CARDRUNNERS

Last year in the main event, I had Andy Black and Apestyles to my left and I hoped that this year I would get a softer table. I ran good and only recognized Eric Assadourian, and there were a couple really soft spots at my starting table. The day went pretty well overall, I lost 1 pretty lame pot early but other than that, I just constantly had the best hand etc
I opened 98hh UTG to 300, got 3 callers
Flop: 997ss, I bet 800, get 2 callers
Turn: A, I bet 2300, get 1 caller(Eric)
River: A, I think he has a nine a bunch of the time, and when he doesn't he'll have a missed draw most of the time, and if he has Axss, fml. I check, he bets 4400, I call and lost to A2ss

I then played a pot where I open KJo UTG(I'm not usually such a lagtard), and get 3 callers.
Flop: AKTr, checked around
Turn: Q putting out a flush draw, I check, one guy bets 500, I call
River: 8, I bet 1500, one guy means to throw out a 500 and a 1k chip, but threw out a 5k and a 1k chip, I jam for like 7k more and he tanks forever before folding KQ, I am almost certain he was considering calling rather than just hollywooding

The biggest pot I played of the day I had just about the best possible hand against my opponents hand

I open 6h6 to 1200 at 200/400/50 HJ-1, get a caller in the CO and in the BB
Flop: 532hh, I bet 2300, CO folds, BB shoves for like 19k, I am like "lol, I have some of your outs" and call. I figure he just about never has a better hand here but usually has fairly good equity against my hand, but he had 44 which is just about the best thing I could ask for and I hold.

I ended day 1 with 80k

On my day off, we went to the beach and then I went to see Slumdog Millionaire again. Dunno if I wrote about how sick that movie is in a previous blog entry, but definitely go see it.

Day 2 I had another really soft table to start, every single level went something like 80k ->110k ->80k, I more or less won pots early in every level and then lost a decent sized pot. Overall during the day my cards were really mediocre but my first table was tight enough that I wasn't missing out on a whole lot.

I then got moved tables about 1/2 way through the day to a table with David Saab, Clonie Gowen, Joe Cassidy, and a few agressive unknowns. I more or less didn't play any big pots for like 4 hours until the end of the day, I kind of got owned on this hand, not sure if its bad, or if its standard and I'm just too much of a live pro.

Garage13 has been moved to the table, and to my knowledge has more or less quit poker to become a pick-up artist. I'm assuming he still plays a bit, but probably won't spaz out super hard, and will more or less play solid.

7 handed, I open TT UTG like 110k deep, Joe Cassidy calls the CO like 65-70k deep, I didn't know it was Joe Cassidy at the time, but had an idea that he was pretty good, and Garage is like 75k deep and pulls out 4 5k chips, reaches for more chips, stops for a second, then put another 1k chip on top to 3bet to 21k. I would say in general TT does pretty bad against his 3betting range(not crushed or anything, just not happy to get it in), I just think that the sizing of his bet seems to look like its discouraging action, and thought that with like kings or aces he would usually 3bet less to encourage calls from Joe, or to make it look like I have fold equity. I end up jamming, he calls with AA, and I get there to win what would be the biggest pot I win all tournament, and the biggest pot I played all tournament... until I got to Raj's table.

I end the day with around 200, putting myself like 22nd/86 when 64 paid.

My day 3 draw had Sorel on my right, and Annica(Scandi chipleader who apparently plays highstakes cash on betfair) on my left. I maintained my card-deadness and opened very few pots throughout the day. I somehow got up to like 290 by just 3betting people occasionally and never running into a hand. We were down to like 45 and I was right about average when Raj gets moved to the table. My friends have told me stories about hands they've played with him, and it sounds like hes basically the type of guy whose always willing to go to war with top pair, makes big raises and reraises, likes to gamble etc.

First hand at the table, hes still unracking his chips(he had like 800k) and limps the small blind at 2k/4k/500. I raise 10k more and his chips beat mine into the pot.
Flop: K63dd, check check
Turn: J, he bets 15k, I call
River: 8, he checks quite quickly, I bet 50k since I basically know my hand is good, and feel like the bigger I bet the more likely he is to pay me off. He calls with K2, oops, there goes 80k

We go on break shortly after and now I'm fairly short with about 180 and am only like 1/2 of average.

We get back, Raj limps the CO, I open KcKh on the button to 17.5k at 2500/5000/500

He calls without hesitation
Flop: QJ9cc, check, I bet 26, he calls
Turn: 5, he checks, I'd shove like red aces, or AQ or something here(have like 140, 100 in the pot) but figure just like the 66 hand, that I've got pretty sick equity against whatever he has and don't mind him staying in the pot, and bet 55, he calls after some thought.
River: 8c, he shoves, I fold leaving myself with 86k

2 or 3 orbits later, Raj opens the SB to 20, I jam sevens, for a little over 90k, he snaps A5, and I'm out in 38th.


I also played the 6max event, and it was kind of the same, make hands early, survive a while without really getting good cards, then lose a bunch of pots to the same guy. I finished 8th/266 in that, so at least I guess a 2 tourney cashing streak is a little better than a 48 tourney no cash streak.


Aussie Millions is basically over, so now I've got some time to relax in Melbourne, I'm probably gonna go to the beach soon.

I made it down to the 1k rebuy and managed not to waste too much time playing it. I was up to 16k when average was like 9k at 75/150, and had been at my table for like 45 minutes. I had been cardracking fairly hard, so the table hadn't yet discovered that I was insanely nitty. I opened to 375 with AQ HJ-2, HJ-1 and HJ both called, and Andrew Scott(recreational player from Australia who plays a lot of the bigger tournaments) made it 1800(he covered me) he looked ridiculously weak and uncomfortable, the first flatter was the type of player who could flat a big hand a small % of the time, so I opted to just call with the intention of checkraising some flops(shoving was still probably better, everyone has 20/20 hindsight). The flop came QTTss, I check shoved over his 3k bet and got nitrolled by T9o.

I didn't really do much that night then went to play the 1650 bounty the next day. After Watts checked his email, we checked pokernews and realized our horse (Bond18) made the final table. It was 160k for first, 110 for second, 80 for third, 11 for 9th or something. Watts and I had decided if Bond or Watts got us 100k, he'd buy 1/2 my action, if I got us 100k, he'd buy 1/4 of my action. Anyways, Bond came in with well over average but was only 3/9. I busted the bounty early to Yev(Atimos) and made my way over to sweat rebuy which was about to start. I called up Bond and he said he was stuck in traffic...

Anyways, he shows up 30 minutes later, running but since its live poker he missed 8-9 hands. First orbit, he runs Kings into Aces to get down to 1/2 of average. A few hands later, he gets it in 99 against 55 against Sorel on a 876 flop and that was the tournament, at least I wouldn't have to lose 100k this year.

We decided it would be a smart idea to get smashed and by dinner were each 5-6 drinks deep. That night we met up with a bunch of people and went to this club called Eve which was pretty solid. I kept drinking, but most people drank much more than I did; neither Watts nor Bond can remember much from the night. I'm not sure what made the night so much fun, but it was a great time.

The next day was the Annual kickball tournament and it most definitely lived up to expectations. I originally thought like 60 people would show up, but we only got like 16 which was a lot more reasonable. I told Watts to pick his team based on what shoes people are wearing, and he definitely picked up a couple ringers for our team. 2+2er gramps dislocated his thumb but made more 1 handed catches than anyone else made 2 handed catches. After the game and a whole bunch of beers, we had nothing left but a few really shit beers left over. Yevgeniy challenged Jaka(the-toilet) to a race, and that somehow turned into me, Yev and Bond(but not Jaka) having a race to see who can run a couple hundred meters, then down a beer the fastest. I had already finished about 7 drinks, and I guess my stomach isn't as big as I expected. I finished the race ahead of the other 2, was downing my beer like a champion and then just hit a wall. There was no more room to pour the beer and I like "puked out" a shit ton of foam. I didn't puke, just foamed a shitton from the mouth and couldn't finish my beer. Bond had a similar problem and Yev casually drank his beer into victory.

After that we went to the beer gardens which wasn't as busy as last year, but we'll definitely need to go a few more times during the trip. We were all pretty wasted at this point, and took a few hours off of drinking before going out that night. Me, Bond, Watts and Yev went out to meet up with some friends of Bond's at a club called Motel. For those of you who don't know Yev, he is pretty excitable, and isn't afraid to speak his mind, for those of you who do know Yev, this story probably won't surprise you much.

We take a cab there and have the douchiest cab driver ever. He kept on asking if we're going "to find some sluts" pointing out which girls are sluts, and telling us that to pick up sluts you just need to tell them you have a big dick, and ensure that they know they are sluts. Yev decided to take this a bit too far and started screaming out the cab window at passers-by. We no longer wondered how the night would turn into an epic fail.

We end up getting to Motel at like 12:30 and are told there are too many guys, not enough girls so they aren't letting people in. Bond knew the club owner, but he wasn't there that night, but they say if the girls we know inside come get us, we'll be allowed in. While standing in line, Yev made sure to use his new pickup line as often as possible... I think he may have even used it on a bouncer. The girls finally come outside, and after being introduced to us and being called sluts plenty decided the club would be more fun without us in there. Bond apologized for ruining our night and we all parted ways and went back to get some sleep.

Going into the main event, I had gone 11.5 months without a cash and 48 tournaments without a cash. I thought making it to a year, or to 50 cashes would sound cool, but I'll give you guys a spoiler and say I broke my streak.

Well US Airways gave me the answer, but let me get there.

***I WROTE THIS LIKE A WEEK AGO BEFORE I GOT INTERNET WORKING IN MY APARTMENT***

So PCA was pretty fun after busting, I spent a lot time relaxing in the water park, or reading, or running sick hot at CCR. Over the course of the trip, Watts and I went to nice meals just about every night, and didn't come close to spending the $1150 that Stars had given us to spend. My favorite place to eat was probably the Mesa Grill which was also one of the only meals I had to pay for on the trip. I went with Steve and Gavin Griffin and Steve was nitty(or smart) enough to realize rouletting is pretty dumb for the exact reason that if you run good over the trip you're just gonna get screwed by not taking full advantage of the $1150). I also went to Nobu twice which I was excited about since the best meal I've had was at the nobu in Australia. The first night I went with Aba and couldn't get a reservation, so we were close to the door and had terrible service. The food was still great, but when we ordered, they only got like half the order the first time, and Brian had to ask like 6 times before they brought him a beer. The other day at Nobu was definitely better, I went with like 15 people(Watts, Ch0ppy, Pete, Rubentv and some of his friends from Amsterdam, Tufat, The Toilet, Imalucksack, and a few people I'm sure I'm forgetting) and the highlight of the night was when we couldn't finish our giant(probably like 2-3 litres) bottle of sake, and lucksack poured what was left into a full glass and just chugged it. Despite being paid for this, it was not the highlight of his night.

All throughout the week, I ran into the problem of never being able to get anywhere because of running into people. I played the 5k, and after busting, my walk of shame took me like 3 hours, and another night when I was planning on getting changed to go out to the club here I ended up running into Gavin, Peter Eastgate, and Terrnence Chan who I hadn't seen all trip and I ended up just talking to them and forgot about the club. It was my first time meeting Peter, and mentioned to him that we've played a bunch on boss, and some on Prima and after hearing I was hit21hit1 on boss, and Ray Rahme on prima he was asking me lots of questions about a grudge match I had like summer of 2007. It was during my couple month stint of crushing cash on paradise and apparently the guy who I played most frequently was a good friend of his. I talked to him for a while, and as much as you want to find a reason to hate the guy whose world champion, he seemed like a perfectly normal guy and smart at poker. Most people who I talk to in the poker community seem to belive in some kind of magic it just takes a while to figure out what it is(whether its not making the clearly correct play because its not their style, not playing on a site because they run worse there, assuming they can "chip up" in a variance free way etc), and generally I'd think people who make it through big donkaments are the biggest believers in magic, but was impressed since after winning the WSOP ME, nothing he said made me suspect he is a beliver in magic.

Anyways, after another day or two of being in the water park, it was time to pack up and make the 27 hour flight to Melbourne. My flight left at 140, connected in Philadelphia at 6, connected again in LA, left at 1130 and got to Melbourne at 10am.

My flight out of Nassau was delayed until 3, and when I got to Philadelphia, they told me that I wouldn't be able to make my connection, all later flights to LA were full(even after I asked if I could buy someones ticket off them), there was no way I could get to LA in time to make the flight to Melbourne, and that they'd be putting me in a hotel, paying for my meals, taking care of me tonight. I wasn't too upset and figured I'd just sleep a bit, wake up early, fly to LA, and catch a flight at like noon or something and only waste 12 hours. I look at my new tickets, and my LA-MEL flight was the same just a day later, and my new Philadelpiha to LA flight was 4 hours earlier, meaning over a 7 hour layover. I was walking to the person who would redeem my hotel voucher and meal vouchers and was a little relieved that they were connected to a Merriot, but after talking to them, I was staying at the Quality Inn. I expected this place to suck, but Eric at customer service assured me this hotel was a 3.5/5.

Eric must stay in some really dive hotels, because this place was just off a major road half an hour from the airport, had really thin walls, no heating, and was overall just a crappy motel. I saw the room rates, and it was $69 a night, plus the meals they'd be paying for me meant giving me a $10 meal voucher, so apparently a day of my life is worth about $79.

Anyways, after that my flights went smoothly, I finished the Feynman book I was reading in PCA and finished Starting Strength(recommend it to anyone new to/interested in beginning weightlifting) and read most of "Red Mars" on the way here. I probably sound like a poor critic of books/movies since I always talk about how awesome they are, but this book is a pretty cool colonization book about setting up a society on Mars in the mid-21st century. It doesn't encounter the typical problems in space related books(ie. how do we kill the aliens, how do we fix the space ship) but focuses more on the political and economic problems which is kind of interesting. I made it to Melbourne ok, and they lost my bag again this year. I'm staying with Watts and our apartment is in the same building as Bond's which is kinda nice since he knows his way around Melbourne. We ran some errands yesterday, went for a Jog, joined a gym(which is quite nice, only like 50 meters away, and only $20 a month) and went to Crowne for dinner. We had 20 people there and most people got the Wagyu beef, but 13 people bought out. The bill came to 3k and I lost my first CCR in a while, but it was the most organized buy-out I've ever seen at a meal. Everyone just paid 150, no one tried to skimp/dodge paying, and after conversion, the meal was only like $700. I like that system of CCR, since some people just go into a meal, if they know they are spending more than average, go nuts and if they realize that they are spending less than average, buyout. I like the idea of a buyout where you are still paying an equal amount to other people so it doesn't lead to the nitpicking that normally ensues with buyouts(ie. "I didn't have any wine" or forgetting to pay for the apetizer you had etc etc), I think there should definitely be a rule in CCR where you need to tell people whether you are buying out before the meal begins.

Today is the 1k rebuy so I'm gonna go get some breakfast and go try to take it down so that I'll have enough money to lose it in the 100k.

I didn't bring a laptop or my blackberry to PCA/Aussie, but Watts did, so I'll be able to update my blog occasionally, but probably not regularly.

The day before leaving for the PCA I woke up at like noon and was kind of concerned about what my sleep schedule would be like since that was the 3rd, I was playing at noon on the 5th and my flight was from 640-1150 on the 4th. I went to the gym and went rock-climbing that day and ended up tired enough that I fell asleep for a couple hours from like 8-12pm which worked out perfectly. I hadn't gone rock-climbing in like 3 years and it was pretty fun. I have no idea what the learning curve is like, but it seems to me like the type of thing where you would plateau really quick(ie. after going a few times, you would be as good as you'll ever be). I saw a rock-climbing wall here at PCA, so I may need to try it out a few times to see if I'm right or if I do get better.

Anyways, I tried packing for PCA at like midnight, but as always, I can't pack unless I feel like I'm under time pressure, so I played some scrabble with Mihai and his girlfriend and I sucked it up hard(I used to do cross-words with my dad, and I guess my standards for what a word is are much lower than the scrabble dictionary's), and then realized my flight leaves in less than 4 hours, so I may as well start packing. Since I'll be on flights for over 50 hours, I brought some books of my own and also borrowed a bunch of books from Mihai. On the flight here I read "The Old Man and the Sea" and have am currently reading "The Pleasure of Finding Things out" by Richard Feynman. A bunch of my friends have huge man-crushes on him, and I can see why. The majority of people who excel at things seem to be pretty proud of the fact that they excel at these things and think that they are better than people who are less accomplished. I've noticed this in almost all things I've competed in, whether it be volleyball, badminton, poker, chess, math, video games, pretty much anything. And as I've specialized in poker, and excelled at it, and seen friends of mine excel in every other area mentioned, I've realized that although some people may have an inherent edge, in general, the more effort you put in, the more you will excel at the top level, and there isn't much reason to think you are better than someone simply because you have worked harder at the thing you work hard at.

When I first started playing poker, I was trasnitioning out of chess, and assumed that I would never reach the top levels in poker just because I didn't have the dedication to reach the top levels of chess and assumed most games are similarly competitive. I was mistaken since people take chess a lot more seriously and instead of taking 20 years of hard work to become quite skilled, it takes only a few years in poker. Things like math and physics seem even more exclusive to me(ie. more difficult to become the best at than chess) but Feynman writes like a normal guy who has logged his hours, constantly thought about things, made significant contributions in physics and still views himself as a normal guy.

Anyways, about PCA, I got here, planned on sleeping, but then stayed up, went to the  water park followed by the welcome party where I ran into tons of people I know. It could just be that I'm too introverted but PCA is almost intimidating. I kind of like going to tournaments like Aussie last year, or random EPTs where I'll only have a handful of close friends, and a couple dozen people that I know by name. The difference kind of reminds me of seeing highschool friends at highschool verses at university. At highschool you'll give a head-nod, say whatsup etc when you pass them in the halls knowing that you'll see dozens more friends before your next class, in university, since you run into them like once a month you can legitimately have things to catch up on. PCA verses most tournaments is the same way, at most tournaments you're like "sweet, someone else who speaks english", here if you try to catch up with everyone you know, it could take over an hour to get from your hotel room to the poker room.

The next morning, I woke up and went to the gym with Jschnett and Watts and the gym here is actually surprisingly decent. Its a little too hot, and to my knowledge there was only one olympic bar in the whole gym, but as far as hotel gyms go, I probably shouldn't be complaining. While doing pull-ups, I hurt something in the lower right part of my neck, and it hurt to turn my neck at all to the right(it still hurts now), so I called it a workout after that since I had dips/incline still to do and figured neither of those are going to make my neck feel any better.

I was kind of concerned about my table draw, and really hoped I didn't get like seat 5 or something where I'd have to constantly look right. Fortunately I drew the 2 seat, and had what I thought was a fairly soft table. I had Greg Raymer to my left, Evelyn Ng  across the table, and no one else who I recognized, but the average age amongst them was probably like 35 or so. As the day went on, I realized that there were more competent people than I thought, most people didn't have big leaks, some of the 25 year old guys were actually good online regs etc. It still wasn't a ridiculous table, but I think I would have preferred a random table over it. I basically won no pots(less pots than you'd think after reading this, and after reading the disclaimer) and had 8.5k at 200/400 and ran TT into KK small blind verse button. I wish I got to play one or two interesting hands, but overall this is about the best result I could have expected given that I didn't cash. I really didn't want to be stuck indoors for 3 days only to bubble.

This morning I went to breakfast with Watts, Mastr, Randal and LFTV and Randal was telling us about a 50/100 game that was going last night involving a 200 button ante, the 72 rule, as well as a 62 and 63 rule. We spent most of breakfast talking about how ridiculous the big games are and how to adjust to games like that, I don't plan on playing much more poker while I'm here, but if I was still playing NL cash regluarly, that game sounds pretty sweet.  Anyways, I'm gonna go down to the waterpark again.

2007 started with me and ActionJeff each making 100k within the first 2-3 hours, 2008 I hung around at Pacmann's and watched Scrubs, the decline continues.

I recently decided that I'm not going to mix drinks using any mixer I wouldn't drink on its own(ie. no Rum &Coke since I wouldn't drink coke on its own). As a result, I spent 12:30- 2:40 of New Years praying to the porcelain god. I'm pretty sure I'm "better" at being sick than most people and actually enjoyed most of the night. I was expecting to black out so wrote down some of my thoughts while I thought I still had my wits about me. After reading what I wrote this morning, I realized that perhaps I am not as clever as I think while drunk.

Anyways, I posted my New Year's resolutions a few days ago on 2+2, I'll post them here and comment a bit more on them.

MTTs: How many online MTTs I play depends on something kinda outside of my control, as does how many live MTTs, but at the moment I'm not overly motivated. I guess goal-wise I'd be content if I can not start to suck while not having to play too many.
Get off my 45 live MTT non-cashing streak
PLO: play a bunch(by my definition) get good enough where I can play nosebleeds comfortably if there are any soft-spots
Mixed games: Continue improving at all mixed games, there's pretty clearly not as much money as in PLO, but by the time I'm 21 I want to scoop up a lot of ridiculous bracelets, get to the point where in just about every game I can understand where my profit comes, and be able to determine which things my opponents do are good/bad

Athletic:
Run a marathon- Meant to run a 1/2 marathon at some point this year, but it got cold too quickly, I definitely could run a 1/2 right now, but haven't. I don't have any time related goals for this, if I run one and enjoy the training/race, maybe I'll have a time goal for next year.
Bench/Squat/Deadlift 225/300/400- I guess these are kinda arbitrary numbers and I have no idea what are reasonable gains, just going by people in H&F's goals who are about where I am right now
Get competent at Olympic lifting - I have really inflexible elbows, gotta do more Yoga/start foam rolling or something
Get into BJJ - My lifetime fight record went from 2-0(thanks Dan and Tufat) to 2-3 this Festivus, want to get back above 500
Play more volleyball- I played way too much in high school and decided I didn't really want to play more after that, so took a few years off. I've been getting back into it the last few months and enjoying it, I don't really have any measurable goals regarding this

Life:
Eat better, cook a wider variety of meals- I don't eat enough vegetables, and suck at cooking, want to change this
Drink healthier- a week or two ago I decided I'm not going to ever use a mixer that I wouldn't have drank on its own(ie. no more rum and cokes etc), gonna try to stick to this as long as possible, and also just drink less
Get better at getting stuff done- Still don't have a car, just need to be more pro-active
Read more- I've read a lot more this year than previous years, but I'd like to read a few good books a month

Possible goals:
Learn to play an instrument- the more music I listen to, the more I think it would be cool to learn to play music/understand music better/ potentially join a band

Figure out more about what I want to do with my life- At this point, live tournies are just about the only thing that prevents me from being in school(play little enough volume/kill enough time that I could easily take a few courses while maintaining my lifestyle), not sure that I want to go back to school per se but I don't really see myself having a switch flip that tells me I want to go back to grinding every day and playing poker full time for the rest of my life. I remember talking to Stevejpa and Terrence Chan about potential jobs we could have if it weren't for poker, and in general I like teaching, but aside from poker don't have that many things I'm an expert at. I said that I could see myself being a personal trainer just since I enjoy teaching my friends how not to suck at the gym, or maybe go back to school and become a prof. I guess I'm just rambling, I just kinda feel like the only thing I'm a true expert on at this point is poker, and would like to be more well-rounded. Obviously none of these things would really be necessary to make ends meet, I just always kind of envisioned that after I made enough money at poker I'd have accomplished all I'd ever want and just be able to chill the rest of my life, but am realizing now that I'd much rather force myself to keep busy.


Anyways, overall the holidays were pretty sweet, Festivus/Christmas were awesome and New Years could have gone better. I'll be heading to PCA in a few days, and Aussie immediately after that(Watts and I are renting an appartment for a month there). Oh ya, I just watched the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" and for the first time in a few years have a simple answer to the "whats your favorite movie" question. I'd guess most people won't like this film as much as I did, but its definitely worth a watch.

So my computer was out of use for a few days, but I think I've got the viruses almost sorted out. I also finished reading "The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rulres our Lives" and recommend it to just about anyone, specifically to poker players. There were so many interesting applications of pyschology, economics, and mathematics in this book and a lot of interesting things I had never considered. I've got a few more books lined up to read, but now that my computer is fixed who knows if I'll go forth with that. At least I have some audio-books to get the best of both worlds.

Before editting I started this paragraph with "for some reason I don' feel that motivated for WPT Niagara", but I know the reason is just lack of motivation since I haven't been running particularly good in live tournaments for the last 8 months. An interesting thing mentioned in my book is that most people feel safer behind the wheel when they are driving intoxicated than they would in planes(even though planes are safer than car being driven by sober drivers) because people hate things that are outside of their control. This is part of why live tournaments can suck so much, no matter how big your edge is, a career of live touranments won't get you anywhere close to the long-run. When I used to grind limit, I used to always just assume I'd run 2 standard-deviations bad at all times, and if a bad session or bad month equated to a larger loss than I'd be comfortable with, I'd re-evaluate my situations and consider moving down. The problem with live tournaments is that over say 5 years, running 2 standard deviations bad probably results in you losing money. I guess I'm rambling, I just find that I lose confidence in live tournies faster than all other forms of poker.

I'm gonna watch the new episode of the office(and hopefully not pick up any viruses) and possibly head to Niagara tomorrow, if not I'll be there Sunday to play day 1c.