CARDRUNNERS

I'm gonna rant a bit now so bear with me. I've been doing some thinking today (I'll to why later) and I think I've come to realize something important. I'm gonna rant a bit now so bear with me. I don't think I'm reaching my potential in life. Don't get me wrong, I've accomplish a lot and I'm really happy with what I've done, but I think I could do better. I'll start with school as an example. I do pretty decent, but I could definitely do better. It's not even that I don't spend enough time (i don't). I don't put a ton of time towards school but thats because I value having fun more than a few extra percentage points. Its that the time I do spend isn't spent well. I tend to half ass the studying I do. I feel like I could probably be 100% more efiecient if I put in my best effort. This brings me to poker. Half the time I just don't play my A game. I know I'm not playin gmy A game, but I play anyway. I should just not play when I'm not playing my best. My time would be much better spent and I would have less stress. This brings me to the reason I started thinking about this. Yesterday I tilted pretty bad and lost about 7 buyins. I lose 5+ buyins way way too much. If I could cut out those really bad sessions, I would be winning much more money. My job is the same way. I do an okay job, but I could be doing better. I am going to be there anyway, I might as well bust my ass and do the best I can. I am really going to focus on putting forth a better effort in everything I do.

I think its important to ask yourself if you are always playing your A game. Be really honest with yourself. I've been asking myself this question for awhile, but I always either convince myself that I am or ignore what I know is true. If I really want to become the player that I envision I can be, I need to really live up to the statement that I will play my A game all the time or I won' tplay at all.

Sorry for the rant. I didn't really have anything else to talk about and I wanted to get that in writing for myself.

I've left Vegas and am now in a hotel in Atlanta. I am here until Thursday afternoon to work on auditing a company called Amvescap. Thursday will be my last day of work, so I am pumped for that.

So when I left off yesterday I was leaving for lunch with Taylor, Gaucho, Steam Boat, Melissa and also Whitelime from 2p2 showed up. We ate at a deli in the Rio and decided to go our own ways after lunch. I decided I didn't have time to play live because we were meeting with Bill before the CR dinner to go over some stuff. Ryan (steam boat) and I went back to his hotel room to just chill for a little bit. At first I was going to take a nap, but since I'm a degenerate, I decided to play some online poker instead. The only place that had any reasonable games was party. I also wanted to stick to party or stars so that I could use the resizable table option. My laptop only lets me play 4 w/o overlap and I was hoping to play 6. Luckily, the games were really good on party and I had a great session. I picked up about 4.5 buyins. It was nice to finally get a good session in online.

The CR dinner went great. It was cool to meet Cardrunners members face to face. The food was good and we all had a few drinks. Bill took some pictures, so make sure ot check them out (not sure where they will be yet). After dinner we were debating what to do next. Gaucho really wanted to go to the Ghost Bar at the Palms. It sounded pretty cool and I wanted to go as well, but we decided that I wouldn't be able to get in. Also, I wasn't dressed appropriately to get in anyway. We decided instead to go to the Venetian to play some poker. I ran into Jsup, JohnnyDrama and Used2beGood there. They were all in Aruba last year and we all hung out a lot there, so it was cool to see them. I got into the 5/10nl game and sat with about 3k. The game was full of nits. I played for 1.5 hours and I didn't see a single pot over $250 (i'm not exaggerating).

David (gaucho), who was playing 5/10nl at a different table, came over and told me that a bunch of 2p2 guys were coming out to play a 1/2nlhe and 1/2plo uncapped game. That sounded good and since I was bored out of my mind at 5/10nl, I decided to join that game. About two hands in David and I got into a bit pot. I don't remember if he raised first or if someone else did but someone I got $130 in preflop w/ 1/2 blinds and he called. I had AQo and the flop came down K10x. I bet out $240 and he called. The turn was a blank and I bet $420. He called again. I wasn't liking this. The river came 10. I thought for awhile and decided that I didn't want to give up. I wanted to bet an amount that looked like a value bet that would get him off a king w/ a reasonable kicker (thats what i put him on at this point). I bet $780. He thought forver adn folded. phew. A few minutes later the floorman came over and told us wed either have to switch to 5/10nl uncapped or 2/5nl capped at 1k. We went too happy about that, but we didn't have a choice and we went with the latter. I pretty much just slowly lost money the rest of the night. I lost a 1k pot to whitelime where I reraised 23s and pushed a KJ10 flop. He had AA and called. Dumb play by me. BLdsWttrs was plyaing and was sitting two to my left. It was fun to get to meet him. Suprisingly, a lot of the people at the table were playing pretty tight, but me and him splashed around quite a bit. A few of teh other 2p2ers there were Neon (bedeviling on UB), fsuplayer and flawless victory. There were a couple others, but their 2p2 names are escaping me at the moment (although I do remember their first names!). I left the game stuck about 1k and hating live poker. It's just too slow for me. I think I am pretty much done playing live cash games. I have a pisspoor record and I never have any fun. The only thing I can really see myself playing is some small stakes with heavy drinking involved. Losing 1k live stings.

That pretty much sums up my trip in Vegas. I wish I had more time there as it was a very very quick trip.

Time to get back to the grind of a long day of work with hopefully some poker and cr stuff mixed in. Come friday I will be able to replace work with a round of golf and some additional relaxing time. I cannot wait.

I pretty much wasted all day today playing mtts and some sngs. I lost about $1500. MTTs really frustrate me because most of the time you are just wasting several hours and getting nothing in return. Also, if you misplay one hand you are done. I find it very hard to not misplay a hand for several hours.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?474755
Strange hand. I'm not entirely sure why I min raised the turn.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?474792
This was a pretty interesting tournament hand. I knew the button had a wide range so I decided to squeeze with a reasonable hand. To my surprise the limper called me. However, I had played some hands with him and knew he was a calling station so I wasn't entirely surprised. I made a standard bet on the flop hoping to just take it down there. He called. Now I really have no idea what he might have. The only hand I can see him having that beats me is either 88 or 99 or maybe AQ. It def seems like he would have raised any of those hands though since he ws in late position. With the turn card of a 9 I can pretty much rule out 99. It also gives me some outs if I'm up against 88. However, I want to see how he acts before I make any decisions. I checked and he bet 1/2 the pot. I found it interesting that he left 1k behind him. I decided that he was bluffing (with god knows what) and that he left the 1k incase he gets caught. I made a value push with the KQ and actually just took it down right there.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?474951
This was how I got busted out of a $500 sng. Sure looks like something that would happen in a $5 sng.

Today: -1574.50
Overall: +73018.08

1518.08 AHEAD of pace

Taylor just wrote a long blog that sums up this week pretty good. I'd recommend checking that out if you want to know more about what we've been up to.

This year has been awesome. I definitely agree with Taylor that this year has been better than last year. I think mostly because this year we have friends from last year to hang out with and we don't have to meet all new people. Also, we have a few new people this year that have been hanging out with us that are really cool. One person we met this year is Jeneene Deeb. She's our age and shes really cool. We also have been hanging out with Amanda from pokerwire.com. She's also a lot of fun to be around. I gotta say that it's nice to have a few girls around. Last year it was always all guys and that gets a little old. We've also met some cool cardrunners guys and had some drinks with them.

I've played two sessions of poker and I'm up about 1500 or some from them. THe first one I played drunk 1/2nl and pretty much donked around. The second session I played 5/5nl and ran really well. Mkind caught the bad end of a couple of hands vs me. One hand we got allin preflop with his aces vs my jacks. I sucked out on the river. I didn't feel too bad though because he slowrolled me preflop. I also flopped a set against him that turned into a boat by the river. He had flopped a flush and just called all the way. Other than those two hands I didn't have any other really notable hands.

Tomorrow the tourny stars. I'm pretty excited and I feel good about my chances. I do have some HW to get done for school that I'm not sure when I will complete. I'll figure something out though. I'll make a post tomorrow with how I did.

I got killed again yesterday. I had a typically muddy tilt session. My tilt sessions occur far too frequently lately. It's something I really need to fix. I used to be so good at not tilting. I'm not really sure what has happened. I think part of the problem is playing too many tables. I start to just bleed money and I call off way too much.

How am I going to fix? I am going back to the basics. I am going to play 4-6 tables of 5/10 and just grind out profits. I think that playing 8 tables was okay on party with the scripts, but it's pretty difficult anywhere else when you need to type betting amounts in. Therefore, 6 is the most I'm gonna let myself play. Back when I beat ub for 10bb/100 I used to play 4 tables. That sounds fine with me for now. I just want to fix these gapping leaks in my game and get back into the black for the month. The 5/10 game on UB plays so easy that it shouldn't be a problem. After dropping 12k or so last night at 10/25 I picked up 3k today at 5/10.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?554777
Ah. The ole 95s utg raise followed by calling a 3 bet. Excellent poker. I of course was a bit worried about AK or a set. The hand was standard until the turn. I checked because I wasn't so sure where I was at and I wanted to see how he would react. He almost instantly bet pot. His bet was so quick that I ruled out a set. I was thinking he might have Ak, but my gut told me I was good.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?554797
I guess he put me on JJ. I dont know.

I've got a barndance tonight. It's a thing that the frats and sororities do down here. Basically, you dress up like a farmer and then go to a farm that we rent out to drink a lot of beer. It's going to be like 30 degrees tonight, so it should be interesting. Unfortunately, I suck and I couldn't find a date. I asked several girls and none of them could go. I ended up just asking one of my good friends to go since one her friends is going with another guy in my house. I'd rather not go with a girl that has a boyfriend, but it will be a lot of fun regardless. I tried to get two people to find me a random date I didn't know, but they didn't come up with any good solutions. It was down to asking a girl with a boyfriend or a girl thats "cool, but not that hot." I went with the girl I'd know I'd have a good time with. I'll try to take some pics to put up in my next post.

I love Christmas. I hope everyone has a great Christmas or whatever other holiday you celebrate this time of year. This truly is the greatest time of the year in my opinion. However, I'm pretty disapointed in the weather this year. I'd like for it to be cold and snowy. It's been like 40 degrees everyday lately. Oh well, worse things could happen. I'm with my family now in Michigan. We are in Detroit until the 26th and then we'll go up to our vacation house in the northern part of lower michigan. I'll be there until the 30th. My family is staying up north until the 2nd, but I wanted to be in Chicago for New Year's, so I'm flying home on the 30th.

We had "our" christmas yesterday. We decided to open our presents at home before we came to Michigan. In the past, we always celebrated christmas morning at my grandpa's, but he passed over a year ago and we have sold his house. Therefore, we are staying at my aunt's house. I didn't ask for much this year. I mostly wanted a leather coat and I knew that would pretty much take up all my gifts. That was ok with me. The coat I got is nice. I'm deciding if I'm going ot keep it or exchange it for another one. I'm gonna try it out the next few days and see if I like the look. I also got the new Nas cd. It's great. The new DMX cd isn't as good as I'd hoped.

Bears won today, but looked awfully shitty. They looked bad last week too. I hope they can get it together. If they go to the super bowl, Taylor and I are going to go.

Over the next few days, I'm going to come up with some new year's resolutions. I can tell you my first resolution is to actually stick with my resolutions I come up with this year. I'm usually pretty bad about that. I feel like New Year's is a great chance to make some improvements in your life. I really am working on thing like working out more, reading more, etc, so I'm going to include those in my resolutions and actually stick with them. I know another thing I'm going to focus on is playing a lot less poker in the next 5 months. I only have one semester left of school and therefore, I just don't want to be playing poker. Anyway, I'm going to make some more specific goals. I'll share them with you come New Year's.

We've had two consectutive snow days. I guess U of I hasn't had even one snow day since 1979. They really had no choice but to cancel school. We got well over a foot of snow the last two days and there has been a lot of drifting. It basically snowed from 9pm Monday night until sometime last night. I think it might have even been snowing when we came home from the bars.

It was a good time to get a snow day. We have a lot of stuff to iron out with Brian having just come on. I think we had a our longest Cardrunners conference call ever yesterday. I think Brian will bring added responsibility to Taylor and myself and we will get more accomplished with him on the team. I also pounded through the first 3 episodes of The Wire season 3. I was going to wait on starting the season, but I just couldn't with one and possibly two snow days staring me in the face. So far, I'm not too impressed with the season. However, all of the seasons have started slow. I'm sure it will pick up soon. It definitely has a ton of potential and everyone says its the best...

My mom is adopted and my dad has a lot of mix in his heritage. Therefore, I've never really been able to say what my heritage is. I met a guy from sweden at the bar last night who looks a hell of a lot like me. I guess I got some swedish in my blood.

Here are some pics:

View out my front door.


View on way to bars.


My swedish twin.

I "graduated" on Saturday. I put that in parentheses because I still have one online class that I need to finish. That's not a very big deal though and I'll get it done soon. Anyway, I walked and it was a pretty good experience. I can't believe that college is finally done. It was weird leaving the campus knowing that I would never come back as a student.

Here is a pic with me and my good buddy Manzo.


I've been pretty busy since I got home. I got back to my house Saturday night and went to bed soon after. Sunday I had a long day. We got up and went to church and then drove downtown to meet up with some family friends to have brunch. Interestingly enough, the girl that chose where to eat chose the pub that I went to for New Year's Eve. I got a kick out of that and it brought back some good memories. After that I came home and watched the Bulls look good, the Tigers get crushed and Golden State play tired ball. Monday we headed downtown to look for apartments. We found a great place that is about 2-3 blocks from Wrigley stadium. It's a four bedroom apartment and it's really nice. I'm living with three of my long time friends from high school. It's gonna be a blast living there. Our lease starts July 1, so I'll move in as soon I get home from Vegas. I didn't take any pictures of the inside, but here is the outside of it. We have the main floor and the basement.


I haven't commented on Sopranos/Entourage for awhile. I think this season of Sopranos has been very good. I've liked every episode and I like where it is going. After fairly disappointing 4, 5, 6 seasons I didn't expect much. I'm really glad they are delivering.

As far as Entourage, it's not as good as years past. I even think that since season 2 it has gotten worse each season. It's still a funny show that is worth watching. I just wish they wouldn't try so hard to input a story line and instead would show more of the guys balling and hooking up with hot chicks. That's why everyone likes the show, isn't it?

Strange note: My brother decided as a way to make money he would buy these exotic frogs and sell them. He also decided that my bedroom would be a good place to put the massively large aquarium. I have this huge aquarium with three big ass frogs in it. As I was typing out this blog I looked up only to see one of the frogs eat a cricket. Pretty cool. The only problem was that the crickets in there were making noise the entire last night and they made it hard to sleep. Oh well.

I would take a picture of the tank but my camera is broken at the moment. I dropped it at a bar one of my last nights in champaign. I've dropped it many times before but this time it basically landed on the lens and now it won't work anymore.