CARDRUNNERS

I am pretty frustrated all around right now. I had a pretty bad day. It was a terrible day at work. I got stuck priting out documents, 3 hole punching them and then putting them in binders for the 2nd day in a row. I have realized I really hate the 8-5 grind in a cubicle. I don't think I can do it. After work I went out and played golf. It was my first time out this year. I really enjoyed just being out, but I SUCK. I used to be around a 5 handicap or so in high school. Today I lost at least one ball a hole until I got to the 8th hole. I did par 8 and 9, so that was nice. It's just very frustrating playing so poorly when I used to be good. It's hard to enjoy golf to its full extent when I suck. I think I might go get a lesson tomorrow. My dad has one scheduled and he said I could use his time slot. My dad is about a 6 handicap. We used to have great matches. I miss those.

Poker continued to be very hard for me. I am just not running well at all. I didn't lose much at all today (about 1 buyin), but it sure felt like a lot. I lost a pot that was 3.5. buyins on stars where I had nut flush vs two pair all in on turn. About 10 min before that my top set, which was nuts, lost allin for 2 buyin pot on UB. GUy had overpair that hit a higher set. Normally I don't let these beats get to me, but I've just had so many for about two weeks now that I am getting no where. I gotta wonder when it's going to end. Oh yea, I bubbled Aruba too. At least that bubble was due to a dumb play at the end. I pushed 62s utg 4 handed. It just felt right for some reason. I had about 10k w/ 800 blinds so i had some breathing room. The BB had K2, which, of course, was an insta call. GG muddy. I think I might take a few days off. I didn't play yesterday, but that didn't do much good. At end of session I had to quit because I started to get really tilted. It's just a buildup and that's not good. I think if I keep playing I will be staring a huge loss day in the face. Maybe I will just play some PP 5/10. I haven't played that in awhile and its very low stress.

I watched a few episodes of The Office today. That show is great. If you haven't checked it out, I really think you should. I think Steve Carrell sp? is one of the funniest guys out there today. The casting is really great in that show.

Well it's almost 1am and I have to be up at 6am. Sweet.

Cheers,

Andrew

So I just read Taylor's blog about the other night when he was in my neighborhood. I guess he got pulled over and the cop told him that it's a nice neighborhood and the people don't like people with shitty cars turning around in their driveways. Well, that reminds me of how much the cops in my area suck at life. Unfortunately, I managed to have a few runins with the law in high school (i got two underage drinking tickets). The 2nd one I got was my graduation night. We had about 10 people chilling in my friends basement. We weren't causing any trouble and we were just hanging out. A few kids were playing video games and I was jamming out on guitar with a few other kids. My friends mom called the police ot tell them we would have some cars parked in the driveway overnight (they give tickets if you don't call them). The cops came out and saw that there were empty beer cans in the recycle bin which was sitting out for the next mornings pickup. My friend's graduation party w/ family and friends had been earlier so there was obviously a lot of empty beer cans. The cops then knocked on the door and demanded entrance. My friends parents of course said no and told them to get a warrant. Warrant, who needs a warrant when you can just arrest the parents? So thats what they did, they arrested both my friends parents and then proceeded to give us all underage drinking tickets. We had hid all the beer by thne, but they made us do a breathalizer. Going back, I would have had some balls and told htem to fuck off ,but I was young and scared by the police back then. The police also had the balls to tell us that they were doing us a favor by only giving us 1 ticket (they claimed there were 2 other things they could have ticketed us for). They also then faxed mug shots ot the local news. My friends parents made the 10oclock chicago news the next day. They turned it into a pretty big deal. All of the chicago radio talk shows were talking aobut the situation. Pretty crazy.

I'm sitting at work right now trying to kill some time. There was a new episode of entourage last night which was a good episode. I love that show. I convinced my dad to let me buy HBO for the house so I could watch it. I have always wanted HBO. My family recently got digital cable wihle i was abroad, but my dad is concerned about my 10 yr brother seeing things on HBO. I told him I would password protect the channel. HBO is badass.

I've decided to hit the books per se and really reinvent my poker game. My numbers for the year are solid, but I'm not where I wanted to be in June when I set goals starting the year. I'm on pace ot make about what I made last year and I was hoping to about double what I made last year. My mtt and sng game has fallen off and when I look at my aggression factor in PT it's not where I want it to be. I look at the players that I consider the best online cash game players (ie. sting, taylor, EM2) and their aggression factor is well over 3. Mine is hovering around 2 lately and thats just not good. So, I want to work on both cash and mtt/sng. I plan on studying a lot of the videos on this site and also on PXF. I think I'll mostly play 5/10 while I work on my game.

I made it very deep in the FTP 200k yesterday. I took 23/~1100 people. I played great teh whole tourny and my hands kept holding up. I ended up losing a massive pot to bust w/ QQ vs KK. I almost sucked out too. If I had caught my flush, I think I would have been in GREAT shape to win. I also gave the hand a lot of thought and I think I should have folded QQ preflop. I had plenty of chips ot make the final table by chipping away at small pots. I should have avoided a big pot where I was gambling at all costs and I didn't. I think my tourny game is coming around, but I'm having trouble closing. I think by years end I can be one of the top mtt players on the net. That is my plan. I won't play nearly as many mtts as a lot of the players, but I just want to get solid at them again.

So I had an interesting morning. I was driving to work and while itching my nose thought I felt some nose hair coming out of my nose. I pulled down my mirror and decided to take a look. Well, this was pretty dumb considering I was in stop and go traffic. I ended up running into a guy. I was going about 2mph and figured there wouldn't be much damage. There wasn't. THe guy threw a bunch of bscenities at me and I figured we'd be on our way. We didn't make it through the light that time and now he decided he wanted my info. Fine, I gave it to him. He started to walk away and then came back and said he wanted to report this to the police. I told him to pull over so we could talk about it. I KNEW he wasn't hurt because i was going 2 mph!!! I tried to convince him to not waste an hour of our time, but he wouldnt budge and called the police. He also had the paramedics called when the policeman arrived. Both the paramedics and the police officer agreed there was no damage to either car. THe officer later told me he thought the guy was blowing this way out of proportion. The guy ended up being taken away on a stretcher. You gotta be fucking kidding me. I've been hit in fender benders before. Last year at school I got hit at a stop sign by a guy going probably 5mph. I'll admit that it did make my head whip a bit, but it wasn't a big deal. I saw that the damage to my car was minimal and was on my way that time. Well, this time it really was 2mph. My head didn't whip at all. I would equate what happend in this accident to your friend slightly nudging you from behind. I really hate how so many people in the world we live in today are always looking for a cheap way to make money or get ahead. I'm sure this guy went to the hospital so he could get insurance money. I will do whatever I can to make sure that doesn't happen. Some people just suck at life.

Besides my minor accident, yesterday was a solid day. Work wasn't too bad. I had some stuff to do, so that kept me busy. After work I went to lifetime to workout. I decided that I was going to get a personal trainer. I really want to take working out seriously this time around. First of all, I don't really know what I am doing. Second, having a trainer will motivate me. It is def a bit expensive, but I figure it is a good way to spend some of my hard earned money. I decided not to lift until I start my program with him so I just ran two miles. It always feels good to get back into running. 2 miles is about as much as I can do right now, but I plan on getting it up to 3 miles and then just running 3 miles about 4 or 5 times a week. I think that should be a pretty solid routine.

When I got home it was already pretty late and I decided to just play some mtts and relax. I had the League tourny coming up and there was the UB 100 and UB aruba satellite. I played really loose in the League tourny. I got a big stack early but lost a few coin flips and then ran top two into bottom set. NH Jac. The other two tournaments went a little better. I cruised along in the ub 100. I actually missed the first round because I was on the alternate list. When I sat down my first five hands were A10 (flopped two pair), QQ, KK, AA, AQ. I won every hand and was up to 9k in 5 min. It was smooth sailing from there on out. I ended up busting w/ 66 vs A10 at the final table. The guy w/ A10 made a terrible call in a pretty big pot. What can ya do... The aruba wasn't as smooth sailing. I had an ok stack most of the time, but I didn't get a big stack until there were about 14 left. I had about 6k in chips w/ 150-300 blinds and raised it to 825 w/ J10d. The flop came 8d9dx. The guy that called me pre had called me the hand before and I was pretty sure he'd bet if I checked to him. I checked and he bet pot. I instamoved in and he folded. About two hands later I got a free look in the BB w/ 56. The flop came 1066 and I bet out like 1/3 of the pot. I got two callers including the guy who just bluffed me a few hands earlier. The turn was a 6. I bet out about 1/2 of pot and the guy hit the bet pot button. I moved in and his 6s full of 10s was no match for my quads. I was now up to over 20k and the chip leader. When we started the final I think I was at about 25k. It didn't take long for my good luck to continue. I got dealt AA and raised. I got a reraiser and a guy pushing over the top of that. I called. One had QQ and the other had KK. My AA held and I was up to about 38k. About 5 hands later i got dealt KK and raised. I got reraised and pushed all in. The guy showed QQ, but flopped a set and won a 17k pot. Ugh. I proceeded to play poorly for about the next 30 min and bluffed my stack down to 18k. At that point I knew I had to settle down. I did for awhile. When it got 4 handed I started to raise a lot. My stack was growing from the raising, but it was clear I was starting to get out of line. I then picked up KK after raising 5 pots in a row. One of the other guys had QQ. My KK held and I was in great shape again. 3 handed Sheets gave me a ton of trouble. Everytime I had a hand, he folded, and when I didnt he raised me all in. I was not liking my chances. Thankfully I lucked out again and picked up AA to sheets KK. He raised the button to 4k and I pushed for 30k. AA held and I was up to 60k. Sheets whet out a few hands later when I raised the button, he pushed the sb and the bb called. It was sheets 88 vs his AQ. I was very very glad to see a Q river. I knew I'd have a much greater chance against the no nam ethan sheets. Going into HU I had a 2:1 lead and was feeling great about my chances. About 3 hands in the guy pots from the button and I called w/ K9. The flop was 109x and I checked. THe guy bet pot and I didn't think he had anything so I raised allin. He instacalled w/ AQ. I thought to myself, I'm finally gonna win an aruba seat here. That though quickly vanished as an A came on turn. UGH. I was now down to about 30k to his 90k. A few hands later he min raised the button and I pushed w/ AQ. He had KK. BRICK, BRICK, BRICK, BRICK, AAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCCCCEEEE. One of the prettiest rivers I've ever seen. I proceeded ot really grind him down HU. I played a lot of small pots and just outplayed him. The final hand came when he was down to 20k and the blinds were 800-1600. I pushed A9s on the button and he called w/ KK. The flop was A98xx and I won my first aruba trip. SWEET.

I think today I will play for an hour or two after work and then watch some HBO and then the NBA game. I'm hoping the heat can pull out a victory tonight. I have a $5 bet with one of my good friends that the heat will win.

Andrew

Friday I took off from work early and came home and slept. I played poker for about an hour and won about 1 buyin. After that I ended up heading to my friend Laruen's house. She has a pool so I figured we'd go swimming, but no one wanted to swim. We just sat around and drank some beers and shot the shit. It was a pretty good time, but nothing great.

Saturday was a solid day. I woke up and headed over to my friends house to watch the US vs Italy game and cookout. The game was a dissapointment. The refs were absolutely pathetic and IMO they cost the US the game. I think we looked MUCH better than the last game though. We still have a chance. I really hope that everything can fall in place so we cna move on to the 2nd round.

After the game we went to my friend Eric's house to just hang out outside. His sister was having a party and had a volleyball net up so we ended up playing volleyball all afternoon. We cooked out some more and drank some more beers. Around dusk it started to rain and we headed inside to watch the end of the Sox games and shoot some darts. Again, nothing too crazy but a solid night.

Today was fathers day so I didn't play any of the majors. I played some 10/20 early in the day and CRUSHED. I then watched the back nine of the US Open. Wha ta crazy crazy final round. I can't believe Phil drove the ball so poorly. I relaly wanted him to win.

I playe da little 5/10 tonight and got KILLED. Overall, I was up on the day, but I gave a lot back at 5/10 and I'm pretty pissed about that.

NBA game was a SICK SICK game. Wade is unreal. I can't believe the stuff that he pulls off. I have $5 on the heat and I think I might be cashing in on that. I cna't believe they have won the last 3 games. What a great NBA playoffs.

Taylor bought 4 tickets for the Radiohead concert this tuesday. We had to pay a lot more for waiting so long to buy them, but it will be worth it. Mork and Beaumont are both coming too. I like both those guys a lot so it really should be a great time. I love radiohead and I hear they are amazing in concert. I just hope I can get off work early on tuesday.

Every summer we will go golfing with all of my friends. Most of my friends almost never play golf so it's more just hanging out then anything. We always end up drinking a lot and having a good time. Actually the first time we did it we actually got in a fight by the club house. It's the only time I've ever heard of a fight breaking out on a golf course. There were 3 guys in the group in front of us who were about 25 and hammered. For some reason (i forget) we exchanged some words on the 18th tee. I think one of my friends accidently hit into them. He apologized, but the guys were jackasses so both groups starting talking shit. Well we let them hit and they got out to their ball. My other friend, who is terrible, went ahead and hit. He hit the best shot of his life and actually hit one of their carts. They screamed at us from the fairway and we yelled back, but I assumed that was all it would come to. We finished up the last hole w/ nothing happening. As everyone was cleaning out their carts 2 of the guys from the group in front of us drove in next to my buddy and hit him with a golf club. Considering we had 3 college athletes, including a boxer, with us, that was a terrible move by them. My friends started just wailing on the 3 guys. They all had bloody faces when it was done and it turns out one had to get 12 stiches on his face. I was actually in the bathroom for most of the fight and only caught the end. I'm pretty pissed I didn't see it all. Anyway, it was dumb and I was embarrassed that happend, but it makes a good story.

Back to this year...we drank a lot, but didn't cause any trouble this time. We just had a solid good time. I played pretty well for awhile, but the wheels came off as I drank more. By about the 14th hole I started playing terrible. it's okay though, I was just playing for fun anyway.

Today I am going to play a bunch of MTTs. I am especially excited for the 1k event on stars.