CARDRUNNERS

Nay Hoh everyone (hello in Cantonese)!

Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving and are getting ready for a fun holiday season.
 

With my class schedule at Georgetown and my girlfriend's work schedule, we have been pretty limited on our travel time, so we made a bunch of weekend trips to see family and had what has started to become an annual friends' Thanksgiving party at our apartment the Sunday before Thanksgiving.  Forty to fifty people showed up, everyone brought a dish, we had a keg of Sam Adams, and I cooked a turducken for the third year in a row (sorry Brian, I'm going to have to take credit for this one haha), it was a blast.

The next morning we left to spend our Thanksgiving holiday vacation in Hong Kong! I had been to Hong Kong once before, briefly for a poker tournament in Macau, but I didn't get to explore it that much. The city is stereotyped as dirty, ultra-crowded, and with a tough language barrier, but it is completely undeserving of this reputation. We had an amazing time and it's one of my favorite cities in Asia.
 

We stayed at the Peninsula Hong Kong based off of some friends' recommendations and it was incredibly nice. The concierge was extremely helpful in getting us set up with killer dinner reservations, fun activities, and even drove us around in a brand new Rolls Royce Phantom:
 

The architecture in Hong Kong was my favorite part of the city. The skyline is so impressive, and every building has a fresh, unique design. We took a tram up to "The Peak" where there is an incredible view:
 

I was surprised how easy the city's subway system was to navigate. Here in DC the metro is very simple and useful, but I've found it confusing in NYC at least. Hong Kong's system was expansive but intuitive. One day we hopped on the subway to the cable car that takes you to the giant bronze sitting Buddha statue:
 

Other fun touristy stuff we did included picking up a bunch of souvenirs for friends at Stanley Market, and going to a ton of random bars.
 

Some of the best restaurants we ate at were:
 

Zuma -- same Japanese restaurant as the one in London. Brian T, his gf, my gf, and me tried to go to the one in London but accidentally made reservations for a restaurant called "Suma" which was a fiasco, so it was fun to check out this place. We had the tasting menu and it was pretty good, I wasn't blown away or anything though.
 

Lung King Heen -- the only Michelin 3 star restaurant in Hong Kong, traditional Cantonese food in a tasting menu form. This place was awesome. I love Asian food but to be honest am not crazy about Chinese food. I like it and all, but I'd pick Thai or Japanese over it generally (although I am a sucker for airport Panda Express). This place was awesome though, definitely have to go there. There was a great view, and the food was very unique and all around perfect.
 

Man Wah -- dim sum restaurant at the Mandarin Oriental. First off, the Mandarin Oriental hotel is beautiful and in an awesome part of town. I loved the Peninsula, but I would probably stay here next time for a change of pace. The dim sum at Man Wah was my favorite food of the trip. It was on the fancy side, but at the same time it's dumplings so it's not that stuffy. Every bite was delicious and unique:
 

Robuchon -- awesome as usual. I've been to Robuchon restaurants in Vegas, Paris, and Hong Kong now and they are all a hell of an experience. This one was a lot different though, as the seating was bar style around an open kitchen. I loved it, it was a little more casual, and we ordered a ton of small plates. They had a really great slider dish called "Le Burger" haha! It was cool to see Robuchon on Top Chef a few weeks ago, he seemed like a really nice guy and he cooks some awesome food.
 

We had an amazing time and I would highly recommend Hong Kong to anyone who is looking to do some traveling in Asia. I know Taylor went recently and had a similarly great experience as well.

Poker-wise I've been working harder than ever before this year, with tons of analysis away from the table, and it's paid off big time. The action in the past few weeks against Ilsidur has been nuts, and it's been fun to be a part of it. The key factors that have led to my great results this year have been
 

*Extensive analysis away from the tables. Going through all my big hands, running ranges in pro poker tools, getting advice from friends, being honest with myself.
 

*Good life management. Staying healthy, leading a well balanced life, and being happy in general will drastically improve your performance at the tables.
 

*Strong personal management with regards to poker. Risk management is so important at very high stakes, not forcing volume or feeling pressure to play, etc.  Being the best player at your level is great, but is not sufficient for success if you have leaks in other areas (tilt, bankroll management, playing drunk, etc).

*Being positive. I'm not into "The Secret" or anything, but at some level I definitely believe that thinking positive, forming goals, and believing you can achieve them is half the battle.  There is so much jealousy and negativity in the poker world that is pretty disgusting.  What is bashing someone on an internet forum going to get you?  Go out and have fun, be happy for others, and have confidence in yourself.  The rest will follow.  If you get caught up in thinking "XYZ reg sucks so bad and has ran so hot, he doesn't deserve that," then well... that's what you'll get caught up in!  What results are you trying to achieve?  If on the other hand you get caught up in thinking "I'm going to work as hard as possible, believe in myself, manage my life and bankroll well, and not worry about elements outside of my control," you're going to have better results and be happier.  Phil Galfond talked about the differences between money and quality of life on his blog, and I think his thoughts were spot on.  Money keeps the score in poker, but happiness and a high quality of life is the end game.
 

*Putting myself in the right spots. Not just playing in the right games, but surrounding myself with the right people who are positive, hard-working, encouraging, and analytical.
 

None of this would have been possible, and I'm sure my poker results wouldn't have been half as good as they have been this year, without the help of Brian Townsend and Brian Hastings. Thanks guys. Taylor Caby has been an amazing role model and friend as well, and always gives the best advice, I am extremely grateful for our friendship as well.
 

Yesterday was the last day of classes at Georgetown, and my semester went pretty well. It's tough balancing life, school, and high stakes poker, but I learned a lot and think I did a pretty good job. We're starting exams in a few days, but once those are over we'll be on winter break, and I can't wait. I'm itching to get back on the mountain and just picked up a bunch of new snowboarding gear.
 

Good luck and I hope you all finish 2009 with strong results,
 

Cole

Jambo (hello in Swahili) everyone!

Whew, what a trip!  My girlfriend and I just got back from a ten day vacation in Tanzania, and we had an amazing time.  We've been wanting to explore Africa for a long time now, and she ran up enough vacation days at work to squeeze in the trip just before I started school.

There are so many wonderful places to safari in Africa that we were interested in -- gorilla trekking in Uganda, surfing the sand dunes and seeing the animals in Namibia, or mixing in some wine tasting in South Africa.  Since it was our first trip, we decided to stick with a more traditional safari country and fly to Tanzania.  The flights worked out pretty well from DCA, so I booked them about two weeks in advance without any travel plans.  A lot of friends had unexpectedly been on safaris so we had a bunch of great advice, most of which was "it was amazing, you will have a blast, and our tour operator was the absolute best."  After doing a ton of research online and going through every Africa book at Border's, we ended up booking our trip through &Beyond.  I believe they are the biggest tour operator in Africa, and they have locations in India and South America as well.

Here's a quick African geography refresher,





Well, we had a similar experience to all of our friends and came out of the trip thinking that there was no way any tour operator could be better than &Beyond (probably a great testament to how much fun a trip like this is more than anything else).  I e-mailed them right after I booked my flights giving them a vague idea of what we were interested in, and the next day they had sent me back three itineraries to choose from that were incredibly detailed and included every aspect of the trip -- transportation from camp to camp, all meals, pictures of every part of the accomodations, etc.  When our flight was six hours late getting into DAR, they had no problem figuring this out and meeting us there at the right time.  OK enough of sounding like a sales pitch, but really, they were great and I will definitely use them again.

Before any trip to another country, I try to do my best to research their culture some, and particularly learn a bit of their language.  I've tried Rosetta Stone, but for language skills I prefer learning from Pimsleur (I've used them for 4 or 5 languages).  So, I overnighted the Swahili CDs, and did a bunch of lessons before our trip.  I was surprised how strong everyone's English was in Tanzania, but it was helpful to know some Swahili, and they seemed to appreciate it immensely.  Even being able to say cheers and asking everyone how they are doing around the campfire at night makes a really huge difference.

Our trip was broken up into three parts.

First, we spent three nights at Serengeti Under Canvas, a mobile tented camp that follows the wildebeest migration around the Serengeti.  To be honest, I didn't know much about wildebeests before our trip, but they were amazing animals.  There are TWO MILLION of them in the national park, which is roughly 80mi by 80mi.  They were all over the place, so many of them that it looked like the ground was covered in ants from the airplane.  Wildebeests are shy, funny animals that run around making silly grunting noises and generally seem pretty happy.  I don't have that much camping experience, but the accommodations here were very nice:





During the day, we (my girlfriend, our ranger, and I) would head out in a Land Rover and go on game drives.  At night, the fifteen or so campers relaxed with the guides and put back some beers around the campfire while dinner cooked.  Everyone here was so incredibly friendly and the campsite experience was awesome.

We saw some amazing animals on our Serengeti game drives.  By far my favorite part was seeing the wildebeests cross the Mara river.  There were hundreds of them everywhere you looked:





A lot of hippos were living down by the river (not in a van) as well.  They were catching some rays when we saw them, but apparently they get easily sunburned and can't spend too much time out of the water.  Cool fact,



On our first game drive, we saw three cheetahs relaxing and drinking out of the river.  Very quickly they shot out of the riverbed and hunted down a wildebeest.  It was very National Geographic-ish, kinda brutal, but it was nature and very amazing to see



It was really amazing how close to all the animals we were, if this cheetah decided he wanted us for lunch there was really nothing in his way.

There were herds of elephants everywhere!  They live in packs of twenty or thirty and seemed to be very happy.  I really love this picture because it captures the animal in three different phases of its life:



Lions!  In the Serengeti we saw a lot of lions, mostly females and cubs:



They really had great position on us, and our jeep was up against a wall.  We couldn't drive anywhere and it was a little scary when they started to climb down the rocks!



Staredown with a baby giraffe!



We saw so many more amazing animals in the Serengeti, but I have to save a few for our next stop!

From the Serengeti camp, we flew to the Ngorongoro Crater.  Our lodge there has been frequently rated in the top 100 hotels of the world, so we expected it to be nice, but wow it was amazing.  The lodge has unbelievable views of the crater, and a bunch of zebras camped out right outside our room's front door!



I knew this place would be luxurious, but our room was absolutely massive with a fireplace, floor to ceiling windows that viewed the crater, and a huge bathtub.  Every time we left the room the staff snuck in and made a hot bath and threw logs on the fire.  Coming back to the room to see this picture after each safari was great:



The crater itself is a 10mi by 10mi collapsed volcano that is about a mile deep and has tens of thousands of animals living inside of it.  There is a lake in the middle and tons of vegetation all over, so the animals love it there.  In the Serengeti, we were a lot more isolated and didn't see other jeeps/tourists very often on our drives, so we could go off-road and drive right up to animals we wanted to say hi to.  Unfortunately the crater is a bit more crowded, but we still had a great time on our drives.  Our trip coincided with peak season (their winter, which is colder than you expect, and has a lot of advantages to safari during), but I'd love to go back to the crater during the rain season when it is lest dusty and the colors are amazing.  Here's a view of the crater:



The wildlife down there was really amazing though, and the area felt really large -- you could drive around for eight hours and definitely have a lot more to explore.  We were lucky enough to come across a rhino mother and her baby:



Zebras were my favorite animals of the trip.  There a ton of them everywhere, and they are so friendly and affectionate towards each other:



There were so many other fantastic animals, from gazelles to baboons to hyenas, but I'm going to close out the safari pictures with one more male lion:



The Crater Lodge was a really spectacular hotel, and we had a great time there.  It was a much different experience from the Under Canvas Serengeti camp, and I'm glad we got to stay at both.  I'd give a slight edge to the Serengeti camp due to it's remoteness and how much fun it was to relax around the campfire at night drinking Kiliminjaro beer with everyone.

After two nights at the crater, we caught a quick flight to Zanzibar!  Zanzibar is  an island off the coast of Tanzania that merged with Tanzania in the '60s and has some awesome beaches.




Our destination was a tiny resort on an island off the northeast coast of Zanzibar, called Mnemba Island.  The resort only has ten rooms, and is also frequently on the world's top hotels lists, so we were very excited.  Our expectations were blown away.  It's the most beautiful beach I've ever been to:



The island is pretty small (it took me about 10 minutes to run around it at a fast pace), and all of the rooms are right on the beach.  I was really shocked at how luxurious and huge our room was for a pretty remote place (our room was probably 2000sqft-ish, they had wireless internet everywhere, etc).  All the staff was incredibly friendly and helpful, and the guests were from all over and very interesting people.

Fifty feet or so off of the coast is a coral reef with some great snorkeling, and the resort has an awesome dive shop that will take you out wherever, whenever.  We have our PADI certifications and got to do some great Indian Ocean diving.  After diving, we filled up a pitcher of margaritas and took off on a dhow for a relaxing sundowner around the island.

There was a cool vibe where everyone on the island met up for drinks around 7:00 before heading off to private dinners right outside their rooms:







Very romantic, and a really unforgettable place.  It was so different from our safari locations, so it is hard to compare, but I think I'd have to say Mnemba was the coolest resort I've ever been to.

What an amazing, amazing trip.  It does feel good to be at home with our dog sleeping in our own bed though.

Some general safari thoughts

• They aren't for everyone!  It's a 25 hour plane flight at least to get there, and roads everywhere are terrible so game drives can be very bumpy (free massage).  If you go into it with a positive attitude and are excited you are bound to have a great time!  But if you are negative and a whiner (a lot poker players are unfortunately) you are better off staying at home or going to a beach.
• There's a lot of variance on how many animals you will see.  It's probably a bad idea to go into a trip thinking "I HAVE to see a leopard/rhino/unicorn" because it's not guaranteed.  Nature will give you plenty of awesome sights so go with the flow.
• Vision is important.  This may seem silly, but I noticed it a lot.  I got a new eye prescription right before we went and I was glad I did.  Also, we didn't have binoculars and man are they nerdy, but I would bring a pair along next time.
• It's colder than you'd expect!  I didn't wear shorts at all except for Mnemba Island.  On a safari you definitely want to wear some sort of light pants so you don't get cold/eaten by bugs/sunburned.  The crater is particularly cold and I always had a fleece or jacket on there.  Of course this is seasonal, and we were there during the winter, but look into it.
• Be sure to tailor what locations you go to around what time of year you can visit.  Different spots are great at different times of the year.  This seems obvious, but I obliviously booked a Costa Rica trip during the rain season there and it literally rained 24hrs a day the entire trip, so I've been careful about it since then!
• Learning just a little Swahili goes a long way.  They really appreciated it, and it made for more of a personal connection with everyone.
• Have fun!

I start school at Georgetown tomorrow!  I'm taking

International Finance
Some advanced math class
The Problem of God
Creative Writing
Ethics

and I'm pretty happy with my schedule.

The past two months of poker have been really great for me.  I've been playing very big and winning a lot, so it was nice to treat myself to a vacation.  Some big hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4646365

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4646368

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4646371

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4646373

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4646375

Good luck,

Cole

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the lack of updates but I've been insanely busy with poker, traveling, and life.  Good news is that all three have been going well.

This summer I took several short Vegas trips for WSOP tournaments.  I don't like spending more than a week or so there, it just gets draining and playing strong poker becomes difficult.  I played the 5k and 10k PLOs, and I was impressed with the strength of players in the fields.  I guess I expected recreational players to prefer PLO (it seems like the should, they can play more hands, lots of spots where it's OK to gamble a bit), but most of the players were pretty good at the game.

My last Vegas trip was for the main event, which went pretty well.  After several long days of play, I busted out 162nd for $40k and change.  Luck is a big factor in any tournament, but the structure of this one was great and it was nice to make a deep run.

It was great to see all of my poker friends in Vegas, and check out some of the new restaurants and clubs.  I was very impressed with XS, and the Encore in general is really nice.  The best meal of the trip was probably the huge tasting menu at MGM's Robuchon.  My girlfriend and I met up with sunra18/his gf there and we had a bottle of 1982 Latour with the meal, which was unreal good.  I managed to run good and dodge the biggest credit card roulette tab I've ever done, sorry sunra18!



The action online has been insane lately.  July was my best month ever.  I had been having a great year so far, and started playing a bunch of the 200/400/ante PLO games.  They ran nonstop all month with some really crazy action, and I got a lot of hands in.  I really focused on analyzing my play during/post session, and think I played some great poker in July.  Hopefully I can carry on the hot streak through August.  The competition has been tough, and it's always fun to play when the stakes are high.

My aggressive image gets paid for 200BB
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4504085

Ziigmund's aggressive image gets paid for 200BB haha!  This hand was tough and there are a lot of other lines to consider... lead turn, c/c flop, etc... Very tough spot, but Ziig probably isn't bluffing or value betting worse enough to call river.  I don't know, hard to fold hands against him.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?4541417

I've had so many interesting and tough hands the past few weeks, hopefully I will get around to posting a few on my blog.

Last Friday I did a phone interview with Mediocre Poker, my second time on their show.  Brett and EB are a lot of fun and it was great to meet up with them in Vegas as well.  Their podcast is great, and they've had some amazing guests on air.

I played a nice long 25/50 heads up no limit session on 4 tables against a very aggressive opponent, which I will be turning into a Cardrunners video. There were tons of fun hands, and it should make for some great content.

I've been fortunate enough to do some exciting traveling over the past few months.  My girlfriend and I went to Brazil for her birthday.  Rio was an amazing city with so much to offer.  On the cultural exploration side of things, we saw the Christ the Redeemer statue up close, which gave an amazing view of the city.  We also took the cable car to the top of Sugar Loaf mountain and had some drinks at sunset:



There was plenty of lounging on the beach as well of course.  South America is one of my favorite places to travel and I can't wait to make it back.  We've also done a lot of US travel with friends lately -- one place I would recommend in particular is Bernardus Lodge and Winery in Monterey, CA.  The grounds were amazing, and it's a short drive from wineries, lots of hiking, good golf at Pebble Beach, and some delicious restaurants.

I'm starting a big change this fall -- going back to school.  I'll be a rising junior at Georgetown, finishing my mathematics degree.  I'm settled down in DC now with a great girl, dog, apartment, and job, and the timing is right to finish school.  I've got an excellent opportunity to finish my degree at a school as strong as Georgetown, and I'm looking forward to the opportunity.  My time management skills have immeasurably improved in the past year, and I'm sure I'll still have plenty of time for Cardrunners and high stakes poker action.

Hope everyone is doing great at the poker tables and having a fun summer,

Cole

Last week I went to Baldface, a catski op near Nelson, BC with my buddy Jamin.  We went last year and had an amazing time, but I tore my MCL at the end of the trip.  This year I was excited to get out there again, ride well, and stay uninjured.  The snow was absolutely incredible and we had a blast!  After four days of pow and 60,000+ ft vertical my legs were pretty dead, but this trip capped off a great year on the snow.  Utah and Whistler were busts snow-wise, but Baldface and Vail were great trips as were a bunch of small ones to East Coast mountains with friends from back home.








Unless I make an unlikely last minute heli trip to Alaska in the next couple of weeks, it's looking like I'm done for the season!  Hope all the skiers and snowboarders out there had a great time on the mountains as well and stayed safe.

Poker has been great in 2009.  I can't seem to get much momentum when playing big, but I've been crushing 25/50 everywhere and won a lot playing high stakes on Cake (under CalNaughtnJr and Cole South) to put together a great start of the year.

I've started doing some triathlon training for one I'm doing with Martin in September.  It's hard!

Life in DC is great, been spending lots of time with friends and family and have gone on some fun trips.

Gotta run!

gl,
Cole

Last week was Taylor, David, and myself's Poker After Dark appearance.  I thought it went really well and that the show was pretty entertaining.  There are always going to be haters, but I thought the overall sentiments on the poker forums was that the show was great.  Playing an eleven hour very high stakes poker session that's going to be on national TV is tough and I think we all did a good job.  There were definitely some interesting hands

• David's 65 laydown.  Man, this was a tough spot.  I was just fooling around with him when I said that Doyle flipped KJ of course.  David had been playing pretty tight and raised UTG, I think value raising anything worse than AA on the river is pretty nuts on Doyle's part.  At the table, it was clear that Doyle for sure thought he had the best hand.  I like David's fold, but I think it's close (closer than lots of ppl who I've seen say "lol ez fold"; cmon Doyle is pretty fearless and could have a bluff sometimes with 72 or TT, and as we see he can show up with KJ)
• Taylor's QJ checkraise.  Good play.  I hate folding flush draws.
• Gabe's A6 bluff.  When you can see his cards it's a lot easier to say that you hate the bluff.  At the table I thought Gabe was pretty strong this hand and was surprised David called.  Nice hand David.
• My AQ vs Doyle.  I like how I played this one, bet sizing especially.
• My TT vs Doyle.  Meh, I think I like how I played this one as well.  The river is tough and is a bit of a levelling game since he got caught bluffing me before in the same spot, but he has to have a four and I figured he'd generally fold 4x for such a big raise preflop.

All-in-all I thought the show was great.  I liked and was surprised how they included a bunch of poker analysis in the director's cut as well.

Another poker media opportunity I have had lately was with Mediocre Poker Radio.  I can definitely say that this was the most fun poker interview I've ever done.  These guys were really laid back, very interested in poker, and hilarious.  The show is based in DC (on 106.7) but all of their podcasts are online and they have had some really great interviews -- Taylor, the Dang Bro's, Jay Krantz, and Brad Booth have all been on their show.

Poker this year is going incredibly well.  I've been sticking to playing most of the 25/50 and 50/100 PLO and NL games and my results have been very good.  I've been getting a surprising amount of good NL action too;  I hadn't been playing much NL in the past year or so and it's good to get back into it.  It's a fun game, but the regulars are very tough these days so it's important to game select quite a bit.  PLO as usual has been fun and I'm still learning a lot about the game.  There are just so many different situations to analyze and different winning playing styles to dissect.  I've played a few sessions 12 tabling the 5/10 and 10/20 PLO games as well, and it's always fun to play so many games and have so many decisions per hour.

David Podgurski (thatpfunk) started making videos for Cardrunners!  He's one of my best friends and a very good poker player, check out his video.  David and I do a lot of travelling together and took our girlfriends to wine country for Valentine's Day.  We stayed at the Kenwood Inn and Spa in Sonoma after seeing it rated #1 resort in North America by Conde Nast.  The hotel was great and a lot younger than I expected.  Sonoma is a beautiful place and we'll definitely go back soon.  In Napa we went to the boutique wineries Barnett, V Madrone, and Frias Family.  All three had great wines and unique environments.

Barnett had several different wines that were all incredible -- I'm normally a cab sav/pinot drinker but I really enjoyed their Merlot and Chardonnay as well.  Their Cab was sick too though.  Barnett's wine caves were brand new and the winery has an incredible view of Napa.

V Madrone is a very small winery that only produces Cab Sav and Petite Sirah.  It was run by a very nice couple that left their normal jobs in NY/CT to buy a vineyard in Napa.  It was just us and them in their living room, talking and sharing lots of wine.  The Cab was fantastic.

Frias Family was a trip!  It's run by two brothers, Fernando and Manny Frias.  They were so hospitable and it felt like we were drinking (an insane amount of) wine with college friends.  In particular, their library cabs were amazing.  After drinking for a few hours, we went with the Frias' to a local Italian restaurant where we had some amazing food and more of their wine.  We were running late to catch our flight and Fernando even drove us all the way to SFO!  Their hospitality was incredible and we had so much fun hanging out with them.  If you're visiting Napa, make sure you check out their vineyard;  you'll have a blast.

Wine country vacations are always so much fun and since I'm talking about wine, here are a few others I like.  My favorite (but expensive) Napa cabs are definitely Araujo, Quintessa, and Shafer.  You just can't beat these, they are incredible and make any occasion special.  They dominate the wine lists at the best restaurants for a reason.  For an amazing value though, McKenzie-Mueller is one of my favorites.  I've loved all of their wines, especially their cab and malbec.  And at $30-$50/bottle these are definitely my favorite mid-range wine.

Ah, wine.

Snowboarding!!!  It's that time of year again.  I took a Whistler trip last month with Martin and Rob but the snow was a bust.  They have just been getting owned by the weather this year and their base is so thin.  I heard they got dumped on yesterday though so hopefully things turn around in BC.  Right now I'm in Utah with Martin and Rob again.  Again though, it's just too warm and the snow is subpar.  It's supposed to snow tomorrow, we'll see.  I rode great yesterday though which felt nice and if conditions suck today maybe we will just hit the park.

Life in DC is great, it's kinda cold now but I couldn't be happier living in an awesome city with a great girl and a great dog.

Good luck at the tables,
Cole

Poker has been lousy lately, so I decided to take the end of the year easy and enjoy myself.  Right now I'm in Vail, CO on a snowboarding trip with 10 friends.  We've been here all week and the conditions have been incredible!  Our house is pretty sick and we've been pushing it really hard, riding from open to close each day.  I remember going on snowboarding trips as a kid when my parents would drive us to the mountain and I'd push it 150% from the second the lifts opened until they kicked me off the mountain.  Now that I'm a bit older and the cost of a lift ticket is less important, it is easy to go out for a couple of hours and take it easy for the rest of the day.  This trip we have all pushed it really hard though and it's felt great.

Obligatory shot of me flying off of a cliff,



The crew out here is a great group of guys that I've done a fair amount of traveling with.  Our house is me, thatpfunk, sponger, TJ, MN Dave, Jay, Bill, and Mike P.  We've also met up with a fair amount of other poker players up here including BradL, BK, Dave P, and stinkypete.  Bill knows the mountain particularly well and has been a great guide -- we've basically been living in Blue Sky Basin.  Can't beat the fresh powder of riding Lover's Leap over and over.

My new gear is awesome.  I picked up a Burton Malolo 162 with the Channel binding system, Burton CO2 EST bindings, Burton XIII boots, and a Burton Custom Wide as well for some park stuff.  The Malolo handles insanely well in powder and is what I mostly rode.  It's still versatile enough to get away with some airs as well.  I took the Custom out for a day as well and it will be a good east coast board.

I'm leaving Vail today and can't wait to get back out on the mountain.  Martin is living in Whistler this winter so I will definitely be going to visit him when it dumps in BC.  Last year I went to Baldface in Nelson, BC which was incredible.  I would definitely be up for going back there, or possibly do some heliskiing in Alaska.  And to fulfill the need to ride, Pennsylvania has some bushleague mountains (Liberty and Whitetail) that are a short drive away.

This trip has been incredible and I felt that I've rode very well, but I'm excited to get back home to my girlfriend and puppy.  The holiday season is here and we're visiting her family in Michigan for Christmas.  They're great and I'm looking forward to (hopefully) a white Christmas.

Life is good.  Hope you all are running well and have a nice holiday.

Just had a bad 200/400PLO session.  Not HORRIBLE, but bad -- lost 266k.  I'm going to at least review the hands I lost, and take a look at the rest later...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3534205
Ziig opens so loose UTG and this hand plays well and makes nutty stuff so I like repopping it in position with very deep stacks.  Obv on the flop it plays itself.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3534210
Meh.  There's almost another 100BB to play with if I call preflop, so I did.  On the flop I'm 42% against AA**, and it turns out there are weaker hands in his range so I of course have to get it in.  I run into a really good one for me but can't pull it out.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3534212
I like how I played this one.  Don't think I can fold at any point, especially against Gus.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3534218
Standardish?  I guess you could argue for a fold preflop, but with Gus in the pot and a fair amount of money behind I thought I should continue.  On the flop I have 29% equity in a big pot and have to call of course.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3534225
This one is a bit of spew probably.  I'm in a weird spot on the flop with stack sizes.  Just flat preflop next time and avoid this I guess.  Against a naked top two pair I'm 42% on the flop, his hand was a horrible one to run into though and I only had 16% equity.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3534231
Standard with these stacks vs Gus, 57% doesnt hold.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3534232
Gross.  68% pre, 93% on flop, 85% on turn for the lose.

Well, I think the games were good and I wasn't playing great.  But I don't think I was playing terrible or anything and ran pretty far below expectation.

annnnnd NL fun!  http://www.pokerhand.org/?3534237 88% shot at 113k pot whiffs

Oh well, I had been pretty hot lately and I'm still in a decent mood.

Tomorrow I leave for Florida to meet up with the Cardrunners guys and I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm going to order a new snowboard online today.  I ride a little park, but mostly just look for the powder and am probably going to get a Burton Malolo (thanks Jamin for the recommendation).  It's starting to get cold here and I can't wait to get back in the mountains.

 November just ended and it was a great month.  I (think) it was my best month ever playing poker.  The past couple of months had been a little frustrating and breakeven, but I studied my play very hard and did everything I could to make sure I was playing my A-game.  I got hot right at the start of this month and really killed it all month long.

I played a bunch of both NL and PLO this month and the biggest pots have been

this $374,000 PLO pot against Ziigmund
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3525790

and this 500/1kNL hand
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3526750

it definitely feels good to be running well again and hopefully the games stay soft!

Life-wise the month was great too.  I'm getting very excited for the winter and getting back on the mountains.  Hopefully I'll be able to make it back out to Baldface this year, and I'm definitely making snowboard trips to Whistler and a few other places out west.  I've heard that Whitetail mountain is the best option for day trips from DC and so I am planning on buying a season pass there and going a bunch.  Anyone in the DC area interested in day trips snowboarding during the week?

For the past couple of months I was also working very hard on a NLHE book.  I coauthored one with my friend Tri (aka SlowHabit).  He's an excellent NLHE player and teacher and has been steadily killing the games for a long time now.  I am very pleased with the way our book turned out and so far the reviews of it have been great.  It's geared towards mid and high stakes players that want to take their game to the next level, and it's price reflects that.  At $1850 a copy, the book is expensive but those who have purchased it have been very pleased and feel that the impact on their hourly rate has more than paid for the book.  You can get more information and purchase the book at DailyVariance.com.  Writing the book was a great experience and really made me think long and hard some deep NLHE concepts.

Happy holidays and good luck!
Cole

The past month or two has been very fun and very busy.  I've been doing a lot of traveling with my girlfriend as well as hanging out in DC with our puppy playing poker.  Poker has been swingy, but overall good and this has definitely been my best year ever (hopefully I don't jinx myself with two months to go).  Life is great though and I'm very happy settling down in DC.

Our first trip was to London during the WSOPE.  I didn't get to play the tournament due to some scheduling conflicts, but it was great to explore a new city with my gf.  We did all the touristy stuff our first day, going to Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Harrod's, etc.  That night we double dated with Brian T and had way too much wine with some decent Japanese food.  It was a blast.  We stayed one more day for some poker stuff and then booked it back home.  London was a really cool city and I can't wait to go back.  It didn't hurt that we got absolutely amazing weather the entire time.  We stayed at the Dorchester, which I would highly recommend.



The next weekend we went to Jacksonville, FL.  One of our close friends is a cheerleader for the Jags, so we met up with her for the weekend and finished it off at the Jags/Steelers game.  The Jags lost, but it came down to the wire and sporting events are always fun.



A week later we headed west with a couple we are friends with from college to enjoy wine in Napa!  We are big wine drinkers and had been looking forward to this trip for a while.  I mostly enjoy big reds so Napa/Bordeaux are my ideal wine countries.  Our hotel was the Carneros Inn, which is beautiful and I would highly recommend.  We went to a lot of really small boutique wineries and indulged in some really amazing stuff.  Day one we all drank way too much and slept through dinner, having a lot of fun the whole time.  Day two we took it a little slower and really enjoyed experiencing the whole wine culture of Napa.

My two favorite wineries were Allora and Del Dotto.  Allora is a very small winery with the most beautiful grounds I had ever seen.  Very natury, and a cozy tasting room in the cellar where we drank and ate with the owner.  We were the only people there and I'd imagine that's how it usually goes there.  Del Dotto is bigger, with a really cool cave area where we tasted wines straight from the barrel.  They really pride themselves on the customization of their wines -- each wine is separated by the location and type of grape and barrel wood for a lot of different flavors.  These wineries are must hits.  Our other favorite Napa wineries that we didn't get to visit are Shafer and Quintessa, so we can't wait to get back.  I also love big French reds, so hopefully we can make it to Bordeaux soon.




After that was last weekend, which was my gf and I's anniversary.  I surprised her with a weekend getaway to Paris, which went amazingly well.  We basically only had one day there, but I swear we walked the entire city.  It's a great city because if you are up for a lot of walking, you can hit just about all the cool touristy spots (except maybe Sacre Cour) in an afternoon.  We went to the Grand Palace, Petite Palace, the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, and plenty of the other big spots.  That night we ate at Table de Joel Robuchon, which I was excited about because I had heard amazing things about his restaurants.  It was pretty good, I don't think French food is my favorite but if you like it, I'd recommend it I guess.



Our puppy Joey has been so much fun and he's a great companion.  He also gets me out of the apartment a lot and keeps me exercising.



and Joey sporting his 'Skins bowtie after a big win!



I used to lift weights and run a lot in high school as well as freshman year of college, but as I started getting really into poker I lost some motivation for it.  I never got out of shape really, just lost some muscle and tone.  But the past few months I've been running a lot with Joey and working out with a personal trainer three times a week.  I'm in better shape than I've ever been and that certainly makes everything in life feel better.  A lot of poker players (myself include) struggle with finding a balance in life and I think that I've gotten a lot better about that lately.

In an hour or so I'm leaving for Vegas to play some big live cash games.  I'm pumped!  I played a little lower online this morning, 10/20, but had a big win which is always a nice confidence booster and I hope I am still hot at the tables in Vegas.

I've also been working very hard on another major poker related project the past few weeks that I will be talking more about on Monday!

Good luck everyone,
Cole

   My gf and I spent two weeks traveling through South America (Venezuela and Argentina) followed by a week in Hawaii.  Both trips were so much fun.

  On my last blog I wrote a trip report on the South America part of our trip and here are some pics

Spilling a beer at dinner in Mendoza -- the food there was out of this world, had some of the best meals I've ever had there.

 Chillin with a busker in Plaza Independencia, Mendoza.

My gf and I are usually pretty adventurous when we travel.  In Mendoza we hit up the wineries of course but also went trekking, rapelling, ziplining over a huge lake, and swimming in some hot springs.  We like lounging by the pool drinking and reading obviously, but we can do that anywhere so when we're somewhere new we try to get out of the hotel and explore.  In Hawaii we got to do a little of this, but it wasn't as fun mainly because some people weren't going into stuff with positive attitudes and then spent a lot of time whining afterwards.  I mean it's of course understandable to be more of a pool person and not like an activity, but then to complain about it for three days straight afterwards bringing negativity everywhere while you're on a gorgeous island isn't how I want to spend a vacation.  Don't get me wrong, we liked the people we were with a lot, I just now will be a little more cautious when it comes to suggesting stuff like rafting, surfing, and luaus to poker players.  In Hawaii, my gf and I got to catch up with Taylor/gf and David/gf who we've done some traveling with and it was great to see them again, they're both really fun couples.  We also got to meet Aaron and his girl who were nice.  I can see how it might be hard to come along for the first time on a trip when David/Taylor/myself have know each other pretty well, but they were great and sociable.  Tom and his girl also met up with us and we had a lot of fun playing a pretty epic game of drinking volleyball and polishing off a bunch of wine with them.

 

 

 

 

Kauai was such a gorgeous island.

 

After we flew back from Kauai my gf and I started to get settled in DC.  The place I bought is so perfect for us, I'm really really happy with it.  House shopping was tougher than I expected, or maybe I'm just picky.  I looked at a bunch of places, hated all of them except for the one I got, but the one I got I was absolutely in love with.  The rest of our furniture arrives TODAY!  Finally, so excited.  Our designer has been really helpful with everything though and I would highly recommend Eric at Vastu.  Everything he has picked out for us has been incredible and he's spent a lot of time making sure our place is just right for us.

 

 

Last night we got a puppy!  His name is Joey, he's a black lab we rescued, and he's the cutest thing ever.

 

 

Now that we're in DC I'm gonna buckle down and grind it out a bit more.  The past few days I've been playing all the 2550 NL and PLO games with pretty good results.  The new CardRunners site looks great!  Hope you guys like my video this Friday.

 

gl

Cole