Hey fellow UB-ites. I was just trying to think of a way to say people of UB. UBians? I dunno. UB-ites doesn’t sound too bad. Either way, I digress (already). So I’ve been m.i.a. the past couple of weeks. Aruba came and went, not like a midday rain shower, but more like a category 5 hurricane where you’re lucky to get out alive with your liver still in tact. After Aruba, I came home for a couple of weeks, tried to get back into a good fitness schedule and book some wins in cash and tourneys. I did pretty well with all three. Went to the gym a respectable amount, broke even in cash, which considering how seldom I play cash is also respectable, and even won 2 tourneys with a couple other solid cashes.
Then I left for Las Vegas for the Caesars Classic $5k Main Event, which was my first visit back to Vegas since I moved away 3 months ago. It’s always nice to go back to a place you once lived and enjoy all the things you loved about the city. Vegas is a great place for that. If you live there it loses a bit of it’s luster but if you visit there’s so much to do with so little time it seems like an amazing city. And it is, amazing…for tourists. I went to Naked Fish, the place where I was Poker Punk’ed, to enjoy some delightful sushi and even got to Carne Vino, which is definitely one of my favorite steakhouses. I would highly, HIGHLY, recommend it to any steakhouse lover. I still think the food in Vegas is the best part of Vegas. I was really impressed with myself. I barely drank while I was there, didn’t got to a club, and didn’t even have an itch to go to the infamous Spearmint Rhino. I did get to hang with friends and stay at four different places while I was there. I guess you could say I was a vagabond and while my back wasn’t happy with me sleeping on couches day in day out, it’s definitely a good way to do Vegas if you know a lot of people. It keeps things interesting. As far as the tournament went, I played extremely well. Made some sick plays, grinded my shortstack when I needed to, but ultimately fell short of the final table and reshoved A10o into Kathy Liebert’s AQo to bust in 12th. One thing it did do was motivate me to play more live poker after a rough 2009 on the live circuit. I’m actually typing this blog on my way to Foxwoods.
So the meat of the blog is my Halloween experience! Awesome. Just awesome., but it started off really stressful and I was on the verge of giving up on the whole night entirely. My Halloween journey started around 8ish when I went to go pick up my friends and bring them back to my place so we could all take a limo from one place. Getting a limo on Halloween in a busy city is a must. Last year we couldn’t find a cab and we had to walk a mile home. I went to go pick them up about 15 minutes from my place. It was already starting to get busy and the only parking available was next to a fire hydrant. Oh, perfect, I’m only waiting for a couple of minutes so that’s fine. So I tell my friends to come out but since they are girls, saying “I’ll be right there”, never means that. I waited patiently in the car but because we were kind of on a time crunch I called them and even got out of my car in an attempt to go up to their apartment and make them hurry up. I left my blinkers on because I wanted people to know I was going to be leaving shortly. They said they were on their way and I decided to wait outside my car while they came down. It couldn’t have been more than five minutes but when I went to turn the car on, the starter made a clicking sound, and the engine wouldn’t budge which was weird because the windows, lights, and radio all worked. Regardless, I’m screwed. We assess the situation and I get in contact with my Infiniti roadside assistance who thankfully dispatched someone right away to be there within 30 minutes.
While we were waiting for the repair vehicle, fire trucks came racing down the street and stopped on our block. At this point, I really start to lose it. My car isn’t starting and it’s parked next to a fire hydrant. I would just feel horrible if there really was a major fire and I was blocking the fire hydrant. But thankfully for my own sanity’s sake, it ended up just being a false alarm. PHEW! The repair truck came and gave me a start and we were off Ricky Bobby style. I really did some excellent driving while we jammed out to fun songs to get us pumped for the night.
Oh yea, one key thing: I still had to get into my costume! Luckily it was this Cookie Monster costume I bought online the other day at a website aptly named BuyCostumes.com. It was just a one-piece costume and within 10 minutes I was ready. Unfortunately I had to park my car in front of a garage because parking was so brutal on my street. You think I would’ve learned my lesson but nope. The limo driver needed to get through so I had to move my car regardless. Of course, as luck would have it, the car didn’t start AGAIN. Like come the f on! So I had to have Amit, my roommate a.k.a. Amak316, and the only other guy there help me move my car in neutral uphill. There’s a picture of it somewhere and it’s hilarious but we did it. We pushed it into the limo’s old spot. Somehow it all came together and all ten of us in the limo were off to our Halloween adventure!
We went to this club called Madame Royale which was throwing a Halloween party hosted by Ryan Cabrera. Inside was a blast. Apparently, chicks dig Cookie Monster. Everywhere I walked girls would be like OMG that’s Cookie Monster. I even got some props from random dudes. It definitely was a hit and if I could wear that Cookie Monster costume everywhere, all the ladies would have to watch out !
The next stop was a house party which was a nice change from the fast-paced style of any club. I ended up finding someone wearing a TinkyWinky costume and jokingly told him we should throw down and the winner of the fight would officially be crowned the best children’s show! What’s funny is later on in the night I found out I knew the guy and neither of us realized it initially. The alcohol was scarce at the house party so I got creative and used wine as my mixer for vodka. After that, it was official: I was drunk. The rest of the night was a blur. I know at one point I was chatting up with a homeless guy while trying to rap with Jeff Madsen on the side of the street while waiting for our limo who also coincidentally broke down. But that’s the best part of any drunken night, trying to piece together what happened the next morning.
I hope your Halloween was at least as crazy and fun as mine. If not, you disappoint me! Well, until next, keep killing it at the tables and living your life to the fullest off of them!
Getting back to the grind after Aruba sure isn’t EZ . The parties were non-stop and the best! The Dan Band was so much fun! The poker was non-stop, and Matt Savage and his staff /dealers ran the best tourneys I have ever played in. All the UB staff need a really BIG thank you for all they did…Melissa, Jo, Gustavo, and Ernesto just to name a few. You and all the other hard working UB employees that came from Costa Rica and all over the world make Aruba the #1 destination in poker.
The best way I know to get rid of the Aruba hang-over is VEGAS BABY !! I leave for Vegas next Thursday to teach at the WSOP Academy, http://www.wsopacademy.com, Nov. 6-8 with Phil ,Greg Raymer, Shawn Rice and a lot of other great pros. Attending one of these camps will surely help take your game to the next level . If you would like to attend our cash academy, coming up Dec. 5-6th, for FREE and get $1000.00 for travel, listen to my radio show every Sunday night at 9pm EST, “The Ultimate Poker Show,” on http://www.roundersradio.com. I will be giving out the passwords for the Sunday night $5.00 and free roll tourneys that can get you eligible for Vegas.
UB is also running steps for a 12k package for Foxwoods and a 17.5k for the Bellagio. I love playing these steps while I’m playing MTTs. The main reason is that when you play steps remember “tight is right”. I find if I am playing these with other MTTs it helps me play a little tighter, and anybody that has played with me knows that I need that. J A couple of nights ago I bought into 3 step 7s for 97.15 each. I lost one and built the other two up to a step 9 and 10. Last night I played the step 10 and chopped the Foxwoods seat with a very good player, “maximilian71”. I was ahead in chips so I got 8,500 he got 7k . My 291.45 investment in the step 7s paid off nicely, plus I still have my 750.00 step 9.
Hope to cya all in the steps soon or better yet loose your hang-over and join me in Vegas Baby…
I say that because at the moment I’m writing this it is 28 degrees outside my front door. Fall is turning to winter in a hurry around here. We have already had snow twice this year. We got 8 inches in a day while I was away in Aruba. Last year the snowfall came 5 or 6 weeks late and it really hurt the economy in my area. The central Oregon area is dependent on tourism because of the local ski resort. When there isn’t good snow, all the local businesses suffer, especially the hotels and restaurants. So although it seems very cold at the moment, it’s actually a very good sign. I can’t wait for there to be enough to get my snowmobile out again.
So what’s in store for me in the late fall/ early winter? The ducks have 3 more home games. This week is a big one. The 5th ranked USC Trojans are in town the face off with the 10th ranked Oregon Ducks. It should be crazy game since it is a night game on Halloween. Besides that I plan on getting back into playing a ton of poker. The winter months have always treated me well playing online. I think It’s because I totally engross myself in it, and have the least amount of distractions during this part of the year. I know something that has been hurting my game as of late is not maintaining a schedule. I plan on getting back on a set schedule and sticking to it. I am going to try to get to 1 more live event before the year is up and I am leaning towards the circuit events in Tahoe.
Other than that not much is going on with me. I am fully recovered from the wonderful Aruba trip and glad to be back home. Bring on the snow!
OK so as much as I loooooove Aruba, its officially time to end the litany of “i heart Aruba” blogs & move on to more poker conquests. That is, just as soon as I add my 2 cents to the field! I’m about to head back to LA to finish network pitch meetings to sell my pilot “Grifting,” but before I go I wanted to leave you guys with a bunch of fun vidblogs I shot while on my 2 week Aruba adventure! Everything from drunken gambling in casinos, offroad jeep adventures, Hellmuth party freestyle rap, and did I mention drunken casino gambling? Plenty of that to go around — and god knows how I managed to shoot the footage I did without security tossing me out! So enjoy that last Aruba memories of 2009, & next time I blog I will have some great updates about the future of my new TV show! Rock on! First the Poker Parties: Then the Jeep Offroading: And of course plenty of live drunken gambling: -hd.
Aruba was a tremendous success and we all feel proud about it. You played, you had joy, some tears when you were busted, you had insuperable parties, you shared with not only excellent co-workers, but also great people that went out there to be your Hosts. I guess Aruba madness is somehow still inside all of you. Well, let´s take a break from Aruba.
As probably many of you remember, in the past weeks we ran some satellites for the Poker Hispano Tour – Costa Rica, which was played from October 17th through the 25th. I´m pretty sure I mentioned it on my previous blog.
I truly feel this is a very interesting approach to expand Poker in Latin America where a considerable amount of players are thirsty to take their shot at live events. It consisted in a week full of exciting tournaments.
I was expecting to watch the Final Table of the PHT Main Event on Saturday, as well as play the closing event on Sunday 25th. Unfortunately my 95 yr old grandpa had to get into the hospital on Saturday, so I spent that night and most of Sunday and Monday taking care of him. The good, is that he is very healthy now, and even though I wasn´t able to watch nor play at the PHT, I found out something very interesting.
Lately, I haven’t been playing a lot of poker, I´m into Poker whenever I come to work but schoolwork has used up my days off. While I was taking care of my old man, I had plenty of time to read at the moments that he was taking a nap.
Obviously I brought with me a couple of poker books (in my undisciplined attempt to improve my game) however it was a very short paragraph I read that reminded me a key of being successful at poker.
Use a GOOD Bankroll Strategy! Sometimes I speak with players complaining about bad beats, terrible luck… you know what I´m talking about… then I take a look at their accounts and I find out that they are investing 50% or even 100% of their BR in a single game. No matter how tight you play, sooner or later the Bad Beats will show up, at least once in a session, the capricious Poker Gods, will send you a disgusting river card.
It´s up to you to combine your style of playing, with a protected Bankroll management strategy. You can find plenty of BR management strategies by browsing the web, the most important part is definitely how disciplined you are to keep yourself within the stakes you should play.
Anyway, I´m sure you guys know about this better than me, for those of you who hadn´t been taking it into consideration lately, I hope it refreshes your mind! J
Take care everyone!
So last week I finished off on me busting out of the Main Event. This left me with a whole five days of Aruban freedom to get more sun, sand and sea than you can shake a stick at. The sea part of this started early the wednesday morning when I met with Brandon Cantu, his girlfriend Leslie and Allie Prescott for breakfast, and I proposed the idea of renting a small catamaran which according to the intrepid Binger brothers, was the best and most relaxing watersport on offer. Now I’ve been sailing a few times as a kid, and even have the holder of the world record for the longest sailing circumnavigation of the globe in my family, and this gave me an over-inflated impression that I knew how to sail. I apparently exuded this confidence to the rest of the “crew” and also to the boat rental woman, who when she asked if we knew how to sail we very proudly said yes.
So after telling us we had strictly one hour, she set us in the water and handed me the rudder and sail rope(?!). Before you could say shark, the wind grabbed us and sent us on our merry way, very much alone. Things actually started well, with Brandon going “wow, you actually can sail”, everyone relaxed as we sped along the coast at one with nature’s forces. That was until we had to turn and try and go the other way. We’d been instructed to ONLY turn into the wind, as turning away from it could be dangerous and lead to capsizing. However, turning into the wind resulted in the sail going limp and all momentum lost. Therefore we opted for the latter, and the boat nearly turned over Leslie and Brandon got whacked in the head by the sail flipping to the otherside.
Stupidly, I then let the boys take over and before we knew it we had only twenty minutes left and were about two miles out to sea. Despite this we somehow floundered back at the slowest pace anyone’s ever moved back to shore and got back just thirty minutes late. Ahem.
So you’d think that’d be the last time we ever went sailing alone. Oh no. we went again and this time managed to flip the boat over twice, the first time completely by a combination of ignorance and a huge gust of wind, and the second time because the first time was so funny that we wanted to do it again.
Moving on… so the other things I did for the rest of the trip included a horse ride through the Aruban landscape (complete with galloping on the beach) and a very bumpy ATV ride to some beautiful coastal features. In the nighttime were fantastic parties, including the legendary party in Phil Hellmuth’s rooftop suite, which had a private performance by the Dan band and more bottles of champagne than you can imagine. Oh and naked girls in the hot tub, can’t forget them! The Ultimatebet closing party was stunning as well, with the Dan band performing on a stage over the pool, more naked people and bodypainted gladiator models roaming around giving you cocktails. What a perfect end to the perfect trip!
This past Trip to Aruba was my 7th straight year, For those of you that have not been and enjoy playing poker this is true paradise. I always look forward to seeing all the many friends, and people I work with and many of the people that I play online with. I decided that this year I really want to play more of the preliminary events this year as I rarely ever play those because I am in paradise and would rather do other non poker related stuff. I know my girlfriend was flying out later in the week for the final few days and the closing partys, So I wanted to play a little more live this year than previous years. I flew in about 10pm met up with a few friends and really wanted to take it easy that night, went and paid my way into the $540 for the following day so I knew I could not get wasted that night. I did play a little sit & go with Ho, Debo, Debo’s wife Erin, Mamma Ho and Susie Q, I think I chopped 2 of them and lost the last one and ended up in a cash game. Ho was ordering drinks and before I knew it I was double fisted drinking double crown and cokes and then Debo is ordering shots, so much for taking it easy in Aruba.
After the sit & go’s Ho jumped into a cash game and let me tell you he can liven up a cash game, ever pot was raised and reraised before the flop, I think I got lucky with AJ and beat AK for about a $900 pot, I was no way folding top pair in that game and I got lucky and hit. I won a little playing the cash game, I think Ho started out losing a few thousand and ended up killing them. He played his image so well and is a master in talking other players into do what he wants them to do.
I get to bed around 6am which is ok because my tourney does not start until 2pm. When I got to my table I could not have asked for a better table, everyone was limping and at early levels I don’t like to punish the limpers til the blinds get higher or the antes kick in, I like to let them know I am totally ok with them limping. within the first 2 rounds I had already doubled my 3k starting stack with no real risk. The players at my table were calling my raises with really wide ranges. I then look up and find that Ho, Jon Green , Debo and Mike “WiscoMurray” are all out in the 1st level. I must say I was really shocked to see that. I was a little pissed at myself because I forgot to ask Ho for the usual $500 last longer bet. I am about a 20 to one favorite when I make this bet, I think I have lost it once or twice in the many years we have made this bet, I always remind him of that time he beat me and he is always ready to try his luck again. I got out of the gate pretty quick and had some chips early but as it got down to the final table I was near last in chips, Only the final table got paid there was 95 players who started, I did make one move with 7s8s when I reraised the botton when I had about 14 times the big blind and he called my reraise all in with A 10 I out flopped him and doubled up to over 30x with a shot to win this thing.
It got down to 3 players, the final 3 deserved to be the final 3 in my opinion as my other two opponents were very skilled players, One of which being Frank “gator93″. Gator has won like well over 400k online in recent months and I know he wanted the win more than the 15k first prize, Frank raised 5x on the button 3 handed, small blind folded and I look down at my all time favorite hand, 2 black aces, I know if I reraise him here I will most likely get a fold on many hands in his range, so I decided like I had a little bit of a tough decision and just called, knowing he was going to continuation bet the flop, the flop come King high and 2 rags and to my shock he check it, the turn was another club making a possible flush draw, I bet into the flop and as I was putting chips in Frank yelled he was all In, I called he had raised with KcQc and had top pair and a flush draw to my to black aces, He bricked the river and I had a monster chip lead heads up, I had close to 200k in chips and my opponent had a little over 100K and we agreed to a chip chop and ended the night. The 13k was a great start for my drinking tab in Aruba. I took the next day off as I know I would play day 1b the following day. I spent lots of the next morning doing photo shoots and video interviews for UB and would be in the UB Icon suite checking up on my friends whom played day 1a, Later that night I went out to eat at a wonderful steak house in Aruba called El Gauchos with Frank. I took it very easy that night as I take a day before a major tourney very serious.
Day 1b seemed to be very stacked with lots of pros. I hated my table I had 2 world class players at my table , Gavin Smith along with Robert Mizrachi (”The Grinders” brother) and I knew if I made any mistake I would be punished. I didn’t forget to make my $500 last longer with Ho this time and that’s always sweet. He lasted til the beginning of the 2nd level. Ho did very well in Aruba last year making the final few tables before he blew up and gave Matt Brady a monster stack which Matt used to win the million dollar first prize.
I have played alot with Gavin over the last 5 or 6 years and not much with Robert, But I can tell you this , he is no prize to have at your table, He plays super and I totally respect his game. I got lucky in the 2nd level beating Tony from The Best Damn Poker Show season 2 with my AA on and A63 board and Tony holding 66, Those are just sick and Tong is a world class guy and hating to see him have to go out that way. Level 2 I was catching lots of cards and chipping up really well and had about 35k at one point from my 15k starting stack, I did get down below 8k at one point and finished the day around 13k. Day 2 was a bit of a grind as well and I had Eric Baldwin whom is from Madison WI, Who now lives in Las Vegas on my table, but luckily he was 2 seats to my right and he was sure torcher to may of the players he got involved with. I also got the chance to play with Tiffany Michelle who is now starting in this seasons Amazing Race on CBS, I used to work with Tiffany when I did lots of Radio for Bluff radio during the WSOP a couple of years back, It’s so good to see she is doing well in the poker and entertainment world, She is really a sweet lady. I ended day 3 with about 24k in chips and knew I would need to get a good start on day 3 to have a shot at this tourney that had 475 entrys.
On Day 3 I could not of got a worse table draw or seat position, two seats to my left of Robert Mizrachi and two seats to his left was Eric Baldwin, I did chip up to over 60k at one point for every bit of about 2 hands then I was on the button with 88 and Robert ended up with 99 and I was back down to around 30k, I was later in the big blind with about 13 or 14 times the big blind and it was raised from mid position from a guy who the day before called my UTG raise with Qh8h from the big blind when I flopped top set and he flopped a gutter and a flush draw we played a big pot and I doubled when he bricked out. So I am thinking he could have a big range but I know if I push and play for a 60k pot I am at best 50%, So I took in the value of just calling and seeing if I hit the flop and if I do I will give him some rope but checking and let him try and hang himslef. The flop come ace high , I checked it, he bet, I reraised him he called with AQ and GG me.
The following day I played a 1k buyin tourney and never really got ahould of any chips, I lasted til about 8 pm then when I busted I went and played the charity event UB put on for a local business that helps kids and familys in need. While playing the 1k tourney this lady on my left raised UTG with TT and gets called by 99 in late position and the button reraised with JT she and the other guy both call, the flop comes T high, she the the guy with JT get it all in and the board comes running JJ for her to lose her chips and double him up. Now a few minutes go by and she is still steaming and she reraised the guy whom had JT earlier and he calls half off his stack the flop comes JJ9 and she bets the flop and he calls making him all in and she flips over AA and he flips over Jc9c she screams out “God, I wanna kill a baby” I was in total shock hear a lady say this , right then and there I knew I wanted to bet she has never had a child, don’t worry river comes an ace and she busted him. I have heard many times over the years when you need to get lucky players will hollar “Just one time” but never had I heard that, But if it does work, I think poker players will say anything to make themselfs a little luckier.
The following day 10 of us had a shot at a $62,000 Mercedes, I was the second player knocked out when my TT ran into Ryan “papaGEORGIO’s JJ, Poker Ho was still playing and got heads up and ending up doing really well because they agreed to a chop and I had a small % of Ho which added to my drinking fund.
My girlfriend Amy fly in around 10pm that night, I went with my driver for the past 7 years named Henry and we picked her up and headed off to Phil Hellmuths private party ontop of the raddison in his suite. We just missed the Dan Band play, but the party was killer, check out many of the videos on youtube.com
The next night was the closing party and both Eric and Robert make the final table , Eric finishing 4th and ended up leading the Card Player of the Year points leader and Robert ended up in 2nd place , winning this year was Brandon Hall from Pa winning a little over three quarters of a million for his efferts., Thats a nice way to enjoy a trip in paradise.
The Dan Band was awesome as there were in Vegas when they played for our WSOP party a couple of years back, Many people got into the pool and it was really a ton of fun. The opening part rocked as well with tons of people in the pool and lets just say some where wearing less than others thanks to Phil’s bribes. and NO I was not offended in any way.
I hope you are all planning on next years Aruba trip, they just seem to get better and better, I missed seeing a few of you and hope this next year can be the best ever!
I am off to go help teach the November Nine Final Table Academy in Las vegas on Nov 6th, 7th and 8th Featuring poker instructors Phil Hellmuth, Greg Raymer, Bernard Lee, Mark Seif, Mark Kroon, Erica Schoenberg. Special Presentation by WSOP Commissioner, Jeffrey Pollack. Hope to see you there as well.
I feel like I was on a dream and it finished a bit too soon! Now that I am back in Costa Rica doing my blog again and I can’t believe that just a week ago I was at the beach with a background sound of the chips flowing at the poker tables in Aruba.
First of all, this was my first live event and I never thought the energy you feel there would be so intense. Second, I truly got to see a whole new face of what we do on a daily basis; all the guys that attended are in a super nice mood; I guess the scenery and environment there help to create this. And last but not least, there were some insane parties and activities that took place alongside all the poker.
On that note, I can surely say that the Icons where the ones who had the best deal there is! You can ask any of them that attended this year about the nice treats and good parties we had for them….. or, you can just take a sneak peak:
Or…
Maybe…
Plus, it is not bad at all to be able to enjoy the breaks of the event chilling at the Icon Lounge. We had food, drinks, games and some comfy couches to chill and talk poker. Here are some other pictures of what we had at the Icon lounge, they might move you to become Icon and have a taste of the VIP perks:
Seems like home…
But there are not enough blog posts or cool pics that can really translate the environment that I lived there, this just doesn’t cut it! So as a personal goal I promise that next year I will get more of you guys to go there, you will thank me later. Think of it this way, even if you don’t have a seat to the main event we do have live satellites to it and many other tourneys and SnGs; plus you can give multipurpose to the trip and make a nice vacation of it. We expect all you guys to join us next year so we can have some Aruba Aribas!
Still Loving Aruba…
PS: I bet you really want to know what an Aruba Ariba is…
Usually my blogs will have some sort of narrative thread running through them. Less, bloggy, more story. This week’s entry is going to be a bit all over the place as it reflects where I am at which is all over the place. In the last month I’ve been from Los Angeles to NY to Vegas to Aruba to Japan and back to Los Angeles yesterday. Sitting on my couch I feel like someone pulled the emergency brake in a car going 100mph, spinning into a crash of jet lag and physical exhaustion. So before my brain melts out my ears for a day or two…
Aruba was a blast. What else could it be? UB throws the event of the year in my opinion. Ask anyone that was there and the smile on his or her face is all the answer you need.
This was my third Aruba trip and it was my best so far. What made it better/different? Having a much larger UB & AP pro team there for sure. There was a real sense of camaraderie amongst the pros and we were hanging out all the time. From instigating the chaos at the pool during the opening party (where Phil gave out 10K to basically skinny-dip!) to hand analysis and poker tips for the UB players to closing the casino most nights to once again making the closing party a blast, teams UB & AP were representing!!! I really felt an all for one, one for all spirit and it makes the brand that much stronger.
I also felt that having all of the UB senior mgmt there to oversee everything was important, especially to listen to the players in the focus groups. I expect you’ll see a lot of your opinions reflected on the site very soon. Seeing UB CEO Paul Leggett on a day to day basis, being a part of the event seemingly everywhere at once absorbing it all was a real treat as well. Paul’s hands on approach and attitude really made me feel a part of something strong and the excitement about the future of the brand was tangible.
Regarding poker, I finished 62nd, 17 from the money. Second year in a row I got so close to cashing. I am happy over all with how I played and I probably could’ve grinded my way past the bubble but I was playing to win it, not to just cash.
On day one I had a hand that I was stoked about. I had overheard the chip leader (who was at my table) after losing a few pots and dropping down to around 78K from over 90K say to the guy next to him that he was on a losing streak. I made a mental note and decided if I had the opportunity I was going to try and make a move on him. A few hands later I had A8 suited in the BB. Blinds were 150-300. The chip leader raised to 950 UTG and it folded to me. I popped it to 3100 and he calls. The flop comes QQ6 rainbow. I check, he checks. The turn comes a J to complete the rainbow. I bet 5100, he calls. At this point I commit to the bluff and when an 8 comes on the river I shove my final 12K. He stands up and tanks for three minutes and then he calls the clock on himself. He was really confused by my shove. He hadn’t seen me turn a hand over at all and didn’t know what to do. He asked the floor man if he could show his hand. The floor man said if he shows his hand to try and get a read he’d have to take a one round penalty. I was thinking, “go ahead and show, you’re not going to get a read off of me, I am Mt Rushmore!!” The floor man counts down the final ten seconds and he folds. Jason Gray who was on my left asked me to show the bluff. I showed the 8. Chip leader sighs and turns over pocket 10’s. Whew.
I had a lot of fun in the cash games in the casino. Especially the UB table one night where we were playing 1-2 and the first raise would come in at $35! Then my friend Enigma4U4ME would shove blind and get three callers. Basically your typical 1-2 game with an average pot of $700.
Crazy but fun.
After Aruba I was home in LA for 36 hours and then took off to play a festival with Anthrax in Japan. The show was amazing. Here’s a link to a clip from the show: http://www.twitvid.com/05F93
I’m home now for a couple of weeks and I’m looking forward to getting back on UB and playing. See you all this week at the tables.
Man, how time does fly. Seems like just yesterday I was in LA and then today I’m in…well, LA. That’s after hitting New York City, London, and Aruba, of course. Love my job! I’m a lucky dude, for sure. I was a little bummed about the Aruba trip though…
I managed to last almost to the first break, so that’s something I suppose. Haha. I picked up KK after a Layne Flack under-the-gun raise, and an Eric ‘basebaldy’ Baldwin reraise. Now, I know Eric’s got a hand in the first level there, but y’know, I’ve got two Kings! I four-bet it and Layne decides to get out of the way at that point. Eric flat-calls and I really didn’t like it at all. To make matters worse the flop comes down, Q108(two clubs), which basically means I am in serious trouble against every single hand he would have called with except two Jacks. Ugh, no good. I actually caught a break here though as he decided to bet out, thus allowing me to keep the pot small by not raising. I just called and we saw a turn of the 4 of clubs, which I thoughts was a great card as I had the King of clubs in my hand. Eric checked over and I didn’t see much point in betting here. If he had me beat, let’s keep it small. If I’ve got him, I’m not giving too many outs by checking, so I did so. Then a great thing happened, or so I thought, the 9 of clubs hit the river, giving me the second nuts. That’s the funny thing about the second nuts though, someone can have the actual NUTS! Aya…
Eric bet out and I made a crying call. “Aces with Ace of clubs?”, I asked him. He nodded and showed them to me. Ouch. In actuality though I was pretty lucky that I only lost about half of my stack on this hand. Sadly for me though, I managed to pick up two Kings again (!) about 15 hands later. I ended up losing the rest of my stack on that hand when my opponent made quads on me. Bingo bango bongo. Out.
I was pretty bummed for a little while. First big UB event after joining the team and I managed the make the least amount of noise possible, which sucks. The truth is though that busting in Aruba just isn’t as bad as busting anywhere else. There’s way too much to do to stay down for long, and that was the case as I hit the beach pretty quickly.
The rest of the week was a blast, as it always is in Aruba. Beach, cocktails, sun, partying, and some poker made the week excellent. Life ain’t too bad…it really ain’t. One night we actually engaged in the old standby from my radio show days: cocktails and $1-$2 no limit. This game is always unbelievably sick and always brings a ridiculous cast of characters. In this game we had myself, Joe Stapleton, Amanda Leatherman, Gavin Smith, Shawn Rice, Alex Schoenberg, and a few other assorted characters. We all have a penchant for just shoving it in the middle during those games, and this one was no exception. I was the lucky one that night though, as my hands were continually better (which was strange) and they always held up (which was even stranger), so I made out of the night with…wait for it… a $4,000 win (!!!). That’s just an absurd win at that level of stakes, so I was pretty stoked. Sorry, big Gavin! He shipped quite a bit over to me throughout the night.
Lots of work to do now that I’m back home in LA, but no rest for the wicked as we head to Vegas for the Bellagio WPT event next week. Send me some positive vibeage and let’s make something good happen, ya’ll…talk soon!
