CARDRUNNERS

So the time has finally come where I can't really put off studying much longer. I have a test on both tuesday and wed and then two tests on thursday. However, this time of the year is always when I waste more time than ever on stupid shit. For instance, I end up reading pocketfives a lot rather than studying. I hardly read that site normally, but come finals time, i'm there many times each day. I also end up talking to random people on aim that i dont normally talk. I go to facebook a decent amount. You get the idea. I'm just terrible at time management when it comes to studying. This year my tests don't really mean anything either. Two of my four classes I'm taking pass/fail. That means I just gotta pass the finals and im good. I've never failed a final in my life. Of the other two classes, one is incredibly easy. The remaining class is Accounting 405. That final will be hard. It could possibly be very hard. I need to do decent on the test to get a B. I wouldnt really care if I got a C though. Also, theres only so much I can study for that class. Regardless, I'll be glad when this week is over. It will be nice to get back home and relax for a month. I'm also really excited for the Bamahas trip in early Jan.

My friends and I made our New Years Eve plans yesterday. We decided to go to a bar called Mcgee's in Linkin Park. It's supposed to be a fun bar, but I've never been there. The deal was $80 for open bar from 9-130. Decent. Also, if we got 25 people to go wed get our own booth. I'm pretty sure well easily get 25. At first, I wasn't so sure, but weve been telling a lot of people about this since we made our reservations. Most people hadn't figured out what they were doing yet so they were cool with going to Mcgee's. We were just giong to stay in a hotel downtown, but we couldn't find any cheap ones to stay in. We decided were gonna get a 22 person limo to drive us from the bar back to my friends house in the suburbs. We'll have an afterhours there and then just pass out there at some point. It should be a great night.

Joe (ll2), Drama and me went to see Seinfeld last night. It was one of the best decisions I've made in awhile. The show was just absolutely hilarious. I think it's up there with one of the best shows I've ever seen. I just couldn't stop laughing. His opening act (don't remember his name) was great as well.

We got pretty damn lucky to get the seats. We were at Caeser's during the day and Drama and Joe went to go see if they had any tickets. They had just released some that were in the 5th row. We jumped on it. That meant we got a pretty good deal (face value) and we also had sick seats.

I've been kind of busy believe it or not and I haven't gotten a ton of hands in last few days. I did play today for about an hour and won 1k. I'm mostly just playing 3/6nl. When Brystmar was here the other day he was telling me how he thinks 3/6 is softer than 2/4. I tend to agree so far. I'm not exactly sure why that is. I think it's probably because it's an awkward limit. I've also been playing 2.5/5nl deep stacked. That's a pretty fun game and seems to also play awfully soft.

I'm +5k on the month.

Gambler says he lost a buyin today at 3/6, but he hasn't played much.

Pokertracker doesn't seem to be working with FTP since their newest update. Anyone have any suggestions?

Only saved hand from today. I like how I played this hand. I took him to value town. The river I decided to make it look like maybe I missed a draw, so I timed it down a bit and mashed pot. I guess it worked.

Sorry I haven't blogged lately. Sometimes, I just don't feel like blogging and I just wasn't feeling it the last week. Anyway, things have been good. Four of my good friends from home were here over the weekend. It was a great weekend. We basically balled out of control and had a great time. Taylor wrote pretty extensively about the nights we went out, so I'd suggest checking that out if you want. The one night Taylor didn't go out we went to Lure at the Wynn. It was definitely an older/richer crowd, but I still liked the place a lot. We also saw Big Shot Bob (horry) walking out as we walked in. It's pretty cool to hang out at the same places as people like him.

I played a long live session of 5/10nl yesterday. I was getting really tired of people telling me how soft the live games are. I also wanted to get some cash to pay for some stuff down here. I gotta say that while the game was good, it wasn't good enough to justify playing one table at 25 hands/hour. There were some awful guys at the table, but also some pretty good ones. The other hard thing about playing live is that it's just so difficult for me to be patient. I'm so used to seeing so many hands per hour that even when I focus to play tight and patient, I still struggle. Honestly, I almost never got anyone to fold. If I had the hand, they called. If I didn't have a hand, they called. There was one big bluff that I ran that wasn't a very good bluff and got called. Honestly, live cash games just really aren't for me. In the end, it didn't end as bad as it could have. I only lost about $800. Considering I sat w/ 5k and there were a few others with 5k or more, it could have been ugly if I had really ran/played bad.

I started watching the show Heroes the other day. I'm completely addicted to it. I've always liked super hero type stories. I loved X-men as a kid and I've enjoyed the X-Men movies. This is the same kind of thing in the way that the story goes. I think it's well written and I like a lot of the actors/actresses in teh show. I specifically like the Cheerleader and the Asian time traveler. I think they are both great characters.

I made a new 3 part 3/6nl video today. I think it went pretty well. I won about 1200 during the video. I also made 1200 as I was setting the video up. So all in all, 2400 for 2 hours of play was great. The only issue was I had a few technical difficulties with my FTP connection throughout the video, but there wasn't much I could do. I hope people enjoy the return to the 3 part series. I think it definitely allowed for a few more interesting situations due to the established history with my opponents.

The month hasn't really been going as great as I would have hoped, but it also hasn't been a total bust. I'm up about 10k total right now. The last I heard gambler was down 40k. Oops. I guess I won that bet. I hope he comes back to Vegas so I can cash in on it.

I'll be updating regularly again. I'm also going to save some HHs to post.

Also, I should note how I finished in that 3k event. I ended up taking 54th place. It was a fun experience. I wish I could have done better, but I was also pretty happy. Hellmuth was at my table and that was a lot of fun. I basically just ran 1010 into QQ. There was a raise, I reraised and a woman in the blinds woke up with QQ. She was a nice (and attractive) woman who ended up taking 2nd, so I was happy for her.

I'd never been to Europe before, so I figured that I better get my act together and get on a plane across the Atlantic. When I landed, I was in Paris, France. I saw a large part of the city, and walked around every day taking in the sights, the beautiful architecture, and culture. I really wished that I spoke French, but nevertheless most people were friendly and helpful, and I saw some amazing museums.

Here is a list of the museums I saw:
1. Musee D'Orsay
2. Louvre
3. Musee Marmottan: I saw the water lily painting I have a print of in my bedroom. The entire bottom floor is all Monet.
4. L'Orangerie
5. Musee Rodin: My only souvenir for the trip was a really nice replica of the Eternal Idol, my favorite sculpture.

I also saw the Eiffel tower, relaxed in the various Jardins, walked around the major shopping areas, took a boat tour, ate at amazing Parisian restaurants, and relaxed.

Pretty much the only thing I didn't do was go to the Aviation Club. I played no poker during the trip, and it was nice to get a break and recharge my batteries.

But then I came back. Just in time for the finance game that Taylor and I have played in. I love this game. The stakes are good, there is a lot of action, but I really like the game because of the people. Everyone in the room is so successful but they are also very humble and willing to share their stories. I spoke with the guy on my left for hours about the arc of his career, and got to hear his advice on various things. Playing in this game also brings out the best in me. I try my hardest, put thought and time into every decision, and it's great to see what I can accomplish when I play my A game. Another reason I liked this past Friday night was because I had my biggest single day win ever. A 68 ball.

A 68 BALL. My biggest single day win ever.

I played some of my best poker, trapping, laying down overpairs correctly, bluffing and semi-bluffing in timely spots, making plays, and I had one monster call for the biggest pot I've ever won.

These upcoming months, I'm going to play a bunch live, because the games are just so good in NYC and my reads are really getting strong live, and I'm making some interesting adjustments and modifying my game for deep-stacked live play. It's a lot of fun. I've also been playing really poorly online this month, and having wins like this really helps to even the swings.

I'm in DC this weekend visiting friends, and after that it's back to the grind, and the last few months of school.

dp

What a nice year. Poker went about as great as possible. If I could have a year half as good as this one for the next 5 years, I could retire with lots of money left over. Here is a small list of the big wins...

J1/11/07: $320,000 from $8,000 PCA wpt event
2/27/07: $35,000 from $10,000 LAPC wpt event
5/23/07: $1,000,000 from Mirage WPT event
7/29/07: $69,000 from Full Tilt sunday mtt
9/09/07: $93,000 from WPT in Biloxi
11/3/07: $710,000 from WPT Niagara Falls

There was also quite a few other smaller final tables, as I had 9 final tables. I also made 3 wpt tv final tables. One has aired on the travel chanel earlier this year and the other 2 will be on game show network sometime soon. these have also put me in the #1 spot on the wpt player of the year race by a large margin. Someone who has won a wpt will have to win another one in the next 4 months in order to pass me. Hopefully no one runs sick good and I can hold onto that title.

 Due to these results, I have recently became a full tilt pro, which has many benefits. I also just got invited to the NBC heads up tournament, which should get lots of tv coverage. I played 2 big live heads up tournaments this year. I took a 3rd, eventually losing to David Pham in a $5000 event at Mirage, which netted $30,000, and lost in the first round to Paul Wasika, who won the NBC hu championship a few years ago, I think, so no shame there. Hopefully that, along with countless hours of online practice, will help me with that.

Also, after the win at Mirage, I decided to relocate to Vegas, as it would save mte tons of money on flights and hotel bills. I bought a nice condo 5 minutes off the strip and am very happy with it. My wonderful girlfriend Katy also moved in with me and we are very happy together.

So thats the good news....the bad news is that online poker has gotten much much tougher, at least for me. Due to the wonderful US government, players are having a much tougher time reloading large amounts, of money. This isnt a problem for people like me, as I have lots of money online, but it is a problem for the weaker players, as they can no longer add on lots of money to play the larger games I play. The shady politicians attached the bill to make it tough for us on some port security bill, which would never get vetoed. I think most people want more secure ports, but sadly, they decided to try to screw many poker players out of their jobs. Hopefully the people representing poker can make a difference in DC and we can get this changed back.

Another reason online games have been getting much tougher is because of the training sites that have popped up over the last few years. I know that I have learned a lot from all the training sites and decided to open my own, www.sngicons.com. I am proud to say that it is the best source of sit n go tournament info on the web. I also have put up a few multi table tournament videos as well as some cash game videos, so it is a helpful site to anyone. I also write a fairly regular blog there, so check it out if you are intrested in my life.

So, what about the future...I am flying to Nassau, Melbourne and Atlantic City in the next month then spending Feb in LA. In March, there is the NBC hu tournament and also a large mtt at the Wynn in vegas, as well as 2 wpts, in San Jose and Reno. In April, there is the Foxwoods Poker Classic and then back to Vegas for the WPT $25,000 buyin main event. Just looking at it now, it looks like a full schedule. Hopefully I dont wear myself out.

So, thats it. Again, I cant express how happy I am with the results of this year. It is almost unreal to me. Hopefully I can make something happen in 2008. Again, for regular updates, check out my blog at www.sngicons.com. Thanks for reading.