect to keep that up as well.

Now to resolutions.  I did this last year and thought it would be a good idea to check up on my progress.  I'm going to do that first then make some new ones for 2010.  Without further ado....

2009 Resolutions

1.  Make more productive use of my time.

I think I've seen some improvement here.  I still waste a bit more time on 2+2 than I'd like but I've kicked the bad habit of lying in bed on my computer for an hour or 2 after waking up.  I certainly waste less time than most of my college friends lol

2.  Get in better shape.

Making progress here as well, at least in the past few months.  I was pretty good in the spring but Vegas really killed it as it's pretty impossible to live a healthy lifestyle while living in a big house in Vegas with 8 friends + friends of friends visiting constantly.  I want to try harder this coming summer though.  After Vegas I also slacked for a bit but since October I've been pretty consistent with my workouts and I've eaten reasonably healthy as well, especially over this break.  I've definitely seen some nice strength gains but I'd like to drop 15-20 pounds.

3.  Perform well in school.

Nailed this one.  I got a 3.55 this fall and I think a 3.3 in the spring.  Couldn't be happier with my schoolwork.

4.  Improve my social life a bit.

Aced this as well.  I've definitely improved the amount of meaningful relationships I have with friends over the past year, and I think the main reason is that I've really opened up.  I was pretty shy in high school but now I feel like a completely different person when I go out.  Sometimes I used to force it just to fit in, now I still don't always feel like going out and stay in sometimes, but when I do go out I genuinely have lots of fun almost always.  I am extremely happy with all of this.

5.  Become a bit more of a bankroll nit.

Believe it or not I think I did a great job of this.  For the first half of 2009 I pretty much grinded a bunch of 25/50, played a little bit of 500/1k pretty heavily pieced out, and put up pretty subpar results compared to what I would have liked.  Regardless, I stuck to my gameplan.  I was fortunate to have some nice scores staking in the WSOP and as a result had some money to play with, and at the same time there were some really good nosebleed games running on FTP, so I decided to put more money online and share action in these games.  I'm happy to say that it really couldn't have worked out any better and I'm very fortunate for that.

2010 Resolutions

1.  Get in better shape.

Still plenty of room for improvement here.  I've been getting very serious about this all around so far over break.  The local gym is super nice and has a basketball court that I've been shooting around on to warm up and cool down and on off-days from lifting.  I'm definitely going to start going to a gym back at school, I had been working out in my house but it's just so much easier to motivate myself to work out when I leave the house to go to a gym.  As stated above I'd like to lose 15-20 pounds.

2.  Learn how to cook well.

This ties in with #1 a bit as cooking myself means I can make my own meals and know what I'm putting in my food.  Also, in my limited experience I've made some meals that taste pretty damn good, although the credit really belongs to getting good ingredients.  I have a nice grill at my house and don't even know how to use it, my roommate does so it's not going to waste, but this is pretty stupid and I'm going to figure it out asap.  I also got a cookbook for Christmas that really starts from the ground up and I've already read a bunch of it.  I think cooking will be fun and rewarding and I'm looking forward to getting into it more.

3.  Continue to maintain/expand relationships with friends and family.

I've really become closer with some friends and family members in the past year and this really comes back to opening up more and becoming more outgoing as I discussed earlier.  Same goes with girls too.  I hope to maintain the close relationships I have, especially with good friends who are graduating and who I won't see as much.  Life's just better when experiences are shared with others, imo.

4.  Remain hungry at the poker tables and continue to put up good results.

This might be a bit tough as quite frankly I'm more concerned with other aspects of my life right now.  That said, I'm very much looking forward to the WSOP this summer as it will be my first full Series since turning 21.  I plan on playing the 50k 8-game event, the main event, 10k HU, 10k PLO, and perhaps a few more, as well as playing some big cash games.  I want to spend the first half of 2010 sharpening up my mixed games online so I can play them live this summer if good ones are running.  Money is nice too but my primary goal is just to get the mixed game as sharp as possible.  I plan on still playing a decent amount of PLO too but it's a secondary goal as I'm quite content with my PLO game.  I also look forward to playing HU if there are good spots, although I think my days of waiting around for 8 hours for action on HU tables are pretty much done, I rarely spend more than 3 hours at a time playing/looking for games anymore.

5.  Have fun!

I doubt I'll have a problem with this, but just putting it here to remind myself that this is what it's all about.  2009 was arguably the best, most enjoyable year of my life to date and I can only hope that 2010 is even better.

Wish me luck with these resolutions and happy new year again to all!

Brian

Hey everyone, I just want to pass down word about the tournament Sunday.  I copied and pasted all of the relevant information below from our release, although the time seems to be missing, the tourney starts at 8pm EST (20:00 on FTP).  Note that you do not need to be a Cardrunners member to play.  David/LP was one of the initial CR members, a respected member of the community for years, and most importantly a great father, husband, and man.  He is sorely missed.  Despite having a final the following day I will be playing as well as donating to the fund.  Hope to see many of you on Sunday!


CardRunners is proud to announce the Lou Pinella Memorial Poker Tournament.

David “Lou Pinella” Doerr was a charter member at CardRunners. His history with the site goes back to launch week in September of 2005. Over the years he was a vibrant member of the community and was known especially for his wit and willingness to help others. It was not at all uncommon for him to message another member to offer assistance with their HU game, impart some sage advice, or just to welcome them to CardRunners.

On Wednesday, November 18, at the age of 43, David was taken from us as a result of an auto accident in the greater Seattle area. He is survived by his wife Patrice and 11-year-old son Davis. To read more about David and his life at CardRunners, please click here .

The Lou Pinella Memorial Poker Tournament, to be held Sunday, December 13, will carry a $15+$15 entry, with 100% of the rake going to a college fund for Davis (information below). We anticipate having several CardRunners pros and guest pros play, a full list will be announced before the 13th. Each pro will have a bounty for those who are fortunate enough to eliminate one of them.

To register for the tournament, please head to Full Tilt Poker and go to the private tournament tab. You can sort by date, look for the name (Lou Pinella Memorial) or the ID (122018681). You will need the password “DRD#1” to register.

We look forward to seeing you all help support David’s family in this most trying of times.

If you’d like to donate directly to the fund, here is the information you will need:

College Savings Plan of Nebraska
P.O. Box 82644
Lincoln, NE 68501-9542
(888) 993-3746
Account number: 975-757-841 and the beneficiary is Davis R. Doerr

-Brian

 Wow.  I just had the biggest winning day in online poker history.  Did this really happen?  I'm still having a tough time believing it did (although not quite as tough a time as I'm having trying to study for finals right now).  When everyone starts playing poker, the dream is that one day they will hit it big and make obscene amounts of money that one couldn't fathom working a 9-5 (well most 9-5s).  But for most, this is just a pipe dream.  For it to happen, one needs a combination of very large amounts of both skill and luck (well maybe not always the skill part for a few certain WSOP main event winners/high finishers, but they need an astronomical amount of luck).  And here I am, winning a record $4.18 million in one day (well not exactly - no I didn't have 100% of my own action, and no I am not going into any further detail about this) playing online poker.

How did I get here?  Well, Taylor provided a lot of the background info in his blog, but I want to rehash some parts of the story.  I started out as a 16 year old high school junior in the spring of 2005.  To this point, I had played some live poker homegames with friends, basically $5 buyin tourneys since none of us had any money nor knew what we were doing.  I grew up in Hanover Township, PA and lived a pretty average middle class lifestyle, working part-time jobs including one at Little Caesar's Pizza where I sometimes dressed up as the mascot, kind of like this.  Anyway, my math teacher at the time was playing online poker on Ultimate Bet, playing up to 5/10 NL.  I was a very natural math student and got my work done much faster than most students, so when I finished we'd chat some about poker.  I created an account on UB and started playing play money.  After a couple weeks of tearing up the play money tables, I decided I was ready to play for real money, and I deposited $50 that I had made from my job by means of giving it to a friend who had created an account in his mom's name who then transferred the money to me.  My career as an online poker player had begun.  Although my teacher (who I'm not sure would want to be named) taught me that 10 buyins was sufficient bankroll management, he also taught me a lot about the basic concepts of poker.  He played a very tight style playing full ring games but emphasized the importance of hand reading, which was revolutionary to me at the time since I was a complete donk who just played the strength of my hand.  If not for him I would not be here today, so I thank him very much.

When I first started playing for money online I was a breakeven to slightly winning player immediately.  Frankly the .05/.10 NL games on UB were very soft back in 2005, and anyone with a touch of patience and smarts could beat the games pretty soundly.  For the first few months I treaded water for the most part, depositing $50 twice more and continuing to play low stakes NL cash, SNGs, and tourneys.  That summer, after school let out, I really started dedicating myself to improving my game.  Here's a hilarious Pocketfives post that I made in July that year:

My First Post
Stinger885 (United States) 
07-06-2005 10:25 PM 
Hello all. My name is Brian and I've been going on this site for several weeks now looking at some of the great stuff. Today I tripled my bankroll by winning the UB 1:00 $2500 guaranteed tourney and cashing for $912.60. I just want to say thanks to all whose posts I have read to improve my game and good luck at the tables!

When Cardrunners started up I was one of the original members of the site.  I probably used a parent's credit card because I was too young to have one.  At this point I was playing and beating midstakes NL and already well on the way, but CR definitely had a large impact on my game as well.  I also have to say the same about the 2+2 forums as once I joined there (not sure when exactly) I spent hours upon hours reading and discussing strategy posts there.  I kept progressing through the stakes pretty swiftly, hitting snags each time I'd move up but then adjusting and learning how to beat each new limit faster than most.  For me, the exciting part of poker has always been the learning process.  I think this is true for the majority of successful players, Phil Ivey possibly excluded.  I am a very competitive person and for me, the thrill in poker has always been learning to master a new level, a new form of poker, or a new opponent.  Moving up from $.25/.50 to $.50/1 excited me just about as much as moving up from $25/50 to $50/100.  

When I felt like I had little more to learn in NLH, I started to learn PLO.  I still played a lot of NLH for income purposes, but the challenge of learning a new game excited me much more.  In retrospect I should have learned PLO at much lower stakes, but throwing myself into the fire vs tough players at 25/50 and above definitely accelerated my development.  I had a lot of months that went like this: win 100k playing NLH, lose 60k playing PLO.  This certainly did not maximize my immediate profit, but in the long run perhaps it wasn't such a bad idea.  Not sure I'd recommend doing the same, though.  Anyway, I did run pretty hot at pretty high stakes for a few months soon after learning PLO and I think gained some false confidence that hurt me for a while.  In January 2008 I realized that I wasn't nearly as good as I thought and started really dedicating myself to the learning process again.  By summer 2008 I think I went from a very mediocre/probably losing player at 25/50+ to in my opinion one of the top 5 regulars in the games.  I beat up the 25/50 games especially bad to the tune of 8ptbb/100 or so that summer.

After I felt satisfied with my PLO game, I started learning the mixed games.  I had dabbled in some high stakes mixed games in the past despite not really knowing how to play the stud games or O8, which was far and away the worst decision of my poker career, so I had extra motivation to win back some of the losses I had stupidly incurred.  This year I have put tons of effort into learning how to play mixed games, both at and away from the table.  I couldn't have done it alone though.  This year Brian T., Cole, and myself have spent tons of time reviewing our own and each other's play, discussing hands, and analyzing our opponents.  They are really an invaluable resource, without them I would probably still suck at mixed games, be less good at PLO, and I wouldn't have great friends who can console me after a tough loss and give good, constructive feedback that gives me the drive to come back strong the next day.  Instead I think I am now a winning player against most lineups at the highest stakes mixed games as well as the PLO games.  Thanks so much Cole and Brian, I wouldn't be here without you guys.

Aside from mixed games, the current exciting challenge in poker that I face is heads up matches against given players.  With the recent splash onto the scene by Isildur1, who to my knowledge is a 20 year old Swede who has previously had lots of success on Euro sites, I saw a new challenge on the horizon.  This guy was lighting up some damn good poker players, and I don't think this was a fluke - he's an excellent player in his own right.  Brian, Cole, and I each played against him some, reviewed our play extensively, and studied his game as well.  No, we didn't ghost each other, it was one player per hand, but we were always there to offer each other encouragement and provide good constructive criticism.  It could just as easily be one of them sitting here writing this, but unfortunately for Brian he played a bunch the last 2 days and ran 2m under EV, while I ran 2.8m over EV.  Amazingly Brian still only lost around 700k (I think) during these sessions.  I was extremely impressed with his ability to avoid tilting and hang in there with a positive mindset.

Which brings me to my next point - I think preparation and emotional control are two of the most underrated skills in poker.  Brian recently wrote a great blog regarding the former.  I cannot stress enough how important preparation has been to my results this year.  I feel like many players just try to log as much volume as possible and try to grind out a small winrate.  While there's nothing wrong with this, in order to take your game to the next level it is important to spend a lot of time away from the table analyzing your play, as well as thinking while playing rather than autopiloting on 12 tables.  Again, it depends on what you're trying to accomplish, but as far as being the best player you can be and giving yourself the biggest long term earning potential, this is the way to go.  With regards to emotional control, all I need to say is to look at what happened yesterday.  If Brian T. and Isildur's cards were reversed yesterday, I'm very confident that Isildur goes on raging tilt and Brian wins 3-4m off him.  Brian's ability to keep his composure, take short breaks when necessary, and keep his head up and play song was THE difference between a -700k session and a -3m session.  On the flip side, when I had a hot run of cards, Isildur quickly lost control, started playing far too aggressively to get unstuck, and the loss just snowballed and snowballed until I was up over 4m.  I think emotional control is a very common hinderance to poker players, it really amazes me how often otherwise great players allow themselves to lose far more than they should because they have a desire to keep playing to get unstuck.  I guess amazes isn't the right word, because I definitely was guilty of this some in my younger, less mature days, but it's just a really big deal and something that I feel isn't talked about or worked on nearly enough.

Although we are adults gambling with our money and know the risks, I do feel bad for Isildur to a point.  Last year I had a 1.4m downswing at 500/1k taking 100% of my action (unbelievably stupid), so I've been there.  He's a talented player and I hope he rebounds and I think he will.  Maybe this blog entry will even help him.  I hope it helps someone, because it's taken an awful long time to write and I'm supposed to be studying for finals right now...

I want to give a few additional thank yous.  Thanks to Taylor Caby, who's been a role model of sorts in multiple ways.  First by watching him crush the high stakes games on UB, he helped to inspire me to want to be good at poker.  Then, after we became good friends, he inspired me to stick it out in college even though I was making boatloads of money at poker.  Very few people would be qualified to give the advice that Taylor did, and I'm very grateful for it.  I could not be happier with my decision to stay in school, and although motivation issues occur from time to time as it becomes decreasingly likely that I will put my impending degree to use, I'm finding that I enjoy the learning process here just as I do in poker.  I've also had the great fortune of having the 'college experience' and making some great friends that will last a lifetime.  Thanks to them too for always being there and making my time in college what it is.

Thanks to Bill Callahan, my would-be high school basketball coach who cut me from the team.  I sucked at hoops anyway and I used the free time I gained to develop my poker game.  Had I made the team maybe I wouldn't be here today.  My sister just reminded me of this and I thought it was funny but true.  So thanks Mr. Callahan, seriously.

Thanks to my wonderful family, with whom I wouldn't be where I am today in any facet of life.  I'm very fortunate to have some great parents who, although initially a bit skeptical, have been very supportive of my poker career because they believe in me.  Same goes for my sister, who has a very promising future in her own right.  Thank you so much!

Ok I really have to study now.  I have a few interviews coming up in the next few days, I'll post more on them when they become available.  Good luck in the coming days everyone!

Brian

I am currently consuming a chunky strawberry topper from Jamba Juice in the airport (awesomeee) in NYC while waiting to make my connecting flight to Los Angeles.  I'm going there for a long weekend (Thurs-Sun) to meet up with Taylor, Wiggins, Scott (iRock), and the rest of the gang.  It will be great to see everyone as it will be the first time since Vegas (well except Scott whom I met up with at Lollapalooza in August).  Only 3 months but it feels like so long!  The main reason for the trip is a Halloween Party on Saturday at the Playboy Mansion, which I am super excited about.  It is costumes mandatory and I am going as Buzz Lightyear, a solid, humorous, and now relevant (Toy Story 3 next summer!) choice imo.  I'm excited to see everyone else's costumes, both my friends and the bunnies.  I have a feeling I will like many of them.  I'm also very excited that I get to do Halloween twice this year since this party is on the 24th and I'll be back at Cornell for the real Halloween weekend.  Not sure if I'm going to use the same costume twice or go with a second one for next weekend.  Hopefully I will have a choice as last year my chicken costume did not make it through Halloween night unscathed...

I'm excited for the rest of the weekend in LA too.  Taylor already booked us a reservation for Katsuya tonight.  Last year when we went to LA I went there with him and Wiggins and the food was excellent.  I haven't had top notch sushi since the summer so I am very much looking forward to it.  I'm not sure what we're doing on Friday but I'm sure that will be fun too.

In other news, this week's WSOP coverage on ESPN featured lots of both of my friends who made it deep in the tourney, Jon Tamayo and Joe Ward.  I fired up my DVR last night and watched the 2 episodes, and I think both of the guys came off decently.  Unfortunately, most of Joe's televised hands were either him getting owned by Phil Ivey or his cruel bustout hand where he gets 3 outed, but he played a great tournament.  Jon played great as well, minus the hand where he ATMs it up with AK vs Billy Kopp's trips.  Just kidding, Jon (maybe)!  As a side benefit of watching Jon I got to see Leo Margets sitting next to him.  That woman is legit hot, not even just poker hot.  There was a thread on 2p2 about her and some posters said she was a real world 4, which is just totally ridiculous.  If there is a place on earth where she's a 4, take me there ASAP.  She's an 8 imo.

It's currently 7:50am EST.  I woke up at 11am yesterday and haven't slept a minute since.  Somehow, I'm still not really tired at all.  This is weird.  Hopefully I sleep some on the cross country flight, but if not at least I get to enjoy 6 hours or so of JetBlue TV/XM/movies.  JetBlue really is the nuts in the airline industry, but you probably already knew that.  Anyway, it's time to board soon, I'll try to remember to write up a trip report early next week after I get back.  Good luck everyone and enjoy your weekends!

So I haven't really played a lot of poker since my last entry/shameless bragpost.  The title of that was basically poking fun at the fact that I hadn't been playing much until that day, and then just happened to play for one day and crush.  All in all, I've played very little poker in September, less than basically any month I can remember, at least cash game wise.  WCOOP might have saved me from playing the least poker of any month since I started playing, but I skipped out on the main event of that as well to go to the Jets/Patriots game last Sunday with some friends (great decision, btw).  I think the main reason is that I just haven't been all that motivated coming off a couple months of big winning.  I know Brian T. has blogged in the past about having big losing months after his big winning months due to complacency.  I think I'm the same way, except instead of playing a bunch of unfocused poker, I just haven't played much at all.  When I have played, I think my game has been basically fine though, if slightly rusty. 

I have been putting in some hands in the 7 game mix games on FTP, and although I haven't been tracking my play as well as Brian T. or spending much time studying the games away from the table, my results have actually been pretty good.  This could be variance, but I've been playing these games on and off for probably a year and a half or 2, and I feel like the experience is paying off.  I certainly have leaks in some of the games (particularly the split pot games), but I have a nice edge in the NL and PLO rounds and the rest of my games are improving every session.  I've also game selected some, so that helps.  Anyway, like I said I haven't really been tracking diligently but I'd guesstimate I'm up around 100k in mixed games this month.  Playing them is fun for me because of the challenge of learning the games, and feels less like work than grinding hands of the games I already know I play very well, so I expect to devote an increasing percentage of my playing time to them.  Plus, they run way more frequently than PLO and NLH at the limits (50/100 - 100/200 NL/PL / 200/400 - 400/800 limit) that I'm most comfortable playing.

Speaking of frequency of games running, I started to write this post because I was intending to play poker this afternoon after taking a test this morning and then grabbing some Five Guys with my roommates.  Five Guys, which just came to Ithaca last week, is a D.C. based burger chain that has a pretty stellar reputation.  I was not disappointed, my only gripe was that the fries came in way too large quantities, but the burger was EXCELLENT.  I'm gonna say it right here - Five Guys has better burgers than In-N-Out.  Take that, Californians.  Anyway, I'm currently sitting at 9 HU tables on FTP at various limits of NLH and PLO, and getting no action.  I'm also on the waitlist for 2 25/50 6max PLO games, but those are the only 2 games running at 25/50+ of either NL or PLO (cap excluded).  It's frustrating when I'm busy with life stuff and then finally find time to play some, and there is nothing at all to play, but oh well, there are worse problems to have.

Life has been good, as mentioned above I went to the Jets/Pats game, and my schedule has been light so I've been able to go out a lot and have lots of fun.  Ironically I just got some game action so I'm gonna cut it off here, 10 points to anyone who actually made it to the end of this ramble.  Take care and good luck.

The month of Jaugust (Auly doesn't sound so good) has been treating me quite nicely.  If you didn't know, Jaugust runs from the middle of July through the middle of August.  For my purposes we will call it July 14 (or so) - present. 

First, after I had already busted out of the main event (was pretty uneventful I just didn't really make any hands and just lost a few medium sized pots in a row), I still had a few horses left in the tourney to sweat, so despite my initial bustout reaction of wanting to get as far away from Vegas as possible, I decided to stay and sweat.  And what a sweat it was!  As Taylor posted in his blog, our friend Joe Ward (LatestLines2 aka TFW) got 28th for about 250k.  Sweating Joe was one of the best experiences of my life.  We had quite a rail on our side with me, Taylor, and several other friends plus some of Joe's friends from Boston.  Refer to Taylor's blog about the hilarious pocketfives update about security threatening to remove Taylor from the area, good times!  I felt sick to my stomach as well after Joe's bustout hand, but all in all he had gotten lucky a few times to be alive at that point and it was a great run.

I also had a second horse/friend get deep, Jon Tamayo (driverseati).  Jon did even better than Joe, finishing in 21st.
Jon also had his share of fortunate moments throughout the tourney (AK vs KK aipf on day 2, K7 vs AK on Kxx flop in a 3bet pot, just smash that 7ball buddy!) and some unfortunate hands later on (JJ vs AThh aipf for over 6m pot with about 35 left, other guy flops a flush), that's just how tourneys go.  Obviously at the end of the day both of us were very happy with 21st.  Sweating others deep in the main event is really one of the more fun experiences I have ever had.  I realize that I was very fortunate to have 2 sweats so deep this year, but hopefully someday I will get a chance to do it again.

The staking wins made my Vegas trip quite lucrative after previously being down a little for the trip.  I had been playing 25/50 PLO during the trip mainly, breaking evenish with tons of swings, realizing that the games had gotten significantly tougher over the past year, and not really sure of my plan after returning home to PA.  Then, around the time I got home (mid-July sometime), Gus Hansen started playing a bunch of 200/400 PLO and the games there suddenly started looking good after being dead for quite a while.  I decided to take some of my staking profit and take some shots at those games, and fortunately it couldn't be going any better.  I've taken a good chunk of money out of the games in the past 30 days or so, and although I haven't had all of my action, I've had pretty big pieces.  Also, it's a great feeling winning my friends money.  Anyway, I'm not going to go into numbers but highstakesdb paints a pretty good picture.  I will continue to play in these games for the foreseeable future as long as they seem good.  I'll post some hands at the end of the entry too, there have been some fun ones.

Lastly, I had played 0 tournaments all FTOPS and was lounging around my house this past Saturday when I was chatting with Taylor on Gchat and he happened to mention that the FTOPS 2500 today had a good structure and was 6max, and that he'd play but couldn't because he had plans with his friends.  I, on the other hand, had no real plans, as I had just gotten back to Ithaca the day before and most of my friends still weren't back yet, and the ones that were I had seen at the bars the previous night.  So, after asking Taylor what time the tourney was (lol), I decided to play and registered.  It started about 50 minutes after this conversation I think.  As it turned out, the tournament did have a great structure, as I spent the majority of the tourney with 60bb or more, and I was able to run pretty hot and play well too and take 2nd for 297k.  This is my largest tournament score to date, and although I would have liked to win (I had a 3-1 lead at one point HU), I'm obviously pumped about the result.  I have requested the hand history file from FTP and there's a good chance I'll be making a replayer video, so look out for that in the near future.

So, in sum, Julaugust has been my biggest winning month ever.  I have had the urge to impulse buy stuff, but so far all I've done is cash out and invest a bunch and buy some new pillows and an air conditioner.  Suggestions welcome!

As for life stuff, I went to Lollapalooza in Chicago last weekend.  I had a blast there and saw some great music.  If you don't completely hate rap and ever get a chance to see Snoop Dogg, do it.  He was my favorite act of the festival, he's just such a great performer and gets the crowd going wild.  I enjoyed seeing the Killers a lot too, although it was my second time seeing them this year.  Such a perfect fit for the venue though.  Aside from Lollapalooza, I spent a couple weeks in PA.  The most noteworthy thing that happened there was me taking a trip to the local Mohegan Sun Casino, which doesn't have table games, but does have video blackjack, which is basically set up like a regular blackjack table except the dealers are on a video screen and all hot and female.  I was visiting some old high school friends and a few of us played video blackjack for about 4 hours.  I started with $100 (had more back to reload, but never needed it, and ended up cashing out for $2400!  Yes, I am running that good.

Ok that's about all I have to say for now.  I'll close with some big PLO hands:

1. http://www.pokerhand.org/?4598394
Big "hold" vs Gus.  He's actually a slight favorite.

2.  http://www.pokerhand.org/?4598403
Tough hand here, not much I can do if I decide to take the aggro route preflop (which I like deep with position vs Gus).  This was the biggest losing pot I played all month, somewhat surprisingly.

3.  http://www.pokerhand.org/?4598412
Max value on the turn with 1 pair!  Gus's bluffcall doesn't get there.

4.  http://www.pokerhand.org/?4598418
71% on the flop for an 1100bb pot.  This is what dreams are made of!

Brian