sigh* :)

Sour day today. Busted shortly into the second hour today in O8. So missed cashing by 50 or so (~145/909). Then watched my beloved Cavs get trounced out of the playoffs. Oh, lost $2k in a 10-20 nlhe game due to a suck-in bluff turned wrong when i caught enough of a piece to lock in on the turn. Anyways, I'm playing the $1k massive field tournament tomorrow at noon. There is over 6000 players apparently playing in this event, might be as much as 1million for first. Should be a really fun crap shoot that we're all going to play. There are a lot of side bets cooked up for tomorrow, over/under on how many of us get to day two. Who ends day 1 with the most chips, last longer bets, etc. Hope some better news soon.

event 3: omaha 8/better

So, tumultuous first few days here. quick recap, the extended stay we rented is in turmoil and we may get evicted through no fault of our own. In the meantime, no keys for all of us, and the ones we have don't work to get through the second gate, the air conditioning's broken (we gave up and stayed at the Rio last night because it was too hot to sleep) and we don't have the second apartment for Wes and I yet and there are 5 of us packed in Andrew's (we're supposed to get it tomorrow though). One the bright side Andrew, Wes and our friend Liam all scooped massively the first night of cash games we were here. Andrew and Wes in 10-25 nlhe, Liam at 2-5 nlhe. I think Wes booked a huge 9k~ win. That night I bounced around, I had to work on getting the wire approved and moved to the floor, then getting a lock box. I finally played a little 50-100 horse with a really tight table (including jens voortman and men the master), game stunk so I moved to 5-10 nlhe, played a hand bad and then got called for the 25-25-50 plo game. Massive game, playing huge with the 3blinds, there was ~65k on the table. I sat pretty short ~50 bb, limp/wrapped a hand with AAJQds. Won a few non-shown down hands, won a bit and then called it a night just when a bunch of spots sat in the game with really deep stacks.
So the omaha event. First 6 hours was a grind. No action but a fishy table. I started with 4500, worked up to about 9100 by the dinner but since no one had busted on our table there was no chips to be had. Finally after dinner, people started falling from this very boring quiet table and we got some equally un-giving opponents yet way more interesting. Jay Hemowitz (sp?) from the old mayfair club in new york, mark gregorich (omaha writer and specialist in this discipline) and one of the most entertaining men in poker, eli elezera, oh and annie duke. Anyways, table played tough, eli played almost every hand and worked up a huge stack. I lost a very big pot with A256 on a 349 board w a nut-flush draw. I think we 5bet capped the flop and got 3 more in on the turn, I aired out though and lost that pot. Shortstacking begins. That table got broke and I ended the day with Chad Brown, Layne Flack and a host of fish. The table was great but we only played 2 rounds or so until the day's end of level 10. I'm extremely short going into day two. I have only 4800 playing 1000-2000? i can't really remember what level we come back at. I'm sure the average stack has only 20k but whatever. I wasn't looking to give up and really couldn't find a spot to blast in before the end of the day. Who knows, heater may be on it's way tomorrow.
Not much else going on. I'm registered for the massive 1k buyin nlhe tournament on sunday. Should get so many that 1million may be first place for that. Think about that ROI if you can run hot. Andrew, Liam, Ryan, Wes and I played golf at a local par 3 9 hole course by the airport. Andrew wanted to bet, gave me a shot a hole for the first 3, then 1/2 for the middle 3, then straight up on the last 3. I lucked my way into a scoop. So all in all, I'm up more in golf this trip than anything else :). That is not a good sign if you've seen this stroke.

Wednesday flight out, return flight in ?

Looks like the boys are ready and team 'clockwyze', for lack of a better handle, will be reuniting for the $1000 no limit holdem event number 4, this saturday. By team clockwyze, i mean my good friends Andrew and Wes whom I get to spend all world series' with. Not only good friends but also the only people I feel comfortable asking for advice in all poker related topics and sharing action. It takes a lot of trust and confidence in people to mix poker and friendship. I feel very lucky to have maintained a great relationship with them. Andrew's truly the sickest of the sick on the poker world, and more importantly, become a very good friend. Look for him to have a massive world series. One of the biggest winners of all time online and a very good tournament player, he's way overdue for a big run in these events.
I think the first event for me will be event 3, omaha hi low on friday... it's a limit event and will restart at 2pm on saturday so if i make day 2 i'll skip the 1k (event 4). Looking forward to getting this thing underway.

Couple of side bets between the group of us for the extent of the series.
1. workout prop bet. Between Wes, Andrew, Christina and myself, we must workout a minimum of 30 minutes a day, if exception is to be made, it's 100usd in the pot for the person who skips the fewest days by the end. Not drinking should make me a favourite but buffets swing me to a massive underdog. The mirage is somewhat of a huge enemy of mine for that reason.
2. wsop fantasy pool, we're going to pick 10 or so players each and see who comes out ahead when all the nonsense is over. Perhaps better to be organized on cashsportspools.com but we'll make it work. Not sure on the amount of this one.

I'm also really excited for all the visits planned for this summer. Apparently my sister's heading out, my mom at some point, a bunch of the whitby guys, gunter for a bit.... should be a lot of fun. I guess here's where I make a quip at not repeating a second place finish but I'll save complaining for if i go 0-for. Second place once a year, fine by me.

catching up from where we left off.....

If you look really really closely, you can just see it over the horizon. World Series 09' is coming up in less than a month and I am amped. I think it's human nature to look at the past more fondly in remembrance than your actually feelings in the moment. Nothing is more true than that statement and poker. I can remember how totally decimating poker was at the end of last year's wsop, and how much I was looking forward to cash games and now it can't come quick enough.
April saw the most volume I've ever played online 150,000 hands of nlhe and plo on partypoker exclusively. Party is a graveyard nowadays and the majority of those hands were me vs. regulars, day in and day out. I really feel like some of the toughest games online can be found there. I read over some of my older posts that explained my desire to beat the levels in order before moving up and this year I've been fortunate enough to do so. I sort of skipped the $3-6 level and play most of my time at 5-10 now. It's not a bankroll thing, it's more a function of my desire to be accomplished and not expose myself to undue variance that may result in poor play when moving up.
To give you an idea, I play way too many tables at once, sometimes 15/16 at a time and it does result in robotic play and does decrease my win rate. I do think that I multi table well though and I am a favourite to beat the games I'm playing. At the end of may this will be the end of it though, I decided that I will play higher and fewer tables at once from now on. I can play less hopefully and improve my play. Anyways, as far as keeping score goes, since last wsop ended I surpassed my expectations as far as my online earn goes and considering the lineup I sometimes forced myself to play in, I am happy with the result. Hungry to do better though.
Absolute expectation has been much lower than my results. At the time of this post, since April first alone, I am running a little better than -$30,000 over those 150k hands. I've been told the long run kicks in around the 100-200k hand mark so I'm looking for that heater to begin but so far, it's only a theory :)
Solace can be taken in the fact that over that same stretch I am break even without showdown and roughly $25,000 winner... thoughts inevitably turn to what would running hot over the same period look like? Anyways, I plan on writing about the world series experience again this summer and thought it appropriate to pop in before it all starts. Talk to you soon,