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What's Your Edge

David Benefield : Poker Blog

April 17, 2009

Last night I went out with some friends to the Keg, which is becoming more and more popular around here. I remember going to Niagara for whatever WPT event was there and I saw like 4 Keg’s within a 3 minute drive from each other, it was pretty ridiculous. The food is decent, the atmosphere is kinda cool, so I suppose it is normal it would be a popular location. They also had fantastic sautéed mushrooms, something I am becoming a bigger fan of by the day.

After leaving, we headed out to some of the local bars around the TCU area. Something just felt.. off about last night and being around a lot of my old friends. Most everyone is graduating now, trying to get jobs (many unsuccessfully), and just trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives. The second bar we went to is a popular hangout for people that were in my frat, so I ran into about a billion people I haven’t seen in probably over a year.

A lot of people were asking me what I was doing these days, if poker was still going well, etc. I responded with stuff about coaching baseball, going to school at St. John’s this fall, etc, and people were dumbfounded. The common response was something along the lines of ‘What? If poker is going well why would you ever go back to school? Classical literature and philosophy? WTF? How can you get a job with that? Why are you coaching baseball? I mean that’s kinda cool but why don’t you just play poker?’ In all honesty, I would have asked myself those same questions even 18 months ago. It is amazing how things change, perhaps even a little scary..

Baseball has been going great, the team isn’t really doing all that well, but we are having a lot of fun and they are definitely improving. Last night we had a game against a team from Dallas, and we were down 8-1 in the second inning. Somehow, someway we battled back and ended up winning 10-9 in the bottom of the 7^th. The boys definitely needed this win, especially in that fashion as we have tournaments coming up pretty soon. Was a great confidence builder to come back in that game.

Workouts have been going pretty well, I changed up my routine a lot since I haven’t done BJJ in like a month. My shoulder was really giving me issues so I decided to take some time off and work on strengthening it. I will pick back up with that when I get out to vegas, somewhere around May 11^th or 12^th. Hopefully I don’t have any issues, but if I do, I guess the only option is surgery, though that sounds pretty terrible.

I have been focusing more on get big and strong type workouts one day, and lots of kettlebell stuff the next, then taking a day off. I am doing Squats, Bench, and Deadlifts for the heavy days, and then various kettlebell stuff on the next day, consisting of a combination of swings, jerks, clean and presses, as well as dumbbell incline. This setup works well for me and I am pretty happy with it. I have been trying to eat a lot because I want to get a little bigger, but I only plan on doing that for another oh.. 14 days or so and then I will start trying to get in shape again and do lots of HIIT type stuff and perhaps even start running.

For some reason I look at running as this miserable process, even though it is such a simple activity that every human should be able to perform well. I just plain don’t enjoy it, but it’s probably because I am just not very good at it. I would like to be able to wake up in the morning and go for a 20 minute jog without wanting to die 1/3 of the way through. I have always considered myself to be in pretty good shape, but for some reason I just plain suck at running.

Tonight I am headed down to Austin for a friend’s birthday. I have never really been down there to party, but apparently it’s a pretty cool scene. I know quite a few people that live in that area, some that I haven’t seen for a while, so I am really looking forward to this trip. I would imagine we will do quite a bit of partying and not much else, which sounds like a pretty good weekend to me.

On the poker side of things, I haven’t played very much at all. Last week were the scoops, and I decided to skip out on the main event, which was something I never thought I would do. The prize pool was gigantic with a guaranteed 5m to payout. I had a baseball game Monday night, and if somehow I magically made day 2, I would have had to skip it. I made a rule when I started the baseball thing that I would never skip anything for poker, and I have stuck to it. I missed 1 practice for a meeting with the St. John’s admissions dean, and that’s it. I did play the 5k plo, which I cashed in, but didn’t play any other tourneys.

I am not sure what this summer will look like for me. We have a pretty sweet setup with the house now, as the pool just got finished. I really can’t wait to get out there as I think this summer is going to be an absolute blast. I have no idea how much poker I am going to play, but I will probably play somewhere in the neighborhood of 8-10 tourneys, mostly all the bigger NL and PLO championship events. I think the 40k NL will be super awesome, and I am trying to figure out how many people it will get, hopefully 250 or more, but that might be a bit optimistic.

-David

Entry Tags:

Apr 17, 09 13:41:43

I'm thinking u need to throw a big ass BBQ/Pool Party as a mid-WSOP break. :)

BigBadDevil

Apr 17, 09 14:20:24

You should definitely start running. Nothing quite like it for getting in shape.

For me there was a BIG hump to get over before I could enjoy it. I'm not a natural runner but I pushed my way through the first many months and now I look forward to it.

A lot of people start off running too fast. Get a cheap heart rate monitor and keep yourself in the right zone so you don't die early.

Rant2112

Apr 17, 09 22:00:04

Agree with Rant, for a couple years I used to religiously run for ~35 mins everyday until it snowed and for me I am tall and kind of muscular so I had to do tons of stretching of the lower back and legs etc so I didn't deal with cramps also after a while it becomes so automatic it is like a zen like trance, start slow just try too finish and soon it will be like second nature.

LesW

Apr 18, 09 04:37:06

1st off. Your blog is great and I think it says a lot about your character that you are trying to go back to school and you are already coaching baseball ....as a professional poker playing millionaire. I respect the baseball thing tremendously.

Now as far as the running goes.
The following information took me from being very out of shape to being able to run 5 miles in under 30 minutes......a process I completed in less than one month:

never breathe out of your mouth when you run. EVER.

This is more challenging than you think. You will have to run very very slow at the beginning. It will be hard to even jog quickly ....at first. With each day, breathing will become easier while your pace will only get faster. After a few weeks you will be able to run several miles without being tired. (if you run 5 or 6x a week for 20 minutes or longer). It is actually something so unbelievable you would have to witness it for yourself.

So basically no sprinting and No hard running at first. Your body will respond by allowing you to run longer with less of a fatigue factor....both during the workout AND AFTER THE WORKOUT.

This information came from Dan Karnazes, the guy who ran 50 miles in 50 states in 50 days. LOL. google it.

charliemultitable