CARDRUNNERS

I'm in South Padre Island, Texas now and having a great time. Basically we've been getting up at about 11am, going to the beach, drinking, coming back at like 4 or 5pm, taking a nap, eating, then going out to a club at like 10pm, coming home at 2am, continuing to party and then go to bed at 4am. It's been a blast. The weather has been perfect. I'd guess it's been around 80 everyday. We've had clear skies the entire time as well. Our sleeping arangment is a little cramped, but not too bad. Our place turned out to be really nice. We are in a condo and not a hotel room. We have a full service kitchen, sitting area w/ pull out couch and two bedrooms. We are right on the ocean and have a great view. I was honestly expecting a dump of a room, so I was very happy when I saw what we had. The only problem is that there is no maid service here and it's been getting pretty trashed.

My dumbass roommates almost got us kicked out of the resort last night. Basically they were being loud on the balcony and got the security to come up and talk to us. They claim they are strict about loud noise. I don't think it would have been too much of a problem, except earlier in the week my friends were wrestling after the bars and put a huge hole in the wall right next to the door. The security guard noticed this and wasn't too pleased. He even called in his supervisor. Basically, if we are at all loud again, I think we might be out of here. I think we can make it though. I got some pics of our view and the hole that I'll put up when I get home.

We've been playing a lot of beach volleyball. It's a great sport to play on the beach. I'm not very good, but my height does help when I'm playing the net. I'm definitely going to try to play more beach volleyball in the future.

Vanilla Ice is going to be at one of the clubs on Friday. I'm looking forward to that. Also, if you guys remember DJ scribble from shitty MTV fame about 6 years ago, he was here too. He was at a club a few nights ago and we were there. He was actually pretty good. I wasn't too crazy about him because I thought he changed songs too soon, but I won't argue he had some skills. My friends all thought he was really good. My friend and I used to rip on him all the time back when were in middle school and watched MTV. If you remember he used to always just turn the volume up and down when he was on. Anyway, it was funny seeing him here.

Ok, I'm heading down to the beach now. I've got a few more days of this and then I'm heading home on Saturday.

I was talking to my roommate the other day about this time of the year. It really is a great time. We just had unofficial. It's finally getting warm outside (It was in the 70s the last two days). The NBA season is coming to a close. I just watched one of the best games in recent memory last night w/ the Suns vs. the Mavs in Double OT. It's just amazing to watch those teams play. I would have prefered to see the Mavs win, but you can't ask for a much better game. March Madness is starting today. I love the tournament. Unfortunately, the Illini aren't so good this year, but the tourny promises to be a really interesting one. Baseball season is starting up. While I'll be the first to admit that I think the Baseball season can drag a bit in the middle, I like the beginning and the end a lot. You also can't leave out spring break.

We have our spring break next week. This year me and about 13 other guys are going to South Padre Island, Tx. It's not the most glamorous place to go, but it's cheap and I know it will be fun. Basically, all of my good friends are going. We always have a great time together. It's kind of our last hoorah in a way too, because most of us are graduating in less than 2 months. The sleeping arangement should be interesting. We are cramming a ton of people in a room to keep it cheap. I'm not exactly sure how it will work, but I'll be sure to write about it once we get down there.

I've been pretty busy getting things done for school and CR with spring break coming up. Therefore, I haven't really played any poker. My plan was to play more this month, but I barely played more than last month. It's just really hard to carve out time with playing while I'm finishing up my last semester. Futhermore, I've been working out everyday and that takes about 2 hours a day. Those 2 hours used to go to playing poker. I'd rather be working out for now though. The summer is fast approaching. I knwo I'll be playing a lot this summer. I'm not in a huge rush to get back to grinding. Plus, there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel as far as the legislation. It looks like Sen. Frank is looking to repeal it. I don't know how realistic that is. I do know that it makes me very happy that there is at least one person on in the government that cares about our rights.

I used to be a hardcore right wight religious conservative. I was Mr. Gun-Ho America. Then I went abroad and got a new perspective. I started looking at our government a lot different when I came back. I've become very disillusioned with our government. I'm not one of those people that is a one issue voter. I didn't start chaning my thoughts because of the poker ban. In a way, I understand what they are trying to do. I think online gambling is bad for our country. I just think that if they are going to allow us to gamble at all (ie. in vegas) they need to allow it online. THere are a lot of issues that make me very frustrated with the way our government is being managed. It's not that I've become liberal. I hope to god I can never call myself a liberal, because there are a ton of things the liberals do that just piss me off. At the same time, there are tons of things the republicans do that piss me off. I guess for now I might call myself a moderate. I wish our country wasn't a two party system. Kind of got on a rant there.

Crossing my fingers the Illini can pull out two wins. That'd be badass. Go Illini!

I just played an hour or so long session of 5/10. I played 4 tables of 6 man and 2 tables of full ring. I was up about 2k for awhile, but I ran into some bad situations right before I quit. One of the hands I got all in pre with QQ vs KK. Not much I could do. I think I lost about $500. Oh well.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?890790
I misplayed this hand pretty bad. I think my preflop call is pretty questionable because of my postion and the fact that he is UTG. Once the flop comes I like my raise to try to isolate vs the initial raiser. When jcamby calls, I know he has a huge hand. I'm thinking two pair is the most likely. On the turn I knew the Q would kill the action so I decided to check to disguise my hadn. I should have just bet it there. When the river comes I should check with the idea of likely calling a bet. When I bet, I thought maybe a hand like A10 would call, but A10 isn't one of his most likely holdings. I just didn't really think it though. Also, if I bet there, I pretty much have to fold to a raise by him, because he's not going to bluff there. These types of hands are where my rust shows. Not putting in any significant hands for awhile can hurt you when you try to think through a hand fast.

I've had a pretty crazy week as far as going out. I went out Tues, Wed and Thurs. I'm sure I'll go out tonight. I think this has been one of the most fun weeks I've had in awhile. On wednesday night my friend decided he was going to bring $400 cash to the bar and spend it all. $400 might not be a lot of money to spend at a bar in a big city, but that is a HUGE amount to spend here. They had $1 jager bombs that night and that's all he bought. He probably bought about 350 jager bombs. I'd say there were 15 of us or so that were regularly drinking them. We got hammered. At the end I was telling him to stop because no one really wanted their 17th jagerbomb, but he wouldn't. I should note that the shots around here aren't real shots (maybe a little more than half a real shot), so we didn't really drink 20 drinks. Good times.

I've been thinking a ton about how the end is coming very soon. It's crazy that I'm about to graduate college. I've had amazing times here and I know I'm gonna miss it a lot. It has been fun though thinking back on all the great times and laughing about the stupid shit we've done over the years. It's interesting to think about how much I've changed in 4 years. Can't stop change though. It's just part of life. Gotta roll with the punches.

I sucked out pretty bad here. The thing was that I was updating my fantasy team for tomorrow and I didn't realize there was a straight out there. I was thinking "no way this guy has KKK. Hell yea, he's donating me money." Well, of course, he had the straight and I sucked out. It felt great to put a beat on someone like that. He was furious and berated me for the next 20 min. Finally at the end of the conversation he was asking me to borrow money. You gotta love those guys.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?883272

I'm up 2500 this month at 2/4. I've played probably 1000 hands of nlhe and 500 of PLO. I've def ran well, but I'm playing well too. Taking the time off last month was just so huge. I finally feel good about my game again. I'll be honest, at the start of last month I honestly felt like I couldn't beat 1/2nl. I guess that is bound to happen sometimes. Taking breaks can be so huge...

I'm waiting on getting more money on stars and then I'm gonna go back to 5/10nl. I think playing 2/4 for a week or so is good for me. I'm working out the rust in my game. I'm also going to setup PAhud and figure that shit out. It's time I use all of the tools out there to help increase my winnings. Honestly, there was just too long of a period where I took my poker skills for granted. I stopped focusing during my sessions, I stopped using PT, I never used PAhud, I played out of my bankroll (kept taking shots even after I only left about 30k online postparty crash), I played without confidence and most importantly, I stopped caring about winning. If you find yourself lacking on even one of those things I listed above, you should rethink your game. Poker is about making money. There is no reason to not do anything above. You should do everything in your power to increase your chances of winning. It's so important that I can't stress it enough. Aba was the one that really got me to remember this stuff. Watch his videos and listen to what he has to say. He fucking knows what he's talking about.

What a great day. I had about 7 high school friends visiting. I always have a great time with my high school friends, so I knew the day wouldn't dissapoint. I got up at 730am so that I'd have time to take a shower and be drinking by 8am. We had two kegs at my place and my friends in the apartment next to us had 1 as well. I figured there would be a ton of people at my place at least at one point. During the early part of the day it wasn't too crazy. I think we finished the first keg by about 11. That's about the time that it really started to pick up. At one point there were probably 50 people in my apartment. I don't have that big of an apartment. We basically just hung out and drank. There were some drinking games going on as well. I played a few games of beer pong and some quarters as well. The thing is that you don't really need drinking games to get completely retarded. It's bound to happen regardless. The day started to get really hazy aobut the time the 2nd keg went dry.

I know Taylor stopped by with a crew at one point. We took a few shots. I don't think they stayed too long. The party at my place was dead at that point, so there wasn't much reason for them to stay. You can see some pics in Andy Hasdal's blog. I know I went to a bar for awhile around that time. I don't think we were there too long. After that we went to the store adn bought some more beer. It was really crowded/expensive at the bars so we figured we'd just avoid them. I tried to go back out later, but the lines were so crazy long that I couldnt get in. The night ended with my friend being dared to eat crazy shit. He ate two bananas with the peel on. He also ate a cigarette dipped in whiskey. The big challenge was to get him to eat a solo cup. It's probably a good thing he was never convinced.

The next night was more laid back, but we still got pretty crazy drunk by the end of the night. We filmed me jump kicking my friend into a sliding door in my apartment. I don't know why he wanted me to jump kick him, but it was pretty hilarious. I'm going to put the video up on youtube if I can figure that out.

Some people have commented how I haven't talked about poker lately. That's because I haven't been playing. I played less than 10 hours in Feb. I needed the break really bad. I feel fresh again and I'm going to start playing a decent amount again. I'll mostly be playing 5/10nl on pokerstars. I'll also be blogging about poker more. More to come on that.

Honestly, I just haven't had anything interesting to blog about recently. I'd rather not blog than force entries that have nothing worth reading in them.

Friday is the biggest holiday here. It's like Christmas for U of I students. St. Patty's day has historically landed during our spring break. To fix that problem, our school started celebrating "Unofficial" St. Patty's day. It's always on a Friday and people simply call it Unofficial. I will get up at about 730am and I'll be drinking by 8am. I will be drunk by 9am. Basically, everyone dresses in green and drinks all day long. I mean everyone. It's pretty amazing at how many people get drunk on this campus. Most people wander around to different parties throughout the day and also hit up the bars. In the past, I always just drank at my frat house and avoided the bars. The police are notorious for handing out drinking tickets to underage people on Unofficial. Since I'm finally 21, I don't have to worry about that. I have a bunch of high school friends that are coming into town. They have never experienced Unofficial and one of them has never partied at U of I during the school year. I'm excited for them to have a good time. I know it will be a fucking great weekend. I'm gonna buy some Irish liquor for the day as well. I'm thinking some Jameson, Guinness, and Bailey's. Someone just told me today that Bailey's has some new flavors like mint. That sounds pretty good, so I might check that out.

Gambler2k4 just sent me this article. It's pretty fucked up. http://www.smh.com.au/news/unu.../26/1172338551105.html

Sorry for no new posts in a week or so. Not going to class at all this semester finally caught up with me. Since last Thursday I've had 4 tests, 1 paper, 1 presentation and countless homeworks due. The fact that I haven't been going to any of the classes didn't help. I basically had to learn 2 months of material for all my classes in the last week. I've got a bit of a break now and I think I did pretty well on all my tests.

My last video got terrible reviews. I feel pretty shitty about that. In hindsight, I didn't play that great. I wish I had realized that sooner and made a better video for people. I don't like it when what I put up isn't received well. I'm trying to put out the best videos I can. I know that's not always possible, but when I don't put out a good one, I feel bad about it. It definitely didn't help that I got in countless bad situtaions though.

My friend who is way out of shaped approached me last week about getting really serious about working out. He used to be a health freak but let weed and poker get him into a lot of really bad habits. Since we started, I've been working out almost everyday. The goal is to go 6 days a week. I think it's very doable. I think it's a huge help to have someone to workout with. He has been pushing me harder than I was pushing myself and I have someone to be accountable to as well. I think the hardest part is working on my eating. I've never eat really bad, but now I'm completely eliminating the junk food and working to eat 5-6 smaller meals a day. Getting in all those meals and making sure that what I eat is high protein/healthy food is not easy. I think it's harder than actually getting to the gym everyday to workout. It's a fun challenge though. My goal is to put on about 15 pounds by summer. I think I can do it. That would put me at about 190lbs. Long term I want to try to push 200 if I can (I'm 6'2).

Illinois just banned our mascot, the Chief. It's pretty sad that after 80 years of having the Chief, he is gone. He was a hell of a mascot. The problem was that people found him racist. I have to disagree completely there. If anything, I thought it was a nice tribute to Native Americans. Then again, I'm not a Native American, so what do I know. I don't know what we are going to have for a mascot now. Probably a giant I or something gay like that. U of I is kind of going to shit with a lot of changes they've made recently. I'm glad I was here before a lot of these changes started going into place.

My 18 year old brother got into Iowa yesterday. That was where he really wanted to go. His grades weren't stellar in high school so he wasn't sure if he would get in. I'm really happy for him. I've heard nothing but great things about Iowa and I know he'll have an awesome time there. Iowa is one of the schools I haven't been able to get out and visit. My goal is to get up there this semester to see what it's all about. It's just added incentive now that my brother will be going there.

We've had two consectutive snow days. I guess U of I hasn't had even one snow day since 1979. They really had no choice but to cancel school. We got well over a foot of snow the last two days and there has been a lot of drifting. It basically snowed from 9pm Monday night until sometime last night. I think it might have even been snowing when we came home from the bars.

It was a good time to get a snow day. We have a lot of stuff to iron out with Brian having just come on. I think we had a our longest Cardrunners conference call ever yesterday. I think Brian will bring added responsibility to Taylor and myself and we will get more accomplished with him on the team. I also pounded through the first 3 episodes of The Wire season 3. I was going to wait on starting the season, but I just couldn't with one and possibly two snow days staring me in the face. So far, I'm not too impressed with the season. However, all of the seasons have started slow. I'm sure it will pick up soon. It definitely has a ton of potential and everyone says its the best...

My mom is adopted and my dad has a lot of mix in his heritage. Therefore, I've never really been able to say what my heritage is. I met a guy from sweden at the bar last night who looks a hell of a lot like me. I guess I got some swedish in my blood.

Here are some pics:

View out my front door.


View on way to bars.


My swedish twin.