Speaking of old at Joe Cada’s victory party I met Baby Grand. After meeting me he says, “Dude, so, you’re like a dinosaur and stuff. You’ve been around forever.” Gobbo calls me grandpa all the time. And, in 2003 shortly after moving to Colorado, my boss who was 30 blew his Achilles at an indoor soccer game. The doctor told him that shit starts falling apart at 30.

So I’m 28 now and still feel young but have plenty of reasons to feel old at times, especially when 20% of my opponents in $10k+ buy-in poker tournaments have not heard of Planet Poker and could have dated my sister when she was in Jr. High.

Anyways, I tell Jared that I would be interested in doing something April and May but be back in time to be fresh for the Series. Over Christmas I was having visions of hiking the trail until the WSOP, go to Vegas, return to trail, and haul ass to Canada to complete a thru-hike. Too bad I’m not in 21 year old river guide shape anymore. But, since Jack lost his mind and there won’t be tournaments worth going to in April, I definitely want to use the time to get out and do something.

We kicked around ideas at the bar for a while, he still wants to do something epic and raise money for charity and possibly make a film or something. I kinda just want to go on a bunch of short trips, maybe climaxing on the John Muir trail, a two week long journey over some of the PCT from Whitney Portal to Yosemite. He and I hiked a bit of that trail in high school, just going from Yosemite Valley past Vernal Falls and the big frosty pool to Nevada Falls.

Ting is though, dem women folks don’t likeum boys leaving for long.

Was good to see him though, and I’m sure we’ll have some sort of adventure this spring.

Wednesday I thought was Tuesday. I made it through all day without figuring this out. I played online a bit, putting in 21 sit-n-goes and 4 hours of cash games on Ultimate Bet. I broke about even. I then cracked Mass Effect 2 and finally started playing it. Good game, feels a bit watered down from the first one in the customization department which is my favorite nerdy feature, but the gameplay, storyline, and options are better. I played that til dinner, ate, and then headed to the Venetian to play 5-10 cash. I lost $68 in 5 hours or so.

The next day, which was Wednesday of course, had this plan: Mass Effect til 5pm, then the Wednesday night online tourneys, then meet Gobbo at the ARIA to play in the Wed night $20-40 HORSE game. This plan worked great until 4:50pm when I fired up the computer, it wouldn’t fire cause HP laptops with Vista suck, I finally was able to get online at 5:04 pissed, and the first thing I notice is 52 people in the 100r. I’m like, WTF? Then I look at UB and see the guarantees are smaller and can’t find the $1k. I’m so confused. I then hover my cursor over the clock, and it pops up “Thursday, February 4th.” Still not convinced, I check my phone, and it confirmed that it was in fact Thursday. LOL. Now what? I decided to go to the Venetian because I thought the game was decent and was unsatisfied from the night before.

I was home at 8:30pm after getting two cheeseburgers, no onions or tomatoes, fries well, and a medium Dr. Pepper from In-N-Out. I was $2k poorer. I ran poor, made one questionable shove over Jeff Williams… 7 handed I think, I open in the hijack to $50 with AQo. I’m $1k deep. The player in the cutoff is very loose mid 50’s persian dude, is $250 deep, posted $10 + $5 dead, and calls. Folds to YellowSub in the BB who quickly makes it $230. Pretty gross spot cause it’s such a great spot to iso/squeeze, I decide that Sub’s a sicko enough that shoving is +EV so I say, “All-in,” dude folds, Sub snaps and says, “I have the MTT nuts,” I ship my stack and buy back two stacks of chips for cash. Always humiliating.

About an orbit later I open black queens UTG to $40, the same Persian dude shoves $240, folds back to me he calls, and the board runs out Axx, x, x. I called him, he shrugs, looks like he has KQ and is thinking of mucking it, and takes a good ten seconds before rolling over AQ.

I quit. Went home. Played Mass Effect til 3:30am.

So that makes today Friday, and I’m headed over to Panorama in a lil bit to play Magic and draft the new set Worldwake. Should be fun.

Peace and good luck,

Devo

I am sitting in the lounge of Electric Lady Studios right now. We are starting to record The Damned Things record today. It’s my side band with Joe Trohman and Andy Hurley from Fall Out Boy, Keith Buckley from Every Time I Die and Rob Caggiano from Anthrax. I am really excited about finally actually doing this. Joe and I started working on this three years ago and it feels great to have it all come to fruition. Oh and most importantly, it fucking ROCKS. Being in the studio means a lot of hurry up and wait so expect to see me at the tables all week long.

I’ve been having a blast at the low stakes heads up 500 chip SnG’s. They fill up fast and are really fun.

All right, gotta go check on things.

Talk to ya next week.

Cheers,
Scott

So now that it is over I’m looking back and am really happy with the way I played. I didn’t have a ton of cashes but I was deep in almost everything I played and gave myself opportunities to have a chance to win late.

My highlights from the past week:

In the same day I made 4 final tables. I won the $20 rebuy during the day. Then that night I was at 3 final tables at once. I ended up 2nd in the 10k $25 freeze out. I finished 7th in the mini UBOC 13, and a few minutes later finished 4th in UBOC 13.

During the last day of UBOC I saw all my money go in the middle pre flop in the 1k championship event holding QQ vs. JJ only to see a jack hit the flop. At the same time I happened to be accumulating a lot of chips in the 7.5k 1$ re buy pro bounty. Four or so hours later I had all the chips outlasting 1622 players. I was really stoked about this one in particular. It’s always great to win a tournament but to win one with that many players is pretty cool. After a week like this I’m going to catch up on some sleep and then jump back in to more tournaments. I feel like I have fixed a few leaks in my tournament game, and am playing very well right now.

Good Luck,

Debo

But instead of yet another “Crazed Sniper Holds off SWAT Team!!” story, let me instead draw your attention to an article in today’s Washington Post, titled “Internet Gambling Again in Play”. This is the latest in a series of articles that have appeared in major news outlets about how the outlook for legal and regulated online gaming is dramatically improved. H.R. 2267, the bill that Rep. Barney Frank introduced is headed to committee for “markup”, which is when the members of said committee tweak and amend the bill. How much focus Congress will place on this bill is up for debate, as the health-care bill is still kicking around and there are other major legislative wars (bank regulation reform, for example) to be fought. And since Republicans governing philosophy right now can be summed up as “No!! No!! No no no no no!!” it seems unlikely that Frank will be able to attract a broad consensus. Though he did seem slightly optimistic that there could be some grass-roots support among conservatives.  “I think the Republicans are misreading the politics on this,” Frank said. “People who are not ordinarily active in politics get very active in this.” Frank talked about the support he’s gotten from otherwise-conservative poker players, and the article mentioned that Frank even did the “Shuffle Up and Deal!” during the Main Event. Which he did:

The usual gang of GOP suspects are quoted in the article rehashing the same discredited talking points. Republican Congressman Spencer Bachus trots out the predictable save-the-children card, “”Internet gambling is a threat to the youth of our country. . . . Young people are particularly at risk because if you put a computer in their bedroom or dorm room, it’s a temptation that many cannot resist.” Ignoring the fact that online gaming sites are ASKING for regulation, they’re ASKING for the U.S. government to help them keep underage people away. Chad Hills, a “gambling research analyst” for Focus on the the Family, says of internet gaming, “This would go outside the walls of a brick-and-mortar casino, outside the walls of a convenience store lottery, and into the living rooms and homes of all Americans.” So you have casinos going up all over the country, just about every state in the union sells lottery tickets at convenience stores and gas stations, and this is all FINE…but allowing people to play poker in their living rooms turns America into Gomorrah. Ignoring the fact that millions of people already play online poker and the walls haven’t come a-tumbling down.

So, as always when it comes to legislation, we’ll just have to wait and see. Of course we’ve been waiting and seeing since 2006, when the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was passed. And don’t forget, it took Republican Sen. Jon Kyl nearly ten years to get that law on the books, a decade of waiting before he persuaded Sen. Bill Frist to game the system  and attach that law onto an anti-terrorism bill. It’d be nice if our legislative process wasn’t so ghastly that it almost makes you long for a benevolent dictatorship instead of a democracy. Then again, history has shown that many benevolent dictators quickly descend from “Bread for everyone!” to “Build me a pyramid of human skulls” with unfortunate speed. Looks like we’re stuck with our good ‘ol democracy, the worst form over government except for all the others.

Here’s a rundown of the past few months: It started December 9th in Vegas for Five Diamond Classic. Stayed there until the 18th, went back to LA for a few days, then flew back home to Fort Lauderdale for the holidays and a wedding. Then January 4th, Bahamas for the PCA. January 12th, back to Miami for a couple of days. Then back to LA for a week. It’s already kind of hectic.  Of course, I decided to, on a whim, go to Biloxi for the WPT $10k. This past Tuesday I flew to Tampa for a Deepstacks seminar and Gasparilla, Tampa’s version of Mardi Gras. It was something to do with Jose Gaspar, a pirate, who apparently tried to invade Tampa sometime in the 1800s. Now, I’m going to Atlantic City for the Borgata $3500. After that New York for my brother’s birthday. Fly back on Super Bowl Sunday to LA for a Super Bowl party at my house, then Tampa again on the 12th for another Deepstacks seminar.

But, wait! There’s more! Fly back to LA for LAPC prelims, then the NAPT in Las Vegas at the Venetian.  Then head back for the LAPC main event and topping it all off, the Bay 101 WPT in San Jose. Sorry, that’s a mouthful but right now, it’s my life.  I never expected to travel this much but I’m getting used to everything. I’m starting to feel more and more like George Clooney in Up In The Air. Hopefully, my frequent flyer miles will start raking in the perks soon.

After Bay 101 I’m going to take it easy until the World Series. And by take it easy, I mean travel but travel to things that have nothing to do with poker. I plan on going to two music festivals, Coachella and Ultra. I’ve wanted to go to these festivals for years and somehow this year the scheduling actually works out for me. There are no tourneys, no seminars, no weddings, no obligations. I’m freakin’ going! It’s going to be awesome and a good break from poker. I’ll probably still go to the Mohegan Sun NAPT & EPT Monte Carlo in the month of April. But after that I’m planning on hopefully taking the entire month off. I really hope to not play a hand of poker in May so I can come back fresh for the entire WSOP. I honestly haven’t taken a break from poker in like two years so this year I’m making a point to do so. I remember in Super System 2 Doyle stressed this and he’s so right.  I’ve performed way better when rested and fresh most definitely. I remember one time I came back from a week-long cruise and got 1st and 2nd in the FTP and Stars $300s on Saturday. I just think more clearly when fresh.

Well, that’s about it for this week. Enjoy the rest of your week and apparently the brightest full moon of this year was last weekend so I hope you enjoyed that as well.

Last Tuesday on ABC, the 6th season of the hit TV series “Lost” aired.  It was a three-hour premier and the whole first hour was a major recap of the important characters and events that occurred in the previous 5 seasons.  If you haven’t seen any of the other seasons, I would still suggest watching the hour recap so you can get caught up if you want to get hooked on this season.  I have to say it is the most addicting cable television series I have ever seen and is definitely something I will look forward to watching while playing on Tuesday nights.

This week has been pretty exciting so far.  My buddy Val from New York came in town for some poker lessons in exchange for some pool lessons.  I came through on my end of the deal and gave him a few pointers.  He even came in 2nd place out of around 1600 people in a $50 freeze-out for around $10,000 in only the seventh tournament he has played while in town.  Unfortunately for me the kid is horrible at pool and I’m still seeking some real lessons.  At least I bought him into the tournament and get half of the profits for my time!
We were planing on going out with a bunch of friends for $1 beers and $1 bowling from midnight to 8:00 a.m. at South Point Casino.  Tuesdays seem to be a great night to do this and always ends up in crazy prop bets and such.  They are being kind enough to take some vacation days to go on a cross-country trip to drive my car out for me so I no longer have to hand over my life savings to Enterprise.

GO SAINTS!

-Billy Kopp

I find myself rebelling a bit against the normal progression of life. I’m getting older, but I certainly don’t want too. I’ll be 29 this summer. I’ve heard that things start falling apart at 30. Many people my age are married with kids by now, and although that’s a vision of mine down the road I don’t want anything to do with it right now. I want to be able to live in Colorado if I want to, go walk the PCT for a few months if I want to, etc. Those desires don’t mesh with settling down at all and being in the middle leaves me unhappier than if I was on either side.

Anyways. This month sucked ass as far as poker goes. It started off great, my first week of the new year I won like $3k live and $2k online. I hit my “career peak” on Ultimate Bet on Jan 7th, and since then my graph looks like the dow in 2008. My general pattern of punting the big pots was either get it in good and lose or run into aces in sigh spots. My last session twice I flatted AKs on the button, twice one of the blinds squeezed big (one time at 3-6 6max it was $21, I call, bb makes it $170), twice I shove, and twice they have aces. Tourneys haven’t been any better. UBOC I played almost 20 events, cashed in two. In one I was cl at 9, in limit hold’em, busto 8th. Another small cash in the 100r, got unlucky. This Sunday I took 30 somethingth in the Warm-up, and 50th ish in the 150r, all running bad when it mattered.

Strangely though I’m pretty excited to get back and do some grinding. I’m excited to spend time in LA and work, and I do want to start getting stuff out of the garage and storage unit and have a yard sale. So we’re headed home. But I’m missing Colorado already as we cross the western slope of the Rockies, following the Eagle River, 100 miles from Utah. I’ll be back soon.

Peace and good luck,

Devo

Then a couple of days later I was playing a number of the UBOCs, including the mini versions that they ran simultaneously. Of course I bombed out of the big main ones, but things started going rather well in the mini PLO UBOC. Now I haven’t played that much PLO before (I’ve been learning all the other games for the last couple of months but have yet to make much of a score in them), but things started to go right for me and I accumulated a very nice stack and soon we were in the money. I carried on playing in the same style, very aggressively (I don’t know much else of what to do in PLO!) and things consistently went my way and before long I was at the final table with one of the big stacks! It continued to go really smoothly and before I knew it we were three handed. Then “TMZ” (I can’t remember his full screenname but that was the start of it) knocked out the third player and we were heads up, with the stacks about 3:2 in his favour.

Sadly, it all went wrong from there. My hands dried up to the worst possible Omaha hands you could imagine – rainbow non connected pieces of crap that I could do very little with and seemed to whiff almost every flop the software threw out there. Argh! My opponent played against this perfectly and was super aggro and just pushed over me whenever he sensed weakness (which was every damn hand) and I never had anything I could justifiably shove back with. Before long I had been ground down to a pretty dismal stack, and then the blinds were up and I just had to get it in. The hand was such crap I don’t even really remember it (it had an Ace and King and tha’ts about it), and of course it missed in every way and the tourney was over. Still, I made $2k for my $20 investment and at least I finally feel like I’m getting a good handle on the game, so you’ll definitely be seeing me in more Omaha tourneys soon!

Thanks UB.com for an AWESOME series. Roll on next UBOC!

I definitely had a rough football sports betting season.  However, I think it is noteworthy to mention that I finished the year on an unbelievable two or three week hot streak.  With how many weeks there are in a season that is not saying a lot, I fully understand this.

I have been betting with Rick Fuller, of YouGotABet fame, this year.  We just bet the board, $500 per game on football.  In college football we bet about 20 games per week and every single NFL game.  With college ball having been over for a couple of weeks, we have been betting every single bowl game.  Last week I had a really good week.  In the NFL, I went something like 11-2-1 on the Sunday games with a split on the Monday Night Football game.  I finally had a monster Sunday.  It felt great to finally have a one-sided weekend, resulting in being up $7k for the week.

In fantasy football, I had my amazing string of consecutive money making years come to an end.  In my $5k league, I had some serious momentum building as my team climbed from 2-7 all the way back to 7-7,  pushing hard into the playoffs and looking at a chance at the $5k Fantasy Championship.  Well, needless to say, the genius guys who set up the league, decided it would be good to pay only the top 2 spots, with a 3rd payment going to a wildcard spot, paying the team owner who earned the most points during the season.  Has anyone ever heard of something like this?  This is clearly not how this should be organized.  In the NFL, just because the best team with the best stats goes 9-7 and doesn’t make the playoffs, doesn’t mean they should get something in return.  Of course, it ending up screwing me and I wound up taking 3rd.  I wanted the matchup to at least be dramatic.  The player I was playing against, Mike “inissint” Glasser, had 5 players going for the Jaguars/Colts game.  He had like 80 points on just the Thursday night game and it was over for me – he had players Reggie Wayne, Peyton Manning, Dallas Clark, Maurice Jones Drew and someone else.  It was just gross.  My team had no recovery chance after Mike’s team’s performance.  It was terrible and I was looking forward to it all week.  The winner of the game got $10,000.00 and obviously I like to keep my dominating fantasy performances going year in and year out.

In one of my other leagues, I ended up taking 3rd place for $400.00.  Again, I was hoping to build upon last year’s success where I took home 2nd place finishes in 3 of 4 high priced leagues.  This year I finished 3rd in two leagues, DNQ’s in the others, for only one payment.  Just didn’t turn the right corners for me, but I battled hard.  Next year, I am more than likely going to come back more focused and ready to dominate the fantasy football world.

Brandon Cantu