CARDRUNNERS

Last year I had been struggling wiht poker before I got to Vegas. Once I got out here, I really focused on my game and I had one of my better months of 2007. I didn't have a huge month by any means, but it was a solid winning month. I got back to the basics and paid off. The last few months leading up to Vegas this year have been break even months. Understandably, I had high hope. I figured I could have a really good month. I figured wrong. I'm in the middle of one of my worst downswings in my 4 year poker career. Everytime I get all in, I just know I'm going to lose. It's terrible when you feel that way. You just get this feeling in the pit of your stomach that the worst card possible is going to hit and it does. I even had a dream last night that in the Main event, I raised AA and someone tried ot resteal with K3s. The flop came 1032, turn K. I don't ever dream about poker, ever. It's even got to the point where I've been playing $100 and $200 sngs. I haven't regularly played SNGs in years. The crazy part is that I'm not winning. See below:

Ha. Look at that downswing! The fact is that this stuff is bound to happen. This is not the first time I've felt like this in my poker career and it's definitely not the last. I wasn't going to blog about this, because I just prefer to not blog about downswings. However, I haven't posted in forever and someone that busted me twice today asked me to post.

I play the Main event tomorrow. I'm really hoping things can go well. It would be great to get a decent cash there. I'm going to focus on playing my A game and basically just hope good things happen. I feel like I'm due.

I know things will turn around. I just need to get back to the basics baby.

I made a leakfinder video of me vs Stevesbets hu 2/4 today. It was using HHs from those crazy matchups we had. I picked up on some fairly major leaks I have. It just reminded me that I need to spend more time on my game. I can't just pound away at the tables and expect to get great results.

I LOVE the new Lil' Wayne album. If you like rap, you need to check it out. I was never really in to Weezy before, but I've been made a believer.

I finally caved in and started watching Dexter. I was getting really tired of people saying it was the best show on TV. I knew before I ever saw an episode that it wouldn't touch The Wire or Sopranos. So far, I'm right.. I think it's a good show and I'm enjoying it a lot, but it's not the best show ever. I'm 5 episodes into Season 2. The second season is definitely better than the first. I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays out.

The Cardrunners party is tonight. If you're in Vegas, you should come. It's at McFadden's at the rio. We have open bar from 9-12. It will be a good time for sure.

Vegas has been good so far. Everything is pretty standard vegas. Lots of poker during the day and lots of drinking at night. You can see why this city will take a toll on you. My girlfriend, Julia, was in town last weekend. She had never been to vegas before, so I had a good time showing her around. Nothing too crazy to note. We went out to a few nice meals (nove italiano at venetian, country club at wynn). I had been to both places before and they didn't disapoint much. Friday night we went to Tryst, which is always a good time. I think Tryst is one of my favorite clubs. Jet is probably my favorite because I've had the most fun there, but I like the layout of Tyrst better.

Some people have been asking how my bet has been going. I went on a pretty nasty downswing after my upswing and I think reaching the goal is out of reach at this point. I knew it was a long shot, but I'm never one to turn down a flier. I figured if I could get a few things to click, I could do it. Right now I've been playing mostly HU 5/10 and some 10/20 PLO. I've been working on plugging some leaks and I feel like I'm improving my game. Being around other poker players and discussing concepts will always be a big boost to my game. I just don't put enough thought into the game on a daily basis.

The title of this blog is a trip to sng land. One of my roommates, Joe, is strictly a SNG player. I've dabbled a bit in them lately and now that I'm living with him, I've played a few more. In my mind there are two great advantages to playing SNGs. One, they are actually pretty fun. It's a different kind of rush, because you are trying to get 1st place. It isn't so much about the money as it is about winning. You don't really get that feeling when you play cash games. The other good thing about them is that they are ZERO stress. As I'm typing this I thought of one other great thing about them. You don't have to play your A game. If I'm playing 10/20 PLO, I sure as hell better be playing my A game. You can get by just fine with your B and maybe even C game in $100 and $200 SNGs because so many decisions are so straight forward. I've always struggled a bit with playing my A game all the time. I think I'm going to be adding SNG play to my game selection, especially for when I'm in a situation where I don't think I can put up my A game.

I haven't been very good about taking pictures so far. Luckily I have had some girls around me (Julia and Caroline) who have taken plenty.

Grillmaster Wigs.

Dinner at Naked fish with some of the CR guys and Caroline and her friends.

Me and Julia at the Bellagio Fountain.

I like this one.

Right before we went into Tryst.

Twice in the last month I've found myself in a situation of crazy phone tag with someone. For whatever reason I could not get the person on the phone. Then finally I received a call back. The only problem was that when I got this call, I was sitting on the shitter in a public bathroom. I was then faced with the decision if I should answer or risk not getting in touch with them for another x amount of days. Both times I answered. It was likely a mistake. The problem with talking on the phone in a public bathroom is that youre going to hear tons of flushing in the background. To make matters worse, I panicked and tried to get out of there as soon as possible. When I stood up to leave, my toilet flushed with was obviously the loudest flush since I was standing right next to it. There is no doubt in my mind that the person on the other line could hear tons of flushing. Do you answer in that situation? I recommend that you don't.

I have avoided playing poker all day today and it's felt nice. I think I needed a day off. I'll get back to the grind tomorrow. I might even make myself play some cash games at the rio. Gordo tells me that the PLO games are really soft. I just don't know if I can deal with the slowness of the games though.

It's Bates (one of the CR guys out here) birthday today. We're gonna go out tonight. I think were gonna avoid going the club route. I suggested Margaratiaville since I've never been there and I'm sure it's fun. There is also a casino right next door to it that advertises they have beer pong tables. You can't go wrong with that.

In other news, we went to Chili's today at 1pm and it was absolutely packed. We actually had to wait to get a table. The people there didn't appear to be working people either. They were all dressed like they had nothing going on. It just seemed bizarre to have Chili's so crowded in the middle of the day on a wednesday.

I'm supposed to move into our house today. I'm not too excited because I hear that it's old, it smells and that the pool is not functional right now because of some problem with the filter. Sounds awesome. The tradeoff though is sleeping on the couch at the CR house which isn't great. My back is starting to hate me for a week of sleeping on a couch.

We arrived in Vegas on Thursday afternoon. We got here a few days before our house was ready because we had meetings all weekend and we wanted to get those out of the way before we had too many distractions. We basically locked ourselves in a conference room at the Hard Rock all day Friday and Saturday. There is a ton going on with regards to Cardrunners that we needed to discuss. I think we accomplished a lot. It's a lot easier to get through an agenda when you are all sitting together at a table rather than trying to communicate over the phone or through email.

I mentioned that our house isn't ready yet. I'm going to be living with Taylor, Joe (latestlines2), Berra (thefinisher), and Brian (used2begood). Our house is ready tomorrow. Since we got here, we've just been crashing at the Cardrunners house. It's a nice house, but it's not quite big enough for all the people we have in there. I've been sleeping on the couch. I'm definitely looking forward to getting a bed.

Saturday night we went out to the Piano Bar in NY, NY. That bar is one of my favorites in Las Vegas. It's somewhat unique because so many places are clubs or lounges. I like going to clubs when I'm out here, but I'm not a club guy. I'm never once been to a club in Chicago. So, if I can find a bar out here, I'm all for it. Piano bar is basically a typical piano bar. It's not fancy and there is good pop music being played. When I say pop music, I mean classic pop music, like Billy Joel. Afterwards we did the standard trip to the Rhino. As always, it was a good time.

I made a retarded prop bet with Taylor the other day. It was retarded because I definitely took the bad end of it. He gave me 4:1 on a $2500 bet that I couldn't make $50k this month. I'm basically gonna play 5/10 to 25/50 PLO and hope to run well. The key is to use good game selection. To be honest though, I'm probably more like 10:1 to accomplish this bet. So far, I've been running well and I'm up 15k. Only 35K more to go... I'll keep you updated on the progress.

I'm wired out $30k to the rio with the idea that I'm going to try to play as much live as possible. I'm going to play as many events as I can and I'm also going to try to play some live PLO. Today I'm plaiyng the $1500 shootout event. If that doesn't go well, I'm slotted to play the $1500 PLO event tomorrow. Wish me luck.

update: I didn't last long. I was all in on the very first hand. I was dealt AK. It went raise, reraise in position. I only had 60bbs so I figured I'd ship it in with AK. The reraiser called with AK. We chopped. The next hand I got dealt QQ on the button. Everyone folded. The next hand I got AK. A euro dude raised in MP and I reraised. He called. The flop came KQ3. He checked, I bet and he shoved. I wasn't happy about calling, but I'm not getting away from AK there given how many chips I had in relation to the blinds. He called and turned up 33. That left me with about 200 chips. I doubled up with Q10 vs KQ two hands later. A few hands after that I doubled up with 1010 vs AK. A few hands after that I got AK and shoved in over the euro dude who had raised again. He called with 33 and beat my AK again. Tomorrow I'll be playing the $1500 PLO.

I'm back.

That's probably the longest break I've taken from blogging since I started a few years ago. I just felt like I didn't have much to say. I know that isn't necessarily true, because I passed on blogging about the playboy mansion, some crazy HU plo sessions, etc. However, I just got tired of airing out my life all the time and I felt like my blog wasn't very good as of late. I also knew that when Vegas rolled around, I'd have plenty to write about. Well, I'm leaving for Vegas tomorrow, so that time has come.

The main reason I wanted to get a blog up today was because of an experience I had with FreeCreditReport.com yesterday. That site is a scam and I wanted to get the word out. I've had my credit pulled a few times lately because I recently moved offices, I'm about to move my apartment, and I rented a house for a month in Vegas. This got my interested in what my credit rating actually is. Everyone knows the freecreditreprot.com commercials. They obviously got to me, because I decided to use their site. During the sign up process, they asked for a credit card, which seemed totally reasonable since they probably need it to pull my credit. Luckily, Kevin informed me that the site was a scam, so I looked into it more. When you check your credit there, they secretly sign you up for a $15/month service. It's also a pain in the ass to cancel. I spent about 30 minutes on the phone yesterday cancelling. In the end, it only cost me $15. Don't use FreeCreditReport.com!

After Caroline told me that the Strangers was a good movie, I decided to go see it. It wasn't any good. This is like the 3rd time shes recommended a movie that I didn't like. I won't listen to her movie advice going forward. Basically, the movie was very predictible and just not scary. Then again, most "scary" movies are not good.

As I said, I'll be in Vegas tomorrow. I'll be playing a lot of poker and going out a decent amount. That means I should have some good things to write about.

Sorry I have a bad blog.

Thomas (brystmar on CR, micotx on FTP) was in the office the other. It was a reasonably slow day so we decided to play some HU PLO. We decided to go with 100PLO to start. He immediately got up like 2-3 buyins. Little did he know, I was just greasing the tables. I've talked about greasing the tables in the past - basically just playing loose at first and taking some -ev spots to get the game going fast and possibly tilt my opponent. My plan soon started to work. I ended up just rolling him at 100PLO. I won about 12 buyins in the course of an hour or so. Of course, he ran pretty awful. I'll show some hands below

Great turn. Sorry Thomas.

Don't bluff a station.

This hand pretty much summarizes how this match went for both of us. Bad cooler for Thomas.

I like this hand, because its an example of a draw being a  favorite vs a made hand. Unfortunately, I got unlucky here. I think this might have been the only time that happened.

I waited for a safe turn here because we were so deep. It was a great turn because not only did it blank out, but it gave me a flush draw in case he has the same straight as me.

I was actually a dog on this flop and I also stacked with 2nd nuts, so I was really looking for trouble. I had a lot of good momentum though so I went with it.

This is a perfect example of the Wiggins Theorem in effect. I was losing early in the match and took a bad spot with the hope of doubling through and making our stacks more even. It worked.

I really hate how I played this hand. I shouldn't be stacking off so deep with only top two. I ended up being a big dog. What can I say though, I'm a huge luckbox.

Thomas asked if we could move up to 200plo. I obliged with the warning that I might really beat his ass for a decent sum of money. He was game to gamble though. Luckily for him, he ran much better 200PLO. He won about 1500 or so up there and ended up winning money on the match.

Eh, can't say I like this one. This is the Wiggins theorem (notice stack sizes) when it doesn't work out. I think this is pretty thin though because I could be totally crushed here.

FLIP IT!

More gambling not paying off (notice stack sizes)

I'm never crazy about getting it in with bottom set and no redraws for a deeper pot, but no way I'm getting away from this hand.

This flop made me sick, because KK is def a big part of his range. I had already put in nearly half my stack though, so I was gonna go with it regardless. I made the flush to add insult to injury.

In the end I got revenge though. Thomas challenged me to 20/40 HU 7stud hi/lo. They didn't have 20/40 HU tables and we were on the same IP so we couldn't sit at the 8 man table. He then suggested 15/30. I had played some 30/60 omaha8/b in the past and I didn't remember it playing very big, so I suggested 30/60. He agreed. Long story short, I ran like god and won about $1200 off him. There was one huge pot where I rivered a split. He damn near scooped a $1500 pot that would have definitely changed the outcome a lot. Stud is a crazy game that I really have no idea how to play. Good thing I can run well.

Thomas wanted to pick up GTA4 on the way home and he also informed me MarioKart Wii is out, so we stopped at circuit city. I picked up MK and MLB The Show. In limited play, I like them both. I had originally purchased MLB2k8. I had heard 2k8 had a lot of the same developers that used to make MVP back in the day and I always loved MVP. However, I was very disappointed with 2k8. The graphics sucked, it lagged like crazy, the gameplay was incredibly slow and just bad. The Show is miles ahead of 2k8 and an all around fun game.

I had a good weekend. On Friday we had a beer pong tournament that consisted of 16 teams. The winner was slotted to get a bottle of Patron and lots of respect. I wasn't sure how the turnout would be, but it ended up being very good. After some friendly discussion of whether it should be random partners or picked partners (I caved and went with picking partners) we got the tourny underway. It didn't last long for me. My teammate was my roommate, Sioson. We got matched up against two kids we went to high school with. These guys either still play beer pong a lot or they just got incredibly lucky against me. They made 8 of their first 10 cups. Sioson and I made it somewhat interesting and got it to 3-1, but it just wasn't to be. They eventually both made the last cup and we didn't even have a chance to keep the game alive. We headed to fifty/50, a sports bar/club down the street, after the tournament.

Saturday we got a pickup game of Softball going. It was a nice day, but incredibly windy. The wind definitely made it harder to field the ball. I had a good game at the plate with over 10 RBIs. My outfield play left a lot to be desired. I never adjusted properly to the wind and let the ball fly over my head on more than one occasion. We ended up winning 32-22 or something to that effect.

I didn't get the chance to play any poker over the weekend like I had thought I would. I mostly just avoided being on the computer. I spend so much time in front of a computer during the week, that it's nice to get unplugged on the weekends. It's like in the new south park episode where they can't function without the internet. I really felt like I could relate to that episode. That's def not a good thing and it's something I need to address.

I watched Juno yesterday. Very solid movie. It was a good, uplifting story and hilarious at the same time. There were just a ton of great lines throughout the movie.

I watched the last episode of John Adams yesterday as well. It was a great series, but I'm glad it's over. You can only take so much of old whiny John. They portrayed him as a very obnoxious/arrogant man.

On Saturday we were walking down the street with a few people wearing Cardrunners gear. Some guy shouts "Colorado Rockies" all drawn out and gives us a fist pump. One of my friends responded, "it says Cardrunners, man." The guy didnt' know what to say. It made for a funny/awkward moment.