WSOP Report - Day 2 (Busted)

I busted out of the tournament in 30th or 31st place. It really sucks to be out of a tournament. It's one of the worst feelings I think ever. You feel stupid for playing great for two days straight, only to make one bad play and WHAM! that's it brother.

I felt like I played awesome today... brought my stack close to 70k, then dropped 9k back with a double-ended straight draw when my AJ flopped QT9 and didn't get any help. I just made a single bad play... but that's all it takes.

My bad play came with, ironically, pocket queens. I can't help thinking now how bad it was to call the all-in re-raise, especially after going on and on about how I will someday be the player who would laydown queens preflop. Not that I've never made that laydown...

This time, though, it was against a player who had always limped with aces. So when he raised utg 3.5x the BB to 4k, I put him on tens or jacks... maybe AK. Regardless, it didn't look like he wanted to see a flop. Kenna James called with a short stack, and I look down and see those beautiful ladies. I figure I'm ahead and raise to 16k. He looks like he honestly doesn't know what to do, and like he doesn't want to see a flop. He pushes in his whole stack of about 70k. Kenna calls with his short-stack and I put him on a big ace... turns out he actually had 22.

I still thought about it for a couple minutes. The ESPN camera crew gathered around, with the cameras rolling and watching what I'd do. I really thought the guy had Jacks. I finally called and he turned over KKs. The board didn't bring any help. Good game.

The worst part about being backed in a tournament rather than buying in on my own is that I feel like I let everyone down... especially getting so close to the money (they paid 18) and knowing that if I folded the queens I would have been left with 44k, which is plenty to build up. Anyway... time to call the backers. Not fun.

Thanks again to CI Host for buying the 25% stake. I'll probably sell pieces of myself in the future. Check this... read an article today about a golfer selling himself on eBay. Wonder where he got that idead?

WSOP Circuit Report - Day 1

Ok... so a pretty long and tense day at the Harrah's Rincon WSOP Circuit main event. In a lot of ways, this is the most important tournament I've ever played since it's the one that I auctioned off a significant piece of on eBay. Besides that, you should always consider the tournament you are playing to be the most important. A lot of people say that a poker player is only as good as his last tournament. I think it would be better to say a poker player is only as good as his current tournament... or current hand is even better.

My goal was to play this tournament the best I could and slip into the zone for the whole day. I wanted to end the day with over 30k in chips. To do it, I prepped by meditating a lot, using positive affirmations in the bathroom (I know looking at yourself and saying "I'm a winner and WILL win this tournament" might sound a little cheesy, but why not?), and even praying. I read the tournament section in Super System 2. I also took Howard Lederer's advice and picked up Zen in the Art of Archery. I haven't finished it, but I can see why it helped his game (he busted out, btw). It talks about how the archer must become one with the target. You can change "archer" for "poker player" and "target" with "table" and you have a good idea how it applies. Be the table. Be the cards.

I woke up pretty early... probably about 2am. Bobby and I were staying at the Commerce in Scotty's room and that's when he came up, accompanied by Grinder... one of the Mizrachi boys out of Miami that has proven himself time and time again, but most recently by taking down $1.9m at the last Commerce $10k. They started playing headsup, and I wasn't going back to bed... so Bobby and I played a few three-handed tourneys with Danny Alaei, a smart-as-hell under-25 poker pro who took 50th last year at the series. At around 6am we (Bobby, Scotty, Grinder and his family) caravanned to the Rincon casino... Scotty got to ride in Grinder's new pimp-ass RV that he bought after his recent score. The thing ran him $175k, from what I hear. He's travelling like a rockstar.

Play started at 12pm. There was an excitement in the air as the rail was filled with onlookers. Registration lines were building up... they said they expected at least 350 players. Finally a little after noon the players were told to take their seats. I drew table 10 seat 5. I sat down and concentrated as the table started to fill up with some pretty recognizable players. I usually don't like seat 5 because you have to constantly be looking back and forth, and can't watch the whole table from a comfortable corner, like seat 2 or seat 3 (my personal favorite). Here was the lineup :

Seat 1 : Jesse Martin
Seat 2 : Eric "EDUB"
Seat 3 : Charlie Sewel
Seat 4 : Dan Asbaugh (Spelling?)
Seat 5 : Me
Seat 6 : David Pham
Seat 7 : Ram Vaswani (Hendon Mob)
Seat 8 : Vinnie Napolitano
Seat 9 : David Chiu
Seat 10: Syracuse Chris

I can't remember all the hands that went down... I do remember, though, the hands where I busted David Chiu and EDUB. With David, I was in the BB with T7o and it was unraised before the pot with Charlie and Dan both in with Pham, Chiu and I. I checked. The flop came TT7. Wow. Dan checks, I check, Pham checks, and Charlie raised to 700 (I think the blinds were 50-100 at this point, so there was about 500 in the pot). Dan folds. I think about how I'd play 89o and just call. Pham folds. Chiu raises all-in. Bingo. Charlie decides to fold and I turn over the nuts. He has KT, so he's got outs... but they don't come and he smiles and shakes his head. I have a lot of respect for players who can lose with class.

With Eric, it was a little embarassing. Jesse Martin had been raising a lot that round, and the third time he raised to 700 (blinds at 100-200), I decided I was going to reraise him no matter what. Eric beat me to it, firing 2100 into the pot. He had about 5000 left, which I decided was enough for him to fold if I tried a re-reraise. So I put in 6k after checking my holecards : 94o. Ugly. Everyone folds to Jesse Martin who hims and haws a bit, before laying down. I figured him for AK, so the chances of Eric having a hand he could call with were bad. He thinks for awhile, and finally mutters something about "having to call" (readers please remember that in tournaments you never HAVE to do anything) and puts in his last chips with pocket Queens. I really didn't think he'd call with anything less than KKs, but he did and he was right to do it I guess. I felt it, though, and when the flop came 9 high somehow I knew the 4 was coming. It came on the turn and Eric was out, cursing and criticizing the play. It was about a 12k pot, and I had about 18k at the time, so it would have set me back to around 12k if I lost. Sometimes, though, I really believe that you can will a certain card to come.

I also remember two hands I played against Charlie Sewel. Both times I had QQs. The first time he raised preflop and I just called. I was thinking of folding, and I hope someday to be the kind of player that can just fold there and be done with it. But I called hoping to hit a set. The flop came ten high... he bet, I raised, he reraised and I folded. I showed him the QQs and he did me the favor of showing me the KKs. The second time I had QQs again in late position and he just limped. I raised. He considered folding but I think I talked him into the call. The flop came JT9 rainbow. He bet 1000 and I just called. Turn was an A. He bet 1000 again and I called. River was a 2. He bet 2000. I called and he shows a ten. I take the pot. I was really proud of how I played these hands... even though again I hope to be the kind of player one day who would have folded preflop with the QQs. It's hard to lay down an overpair. Harder still to call a significant bet with only an underpair.

Anyway, I'm not going to make this too long. At the end of the day, the only two remaining original players were me and Jesse Martin. Horalabos replaced Edub and got knocked out (after needling Jesse for taking too long, and asking to see a couple hands that were mucked at the showdown by some loose players... I really hate that because it causes a loose player to tighten up). Kenna replaced David Pham. Joe Bever, another Hendon mobster, replaced Syracuse Chris and got knocked out. Mike Caro replaced Horalabos. Chad Lane replaced Dan A. Mel Judah replaced Chad Lane. David Oppenheimer (spelling?) replaced Joe Bever. I finished the day with 33,575 in chips. Right on track with my goal. The tourney had a somewhat disappointing 209 players... which actually isn't too bad at all, since the top 20 get to go to the Tournament of Champions $2m freeroll. With fewer players it'll be easier to make one of those spots. But first place is only $650k, which means I'm feerolling for only about $75k.

Going to try and get some sleep now, but first will probably grab a bite to eat and watch a movie with Scotty (who busted out before the dinner break). My goal tomorrow is to make Day 3. I don't have any set goal as far as chips. As long as I have more than 15k I can work the short stack up. But I'm going to try to slip into the zone again and win this tournament. I like my chances. I just keep repeating... get in the zone... get in the zone... be the table... be the cards.

Thanks again to all the backers that have made this possible. I got Bobby a media pass for tomorrow and he's going to take some pictures. I'll try to see if I can't post some of them on here. Wish me luck tomorrow, and I wish you all the best.

San Diego Rincon

Getting mentally psyched for this tournament. It starts in 7 hours. I had an awesome weekend chilling at the Commerce with Scotty, Bobby, and a few friends. Yesterday morning, Scott was doing a shoot for a poker DVD. He invited me to come down and watch, and I ended up sitting with him in front of the cameras for a couple hours and talking about poker. We gave up a bunch of crew "secrets"... we've had arguments before about how much of the systems we've developed we should share. I'm inclined to open the books on how we play. I don't think just knowing how to do something is enough... you have to be able to pull the system off, too. That's why it doesn't matter how many times you read Super System, you're still not going to be able to play like Doyle Brunson. Back to the point, we're all driving to San Diego in about a half hour...

Anyway, I figured out how to give live updates of my chip count using my phone... so I'm going to be trying to do that all day on the breaks. I'll also be calling every backer at the dinner break (assuming I get that far) and letting them know where I'm at. Cross your fingers and wish me luck... and if you're religious, maybe you could say a little prayer for me.

Tying it up for the weekend...

Woke up pretty eary this morning to go down to the clinic for some appointments. Spent 4 hours waiting and filling out paperwork, but finally came out to do some work. Made a lot of calls and shot some emails out... it's tough catching up, but I'm making ground.

I'm really looking forward to this tournament on Sunday. It's the $10k WSOP Circuit event that I auctioned on eBay. I'm only playing for around 15% (have to nail down a few 1% winners...), but if you consider that it's like freerolling in a $1500 event, it doesn't sound bad at all. I've been thinking about my game, and more than that my mental state at the table, for a couple months now. Pretty much took it easy after the WSOP last year. I really feel I'm going to be approaching this tournament the right way... and then it's into the zone.

Also really looking forward to chilling with Scotty and Beth Fischman. Scott's having a hell of a year. Three final tables already. I have a dream of him and I both making the final table in the event.

Going to try and start some of the books I bought. I'll let you all know what I think of them as I go. I'll probably eventually put some book reviews up on PokerTells.com.

Prepping

I did two things today to prepare for the San Diego tourney this Sunday. First, I went and got some new specs at LensCrafters. It kind of felt like that scene in Color of Money when Paul Newman is at the eye doctor. Second, I picked up a few poker books : Super System II,
Zen and the Art of Poker, and The Tao of Pooh (which someone emailed me about earlier today). Going to try to get them all read before the tourney this weekend.

I've been in touch with some most of the backers and got the payment. Still have a few to solidify before Sunday. It's more work than I thought to juggle more than ten backers for a single event. I really feel like I'm in a good place to play this right now, though. I've been focusing 100% on this thing and I'm really hoping for good results. In a lot of ways it's the most important tournament I've ever played.

I got a lot of supportive emails about my last post. Thank you.

My mom sent this audio clip to me that I thought I'd share. It's worth a listen because it's funny as hell.

Voicemail Power

Worst Week Ever

This has been perhaps the worst week in my entire life. A lot of you know that I have bi-polar disorder. Last week I was going through a slight manic episode, and on Wednesday my brother, my girlfriend, and my doctor and I all decided that it was time to get some hospitalization. Mental hospitals are not fun. I finally got out today and my girlfriend decided to call it quits.

So yeah... I don't even know where to begin. Gianna was the coolest girlfriend I've ever had. I'll still be seeing a lot of her because we work together on this Intervault project. We'll try to be civil, and I don't think it's going to be hard to remain friends. It really sucks, though, to spend a year and a half with someone and have the relationship disappear. It's going to be a very long time before my heart heals.

The one good thing I can see coming out of it is that I'll probably do a lot better at the WSOP this year, as not having a girlfriend is going to give me a lot of time to train. I'm going to approach it like I did in 2003. We're going Rocky-style all the way. It's my goal to win the main event, and watching Dan Harrington and Marcel both do so well two years running makes me think it's not the crapshoot that everyone says it is. It's all about getting into the zone and staying there for a week straight. I can do it. I HAVE done it. I will do it again this year.

I also disabled comments. I'm tired of assholes like Neal Ross ripping on my life. I'll still get comments, but they won't be displayed. So Neal... you can go back to RGP with your negativity. Maybe I'll see you in San Diego, but I seriously doubt it.

This is where I'd probably usually put up a quirky little picture, but I'm honestly not feeling it right now. Time to focus on business and poker and hope the rest falls into place.

Back to business...

So woke up today and had a little drama at home, so Bobby and I had a little "boys day out". We hit the office for a few minutes to see if our wireless internet was back up... it went down last night at home and we thought maybe we'd have better luck at the office. Nope. It's down. One of the detriments of living out in the country (with cows) is that internet connections are shoddy and unreliable. Definitely looking forward to the future when you can just pull out your portable laptop and connect instantly anywhere in the solar system.

Afterwards we hit the cardroom in Fresno... Club One. We figured they probably would have a nooner on Sunday, and sure enough... $19 got us into a pretty crazy and cool limit holdem tournament. The structure was SO bad. At one point I think I was the chip leader with about 50k in tourney chips when the TD announced the 12 minute round was up and the blinds were increasing again... from 2k-4k to 5k-10k. Six hands later and we're at 10k-20k. I mean it was SO sick. I still managed to make it to the final table and then get knocked out tenth. I'd love to see poker become really huge in Fresno, but I don't see it happening at Club One unless they change a lot of things about their tournaments. Cardrooms need to stop looking at tournaments as just a way to get the customers in for the live games. They're trying out a big $330 buy-in tourney on either March 5th or 6th (can't remember which), and the TD tells me that the structure is going to be great. We'll see. Hopefully I'll be in town because I really like playing with and meeting people here in Fresno.

Speaking of cows, by the way... someone asked me why I put the pic of the cow at the end of my post. The reason is because we have four young cows in our front yard... we also have a dog named Lucky who likes to run the cows. He chases them and makes them do laps around their little area. It's funny as hell to watch... they all run and they're in this little cluster pushing their faces up against the asses of the other cows... it's awesome.

Big shout out to everybody Gianna and I met and hung with in Copenhagen. Brad, Joe Plummer and his dad, ZeeJustin, John Gale, Duthie, Jessie May and his very talented wife (she takes the photos at the major tourneys), Marcel Luske, and of course Noah Boeken. Man, you all watch. Noah is quite possibly the best player under 30 in the world. A lot of people probably credit it to Marcel, but the truth is Noah is a genius games player and was long before he ever got into poker. When he won the tournament out there in Copenhagen, I couldn't have been happier (unless it was me or G). I checked right away to see if NoahBoeken.com was registered, and it wasn't... so I picked it up for $7 and I'm going to try to sell it to him for a profit. I'm thinking $14. I know that a 100% markup might seem a little steep, but he can afford it now. Lol... just kidding Noah. (BTW - I think everybody needs a website to at least let people know how to get in touch with them... especially people who are in the spotlight. I checked out both of the stars of the Word Wars doc and neither of them have websites... I really wonder how many opportunities would be opening up for them if they did.)

Shot some phone calls off but am having trouble with internet, so the emails are going to have wait until tomorrow. For everybody who's bid and won a percentage of me in eBay: now that I'm back in town I'm going to try and get on the horn with all of you and set everything up. So if you haven't heard from me for awhile, expect a communication tomorrow or Tuesday. And speaking of eBay, there are only about 7 hours left for my 25% auction. It's got a bid, so it WILL sell... click here to check it out.

Read a post that Paul Phillips made about me where he says that I'm not totally irredeemable. Thanks Paul... if I ever redeem myself we'll have to play some Scrabble sometime... speaking of people who think I'm a POS, I had a pretty lame interaction with Greg Raymer at the Copenhagen tournament. I'll tell you all about it in another post. Suffice it to say that there are plenty of people out there who don't like me that I like, respect, and sometimes even admire. Greg Raymer isn't on that list... he's a great player I'm sure, but personality-wise I pretty much think he's an ass. I'll go even one step further than that and say that I don't believe that Greg is happy with life, I definitely don't believe his WIFE is happy with life, and I don't think that he's a very esteemable person in real life. Like I said, I could be wrong.

Anyway, Phillips pointed to an old blog I used to keep, so I figured I'd link to it here as well. It's VERY old... and yes, there are some things on there that I'm not that proud of... but it's who I was and if you're reading this then maybe you're interested. Here's the link.

Finally... an old friend of mine named Jimmy sent me some info about Toby. Please check it out.


Save Toby!

ps - I've been rereading a lot of Chuck Pahluhniuk and Steven King lately... kind of getting bored. If anybody has a good book to recco, feel free to post a comment. Cheers.

Back in the 'no

After a 12 hour flight from Amsterdam to Philly, an hour in customs, a 6 hour flight from Philly to Vegas, a brief stop chilling with Beth Fischman (Scott's sister and our Crew manager), and then a 7 hour drive I am...

Back in Fresno!

I have a bunch of emails to catch up with... about two weeks worth. And I was behind before I left. But I think if I put in a bunch of hours this weekend I'll get caught up.

Thought of a bunch of things on the planeride back. I left my laptop plugin here in the states, and really wish that I'd have brought it so I could have whipped out some poker essays. I'm still going to try and whip some out pretty soon, so keep checking back.

Also watched a cool documentary last night called Word Wars, which is a view on the Scrabble tournament circuit. It was so crazy good. The highlight had to be two players named Marlon Hill and Matt Graham. They remind me so much of some of the poker players I know. Matt Graham sometimes reminded so much of Phil Laak they could be twins. If history was a little different, the poker tournament trail would be a lot like the Scrabble tourney trail. Maybe Scrabble will make it pretty big one day... I hope so because I love the game. Not that great, but have put up some low 500 scores before. Fresno has a scrabble club... maybe I'll drop by one day.

I relisted the 25% auction for the WSOP Circuit event later this month, and it now has a bid. So it will be selling. Check it out by clicking on the link up above.

Anyway, hope you're all doing well. Now that I'm back, I'll be better at answering emails and what not.

Slumming in Amsterdam

I'm at an Internet cafe in Amsterdam... not too much time left, so I'm going to try to burn through a couple of things.

#1 - Copenhagen

Gianna didn't end up cashing in the tournament. After the dinner break, she played hard. She outlasted a lot of greats like Gus Hansen. Then about 10:30 or so, she pushed all-in with AJo and got called with KQo. The flop came an ace, but the turn brough a King and the river brought a really ugly Queen. It was horrible. She really took it well, though. Back in our room she just said what I think is about the truest way of describing that sick feeling that only happens when you get knocked out of a tournament. "I feel like it didn't happen... I feel like I'm still sitting there playing and it didn't really happen."

So after collecting ourself a bit, we decided to go out and explore the Copenhagen night. We asked around and found a cool place to hang. Christiania. It's an old military base that was converted into a hippy compound in the late seventies. Some sort of crazy sociological experiment. It's right downtown in the center of Copenhagen, but you'd think you walked out of a time machine into the center of Haight and Ashbury when the flower children ruled. It's a pretty crazy atmosphere because the police have started cracking down on the area. What was even just a few months ago very free, with Danish hippies selling hash and weed openly on the streets, now has an air of repression. The police have been raiding, they tell us. Every night around 12:30am. Some of the people seemed sad, like they knew they were living in a time and place that was quickly disappearing. Others acted like things would be back to normal after the upcoming elections... but asking around, it doesn't seem like Christiania is going to go back to what it was. It's still a cool dig though, and probably the one place I felt really comfortable in all of Copenhagen.

#2 - Amsterdam

So we almost didn't make it here. There was a problem with the ticket and they were going to keep us in Copenhagen until the 10th when we'd fly back to Vegas and then on back to Fresno. But Gianna begged the airlines to cut us a break, and they did. So we were on a plane on Monday (1/31) back to Amsterdam to spend a week chilling and slumming near the red light district.

Amsterdam is a crazy place. Right when you get out of the central station, there's the smell of weed and hash greeting anybody from the coffeeshops, where they sell it legally. You can pretty much find a coffeeshop within two blocks of anywhere downtown that has about 5 to 10 different strains of weed, scales setup, even a microscope so you examine the goods. Standard prices are about ten dollars for a gram. I don't condone illegal drug use. It's nice, though, to smoke a joint right across the street from a police station and not have to worry about getting hassled.

We lost the first few days in a kind of haze. Then the other day we chilled out with Noah "Exclusive" Boeken. He was on a big high because he ended up winning the Copenhagen EPT that Gianna played in. He got it headsup against Ram Vaswani and took two hours to take the Hendon Mobster down... but he got the job done. Nice going Noah.

We chilled at his flat for a bit, which is a really cool place overlooking a square in Amsterdam. Then we met up with his roomate Justin, his roomate's girlfriend, and another Justin (ZeeJustin from pokerstars out of DC). The plan was to hit a coffeeshop and then go see The Incredibles. But the movie was only showing in amsterspeak, so we skipped it and ended up just chilling at his pad and playing Chinese Poker and another game he taught us called Toi Tee Tai (or something along those lines).

#3 - Five minutes left on the internet clock, so I'm cutting it short. For everyone who's emailed, sorry that I've been out of touch. It's going to continue until I get back to business as usual next week. But shoot me an email and I'll make sure to get to them when I'm back in the states and they aren't charging me to connect. It's pretty easy to get homesick when you're paying five euros for an hour of internet access.