CARDRUNNERS

I got to enjoy one of my favorite times of year which is Thanksgiving.  It's always great to eat Grandmas great food with the family and it's one of those things that I charish each year.  I hope everyone else had a good Thanksgiving as well.  Following Thanksgiving one of the biggest shopping days in the U.S  ... Black Friday.  For those unfamiliar with this, it's always the Friday following Thanksgiving and it's when stores have blow out sales to clean out their inventories.   I haven't went and made any big purchases before, but I will this year.  All of the sales are very early at around 5am-10am with other sales going the rest of the day.  It's the start of the holiday shopping season which I enjoy.

Every year I've always slept in, had no money to go shopping, or worked Black Friday like I did the last few years.   I plan to go this year and I'm going to head out to a few places with my Mom and a roommate.  Crowds are always insane, but it's a great time to get some shopping done cheaply.  I'm looking to pick up a few things :

1.  A Pool Table

2.  42" Plasma TV for my room

3.  Maybe another computer Monitor

4.   A few sweaters

5.  Various DVDs and a few other things

6.  Maybe a few games along with gifts for family.

I have no idea how much I'll spend tomorrow, but I'm hoping I can save some money and not blow too much :) .   Other than that, I've been on Thanksgiving break and have time to log a lot of hands in poker.   Tomorrow after I get back and take a nap I will post a few of the interesting hands from some of my recent sessions.  

Well guys, Thanksgiving dinner has just passed for me. It was very lovely. My sister came it town, though that was about it. A small celebration and appreciation for life and the gifts bestowed upon us, both from our virtues and what we accrued through hard work.

I'm greatful for my supportive family and friends, my good times, all the nice things my parents have given me through the years, the opportunity at a good college education/tools to succeed later in life, all my God-given virtues, and poker. Though poker has been a blessing and a curse, it is by far more of a blessing. Poker will certainly prepare me for the challenges life has in store ahead, and will hopefully continue to provide me with some financial freedom.

I'm also thankful for this nice monster poker upswing. This past week has been very good- exactly 7 days today, and about $25.8k in earnings. $13k in FTOPS $2500 event, $6900 in a Stars 2nd place, $5900 in 1/2nl 6max and HU on Stars and 2/4 HU on FTP winnings. Before this week, I was effectively busto, though had many opportunities this past weekend for tourney scores, and luckily, I came through. So thank you G-d again for giving me the wonderful opportunity to get back a roll. I'm certainly appreciative, and looking forward to cashing out $20k on FTP, and donating that 20% to charity, like I said I would.

Ok so, this post is dedicated to anyone's thanksgiving stories, poker/life brags, or any other little comments they want to make to the CR community on the day where we look back and appreciate everything that we have earned or was given to us. I expect to hear some hilarious stories from the crazy different kinds of people on CR, though we're all linked together by our love and appreciation for the game of poker (most likely NL holdem).

Here's a story I thought was funny that someone put on my last post- I decided to dedicate this post though to all Thanksgiving stories/reflections from the tight-knit CR community. I'm moving it over here since this is my official "Thanksgiving Story Post"

I'm also thankful for passing Shneids in blog popularity... ship the 11th spot Shneids!!!  [X]Life goal complete

From MattK20:

Hey, Enjoy your blog. I'll give ya my Thanksgiving experience since you wanted some. My wife made Brownies for todays dessert this morning and while we were upstairs getting ready; my yellow lab jumped up on the counter and ate the entire batch. Soo, instead of enjoying Thanksgiving lunch with the entire family, I got to take the dog to the animal hospital for two hours. After alot of induced vomiting and $225 later, she's fine. The leftovers were just as good as so I dont think I missed too much. Hope everyone has a good thanksgiving.

Lol, nice story Matt. Hope to hear some other interesting stuff from everyone else!

Dear Blog,

I hope everyone had a nice Turkey fiesta and for those who enjoy waking up before the sun does to rush to stores, I hope you enjoy Black Friday although the vast majority of stores are still in the red. Also pay close attention to buying gift cards this year. You don't want to purchase a Circuit City gift card and notice that your local store is no longer local.

Thanksgiving was cool. I was saddened because my mom had a cold and didn't come over to the house. This is the first Thanksgiving since my father died and I wanted us to be together but she said she didn't want the baby to catch her cold. Taking two days off slid me down in the leaderboards so I need to play a little catch up. I was sitting comfortably in 5th on Tuesday and now am in 7th. Top 5 does seem feasible although and any bonus money is better than 0 bonus money. 

I bought a book by Nicolas Darvas that people may be interested in. He wrote "How I Made $2,000,000 in the Stock Market". Not necessarily using his strategy, I did a lot of homework on picking stocks and will be scraping a few thousand together over the next couple of months. I had bought some stocks this summer but ended up selling them during the time I was making bad bankroll management moves (mental note, pros play within their rolls). Google "Piotroski Score" and then take a look at www.bmwmethod.com. I came up with 7 stocks that I'm picking based on their sound foundational structuring and being undervalued.
 

1) BP
2) SM
3) KR
4) CL
5) AGN
6) DBD
7) MDT

Just like in poker, consider buying in bulk to beat the commission (rake). At $7 with Scottrade, I'm probably buying a minimum of $200 of any company I purchase to keep the juice under 5%.

Lastly, I doubt I make 2k sng's this month. The holiday screwed me like a Phillips head so at this point, I'm shooting for 1,500 which is respectable but definitely 25% short of my target. I'll really need to pick up the pace in December if I plan to have enough money to be comfy in Tunica.

# Played: 1,317
ROI: 4.8%
ITM: 36.6%
$Won: $7,072
Rakeback+bonuses: $3,269.47
$/hr: $90.36
Hrs played: 78.3

-Locks

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