Apparently Thanksgiving is almost here

Until a couple of days ago I was pretty much aloof to the fact that Thanksgiving is 3 days away?!?! I guess with everything that has went on in the past 2 months, regarding moving across the country and all the life changes Thanksgiving just slipped my mind. It's also very hard to realize what holidays are approaching due to the weather always being nice. It's always 60-70 out therefore its basically spring/fall to me. A close friend has invited me to his place with his wife and her parents for Thanksgiving dinner. It will be nice to be with a "family" on Thanksgiving and sort of take a break from the whirlwind that has been the past 2 months.

I have been grinding out alot of hands the past week or so and really trying to get back into the groove. It's almost as if I have lost the grinding mentality with all that has gone on. Now with things settling down my mind is clearer and I can start to focus back on poker. I played a nice 9 hour 12k hand sesh last Friday night as I started around midnight and got stuck a decent amount and decided to grind through till I was positive. I eventually went to bed around 12:30 pm on Saturday for a few hours and since then my sleep schedule has been messed up. I liked grinding through all night though as I havent done that much in the past few months and sort of proved to myself that I can and should more often. I think it's good to push yourself from time to time to challenge yourself.

I have been fairly happy with my play the last few days as I have been playing more 6 max and crushing it. It's interesting how 6 max forces me to be more aggressive, which in turn makes me play better. I think it's just the mentality that full ring is much nittier (tighter) and therefore a more passive game in general. I'm thinking of starting to really mix my play up to maybe 60/40 or 75/25 towards 6 max over the next month or so and see how I like it, closing out my first year playing for a living.

It is crazy to think I have been playing for almost a whole year after taking the leap. It's equally mind blowing to think how far I've come as a person, as well as poker playing within this year. I never would have imagined a year ago that I would be living in San Diego with another poker player and being moderately successful at my dream job. It's such a gratifying feeling to see and be allowed to do some of the things I've done due to poker. It's funny to think about the past year of my life and how I would not be where I am at today had I stayed in some of the relationships I was in as well as continued to go with the flow and continue with the insurance gig.

A couple relationships over the past year and a half have been very eye opening and have helped me a lot with life. There are two relationships in particular that affected my life tremendously pre/post break up and I am happy to be able to look back and take away the valuable life lessons that I learned in both of those. It's kind of funny to think when you are in those moments/relationships that that person may be "The one" or "A one", if you will, and in retrospect realize that the person you thought so highly of was actually cancerous to your life happiness and development. Overall, I hold no grudges and people will be themselves and pretend to be someone they are not. I am, as I have always and will hope to continue to be an honest person always doing what I think is right, even if it doesn't seem like the right thing to those looking in.

I am finally within 2 days of the 2k milestone. This fing thing has been the bane of my existence over the past month, it seems and I am almost finally there. I have a staking/coaching deal in the works for a higher limit with a good small/mid stakes player and I'm really looking forward to that as my first year closes and a new year approaches.

Again, I am finally at a very happy place in my life with everything seemingly coming together at once with this move to San Diego. I'm really looking forward to the next 6 months with Joey, San Diego and everything else that comes my way. Life is just great!!

Sprained ankle, stripper friend and some poker

I've played some poker this month ~17 hours or so through the first 9 days. I haven't been in the mood to grind that much. I have been playing shorter sessions and booking 2-3 wins a day. I want to get back into the grind and play 4-5 sessions a day because......money is a wonderful thing. Im now just over 10k vpps away from the $2k bonus and basically given up on the $3k bonus for this year. Im hoping to get that bonus this week and be able to finish buying things for the apartment.

I am finally starting to get settled in and not feel so overwhelmed. The past few weeks have just felt rushed with getting settled in and being unfamiliar with the area. As I was driving home last night, from the 2 story Target down the street, I breathed a sigh of relief of sorts as I am finally feeling less rushed and more settled in.

I sprained my ankle late last week after helping move the remainder of Joeys things in. I could barely walk the day after but things have gotten much better after days of icing, elevating and resting. Gotta love the fact that I can sit at my desk, prop up my ankle and be somewhat more productive at work.

We have met a few of our neighbors so far and one of them is a girl in the taking clothes off profession. She is really nice and I have been friendly yet somewhat reluctant to really get to know this girl but it has been interesting to say the least. It's cool to learn about that lifestyle as Ive never really thought much about it.

Phil Ivey & the November 9

A little look inside Phil Ivey's life thanks to the newest ESPN E60.

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4620789

The piece is pretty good and gives some insight into the mysterious world that Mr. Ivey lives in and we all love to follow.

Television finally played all the way up to the final table World Series Main Event last night. These are the chip counts and players:

Darvin Moon - 58,930,000
James Akenhead - 6,800,000
Phil Ivey - 9,765,000
Kevin Schaffel - 12,390,000
Steven Begleiter - 29,885,000
Eric Buchman - 34,800,000
Joe Cada - 13,215,000
Antoine Saout - 9,500,000
Jeff Shulman - 19,580,000


Darvin Moon-fish. The hand with Billy Kopp where he check/calls the flopped Q high flush, then check raises the paired board turn and calls Kopp's shove is terrible by both players but just as bad by Darvin imo. This hand basically proved to me that he is your standard regular fish player who is not capable of laying down what he perceives to be the nuts without considering his opponents hand range in that spot. "I has a flush.....im allllllllllliiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!" Also its pretty easy to get AA/KK/88 at the perfect times and bust guys or double up every single time. I will give him credit for at least acknowledging the fact that he knows hes running good and is not a professional caliber player. I do dislike the fact that he said he would not get a coach nor wear any sponsorship patches for the final table. Apparently he really hates free money. He said something along the line of "I made it this far without a coach, Im just gonna keep playin my game." If you recognize that you are not as good as the other players then why not spend a few thousand to get coaching to maybe get a little bit of an edge???? I understand he is a simple man with very simple needs in life but don't be the arrogant old man and think you don't need help because "its not broke so dont fix it". Darvin if you run normal you will get crushed by these guys and will exitjust like Dennis Philips per last years final table.

James Akenhead-European tourney pro with success who is backed, seems like a legit player

Phil Ivey-best poker player alive. For Ivey to win would be wonderful for poker all around.

Kevin Schaffel-Part time tourney donk who kinda knows what hes doing....I've heard/read some interviews you can just tell by the way he talks about things hes not a really good player but has some concept....apparently

Steven Begleiter-Seems competent as some of the hands he played on tv. Seems maybe above average but probably not per hand reading and such but overall your standard amateur rungood pro who thinks and acts like hes awesome since hes run well for a tournament. I also have a strong disliking for the guy as he's an ex Bear Stearns high up vp?? or something

Eric Buchman-Apparently a pro from New York, but I don't know much about the guy besides some sponsorship fiasco leading up to the last few tables.

Joe Cada-Seems like a well tempered and mannered younger guy who actually recognizes the significance of making the final table and appreciates it. He also plays for a living....I think. I don't like that he is wearing UB logos leading up to to the final table but apparently signed a deal with Pokerstars or Fulltilt. Seems like a good player.

Antoine Saout-He's foreign and I know nothing about the guy besides the hand where Begleiter "playfully" hits him after Saout shows AQ and got Begleiter to fold 77.

Jeff Shulman-Obviously a good pro. He never really shows any emotion and seems to play a pretty solid game. I absolutely despise the fact that he said he would throw his World Series bracelet in the trash if he wins, however due to some personal beef/vendetta he has with the people running the tournament (whether that is the casino, media or people involved behind the scenes im not real sure). For a guy like him to say this (His family owns and operates Cardplayer magazine btw) is basically sacrilegious considering you make your living off of the game. I'm sure there are many things involved that I/the public do not know about but it comes off very d-baggy either way.

The final table starts this Saturday and will air the following Tuesday and I can't wait to see how it plays out.

The first weekend in San Diego

I survived my first weekend out in SD. Friday night in PB (Pacific Beach) was pretty sick for a nice start. Saturday we decided to go downtown as Joey heard from some girl that the place to be was downtown at some place that was charging a $50 cover.....fml right.

I obviously had not gotten a costume so I managed to procure a stethoscope from the party shop put on a shirt and tie and went as a busto doctor, basically. CJ went as a Chip N Dale, Brian went as Speedracer and Cow, obviously went as a cow. I don't know the name of the club we went to but it was 5 clubs rolled into one, so the place was really big and there were a ton of people there, so it must have been a good place.
Fortunately for us there were a ton of asian girls at this place. I'm not sure if there are just a ton of asian girls in the area in general or what but it was at least 60+% asian girls. After awhile it gets kind of old but it was fun for the night. All of us managed to talk and dance with some girls throughout the night. I of course refused to ask any of the girls for numbers because I'm a huge VJJ apparently......someday I'll put on big boy pants and grow up.

I managed to spend somewhere around $400 this weekend going out so gg going out for awhile. But, it was Halloween and our first weekend here, so we had to do it imo. Waking up in this morning was really weird. The time fell back 1 hour along with my already 3 hour time difference so my schedule is all kinds of messed up right now so hopefully I can adjust within the next week or so.

Aside from that, I'm gonna try and focus and get my grind on the first part of the month so maybe I can relax towards the end a little but we will have to see. Oh, my step-father is out of the hospital and home now as well. My mom called me the 3rd day I was here to tell me he had a heart attack and was in the hospital. Luckily everything went well and he is already out and at home. Crazy crazy crazy life all around

Finally Moved to San Diego and getting adjusted!!!

We left last Saturday morning in 40 degree raining weather and arrived Monday morning to 90 and sunny weather. It took us around 30+ hours to drive from northern Indiana to Southern California but it was a boring and very amazing drive as well.

The first part of our journey down through Illinois and through Missouri were nothing really special. It is all pretty flat and you couldn't pick the side of the road from one state or another. We were able to cruise pretty fast through Missouri though, so at least that was fun. We stopped in Joplin MO and wow was that a hillbilly town. We stopped for the night somewhere in Texas. The drive through New Mexico and Arizona was pretty amazing. Specifically the drive from Flagstaff to Phoenix as it was mostly downhill and involved somewhat high speeds for the majority of it. We spent our final night on the road in Yuma, New Mexico. Woke up with a nice 2ish hour drive to San Diego that involved an hour or so through the mountains again that involved some not so slow speeds again.

Its been around 5 days since we have moved in and it is just ridiculous how close we are to everything. Ikea, 5 minutes. 2 story Target, 5 minutes. Any high-end store you could ever think of is 5 minutes down the road in the Fashion Valley Mall, which is supposed to be the nicest mall in SoCal or something.

CJ and I went on a double date last night to start the night out. The girls are in the Navy and we went to some hybachi steak house and had a decent time. We came back and the girls decided to dip out sooo we were like woteva and hit up BW and Cow to see if they wanted to go out.

There is another house of poker guys in the area as well and we have hung out with them a few times. They are all pretty good guys and it's always cool to meet guys who play for a living and there backgrounds and where they come from and what not. The guys are Fantasticow, BW07507, Zachvac, AbstractPB (pretty sure I messed that up). They have a ridiculous house overlooking the ocean but are all pretty awesome guys.

CJ and I went out with Cow and BW last night to PB and wow. The girls out here are already ridiculously hot but it's Halloween and bars by the beach....you do the math ;). We wondered around for a little bit and eventually settled on a bar that we got free cover passes for. The first girl CJ starts talking to looks like a busto Brooke Hogan. We go through the normal "Yeah we all play poker for a living" she says "no way my friends do too" to which we are all like ooooh here we go sure you know someone that plays. Well she introduced us to 3 mid/high stakes regs and it was just so random and awesome. DerekJ (crushes 5/10 sh), Craigthedeac(Lego Poker Coach, FTops winner and mid steaks reg) and Gordo 16 who crushes 25/50 plo. It was just so random but we talked with Derek for a few and Craig for a little bit and the guys were really cool and chill. I'm sure I came off like a little fan boy but it was just so random and cool so whatever.

CJ did his thing and ran game on numerous girls collecting numbers like he was on the button and 8/6 nits were in the blinds. I dropped the ball a bit and am pretty m ad at myself for not getting at least 3-4 numbers from the girls I talked with. I don't really get why I'm just such a passive bitch sometimes but it's a mental thing. I'm still a little messed up from my last ex but what can you do. No more!!!! BW and Cow were awesome guys and we had a really good time talking with randoms as well as watching CJ work his girl magic. BW and I got our game on with this ridiculously hot stewardess for awhile and Cow was just his mysterious self. I'm still waiting for Cow to just care and start to crush girls as much as he crushes 5/10.

Overall our first night out was awesome in so many ways. I even won credit card roullete somehow and didn't have to pay for our meal at Denny's afterwards. I really can't put into words how amazing and overall +ev this move has been and is going to be for me. We keep meeting really nice people and ridiculously hot girls everywhere we go and the weather is just always perfect. I can't picture myself ever moving back to Indiana or the midwest any time soon or any time later on for that matter.

This blog is a big mash up and not too detailed as an attempt to try and catch up on the past week of festivities. Hopefully I can stay up to date with it and include more details from now on.

+~5k day yesterday

Yesterday was the normal Saturday afternoon Supernova vip freerolls at stars. I have played in these for probably 8 months or so and almost every week since I became supernova. I normally end up losing a flip or 70/30 and getting busted around 800-1100th place every week, until yesterday. I ran good in one tournament finally!!!! Well thats not totally true, I final tabled another freeroll in March and got 6th for like $600 something.

I ran normal all the way up to inside 35 people. I won all the flips I needed to up to this point and was the short stack until I was dealt J2s under the gun. I open shoved and Lilholdem (MTT pro) called me with K9 or K7 and I somehow flopped two pair and double up. One hand passed and then I'm in the SB and Lilholdem is on the button and shoves when it folds around to him, I call with K9 and he has K7 and I hold....weee more chips. Then when I'm on the button it folds around to Chad (Lilholdem) and he ships in his whole stack and I call with Kx and hold again and quadruple through him and knock him out. This left me with around ~100k chips and in ~16th place with 31 people left.

I had already made the decision once I got within 100 people I was playing for the final table or busting just because the pay increase was not that drastic and the difference between 117th and 27th was ~$50, which means very little for me, especially given my current situation with wanting to move. Hence, me shoving J2s and calling Lilholdems all ins because I needed to gather chips plus his range of hands in all these situations was SUPER wide. I won another huge hand with about ~18 people left to put me 3rd in chips. I got my QQ in against AQ for a little over a 300k pot and it held. At this point I made the decision to coast into the final table.

1st paid 12.1k and 9th paid 817.50. I came in around 4th or 5th in chips and made the decision to just hold out while others got knocked out. 3 people got knocked out and I was 4th in chips out of 6 people. We started discussing a chop of the prize pool per chip counts. I was all for this because if I got knocked out 6th I would get $2700 but if I took a chop I would get a couple k more due to my chip count. After much discussion I ended up getting ~$4850 in the deal which I was pretty happy with. I would have liked to get a couple hundred more but I was definitely happy with the deal.

This was a huge boost not only financially but mentally as well as I have been struggling for some reason the past month and a half. This also could not have come at a better time with my plans to move to San Diego which will now come to fruition within ~2 weeks most likely. It's amazing to think that ~5k is a life changing amount of money but it is.

As far as poker goes, I will probably make 50nl my game for awhile and try and make a few k there over the next month or so and then hopefully start taking 100nl shots within a couple months when my bankroll can handle it. I will get the 2k milestone bonus this month as well as at least the $650 bonus and maybe the $1500 bonus instead which will put me around a +$10k month. Again, this tourney score could not have come at a better time and I am really excited about moving,playing and moving up in the limits.

Poker is such a sick game sometimes, I love it!

10k/vpps and +$400/day

^^ Month so far......meh

I am feeling very distraction free the past few days after getting a little more comfortable at Joeys for the time being. I've been working out 5 days a week and running at least 2 miles a day the past few days as well (trying to shed my fat kid weight and get into presentable shape as well as help make myself mentally/physically stronger, which helps alot with playing long sessions).

Yesterday at the gym Joey brought up my lack of motivation which I totally agree with the past couple of months. I have had some real life stuff happen, with a relationship go bad and a really close friend basically say wtf ever to our friendship which really effected me a little more than I guess I realized. That is still no excuse for my lack of production over the past couple of months, especially since I knew I wanted to move during that time. It's tough to look at yourself sometimes and realize that you have failed or are just going through the motions but Joey helped me confront the issue and its back on like donkey kong.

My new goals before and after the move are:

10k hands/day
1200 vpps/day
$400/day

I have to hit at least 2 of the above to quit for the day. These are not just minimums either. To be good/great at something you have to push yourself and I am looking forward to the challenge as I have let myself down the past couple of months. Time for the lazy, going through the motions bullshit is over.

Cheers bitches......couple weeks of hard grinding will be rewarded with a new life in San Diego!!!