CARDRUNNERS

Hey Guys:

So after Vegas, I needed a break.  Like whoa.  I went kind of insane in Vegas.  I tried my best to stay calm and cool, but ultimately the insanity of Vegas got the best of me.  I was downswinging pretty hard in Vegas (probably due to insanity issues) but right as things started to die down, I began playing much better and booked my best month ever, a shade over $40k.  It feels really good, so I went out and bought myself a used 2006 Grey Porsche Boxter to celebrate.  Nah, I'm just kidding :)  I've never splurged on something silly and doubt I ever will.  Oh well, I'm just a boring guy!

Anyway, for all the haters out there, I'm actually going to post a graph.  It's all from $3/6 through $10/$20.  I clearly ran pretty well, but also did some soul-crushing :)  I must admit there's about 1,000 hands from August in here, but it still feels pretty good!

As to the vacations, the day after Vegas I headed straight out to Jersualem.  I spent a fair amount of time with my girlfriend as well as some relatives.  It was nice and relaxing, even though I didn't get to travel as much as I wanted to.  I keep hearing about all these new places in Israel that I've never seen and I saw all these beautiful pictures in the airplane magazine on the flight over, but, oh well :(  I'll get there another time.

So I headed home and went straight to Block Island which is my favorite place in the world.  Right now I'm sitting out on the porch of the Naragansett Inn overlooking New Harbor.  It's a beautiful, sunny day out here and I'm chatting with my friends Tyler and Sabrina (holla back!!)  I should probably update my blog more, but things have been pretty intense with all the travel and work.

Over the next few days, I'm going to continue de-compressing on the island before heading to my parents house on Cape Cod for a few days.  I really enjoy just chilling outside overlooking the water, doing some CR work, and playing a little poker.  Because a lot of the intense WSOP marketing work is over, I'm going to spend a lot of time this week in the CardRunners forums as well as responding to questions on Two Plus Two.  I also have a lot of PMs to catch up on as well as some personal writings.  But the point is...I'm going to try knock out 40 posts or so this weekend in the CR forums, so look out for me going a bit nutso.

Okay well back to hanging with my friends....I'm going to try to book another $40k month though I'm off to a slow start as I've only played 838 hands this month :(  eeep!  But I've been getting good work done and enjoying life a bit.

Keep it real y'all~

Ezra

Lately I have been running extremely well.  It's kind of hard to describe.  It's not like I'm sticking it in bad either, and sucking out.  I have gotten it in bad once during this entire run and it with a nut flush draw and a gutshot versus a set where I'm still 40%.  I think what's made the run so good is that I've only been sucked out on once in big all-in pots, have held probably 6 or 7 hands above expectation in 65/35 spots.

To put this in perspective, over my last 3,270 hands at $1000 NLHE, I am up $18,461 for a ptbb of 30.06/100.  Obviously this is sustainable :)  I would post a screenshot, but I don't know how on my Mac :(

I'm not gonna post how my big my entire week actually was, but suffice it to say that in the last 7 days, I tied my record for most money earned in an entire MONTH.  Add to that the fact that I only put in under 20 hours of poker this week and I feel pretty badass.

I kinda wish I'd run better at the beginning of the summer in Vegas or during the Main Event, but I'll take what I can get.  My poker playing will also be significantly limited over the next couple of weeks as I'll be flying to Israel to see some relatives and my girlfriend on Thursday.  I'm thrilled to be leaving Vegas, though coincidentally enough, I'll be heading straight to another desert.  Sigh.  I cannot avoid deserts!

I have so many memories from this summer in Vegas.  I put in a ton of work, and a ton of hours.  I went pretty insane at times, so if I came across rude to anyone at some point over the summer, I really apologize.  It can be difficult putting in long hours day in and day out with seemingly no end in sight.  CardRunners accomplished a lot out here over the summer, and it will be nice to actually be able to analyze the data, think about what we did right/wrong and critically assess our marketing efforts over the summer.

Lastly, I want to give a couple shout-outs to some people I've grown closer with over the summer.  All of the CardRunners admins, guys like Raptor and Daut, a lot of the members who hung around the Rio a lot, and two really awesome people in Nick Wealthall and Kara Scott.  I hope these relationships develop even further in the future.

I was just thinking today about how Raptor is one of the most genuine people I've ever met.  You can disagree with his opinions, his perceptions, etc, but he truly speaks in mind and is so in tune with whate everyone is thinking.  A couple days ago I was coordinating an interview for him, and there was some confusion with people running around, cameras being thrown about, etc.  He just kinda turned to me and said "this is just so silly."  And it was.  Really silly.  But press is part of the game and we, of course, embrace it.  But at that exact moment, Raptor was spot on.  I mean after all, poker/CardRunners has been my main focus for the past two years.  But at the end of the day, it's just a game.  It's not life.  Life is so much more.

Love,

Ezra

I just busted from the World Series of Poker Main Event.  I'm honored that I got to play it.

I don't think that I played my absolute best.  I think I made a number of major mistakes, but I also ran pretty horrible.  I had two gutters turned on me in sizable pots, and lost one of the funniest pots of my life when someone instantly called my all-in shove with Ten-high versus my Ace King getting something like 3:1.  I didn't really get that one, but obviously he binked a ten.  I also lost a few other flips, yada yada.  It was just a pretty frustrating day.  I couldn't get anything going, and basically didn't flop a pair the whole day.  I hope that I get to play it again at some point in the future.  But right now I feel pretty dead inside.  I know poker's not that important in the grand scheme, but after playing your heart out for 12 hours, it's pretty lame to bust.  Sigh.

I was sent the following obituary of my grandfather.  I thoguht that it was really nice and well written, so I'm going to post it.  He was an amazing guy:

ARTHUR GALSTON
Jun 26th 2008 

Arthur Galston, botanist, died on June 15th, aged 88

IT WAS the mangroves he noticed first, reduced to cobwebbed wraiths as
far as the eye could see. The mud around them was clogged with their
leaves, and the shellfish in it were dead. Then he saw the hills, once
thick with teak trees, shaved bald like an old man's skull. He could
have seen worse: children with monstrous lolling heads and palsied,
tiny limbs, adults with gnarled growths erupting from their bellies.
But these were hidden away in the hospitals. The trees were less adept
at concealment.

What had been sprayed on them was millions of gallons of a herbicide
known as Agent Orange. Fixed-wing aircraft flew over the jungles of
Vietnam in swarms, dumping the stuff, which then drifted over crops and
into villages. The food that was destroyed might have fed 600,000
people for a year. But it was perfectly harmless to people, said
America's military men. They kept down the grass at bases with it, and
the GIs hosed each other with it for fun. And there was no better
strategy, at the height of the conflict in the 1960s, than to strip
bare the river banks and forest trails where the Vietcong fought their
war.

Arthur Galston was less sanguine. If you had asked him, on one of his
visits to Vietnam in those years, whether Agent Orange was directly
responsible for the sarcomas, lesions and deformities, he would have
replied, like the careful scientist he was, that it was hard to make a
connection solid enough to stand up in a court of law. But three things
he was sure of. First, Agent Orange had caused "an ecological disaster"
that might take decades to repair. Second, its use contravened the
Geneva protocols against chemical and biological warfare. And third, he
had a responsibility to speak, because this agent of horror was partly
his child.

The birth had been accidental. As a young graduate student at the
University of Illinois in 1943, he had been studying ways to make
soyabeans--then a new crop plant from China--flower and set their pods
earlier in the season, before the winter frosts. A mild spray with
2,3,5-triiodobenzoic acid brought them on nicely; but a stronger dose
caused the plants to release ethylene, which digested the cell wall
between leaf and stem and defoliated them.

Though Mr Galston soon had to go off to war himself, and then got
sidetracked on the effort to find a new plant substitute for rubber, it
did not occur to him that his discovery had military uses. It might,
perhaps, be helpful to farmers. He was a botanist, who once spent a
happy year in Stockholm isolating catalase from spinach leaves, and who
patiently observed "rhythmic opening and closing in the dark in the
plant Albizzia". He believed in the inherent beauty and usefulness of
science. On the other hand, he knew that any discovery was morally
neutral. Society might apply it to good or evil ends.

As a plant physiologist, he was also aware that the life of plants was
far from serene. They strained after light and water and struggled to
cope with stress, of the sort that had made his soya seedlings
drastically shed their leaves. They competed for food and saw off
enemies. He watched oat seedlings warn each other of danger by
releasing jasmonate acid, and tracked the dropping of poisoned leaves
by the Sonoran brittlebush to ward off competition. But this did not
mean, when the men from the chemical warfare unit at Fort Detrick
started to exploit his findings in the 1950s, that he was happy to help
wage war through and against plants.

UNANSWERED LETTERS
The new potentised strain of his discovery appalled him, and the more
so because it contained dioxin as a by-product of manufacture. The
toxicity of dioxins was not then well understood, but Mr Galston had
his fears from the beginning. From 1965 onwards, as the use of Agent
Orange relentlessly increased in Vietnam, he lobbied both his
scientific colleagues and the government to stop. Lyndon Johnson would
not answer his letters; but Richard Nixon, faced with more suggestive
statistics on the human cost from the Department of Defence, eventually
agreed. In 1970 the spraying stopped. The ecological damage, and the
cries for compensation from sick civilians and soldiers, continue to
this day.

Mr Galston liked to call himself an accidental botanist: a Brooklyn
boy, where barely a weed could poke between the bricks, who took
agriculture at Cornell only because, with his father jobless in the
Depression, he could go there free. He meant to be a doctor, with a
sideline in playing jazz saxophone, but fell under the spell of a
pipe-smoking botany teacher, and that was that.

History dictated that he also became an accidental bioethicist. For all
his fine work at Caltech and Yale, his running of departments,
encouragement of students and production of more than 300 papers on
plant physiology, it was his sense of responsibility that most
distinguished him. He once thought, he said, that the way to be a moral
scientist was to avoid projects with bad applications. But he had
changed his mind. The vital thing was to stay involved; to speak,
write, testify, and make sure that research was turned not to evil, but
to good. For more than 20 years he taught bioethics at Yale, a course
he had started and which, by his last year, was one of the most popular
in the college. His country forgot, but he did not, the mangrove ghosts.

It's just been a tough month, that's all.  If anyone has even spent two months working at the World Series of Poker (not playing), they might understand what I'm going through.  It's more than just a burnout.  It is an utter, and complete bodily exhaustion that makes you crave bed and solitude every waking moment.  And yet, that is not an option.  Each day brings more handshakes, more smiles, and new challenges.

I think that I could roll with two months in Vegas if I was playing for a living.  Picking two events per week to play, spending a lot of time at the house by the pool, and hanging with a group of guys I really like.  But working it is just so much more trying.  Last summer I wanted to go home by mid-July, but it was out of homesickness.  Not from the necessity of remaining sane.

It's just a tough town to work in.  So much wealth.  So many kids my age with small fortunes to call their own.  I try not be jealous.  Despite arguments to the contrary, it most certainly is fair.  They've worked hard, spent countless hours honing a skill.  And while it may have a negative expectation as regards future employment, they are the best at what they do.  But it can still be taxing on me.  A fairly competent kid, a winner at 5/10 and 10/20, but never a breakout star.  I'm okay with that.  I'm comfortable with my own abilities.  It's just difficult to see so much wealth and opportunity around me, in an otherwise faltering economy, and not be able to take full advantage of it.

I try not to concentrate too much on money, but man, is it tough.  To say that I am fortunate would be an understatement.  My god.  I am probably wealthier than 99.9% of 23 year olds in the world, I have a job that I am passionate about that provides incredible experiences, and I have a group of friends that I am proud of.  I received countless text messages and phone calls after the passing of my grandfather.  People cared.  And that means so much to me.

But in this town, money speaks.  I've had break-even June at poker which is annoying given that this is the best month of the year to run well -- in Vegas, having fun, etc.  But it's hard to complain.  I had big months in January, March, April, and May.  Life is good?  But I'm down huge in the stock market since May.  Then again, who isn't?  But it leads even more to this sentiment of frustration.  I've been advised from everyone -- parents, relatives, friends -- that of every dollar I earn from this silly poker thing, that I should put half in the stock market.  So I do.  I have fantastic money managers -- guys who've returned year after year.  And yet my results continue to be poor.  I do my own research, and try to learn as much I can, but I'm not a professional.  I will never understand a company the way that the people I trust do -- they speak to the management, ask questions on the conference calls, and scour the books.  I don't have time for that.  So I trust others.  But lately it feels like I'm betting on something I simply don't understand -- because I don't.  I would almost feel more comfortable using my money to back players in live tournaments (I would never actually do this) because I understand each specific tournament well enough to guage how soft it is, what their edge would be, etc. 

With the stock market, it just feels like I'm shooting darts sometimes.  I take people's advice, and assess how much risk I'm willing to take.  That's one of the things I do best -- determine how much risk I want to expose myself to.  And it's one of the reasons I'm not broke.  And one of the reasons, why my losses aren't following the dow, dollar for dollar.

Anyways, back to my main point...I hate to focus on money, but it's impossible not to.  I have everything I need in terms of material possessions.  But I'm trying to get serious about purchasing a house/condo and it's not easy when your liquid capital is continually dwindling.  Obviously, I'm still insanely well off, but I'm not sure I could stomach putting up $150k to get a down payment on a house.

Anyways, as you can see, I'm frustrated :(  On the positive side, I've now had 4 people offer to stake me in the $10,000 Main Event, so that should be cool.  I'm going to try to negotiate for the best possible offer, and will probably end up free-rolling with 25 or 30% of myself.  Sadly, that's contingent on managing to get time off work.  I would feel pretty bad hanging my staff out to dry, but at the same time, I've barely taken a single personal day in nearly 6 weeks out here.  And I've never played the main event before.  So I'm going to try and make it work.  Making a deep run might make me feel a bit better.

Keep it real, ya'll.

Ezra

There's something really soothing and calming about the desert.  Besides the strip, I really like Las Vegas -- principally because of its location.  Besides the landscape, I don't find the place very rewarding.  The strip is fun...for three days.  Strip activity wears you down.  And while I do think that the Las Vegas casino world is this fascinating enigma, it's also certainly not where I want to spend the bulk of my time.

But off the strip, Vegas is so interesting.  I love the Red Rock mountains in the background, the 115-degree heat that for some reason never seems to break 85.  And the nights....well, the nights are just perfect.  70 degrees, a slow, hazy breeze.  A lit pool, and a barbeque outside.  The desert has its perks.  And having been an east coast boy my entire life, getting to learn more about this unique landscape is really rewarding.

So I here I sit.  New York City's John F. Kennedy Airport.  I've spent so much time in this airport over the course of my life.  It is THE port on the East Coast for flights abroad.  And as the home to Jetblue, it's been my go to airport for a good three years now.  But I wasn't supposed to be here.  I was supposed to be in Las Vegas.  And I was supposed to be in DC next Monday -- to honor my father get inducted in his new position by Justice Breyer, and spend time with my ailing grandfather.  The same grandfather who didn't make it.

This was a difficult few days.  Some of the toughest of my life.  The first death in my adult world.  Sure, people had passed when I was 7.  But what the hell did I know?  It made my parents happy when I said I remembered them -- and so I tried.  But it didn't mean what it does know.

So then there was one, where once there were four, my sole remaining grandparent.  My grandmother, an elderly 87 who suffers from Dementia so severe that she can neither speak, nor likely recognize any events hapenning around her.  My final semi-lucid conversation with my grandmother several years ago, went well.  I reminded her of my age, my name, and the fact that I was about to graduate from New York University.  It went well until she responded "How delightful!  I have a grandson with your name who is about to graduate from college as well!"  And so I went to see her this morning, in her nursing home.  I explained to her -- what's left of her -- that her loving husband of 66 years had passed away, and that I would honor him.  She seemed to comprehend, but maybe that's just me being hopeful.

I am returning to Vegas.  To work.  To the real world.

I have no desire to play poker, nor do much of anything.  Besides think.  So thinking is what I'll do.  I'll think about life.  I'll think about my grandfather.  And I'll think about my job.  And I'll reflect.  And I'll improve.  That's all we can do.

Love,

Ezra

Twenty four hours was all I wanted. But twenty four hours I would not get.

I'd told myself: at the slighest hint of danger, race towards the exit and divest all other baggage. And so it was. My bags were packed. My flight purchased. But the jet couldn't rise fast enough.

My grandfather the academic. The world reknowned scientist. Botanist. Author. Yale Professor. Mentor. A friend to the greats, respected by all, even loved by Duke Ellington. And his grandson? An online poker professional?

I hope he knows I dreamt bigger, meant bigger, cared bigger. That true colors are not in a job, or a title. But are in the way we react, respond, and relate. That I was the mature, promising, incredible grandson he had always wished for, even if I found myself on an unorthodox path.

That my decisions are prompted not by laziness, but by a desire to seperate myself from the masses. To weild my own shield. That I was just as smart and capable as anyone -- I just saw happiness in different ways. I saw it independence. I saw it in mobility. I saw it in experimentation, learning, and personal study.

I just wish I could've had one last touch. One last smile. One last hearty laugh and a patented "How are ya, man?!"

But not all wishes can come true. Even the ones we want the most.

And so my lasting wish -- that he had time to truly comprehend the person I've become. I say, a boy can hope.

Love,

Ezra Moses

I probably should preface whatever I'm going to write by noting that I'm in a pretty emo mood lately.  My girlfriend of 1.5 years left yesterday for Israel.  Any regular readers of this blog have probably seen pictures of her, seen me write about the things we've done together.  It's been a great time, and easily the best & healthiest relationship I've ever been in.  But she's in Israel for two months while I'm in Vegas, and then she'll be spending some time in South America while I move to Chicago.  There are other complications as well, but I really don't know what's going to happen from here.  And it's definitely painful.  Losing someone you love hurts.

Also leading towards the emo binge is that I'm currently packing up to leave my NYC apartment that I've called him for 2 years.  In total, I've been in New York City for 6 years.  And I remember every minute.  I remember moving into my Freshman dorm with my Freshman roommate Ryan Komaiko.  I remember everything.  And now I'm planning to move to Chicago for CardRunners...it's exciting...I can't wait to work with Taylor, Andrew, Caroline, and Kevin every day...but change is difficult and moving is emotional.  Finding all those scraps of your history that have been hidden away for years come to life...call me a girl, but I've cried a little.  Oooops.  Now that's on the internet for all eternity.  That's alright, I'm cool with it.

What I wanted to talk about today was why I think the way that the path encouraged by society is entirely fucked up.  Here's why.  I consider my parents among my best friends.  They are always there for me, always support me.  But where I am?  I am four hours away, and see them once every two months at best?  But during the most rebellious years of my life, ages 10-17, while still close to my parents, I could not appreciate them for what they had to ever.  YET, I spent every single day with them.  Shouldn't it make sense for us to be close with our parents when we're mature enough to appreciate what they have to offer us?

I understand that many people, even in adult life, have horrible relationships with their parents.  But for myself and most of my friends, we are extremely close with our parents.  This is a marked change from even a generation before, when there was not the level friendship found between today's youth and their parents.  Parents from Generation X are more progressive and liberal, are understanding of young love, computers, drinking, etc.  I still remember my parents telling me to call them at any time, from any party if I was drunk and had no way to get home other than driving drunk.  There would be no punishment - my safety was more imporant than chancing my life to escape their wrath.  I found this offer so understanding and respectful to me as a person that I never dared ruin their nights by putting myself in such a position.

Yet here I am, age 23.  I earn six figures a year.  And I want to live with my parents.  Yet, society would view that as unconscionable.  But, WHY IS THAT?  Why should I be expected to live in a foreign city, with an independent life when the most important thing to me in the world is my family?  Yet, living with your parents is considered a sign of failure.  I just think it's really sad.  I'm not an idiot...I understand that living with ones family is often a necessity due to a lack of income.  BUT, the larger point is that it's universally accepted that you grow up, go to college, move away from home, and start your own life.  But I think we should insert a stage in between "go to college" and "move away from home."  I think we should all move home for 12-24 months to learn as much as we can from our parents.  My parents aren't getting any younger - they're now in their 60s.  And I am absolutely terrified that I am too self-centered to focus on how amazing they are, and by the time I realize it, it's too late to take advantage of what they have to teach me. 

This is probably a silly rate,  but I just think it's messed up that what I'm suggesting isn't even accepted as a viable life path.  It's frowned upon, considered a waste of time, etc.  But as Mark Twain once said "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant, I could barely stand to have the old man around.  But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

Love,

Ezra

The last two days, I've put in some pretty decent poker sessions.  One at a live 5/10 game in NYC and then last night I put in a three hour session online.  I figured I'd talk about some of the hands from the live game, because they're all deepstacked and interesting.

A few things to note...if you've never played live poker in NYC, the games are different than you'll experience in Vegas or AC.  I used to play 2/5 at the Borgata and the standard opening raise was 25 -- fairly normal.  In NYC, that raise will be 50-75.  This makes sense, because the NYC games typically play pretty deep.  And since no one folds EVER you want to build a big pot early.  That said, you should think of the 5/10 as a 10/25 when it's playing smallish deep, and a 25/50 when it's playing really deep.

On to the hands...

1) I'm sitting on about 3k which is about the same as everyone else.  Someone raises early to $100 with 4 callers to me on the button, I make the call with Th6h and the BB comes along as well.  The pot is $700 pre.  I know you guys are thinking WTF, T6s for 10bbs???  You've just got to trust me on this one.  The point of twofold: (1) valuebet the hell out of your made hands vs passive opponents and (2) call with tricky, unlikely hands, flop big, and stack the guys who can't fold.  Given that I had position, and a hand that can flop interesting, my call is fine here.

The flop came 8h 5x 3h, giving me a flush draw, 2 backdoor straight draws, and an overcard.  The original raiser led for $450.  To begin with I didn't think he had anything if he was going to bet that small, 450/700, but in addition there's no way he can continue here, even with an overpair.  Immediately to his left, there was a quick call of the $450, I mean the guy didn't even think, so I put him on a pair of 8s.  Folded to me, and I thought it was a good time to make a move.  It was early in the session, but I had played snug, so I bumped it up to $1350 or $1450.  I was shocked when the SB quickly jammed for $2400.  Original bettor folded, and the snap caller thought for 10 seconds before uttering "let's gamble" and shipped his $6k (covering me) into the middle.  Obviously I hate this spot, but I'm getting close to 6:1 and never folding.

The BB had 7h4h, and the monkey caller/overpusher had Kh2h so I was basically drawing dead.  We turned a heart and I had quickly lost a $9k pot :)

2) The very nice hand I'd reloaded for $2500 and was on the button again (I don't know how this hapenned, but just realized it now.  Either someone screwed up, or I was one off the hand before).

Couple of limpers to the CO, who made it $125.  I call with AJo on the button.  My hand is good here a lot given how the game plays.  The SB (who had just been stacked the hand before) calls, and 1 limper calls.  We take $500 in the pot to a flop of A96r.

It checks to me and I fire out $350 on the button.  The SB thinks for maybe 30 seconds before raising me to $750.  It folds back to me and I'm really in tough spot.  I was about to just let it go, when my superman powers just read through his bet sizing and I suddenly realized he had a weak ace that was trying to figure out where it was.  He wasn't confident enough to have 2 pair.  Plus the fact that he'd been stacked the hand before, made it very likely that he liked his hand, but was trying to avoid losing another huge pot.  I'm not sure of my exact instint, but I called.

The turn was a great card, pairing the 9 and bringing a flush draw.  He checked, and I elected to check behind.  Now I'm ahead of A6, he would never checkraise 9x on the flop, so his range is 100% polarized to A9 or a weak ace.  The river brought a 7 making the board A9976.  He led for $800 on the river.  I actually thought about shoving for value here, but I dunno, decided against it and quickly called to beat A8s.  Ship the $$.

3) The next orbit, I'm on the button (AGAIN!!!).  Limpers to the CO who opens for $125.  He is opening very liberally, is probably an online player, and I think is a bit too aggro pre-flop for this game (though I could be wrong).  I know his range is huge, and I've been playing back at him a bit so I decide to smooth on the button with AKo.   I had also 3-bet the hand before out of the SB, so I didn't want to have to play for stacks vs QQ (because stacks are like $4k deep.  The SB shocks me by making a small re-raise to $375.  I almost consider dumping the hand here, but we're deep, around $4k or so, and the CO calls, so I'm getting a nice price for only $250 more.

The flop is a pretty nice Qs Ts 8s and I have the ace of spades.  So I'm flopped the nut flush draw, a gutter, and two overcards.  The SB thinks and leads for $900 into $1125, the CO quickly folds.  I'm obviously not going anywhere here.  Even if he has AA/QQ I'm not in bad shape, and it's conceivable he has AK/JJ here.  In addition, I know he's stuck and I think he'll run it a few times if I get it in vs AA, so I'm not too worried about variance.

I shove it in for $3k more.  He tanks for 5 minutes, gets up from the table, starts talking about how sick it is.  He finally says, "whatever" and ships it in with black KK.  Before the dealer burns, I ask if he wants to run it three times and he obliges.  I brick off on the first deal, but river two straight aces, to take down about $5500 worth of the pot.

4) This hand is later in the night.  This is probably the most interesting hand I've played in a year.

I've been winning a lot and am probably sitting on $8k.  That said, I haven't shown down ANYTHING bad.  A couple of limpers to me on the button, and I bump it to $100 with 55.  I get 4 callers including the cutoff, who I noted before was extremely aggro pre-flop, and I was isolating with a wide range of hands.  This means that we can really polarize his range -- he doesn't have a pocket pair, he doesn't have 2 face cards, he COULD have suited connectors or 1 gappers, and he almost never has an ace here (I saw him iso-ing A5o, etc).

The flop comes down AA4, with two hearts.  I don't have a heart.  Checks to the CO who leads for $350 into $500.  Both he and I have picked up that no one else seems to be interested in the pot.  I am 100% sure than my hand is good here.  Well 99.5% because there's some chance he has A2o or 44, but I think it's EXTREMELY unlikely.  I know my 5's are good here, so I can run down his range to 2 holdings -- heart flush draw or absolute air.

I decide that I am going to call down three barells, no matter what size as long as no heart falls to make his head asplode (as Raptor would say).  I decide this on the flop.

Unfortunately, the turn brings an 8 of hearts completing the flush.  This bums me out.  I'm a little surprised that he checks, but I wonder if maybe he's going for pot control with the flush draw in case I'm getting cute with a boat or something.  I figure my hand is no good, so I think for a bit, decide to check and give up.

But the river brings an extremely interesting card pairing the 8 making the board AA884 with 3 hearts.  Now my hand is absolutely worthless (five high) but I'm in a great spot to bluff knowing that he has an ace here almost never.  He thinks for a bit and bets $575 which is really small, and I can't help myself.  I was planning on potting the river if he checked, but I had another idea after his small bet. 

I thought that he was a thinking player, so I decided to basically min-raise to $1200 or $1300, because I just didn't see how he could call with a flush.  If I made a really big raise, these guys sometimes like to herocall, but I thought that this approach would just make his head explode and would just psychologically make him ill.  As soon as I made the raise, he looked like he was going to throw up (which was a good thing).  But once I realized how distraught he was, it dawned on me that he had a fullhouse.  I figured that meant 444, but I couldn't see how he would play a flopped boat like this.  He thought for well over 5 minutes (about calling a minraise!!!) before finally calling and showing me 8To.  My read was spot on, but it just didn't work out.

I suppose given my read, I really should've bumped it hard, but I just thought this way would look stronger and he'd have to fold anything anyway.  While in reality, his hand is the same as a flush or even like 99 (because I either have ace or air), it can be psychologically a lot more difficult to fold the second nuts to a min-raise.

Anyways, I finished up that session $3k and booked another nice win last night.  April has gone well, but overall I'm more excited to work every morning for CardRunners than I am to play poker :) And that's a good thing.

Love,

Ezra