The Life and Times of T. Wade

Down Under...

2012-01-26T01:34:00.004-05:00

I played the Aussie Millions main event a few days ago. I had a good table draw and played fairly well all day. I ran my 30k starting stack up to about 90k at it's peak. With under 30 minutes left in Day 1 I managed to lose two huge pots. One was a triple barrel bluff putting the player all in. The opponent made a good call with second pair. I then lost AQ vs KK in a squeeze spot against three players where I was fairly certain of everyone's range (the third player flatted in late position with KK.) I was definitely disappointed busting in the final hands of Day 1 after playing good all day. There's always room for improvement.

I'm leaving Australia tomorrow (at the airport now - wrote blog yesterday) and heading to Japan to see one of my best friends. He plays professional basketball in Osaka. Unfortunately, he injured his calf the other day so I won't get to see him play, but at least we will get to hang out. I've never been to that part of the world. I'm looking forward to it.

Today is Australia Day. To celebrate, here are some pictures I've snapped from the trip.

The city

Docklands

Alley covered with graffiti, some sick art.

Australia Open

I have a lot more pictures from Australia. I'll take a bunch in Japan too. Until next post...

Poker and Traveling...

2012-01-22T18:06:00.002-05:00

In the beginning of January I went to the Bahamas for the PCA. The weather was great. The few years prior it was cold and windy so I was never able to enjoy being in Nassau if poker didn't go well. That's what happened this trip. I played the Main Event and busted early in Day 1 with top two pair vs bottom set (KQ on KsQs5d8c board.) It was a spot where I probably should have folded the flop/turn but I thought I noticed a physical tell on the player. I played a couple other side events that didn't go in my favor either. Fortunately for me, like I hinted above, the weather was great and I got to spend a day lounging around Atlantis with a bunch of fellow poker players. We threw footballs around the lazy river (which was the most fun I've ever had at the PCA), went down a few slides, and played a game of football on the shore.

I stayed with my friend Mark and met a couple of his friends during the trip. One of them was John Dibella. Mark, John, Tim (Tim0thee), Hans, Anthony (one of John's friends) and I all went to dinner the first night there. John and Mark both won $1k satellites to play the Main Event. We talked about poker and other random things that night and then all went our separate ways before the Main Event. In the next week, Tim and I kept meeting with Mark and John to eat dinner and hang out. John was doing well in the tournament. He was advancing each day, talking with us about hands and strategy. Although he isn't a "poker professional" he definitely knew how to play and understood dynamics behind the game some people don't comprehend.

John kept making it through everyday. I remember going to dinner with him when he made the final 24. Tim and I went through who was at his table, how they would play, what he should expect, and we even went over some hand histories to give him a little insight. I left the Bahamas the next day. I was amazed to see John had made the final table. Mark kept sending me updates throughout the day and me and Tim were sweating it online. I was shocked and excited. It was awesome to see a stranger I just met do well in a huge tournament and follow along with him. I watched the live feed and stayed in communication with Mark as John played the final table. I tried to relay any information I could that I thought would help John. I don't know if any of it actually helped, but John played great, had things go his way, and ended up winning the tournament (after a small deal) for almost 1.8 MILLION DOLLARS!!! I was so excited for him. I really couldn't believe it. Mark called me after he won (I was watching on the 40 minute delay) and everyone was just in awe. Even though John is an amateur player he played very well. He made only minimal mistakes and overall played very well. I don't think many people took him seriously which probably was to his advantage. I want to congratulate you once again John. You won one of the best and biggest poker tournaments in the world. Awesome job and well played! I also want to thank Mark for the hospitality and good time we had in the Bahamas. Congrats to both of you guys.

After I returned from the Bahamas, I relaxed in Florida for a few days and planned my trip to Australia for the Aussie Millions poker tournament. I arrived in Melbourne five days ago. It's a beautiful city that I'm exploring more of every day. I've played a couple tournaments (none of which have gone my way) and also some cash games. The Crown casino is an amazing establishment and the poker room is awesome as well. In an hour and a half I will be sitting down to play Day 1 of the Main Event. The structure is really good for this tournament and the field looks the same. Although I haven't had any deep runs lately I still feel like I'm playing well. I'm excited for this tournament and hope I can be on the good side of luck over the next few days. I will updating my twitter (@TristanCre8ive) on how things are going.

I've taken some pictures and have a few other stories I might share in another blog post. Time for me to get ready to play the Main Event. Wish me luck.

Finally...

2012-01-05T14:41:00.002-05:00

I feel like the title of this blog is fitting, for more than one reason. I FINALLY won a WSOP bracelet, I'm FINALLY writing this blog, and other things are FINALLY taking their course as well. Since I have to cover almost three months of updates, I'm anticipating my longest blog ever. Just thought I would preface a little bit. Part of the reason why it has taken me this long to write is because I had some personal health issues immediately after I returned from Europe. It took longer than expected but I've FINALLY got that under control and am back to normal. This blog will be broken down into sections to make it an easier read.

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WSOP(E) Victory

Everyone entered the final table with roughly even stacks. To give a little history about the event, it was a $3k euro Shootout. Day 1 we started 8-9 handed. Day 2 we played 3 handed. Day 3 was the final table with 10 players and everyone about even in chips. It was an insanely tough final table. There were no weak spots. I watched as a few players were eliminated and the table started to become short handed. With seven people left I won a big coinflip against Steve O'Dwyer, my TT vs his AK. I was able to open up a little more shorthanded and eliminate Max Silver KK vs 44 when he 4bet shoved on me. I entered heads up against Mike Watson (SirWatts online.) He had about 1.4 million in chips to my 1 million. We went back and forth and I eventually was able to win the tournament when he 4bet shoved A5s against my JJ. The board ran out QQ4T2 and I won my first WSOP bracelet. That's the short version of the final table haha.

Here's a victory picture. I still can't believe it.

Luckily I had a few friends with me in France to cheer me on. I want to thank my good friend Samantha and my new friends Kim and William who watched the whole final table. I also had my buddy Hans run over and watch when he wasn't playing hands in his tournament. Sam and I (along with my best friend Brian) traveled together throughout Europe and she was beyond supportive and excited about the final table (she had a nice little sweat too lol.) She's getting more experienced with poker, traveling to some of the events. I've been teaching her so hopefully she can have some success of her own soon. It was awesome to see my friends just as happy as I was. There's nothing better than being able to share an incredible experience with people who enjoy it as much as you do.

Will, Sam, Kim, and Hans behind me.

Look at Hans' expression lol. I think my JJ was cracked by KT this hand during heads up play to win the tournament. Classic picture.

The WSOP victory still hasn't sunk in yet, even after almost three months. I have to constantly remind myself that I finally accomplished one of my goals in poker. I started playing in 2003, my freshman year in college. I went all these years without a big "signature" win, online and live. I have won my fair share of tournaments but I never was able to win a major tournament. I always fell short. This happens to be the harsh reality of tournament poker. Sometimes no matter what you do things don't go your way and it is out of your hands. Everyone who takes this game seriously should understand that.

I had an amazing WSOP this year. I made two final tables in Vegas, went to Europe for the first time and won a WSOP bracelet. I don't take any of it for granted. We are deserved nothing in poker. Remember that. Nothing. Appreciate what this game can do for you and understand how unfair it can be. After you've done that all you need to do is enjoy the game itself.

Some of my friends have given me a hard time about winning my first WSOP bracelet in Europe. I understand where they are coming from as I once felt the same way. I realize poker is a global game. After playing in the WSOP(E) I know that I earned my bracelet. The fields had a ton of great players and it wasn't easy. I'll always cherish my first bracelet but now there is extra motivation to win one domestically! Haha.

Here are the finishers at the final table:

1st Tristan Wade (Me, Cre8ive)
2nd Michael Watson (SirWatts)
3rd Richard Toth (RichardToth)
4th Max Silver (Not sure his online name)
5th Bertrand Grospellier (Elky)
6th Steve O'Dwyer (MrTimCaum)
7th Emil Patel (Whitelime)
8th Taylor Paur (ambiguosity, tramp$d0pray)
9th James Dempsey (Flushy, MKKMOO)
10th John Armbrust (texduke)

I'll continue to let this all sink in and slap me in the face occasionally.

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Brazil, BSOP

I was scheduled to go to Sao Paulo, Brazil with Mike "The Grinder" Mizrachi on November 22nd. I almost didn't make the trip because of the health issues I talked about earlier. I went to the doctor the morning of my flight and was cleared to go luckily. My best friend Brian also came along for the trip with Grinder and I. We went to play some of the tournaments for the BSOP (Brazilian Series of Poker.) I went last year with Mike Matusow and I must say, once again, the BSOP is an unbelievable tournament series. They have great fields, run awesome tournaments, have a nice venue, and make the experience enjoyable for everyone. If you can make it to Brazil for one of their BSOP events I highly recommend you do.

Grinder, Juliano, Brian, and me. [Small pic]

Juliano is a great friend. Both times I visited Sao Paulo he showed me around and taught me about the culture. He has his hand in a lot of things involved with poker in Brazil. Flop Magazine, Super Poker, BSOP, and I'm sure a few more other things. The Brazilians who read this blog will know what some of those things are haha. Another person who is probably more influential with poker in Brazil is Igor Federal. He is also involved in just about everything poker related. I applaud both of these gentlemen. What they are doing for poker in Brazil is amazing to watch. I've seen what they are doing for their country and poker players there. It's truly amazing. There are many people in Brazil who are very passionate about poker. It helps to have knowledgeable, hard-working people spearhead poker efforts in Brazil. Keep doing what you are doing guys. Hopefully poker will one day be legalized in Brazil as well. I'm sure I could name a lot more people involved, there are just so many (including top Brazilian players, writers, enthusiasts, etc.)

My experiences in Brazil have always been good ones. There is something about the country and the people that you don't feel when you're in the States. Everyone is very friendly, outgoing, nice, and enjoying life. It is refreshing to be around people who are just happy to be alive. I only have good things to say about the country and all the people I encountered there. Grinder even mentioned that out of the ten days we were there he didn't see a single person who was upset. Impressive. I'm not saying it's a Utopian society but it a great place to visit. There is still a lot of room for growth on the poker aspect. After playing a few days in Brazil you can tell that poker is relatively new there. They have a different style of play that takes a little getting used to.

As far as poker is concerned, I didn't do very well in the few tournaments I played at the BSOP. I busted halfway through day 1 of the Main Event and the 6-max event. I had a last longer with grinder in both tournaments and won those at least! I wish I would have been able to play more poker while I was there but that just gives me another reason to go back to Brazil.

I'd like to thank everyone I came in contact with and everyone I know over there. Thank you. Your hospitality is one of a kind and I can't wait to return.

Here are a couple pictures from the trip:

Grinder doing an interview.

Figueira Rubaiyat restaurant. Built around a tree. Awesome.

Some of our dishes from Fig.

View from room. Sao Paulo is a HUGE city. (20mil people)

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December

December is always an interesting month to me. My birthday is in December, along with Christmas, and New Years Eve. I love living in Florida during the winter/December because it starts to get cold at night. During the day the weather is awesome. It usually is 70-80 degrees and sunny. You can't beat that.

My birthday was low key. I didn't do much. I had a dinner with the family and received a few presents. I never made a big deal out of my birthday or Christmas. My family has been able to provide me with almost everything I have ever needed, so I never felt the urge to ask for much, if anything. They always find something to get me though lol.

Christmas was fun. Again, I spent time with my family, watched them open up presents, and had Christmas dinner. It's nice to have my immediate family close for the holidays. I think they like having me around too haha.

On New Years Eve I went out in Fort Lauderdale. A few of my close friends were able to make it out and bring in the new year together. I thought about going to Vegas for New Years. That probably would have been a lot more fun. I can just imagine how ridiculous Vegas is for New Years. Nevertheless, it was nice getting to spend some time with friends I don't always get to see. The circle seems to be getting smaller.

Other than my birthday and a few holidays, I played some cash games in December. I still need to get out and play more, but I at least got to go a few times. It's hard to know when the good games are running. That's something I'm going to improve on. Live poker isn't the same as online either. Playing so much live poker really makes me miss online poker.

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DeepStacks Big News

DeepStacks is doing some great things. We just announced a Televised Poker Tour. The final table will be televised regionally. It starts February 15th at the Seneca Niagara Casino. We have our DSPT (DeepStacks Poker Tour) main event on February 17th. It is a $1500 buyin, $200k guaranteed tournament. It will last three days. The tournament starts nine handed but when we reach 36 players we finish the tournament six handed. It should be a really great event and I am looking forward to it.

On the television side of the tour I will be doing commentary alongside Joe Stapleton. I'm excited about the whole experience. Hopefully we will be able to have a great poker tour and the television product will be able to match it. I don't want to say too much about it. We will see how it goes!

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What's Next?

On Friday (tomorrow) I will be going to the Bahamas for the PCA tournament series. For anyone who doesn't know, the PCA is the PokerStars Carribean Adventure. Last year (when it was LEGAL to play ONLINE POKER) I won a package to go. I cashed in the main event and I'm hoping for better success this time around. So far I am only set on playing the main event. I don't know if I will decide to play any other tournaments or cash games. I'm strictly going for poker. If there are good tournaments/games I will stay if I bust the main event. Maybe I won't even have to worry about that. Wishful thinking.

After PCA I am going to go to Australia for the Aussie Millions at the Crown Casino. I've never been to Australia and really have no clue what to expect. Everything I have heard about the country has been positive, so this is definitely another trip I am looking forward to. I remembering watching this tournament on the television/internet and always wanting to play it. I can't wait. I will play the main event and a few other side events if I get there in time.

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Thank You

I'm glad to FINALLY be caught up on this blog and to get back in the swing of writing. The last few months have been crazy. I just want to say thank you to everyone who has supported me or followed along with the ride. Even though I do all of this for myself (well not entirely for myself!), it is nice to have people who care about what you're doing and have some interest in it. If there is anything anyone wants me to write about let me know. I've had a few people comment about my first WSOP Bracelet and the story I would tell. Hopefully I was able to touch on some interesting aspects. There's always more I could write but I try not to go overboard.

I still have a lot to accomplish. I am optimistic I will be able to achieve everything I want to. I don't know what some of those things are yet, but as long as you know what you want to do in the end, filling in the blanks is easy.

Another WSOP(E) Final Table...

2011-10-12T18:45:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow I will be taking my third crack at winning a WSOP bracelet this year. Over the summer in Las Vegas I made two final tables at the World Series. One was in a $1500 NLH event and the other was in the $10k 6-max NLH tournament. I finished 7th place and 4th place respectively. Although I am competing for a WSOP bracelet in Europe at the WSOPE, I still feel like the prestige of winning a bracelet is carried over.

The final table of the 3k NLH Shootout is stacked. Two players (Taylor Paur and Elky) from the 10k 6-max final table also made it to the final table of this event. Everyone else is an accomplished live/online player. It won't be easy but if I can win this tournament I will definitely feel like I earned it. I'll do my best and hope luck is on my side. It has been so far.

We resume play tomorrow at 3pm CEST (9am EST.) Follow my twitter @TristanCre8ive for updates. PokerNews will be covering the final table as well. I'm not sure if the tournament will be live streamed. If it is I will tweet the link for it. I'll end this blog with a cool pic taken when I was heads up today.

Finished 26th Place...

2011-10-10T14:54:00.004-04:00

I finished 26th place in the first WSOPE event. I'm 3-3 in my last three six max tournaments. Too bad there aren't more of those around! Like I said in the previous post, I was down to 600 chips in the first few levels of the tournament and ran it back up. I am happy overall with how I played and found myself in a couple unfortunate spots in the end to lose. There are a couple great tournaments left here at the WSOPE in Cannes. I am looking forward to playing.

Yesterday I played the 1k euro NLH WSOPE tournament and busted a few hours in. It was a very fast paced tournament structure. I never had momentum and battled being a short stack the whole time. Tomorrow I will be playing the 3200 euro NLH Shootout. I love shootouts. Hopefully things can go my way.

Here are some pics so far from my trip:

Building in Amsterdam

Swan in Amsterdam lol

Another cool building in Amsterdam

Delicious food

Rolled up, couldn't eat it all.

Beautiful Cannes, France

Cannes #2

Cannes #3

Cannes sunrise

Crepe... Definitely ate a piece of the fork.. lol

Amsterdam was awesome. I was only there for a day but I got to eat at a couple great restaurants and explore the city. I really wanted to visit the Van Gogh musuem but I didn't have enough time. I plan on going back again sometime soon. Cannes is also beautiful, as you can see. It is another breathtaking destination. I'm trying to take in the culture of all these countries. I'll be in Cannes for the duration of the WSOPE, looking to win my first bracelet. That's all I got for now.

Day 2 WSOPE 6-Max NLH...

2011-10-08T07:59:00.002-04:00

Been a hell of a week. I'm gonna make this one short. I went from London to Amsterdam, back to London, and now I'm in Cannes, France. I'll update the blog on that excursion later, but for now I came here to say that I made Day 2 of the 6-max WSOPE NLH event. I think I am 12th in chips with 80 players left. 36 make the money. I actually was down to 600 chips in the second level but didn't give up! Have to run. Follow my twitter @TristanCre8ive for updates.

Busted EPT London...

2011-10-04T00:23:00.003-04:00

I entered Day 3 very short on chips. I had 36k with the blinds being 1200/2400/300a. My table had a lot of good players including Jason Mercier and Steve O'Dwyer. With ~140 players remaining and 104 making the money, the cutoff opened to 5200 and I moved all in for 35k with A9o on the button. He thought for a few seconds and called with 88. I didn't win the race and was eliminated from the tournament.

Overall I'm very happy with how I played. To make it until Day 3 without ever picking up steam is an accomplishment. The only hand I was all in on was the final hand. Hopefully I can continue to play well and maybe I will have a few deep runs when I head to the WSOPE in a few days. Until then, I am planning on seeing more of London and taking a day trip to Amsterdam with a few friends. I have a few other things I'd like to talk about so I will probably write another blog before I start playing in France. It feels good to be writing again.

Day 2 EPT London...

2011-10-02T20:24:00.003-04:00

I lasted another day in the EPT London Main Event. I entered day two with 57k. Early on I ran my stack to 80k at the 400/800 level. From that point on I was super card dead and out of position against aggressive players. I did the best with what I was given and ended with 36k going into the 1200/2400/300a level. The tournament started with 691 players, there are 180 remaining, and 104 make the money. Hopefully my rush comes tomorrow and I can make something happen with this short stack. As long as I'm still in I always feel like I have a chance. Check my twitter for updates. Goodnight.

Day 1 EPT London...

2011-10-01T20:00:00.003-04:00

I survived Day 1B of the EPT London Main Event. I had a rocky start to the day. I only won one pot (for 400 chips in the first level) during the first 5 hours of the tournament. It was pretty brutal. Luckily I rebounded and was able to make some hands and accumulate a few chips. I ended the day with 57.2k; the average being a little under 50k. We didn't lose a single player from the table. I am excited to have almost doubled my starting stack of 30k.

On one of the breaks Matt from PokerListings sat down with me to ask a few questions about traveling to play poker after Black Friday. You can read the article here. I wish the US government never shut down online poker (don't we all.) Now that it is illegal to play online poker in America us players must find other ways to make money through poker. Fortunately for me I am able to travel and play some of these great events. That is basically what the article touches on.

I am running on only three hours of sleep. My sleeping pattern has been off since I arrived in London. I fell asleep around 4am last night only to wake up at 7:15am and not be able to fall back asleep. At 9am I decided to workout. I put myself through one hell of a workout which probably wasn't the best idea. Deprivation of sleep is something you can not do while playing poker for hours on end. If I want to win this tournament I have to get rest. My plan for tomorrow is the same as it was today. Wake up, workout, eat breakfast, head over to the EPT tournament and try to survive another day. Hopefully it all goes according to plan.

I'm still learning a lot about the city of London and all the different cultures here. I walked around the Hilton Metropole area (where the EPT is held) after I finished playing today. There is a lot of diversity in the region and I've been trying to soak it all in. I'll take some pictures of interesting findings and upload them within the next few days. Gotta get some sleep, goodnight.

London Living...

2011-09-30T11:44:00.004-04:00

I'm sitting in a condo in London, it overlooks the Thames river. I arrived here yesterday morning with my friend Sam. The main reason for me being here is the European Poker Tour (EPT) main event. It's my first time to Europe so naturally I am excited and ready to see a different part of the world I have never witnessed.

After London I am planning on going to Amsterdam and maybe a few day trips to other countries. That is dependent on how well the EPT main event goes and if I decide to play any other side events. Once I'm done with London I'm going to head over to Cannes, France for the World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE.) I don't know where I will head to after that. Maybe I will go home, but there are a few other destinations I have in mind that I might check out. A couple of my friends play basketball in Japan, that would be an entertaining trip. I'm very fortunate to be in this situation and am trying to take in the whole experience. Can't take anything for granted.

Other than for this trip I haven't played much poker lately (what's new lol.) I've been doing my fair share of poker coaching, but haven't been on the tables. I spent about a month looking to get a new car, researching, shopping around and figuring out what I wanted. I finally got that out of the way. I'm looking forward to getting back in the game and having success over the next few weeks. Even if I don't, I'm in Europe! I'll experience new places, culture, people, and have a great time. If anyone has any suggestions (on what to do/where to go) or comments please don't hesitate to let me know.

I will do my best to take a lot of pictures and post some interesting things on the blog. I realize I mostly talk about poker and I feel like that has limited my posts and saturated my blog. I think I am going to start opening up and talking about a variety of other topics rather than poker all day haha. After all, I'm just talking to myself anyways. I might as well share some of my other thoughts to whoever visits the site and reads the blog. Stay tuned.

Good music, crazy video...

2011-09-15T15:45:00.003-04:00

Frank Ocean - Thinking About You

Start of a Snowball...

2011-07-29T07:10:00.004-04:00

Hello again. It's been about a month since I last blogged. After "Black Friday" took place I have not been attached to my computer like I once was. I do have a lot to talk about though.

The last post I wrote explained that I was still in the $10k WSOP NLH 6-max tournament. Let me continue from there... I entered the day 19/22 in chips. I grinded the short stack for a while and eventually doubled AQ vs AT. I chipped up a little and got revenge on William Thorson, who knocked me out deep in the WSOP Main Event last year. I raised with AQ, he moved all in with KJ and my hand held. The field in this tournament was very tough. I knew all of the remaining players fighting for the bracelet. When you are playing with smart, thinking, capable players you have to be able to compete in more ways than just playing the cards. The game gets deeper.

With 8 people left I got in a big pot against Joe Ebanks (Ender55.) I hope the details aren't off by much. The button (Ben86/bttech) limped for 24k, Joe contemplated raising, then called from the small blind. I looked down at AKo in the big blind and raised 100k more. Ben folded and Joe made the call. The flop came 923r. Joe checked to me, I bet 138k, he min raised me, and I moved all in for about 600k more. He wasn't happy about having to call my shove, shook his head a little, and threw in the call. He had me in awful shape with A9o. I rivered the king of spades to stay alive and double up.

Once I won that pot I finally had enough chips to compete with some of the other chip leaders. I was able to win a few more pots before we eventually made the final table of 7. We needed to lose one player to be the "official final table" though. Ben was the first player to bust, losing AK vs JJ all in preflop. The remaining players were: Mike Sowers (SowersUNCC), Bertrand Grospellier (Elky), Joe Ebanks (ender55), Chris Moorman (moorman1), Talyor Paur (taypaur), and myself. I have played a lot of online poker against all of these guys except for Elky. The final table was definitely one of the most competitive final tables in WSOP history. I knew I would have to have a few things go my way to win the tournament.

There was plenty of room for play at the beginning of the final table. I played a few interesting pots, one against Moorman when I min raised the button and he called from the small blind. The board came KQ4hh. He check raised my flop bet, I didn't think he had a wide value range here, so I decided to reraise him back. He reraised me back and I folded. He showed the 8c (which was good haha.) I imagine he was just plain bluffing here, but he might of had a hand like K8cc and had been going with it, I doubt that though. We both had the same idea, but he ended up having the last laugh and won the pot. I seemed active after this pot, but I picked up a few hands and never got much action. We lost Mike then Taylor and were playing 4 handed.

I didn't pick up many hands at all 4 handed. The blinds got bigger and I was sandwiched in between other big stacks. I stayed patient and told myself to survive to the 40k/80k level. If I could wait for the blinds to go up there would be about 300k in the pot preflop if a player opened. With 5 minutes left in the level, I picked up A9o in the small blind with 22 big blinds. Moorman was in the big blind. I raised to 155k (at 30k/60k) and he reraised me 180k more I believe. Without giving too much away of my thinking process, Moorman is definitely capable of reraising me without a hand here. He knows I have to either go all in or fold for the most part. I thought about the spot for a little bit and decided to move all in. He called my all in with AJo and knocked me out.

I finished 4th in the toughest live tournament I ever played. Although I wanted to do better, I am very happy with how I played and my finish in the event. Like I wrote in an earlier blog, I was put in that tournament by a backer that would like to remain nameless. The backer gave me an unbelievable percentage in my favor to play the tournament. It was almost too good for me to accept, but we agreed that I would give him $10k worth of coaching in exchange for the buyin of the event. Considering I wasn't even going to play the tournament, I think everyone is pretty happy haha.

After the 10k 6max I took a few days off from poker. I only played one tournament before the WSOP Main Event, but I was ready. I didn't recognize a single person at my first table. They were all men, older than me, and nobody was too active. I chipped up a little before I was moved to a much better table. When I say better, I mean there was more action, and it would be easier to win chips at this table. After an hour at the new 2nd table, I played my first big pot of the main event.

A young kid from Europe opened in middle position to 525 at 100/200 no ante. I was two to his left and reraised to 1425 with QQ. When action got back to him, he reraised to 3400, I made it ~6400 and he snap moved all in for 18.4k, which I snap called. He turned over 99 and was in bad shape against my QQ. The board ran out xxx9x and he won a monster pot. I didn't make many other hands at this table and eventually it broke. I was then moved to my third table of the main event.

This table was much better for me overall. I was able to make a few hands early and chip up nicely. I had the respect of the table and was starting to take control of it. After being pretty active, I won a pot where I 4bet preflop and took it down. The very next hand I was in the big blind. There was an open at 200/400/50a to 1125 from the hijack, the small blind called, and I made it 3650 from the big blind with JJ. The hijack called and the small blind folded. The flop came J9Tcc I bet 3500, the guy made it 8k, and I moved all in for about 32k. He called with KQo and I was in trouble. I needed the board to pair to beat his straight. I didn't make a full house and I was eliminated from the Main Event.

Although I was knocked out of the best poker tournament in the world, I was happy and content. I have played the Main Event 6 times and I honestly don't think there is a hand that I regret or would have changed how I played this time around. Granted, I only survived until late in Day 1, but it still means something to me. I normally would be upset about busting the Main Event, but I couldn't be. I played my best. I'd really like to thank my buddy Tim0thee for helping me improve my mentality when it comes to poker. I've always been a positive person but he has helped me realize there is only so much you can control. I also know I have matured over the years and picked up a lot of experience as well. I have to keep working at becoming a better poker player and more importantly, a better person.

Congratulations to Ben Lamb and Phil Collins who both made the November 9. Ben Lamb is having one of the most incredible WSOP in the history of the game. It is definitely the sickest short term heater I have ever witnessed. Both these guys are great players and I expect them to do well at the final table. I'm not sure who I'll be rooting for. The final table has a lot of good players at it. Good luck to them come November.

DeepStacks had an event at the Palms the day after I busted the Main. We did a short notice poker camp with Epic Poker League. We had about 40 students come to the camp. We recorded some footage with our DeepStacks 360 camera, taught a little poker strategy, had an appearance from Annie Duke who taught a little bit, and then played an Epic Poker League satellite. It was a good day and a good camp. With such short notice I think everyone did a great job. The Palms staff was great. I'm sure they will have a lot of success in the future with what they are doing involving poker and the Epic Poker League.

Somehow I managed to stay in Vegas a few days after my WSOP was done. I took the red eye home on Friday night and was back in Florida early Saturday morning. It was nice to be home and see some of my family and friends. I was looking forward for things slow down a little. I have played a little poker since being home. I actually had a good finish the other day in one of the Florida State Poker Championship events. I played a $1600 bounty tournament, which didn't go my way, then I played their $2200 NLH 6max tournament. It started with 80 players. I managed to get 4 handed with 3 guys who were all friends and had a vested interest in each other. They were also good players. We all were about even in chips and decided to chop, getting about 2nd place money. I wanted to outright win the tournament, but it was smarter to chop. I wasn't guaranteed second place or better, so I went against my urge to want to play it out. My friends Hans, Stu, and Tim actually finished 8th, 7th, and 6th in the tournament. Pretty crazy that two groups of friends made it that deep lol.

Currently I'm about 30,000 feet in the air. I'm on my way to Reno, NV to teach a DeepStacks camp tomorrow and play in a $1100 DeepStacks Poker Tour event on Saturday. Last time I was at Grand Sierra Resort I had a good time (it also didn't hurt that I won the main event there lol.) I like the casino and maybe I will explore a little more of Reno while I'm there this time.

I have a few other things I want to talk about but I'm going to wait until the next blog post. I've rambled enough. I've had some time to reflect on the past few months and it still hasn't fully hit me yet. I had an great summer at the WSOP. Making two final tables is quite an accomplishment, but there is always room for improvement. I am not complaining though. I will continue to play my best. If I can do that I think more good results will follow. Hopefully it's the start of a snowball...

19 of 22 in $10k 6max...

2011-06-29T16:45:00.002-04:00

I made Day 3 of the $10k 6max NLH WSOP Event. It's a huge prize pool and first place is over 1.1 million dollars. I'm currently 19 of 22 players and have about 22 big blinds. For updates follow me on twitter @TristanCre8ive or my facebook page Facebook.com/TristanCre8ive. Let's go!!!!

10k 6 Max Day 2...

2011-06-28T16:16:00.002-04:00

I am heading into Day 2 of the 10k 6max tournament with 115.3k. Average stack is 82k. Blinds are going to be 600/1200/100a. There are 162 players left with 48 making the money. I believe it started with 474 players with the first place finisher winning 1.15 million dollars. This would be a good one to win. For updates follow me on twitter @TristanCre8ive or my facebook page Facebook.com/TristanCre8ive. Hopefully I have a good update after today.

Quick Detour...

2011-06-24T15:57:00.002-04:00

Things have been pretty busy since my 7th place finish in event #18 at the World Series of Poker. I took a couple days off between then and now and only played three or four other WSOP events. I am currently back in Florida for a few days. One of my best friends is getting married. I had to miss a few great events, but it's okay. The next tournament I am going to play is the 10k 6max NLH on Monday. I have a crazy story about this...

The 10k 6max tournament is going to be one of the toughest tournaments at the WSOP. I was not planning on playing it. I wanted to play it, but I knew it was going to be a very strong field/huge buyin. Fortunately for me, I was approached by someone who offered me an incredible freeroll. Typically when someone backs a player into a tournament on a one time deal, that player is only receiving 20% of their winnings (30% being very generous.) I was offered something much more lucrative and benevolent. I don't want to give exact numbers but it is better than your standard backing deal percentages.

I don't know why or how I am the beneficiary of such a gift, but I am very appreciative. The person who is doing this for me does not want to be known. They have their reasons and I respect that. I don't want it to be known either. If they want their secrecy they should have it. This is such an incredible story that I figured I would share with everyone. Occurrences like this rarely happen in the poker world. It would make for a great story if I do make a deep run in the event. So far I have bubbled both 6 max tournaments I've played at the WSOP. I wanted to write more about the freeroll situation but I don't think there is much more to say.

I have to run and get ready for this wedding. Congratulations to Josh and Anique on their marriage. Also congrats to Hans Winzeler and Jason Mercier. They were heads up in the 5k PLO 6max tournament at the WSOP. Jason ended up getting the best of Hans but they both played great. More updates to come.

7th Place...

2011-06-15T05:57:00.003-04:00

I finished 7th place in the $1500 WSOP NLH Event. It was my first WSOP final table (finally) and my biggest score to date. It was actually the biggest $1500 event the WSOP ever had, with 3157 players that entered.

On day 1 I was able to build my chip count up nicely. I had a couple fortunate spots where people put their money in bad. I ended the day with a great stack. On day 2 I had one of the toughest tables in the room. Most of the table were tournament grinders/regulars or high stakes cash players. The two guys that weren't were both competent poker players. I made an early push, won some pots, then got unlucky losing AA vs 77, two coinflips, and AKs vs AQo. I was left with about 5 big blinds and doubled up J9o vs A2 and TT vs AJ. Later on in the day I knocked a player out AQ vs JJ.

I played a pretty insane pot late in day 2. It was against a guy from Italy who was an inexperienced player. I raised A2o on the button to 16k at 4k/8k and he called in the small blind. The flop came 445r and he check called 18k. The turn came a 2 (still rainbow board) and he moved all in for 226k. There was between 70k-80k in the pot. I had about 260k in chips and thought about the decision for 5 or more minutes. I was pretty sure he had a hand like Ax and just decided to jam the turn. I wasn't sure if he would shove 33 or 66 though. It was a spot where I could be a big favorite for a huge pot. I had to put some real thought into the hand. I came to the conclusion that I probably have the best hand but decided to pass on a marginal situation, so I folded. He showed A6dd. He had a few more outs than I expected but it made sense. I finished day 2 6th in chips with 34 remaining players.

Going into day 3 I had Jymaster (good Internet player) directly to my left. He was moved to another table early though and we didn't really tangle. I knocked out a player with AA vs QQ and was chipping up to contest for the chip lead. I knocked out the 19th place finisher with 99 vs AQ. We redrawed for the final two tables and I was directly to Jymasters left now. Before I knew it we were playing shorthanded poker. I got a player to put it all in on a 952hh board in a 3bet pot with 66 vs my KK. The other table knocked a guy out in 11th place and I entered the final table as one of the chip leaders.

The first player we lost was the Italian gentleman who showed me A6s. We were now "officially" at the final table. There were only 9 players left including Jymaster two to my left. We didn't lose a player for around 4 hours after this. I lost AK vs a shortstack's AA and also lost KK vs a 18bb stack's 66. It was gross. I waited patiently and coolered Jymaster AA vs AKhh but had a sick sweat on a QT9h7h5d board. He was down to 55k in chips at 25k/50k/5k ante and ended up winning K7o vs AK vs AA, K4 vs ATo, and beat my AK with A9o (when another player folded a 9.) I also tried to bust him with 33 vs his 99 in a spot where I 3bet semi bluff and planned to call Jymasters shove (he wasn't the opener) getting almost 4-1. He miraculously got back up to 1.5m but ended up finishing 9th place after he lost a few pots and had to move all in with a short stack. There were 12 allins before he was knocked out in 9th place. That is ridiculous that we didn't lose a player for that long.

Here is actually an interview I did with PokerNews after one of the breaks at the final table. We had been playing 9 handed for a few hours at this point.

In a blind vs blind altercation another player busted in 8th place 99 vs JJ. I grinded a short stack and eventually doubled up AT vs K7o when it ran out Q527A. The guy that was against was in seat 1, directly to my right. He was a younger player but was drinking heavily at the final table. He got pretty drunk. He was ranting saying he didn't even care to be there, he had a flight in 4 hours, blah blah... It was annoying but I was glad to have a belligerent player to my right lol.

I got lucky at the final table when I moved all in for 16bbs 7 handed with AJo and ran into AKo. The board came AQxJx and I doubled up to one of the leaders. I played a few other pots and eventually got into a hand where the drunk player moved all in from the small blind for 13bbs and I called with KTo. He held J9o and won that hand against me when it came 7859x I believe. The blinds and antes were huge and we were losing a lot of chips an orbit. I shoved about 14bbs with A9o on the cutoff and ran into the small blinds AA (same guy who beat my KK vs 66 and won a lot of other allins.)

Here's a blurb from Bluff Magazine about the final table up until my bustout.

"It was only a matter of minutes after returning from their dinner break for the final eleven players in the $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event to become ten. It didn’t take but twenty more minutes to trim the field from ten to nine.

That is when things started getting crazy. Once the nine-handed final table was set, it would take three hours and fifty minutes to lose a player, as twelve times players were all-in for their tournament life only to survive and double up. Jordan Young lost all but one big blind when he ran Big Slick into Tristan Wade’s pocket aces, but he managed to double up on four separate occasions to go from 55,000 to more than 1.5 million. Despite all the effort to build up his stack, Young couldn’t escape a ninth place finish.

Philippe Vert exited in eighth place a short while later, then another long stretch without an elimination ensued, as seven more times a short stack player was all-in and managed to survive. During this barrage of 19 separate double ups, no player seemed to run worse than Tristan Wade, who got it in ahead on several occasions only to repeatedly be two and three outed. The bad beats took their toll and he finished in seventh place."

I was very happy with how I played. Obviously to get that far in the tournament I know I was lucky, but to win a tournament you still have to be lucky in the end, which I wasn't. I want to thank everyone on twitter/online who showed support and all the people who stopped by or watched the final table. It was really nice to see everyone rooting for me. A lot of people said some really nice things to me even after the final table and I appreciate that. I'm hoping this final table is the start to a WSOP heater and maybe another crack at trying to win a bracelet. Hopefully I can continue to play well and make good decisions at the tables. I still have a lot to improve on.

I'll leave you guys with a nice article Arthur from PokerListings wrote. He's also the same guy who wrote the article I posted a few weeks ago about me being one of the Top 5 Breakout players at the WSOP this year. Tristan Wade Breaks Out with First WSOP Final Table. I wouldn't say I necessarily broke out, but it's nice to be on the board with a final table. Maybe Arthur knows what he's talking about lol. I still need to win one of these majors though. Goodnight.

6 of 34 $1500 WSOP...

2011-06-13T16:47:00.003-04:00

Going into Day 3 of the $1500 WSOP NLH Event. I am 6th in chips with 34 remaining. I will update my twitter at @TristanCre8ive -- Thanks everyone for the support. I will write a new blog in a day or two and let everyone know how everything has been going. Have to run. Wish me luck.

The Aftermath...

2011-06-05T03:09:00.009-04:00

Damn, it's been a long time since I've blogged. My time spent on the computer has probably gone down considerably in the last month and a half. Things have been exciting. Prepare for a long post...

My last blog post was immediately after April 15th, AKA Black Friday. Online poker, to me at least, had been destroyed in the United States. I decided I wouldn't play any poker on any other online websites. I thought and still do think that it is too risky. I've stayed busy other ways, mostly with doing DeepStacks work.

I started off by teaching a camp in Traverse City, Michigan at Turtle Creek Casino. That casino was new/very nice although we were in the middle of nowhere. It was still a cool town and the camp was a success. We also had a DeepStacks Poker Tour event there too which one of our Pros, Adam "Roothlus" Levy won. Congrats. I played the tournament and some cash games there. I also ate the most incredible, delicious pizza ever.

Traverse City is apparently the cherry capital of the world. The pizza is a cherry chicken pizza from Mancino's. The crust is made of different nuts, it has 5 different cheeses, and a ton of cherries and chicken with a ranch base. I couldn't believe how good it was. It's come close to winning an award for best pizza in the world. Here's a picture of Grinder holding the box.

After Michigan I was able to go back home for a few days before I had to hit the road again. I found time to do some private coaching a few times before I had to leave again for a 2 1/2 week trip. I started off by flying into Buffalo and teaching/running a 100+ person DeepStacks camp at the Seneca Niagara Casino in Niagara Falls, NY. It was a great turnout. We also were running a DeepStacks Poker Tour series with a $1500 main event. I played in that and the cash games as well. It was a good time. The staff and people who run the poker room there are awesome. Thank you for everything guys.

Online cash game legend Tim0thee came and picked me up from the casino and we drove back to his place right outside of Toronto. I stayed with him for 4-5 days in between my two camps (I had to go to California after Canada.) We went out in Toronto with some of our other friends Brad and Bubba.

They showed me around Toronto it was a good time. We watched one of the NBA Playoff games at a great sports bar right across from the Rogers Centre. It was cool to explore the city a little bit. I wish I could of gotten to do more there. I watched Tim0 play a bunch of cash online and we got to hang out and do a couple other things. I could see Toronto being a destination to live so I could play online poker again.

Next thing I knew I was done with customs and on to my next destination... Turlock, California. I actually liked Turlock. It was a cool little city. I got to drive part of the way from LA to Turlock. It was interesting to drive through California and see different sections of it. That camp/tournament was also very fun, rewarding, and smooth. Their poker room was great and very professional. Everyone was helpful and friendly, I had a blast but was also rushing to get back home for Mother's Day.

I booked a 6am flight so I could make the cross country trek in time to see my family and mom for the holiday. I finally made it to Florida late afternoon/early night. My sister, her husband, and my nephew all came to pick me up. It was nice to see them; I missed them. I got to my parents house in time for dinner and surprised my mom. I had a little while before I was off to the WSOP. My time consisted of rehabbing my knee, getting to go to a couple Heat playoff games, and private coaching.

Just a few days ago I designed and ordered my custom poker table from Off Tilt Poker Tables. It's going to be a sick table. I had some artwork done which will be put on the custom felt. I'm looking forward to getting the table in a few weeks. Once I get back from the WSOP I will post pictures of it. I've seen a few pics already, it's looking good. Thanks Bryan. If anyone wants a table make sure to check out the website, there are a few deals and the owner is really helpful in the building process/anything else.

A couple days ago PokerListings did an article on Top 5 Breakout Players for the 2011 WSOP. I happened to be one of the 5 they picked. Here's the link... PokerListings.com Pretty cool. I'm hoping I can live up to the expectations, but it is tournament poker. I can only do my best. With that said I still feel really confident and experienced this year. It's my 6th trip to the WSOP... I should have some things figured out by now.

I've played one WSOP event so far, the $5k NLH. I busted pretty early in the day. Ran into a couple tough spots early and nothing ever went my way. It happens sometimes. Yesterday I played the $560 Venetian tournament but couldn't win a couple flips deep. Tomorrow I am registered for the WSOP $1k NLH. I'm looking forward to it. I love these small buy in, big field tournaments. If you can survive the beginning of them there is always hope haha.

There's more I could say but it is getting late and I need to head to bed. Hopefully I didn't leave out any important details from the recent weeks lol. I will be updating the blog more frequently now. I'm still getting settled into the house I am staying at. Give me a few more days and I should be perfect. I have a few other interesting and important things to talk about but they will have to wait. Goodnight.

Almost forgot... I was interviewed by PokerNews a couple months ago and I forgot to post the article. It's a cool little interview about bet sizing. Check it out. Bet Sizing With Tristan "Cre8ive" Wade.

Shocking News...

2011-04-16T19:21:00.004-04:00

On the night of April 14th I was listening to some music and tweeted a line "I'm standing on a field full of land mines, doin the moonwalk, hopin I blow up in time." That's how I felt. Online poker (and poker in general) had been going very well for me the last few weeks. I had a lot of free time to play and I was having great results. I was gearing up for the WSOP and was enjoying working hard on my game. The very next day, April 15th, online poker came crashing down.

Well, damn. There goes my job. I'm taking it well for now. I read through the indictment and didn't realize the poker sites were doing some of the things they were doing. There are so many things we don't know that goes on. To think all of this started with the UIGEA. It's pretty unbelievable. That should have not been passed in the first place. I don't fault the poker sites for what they did (although I see both sides to what they were doing) because this could have been handled differently from the beginning. I also understand now why we didn't get it regulated a few months ago. It's pretty obvious they were building a case against these poker sites and were going to go after billions of dollars. Why would they want to regulate online poker when they can make a few billion dollars first? I hate politics.

I won't get into all the technicalities with the indictment. We could talk about it for a while. It happened. Online poker has been stopped. It doesn't matter how it happened, what started it, what finished it. All that matters is getting it back... the right way.

My plan right now is to keep working with DeepStacks, and to play a lot of live poker. This might be good for me for the time being. I will play a lot of live cash now and live tournaments. I will be ready for the WSOP. My WSOP results have been consistently getting better, with last year being my best series ever. I have very high expectations for myself this year. I'll adjust my plans once I find out more about what is supposed to happen.

I just wanted to write something. Like I said, poker had been going well. I had a lot of great online results. I played a live tournament the other day at the Isle casino. It was a $1600 tournament with $500 bounties. I final tabled it last time a few months ago and got 6th I believe. This time I bubbled the final table, finishing 11th place. It was a fun tournament. I got down to 2000 chips at 3k/6k/500a on the bubble (14 cashed) and ran it back up to 120k.

I'm going to miss a lot of great live tournaments South Florida is offering in the next few weeks because I will be doing a lot of traveling for DeepStacks. I'll be traveling for 3 weeks. I'm going to Michigan, New York, Toronto, California, Oregon and back to Florida. It should be fun, and I guess it is good timing as well. I was worried about missing a lot of FTOPS/SCOOP events. There's always positives to everything haha.

Everybody hold your heads up. I know this situation isn't easy. We just have to see what is going to happen and adjust from there. Let's work together, stay positive, and hope for the best. The poker community is full of intelligent people. Everything will work out. When there are some more announcements I will write another blog. I'm still going to continue to do private coaching and I'm looking forward to see what happens in the near future with myself and poker. Good luck guys.

Victory and Surgery...

2011-03-14T18:25:00.007-04:00

I won the tournament, the $2500 Deepstacks Poker Tour main event at the Grand Sierra Resort. We resumed play on Day 2 with 17 players left and finished until there was a winner. Things went my way at times and I was lucky to come out ahead.

Early on in the day at 1k/2k a loose(ish) preflop player made it 4500 UTG with about 25-30bb stack. I played with him a lot on day 1 and was comfortable pinning his range here. Roothlus flatted 2 to his left with ~28bbs and another player I knew flatted with under 20bbs. I had TT in the small blind with 160-170k stack. I was really only worried about Roothlus in this spot and contemplated flatting or raising. I decided to raise since there was almost 20k in the pot already. I 3bet to 16k and it folded to Roothlus who went all in for 39k (high 30s or so) more. I had been pretty aggressive but I didn't love the spot against him. I knew his range was polarized to a few hands. I still was priced in though and made the call. He had JJ and I ended up flopping a ten against him. Another good player busted at the other table as well. It was good for me that a few of the really good players were getting knocked out.

I chipped my way up some more and when we were playing 5 handed I lost a big pot 99 vs 88 all in preflop for 150k pot at 1.5k/3k. The board ran out JT29Q. That was a rough one, but that's how it goes. You get lucky, you get unlucky. I was knocked down to around 200k after that hand. A player busted from the other table and we had to redraw seats for the final ten. Only nine places were being paid.

I had a good, aggressive player to my left who I used to play a lot online with. His online name is "ricestud." He didn't have many chips but he ended up busting the 10th place finisher for us to go to the final table. The final table was being recorded by the Deepstacks 360 degree camera and a couple other avenues of technology. It was cool to be a part of a filmed final table. That was my first recorded final table. There were some nuances such as the bright lights, having to use the hole card cam, and keeping your chips stack to your side. The CEO/Owner of Deepstacks, Chris Torina, also made the final table.

The first person to bust at the final table was actually ricestud. There was an older gentleman named Bill in the 9 seat. I was in the 1 seat and sometimes when Bill tried to show his cards to the hole camera they would be exposed. He raised the button one hand and I saw a jack of spades flash. I told the floorman and they made him expose it to the rest of the table. It was just me and ricestud left in the hand. I mucked A5o from the small blind and ricestud decided to move all in for about 20bbs or less. Bill decided to call with QJss and beat A6 on a T8x9x board.

The rest of the final table was pretty slow until a guy busted in 8th TT vs AK all in pre. The player who held AK, who was also a student at the Deepstacks camp (Leon), won the hand. The next guy to lose after that was Chris Torina. I actually knocked him out. He only had about 55k or less at 4k/8k and there was another player who had 40k. All of the other players had a minimum of 200k. I had 420k and raised to 17k with 35dd on the hijack. Chris moved all in with KJo and I won the pot and knocked him out in 7th.

Bill was crushing the final table now. He was playing 50% or more of the hands. I was playing a couple pots with him but I didn't get out of control. I was chipping up nicely and then lost a pot to Bill when he limped the SB with 69o and I raised him with QTcc. He called and the flop came QJ9c he check called, turn was a 3, he check called again, and the river was a 6 and we both checked. He rolled over 69 for a rivered two pair. That pot was pretty big at the time and knocked me down to about 300k. We were now down to 5 players. A few hands after that I opened to 17k UTG with QQ and a short stack raised me to 50k in next position. I put him all in for his remaining 60k and he called with AJo. The board ran out 723JJ and he doubled up. At first I didn't even realize he had AJ because I was anti sweating the ace haha.

I won a few big pots off of Bill after that. I had about 220-240k at 4k/8k 5 handed and opened T7cc UTG. Bill defended his big blind and the flop came T83dd he led into me for 25k and I raised to 65k. He called. The turn was the 2s and he checked, I fired 80k this time. He called. The river was another 3 and he checked. I checked back and he rolled over 79o for a missed straight draw. The very next hand he raised to 20k from the small blind and I called with T6cc. The flop came QJc6 and he bet 25k on the flop. He literally would bet every flop so I decided to float him here, I still could have the best hand. The turn was another 6 which was the best card for me. He checked, I bet 40k, and he called. The river was a 3 and he checked again. I fired out 120k and he called. I won another pot and took over the chip lead.

Bill busted a short stack with A9 vs AT and the other shortstack busted and we were now 3 handed. Me, Bill and Leon. I took a couple pots off of Leon and Bill. Eventually me and Leon got it in my 77 vs his AQdd. He only had about ~25bbs at the time so it was a pretty easy spot for both of us. The board ran out 723d6dAs and I won the pot after having a sweat. When I entered heads up I had 1.1mil to Bills 450k.

I decided to play really small ball against Bill. He wouldn't ever 3bet but he would call 3bets. He would limp the button and I even checked hands like 77. There was no point in building pots out of position vs mediocre hands. We went back and forth a little bit and then I won a couple big pots off of him. I min raised the button with AJo he defended. It came T87hhh I had no hearts. He check called. The turn was 9d, he check called, the river was an Ad, he check called again and I scooped a pretty big pot. I grinded him down some more and eventually limped the button with 44. He checked. The flop came 874cc he led into me for about the size of the pot, 25k. I made it 75k. He called. The turn was another 7. He check called 84k. The river was the 2d and he only had about 150-180k behind and check called all in with 86o. That was the final hand of the tournament. It felt great to actually win a tournament without making a deal or a chop. Typically in Florida that's not always possible because people know each other or just really want to make a deal. This tournament had a great structure and there was a TON of room for play. Entering heads up Bill still had almost 50bbs.

When Deepstacks gets the final table up somewhere I will link everyone to it so they can watch it. Thanks again for everyone who followed the updates on Twitter and everyone who reads the blog. I really do appreciate the support. It was overwhelming and awesome to have so many people rooting for me. Thanks again. Many more wins to come.

Final hand of the tournament.

Sterling silver coin/trophy I won.

The day after the tournament ended, Monday, I was supposed to get on a flight back to Florida. I woke up at 9am and got ready for my 12:40pm flight. A couple days earlier was daylight savings time and we had to spring ahead an hour. I set my watch and my phone automatically adjusted the time. I woke up, got ready, and headed down to the casino floor to meet up with Chris and Grinder. It was about 10:30am and they were trying to convince me to goto San Jose for the WPT Bay 101. I contemplated it for a while. I had two hours before my flight, so I hung around deciding what I should do. I had knee surgery scheduled for Friday. If I made a deep run at the WPT I'd have to cancel my surgery.

I sat on a bench outside of the Grand Sierra Resort (GSR) for about 20 minutes trying to figure out what I should do. I came to the conclusion that there was too many variables already set in motion for surgery and it was best not to mess with it. It's not easy to schedule a surgery, so I wanted to get it out of the way. At around 11am I got into a cab and headed to the airport.

The Reno airport is only 5 minutes away from GSR. I arrived at the airport and walked up to the US Airways desk. A lady approached me and asked me what flight I was taking. I told her the one to Phoenix and proceeded to check in through the kiosk. She told me it was too late to check in. I looked at my phone, it said 11:10am. I showed her and asked her why? She then told me it was 12:10pm. I was in shock haha. Apparently my phone jumped back an hour at some point the night before and I was operating under the wrong time. My initial itinerary was to fly from Reno to Phoenix, 40 minute layover, and then get in to Florida at 10pm. I now had two options. Fly the next day at 6:30am or take the next flight to Phoenix at 4:30pm. I chose the latter. I had to fly to Phoenix, wait 6 hours, fly to Charlotte, wait 2 hours, then fly to Florida and get in at 10am. It was an inconvenience but I wanted to get back as soon as possible.

The surgery went as well as possible. It's only been two days since it happened but I'm handling it. There's a lot of pain and I'm on some heavy pain killers. This operation went better than the first one though so I'm hoping for a quicker recovery time. I played poker Friday night (night after surgery) and then today as well. I am going to grind online tomorrow too but I will probably just play most of the bigger tournaments. I have been playing on my laptop with no extra monitor and I'm not used to playing more than 8 tables on it. Today I had 14-15 so maybe I will be able to adjust for tomorrow.

My leg after surgery.

Me playing poker today while hooked up to a machine that slowly bends my knee. I'll have to be hooked up to this machine 4 hours a day for probably 10-14 days.

Hopefully I can have a successful Sunday and a few sweats to take away some of the pain from my knee haha. See you guys at the tables in the afternoon.

Serendipity...

2011-03-13T07:42:00.003-04:00

It’s been a while… Over a month since I’ve blogged. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot to say, I just haven’t gotten around to writing. I will begin where I left off.

In my last blog post I was going into day 3 of the Hard Rock tournament. In disappointing fashion, I finished 12th. I basically lost three big coin flips in a row to lose my stack and eventually bust. There were only a few remaining players in the field that would have given me some difficulty I believe. There isn’t anything you can do when it comes to the luck factor in poker. I’ve learned that over my career and it is the one thing I despise in this temporary profession I have chosen. The FTOPS was taking place at the time and after I lost my last chips, I headed over to Jason Mercier’s house to play online.

I brought my laptop with me to the casino since Jason lives 10 minutes from the Hard Rock and I live about 45 minutes. I hopped in the 6-max PLO FTOPS and a bunch of other tournaments. I managed to make a deep run in the PLO tournament. I was hoping that I could erase the disappointment of the 12th place finish earlier that day with a big online win. Both tournaments were over 100k to first. I was running hot for a while in the PLO tournament and cooled off. I bricked a couple flops, blinded down, then lost a coinflip to finish in 22nd place. Rough day. I played online here and there for the remaining good FTOPS events but didn’t have any final tables or anything else noteworthy.

There was a good basketball league going on at the local YMCA and I ended up getting on a team the last week they allowed new players. I was super excited about playing in an actual league. The games I had been playing in weren’t that great and I hardly ran full court games. I was still working out lifting weights and doing basketball related exercise, I just wasn’t playing full court that much. We had two games I played in. In the first game we got crushed by my best friend/brother Brian. They definitely had a better team than us but we didn’t play great either. It was the first time most of us played together. The week after that we managed to win an insane triple overtime game. We were down 3 with 8 seconds left. I caught a pass at half court with a man guarding me. I realized he was on my left side so I spun to my right and set my feet at the three point line. I pump faked and another player from their team jumped by me while my defender stayed next to me with his hands up. I put up the shot and managed to make it with a couple seconds left to send us into the first overtime. I picked up two horrible fouls in the first overtime (the refs obviously suck in this league lol) and my team was stuck playing 4 vs. 5. We had another player hit a 3 to tie the game again and send us into double overtime, then they made a layup while time expired to go into triple overtime. We somehow managed to pull it out and win the game. I was just happy playing basketball again.

The next week we were playing a pretty good team and I wanted to make sure I was ready. On Tuesday I went to the gym and went through a tough basketball workout. I did dribbling drills, shooting drills, everything. Normally I just shoot off screens or set shots, but I wanted to get real competitive again. After that I got a quick lift workout in. I was feeling good. The next day I went to 24 hour fitness. I’ve been a member at this gym since they opened but I wasn’t going there much because I was working out at the YMCA with Brian instead.

I knew a couple of the guys in the gym playing and had to wait a few games to play. The games aren’t really that great in this gym but I wanted to play full court some more and get ready for the game the next day. I was shooting around on a vacant hoop while I waited for the games to finish. I was feeling really good, getting back into the swing of things. I felt like I was about to go off in this upcoming game. I picked up four guys that were in their 40’s to play with me. They were the first ones to ask and I really didn’t mind either way. The second play of the game I brought the ball up on a 2 vs. 3 fast break. I wasn’t going to attack but the third defender stepped up to me at the NBA 3 point line. I went by him and was met by the open defender at the free throw line, I had the whole lane to make a move and get a bucket. I hit him with an in and out and stepped with my right foot to the left side of him. I was a little left of the basket and had to twist back right to finish the layup. Once I planted my leg going left and twisted a little to the right to finish the play, my knee snapped. I immediately felt the nostalgia of my torn ACL/two meniscus tear injury to my left knee from my senior year in college. I landed on the ground out of bounds and a couple of guys ran up to me. I knew what the injury felt like but I was still hoping for the best. I laid there for half a minute, slammed the floor, and tried to get up. I could put some weight on my knee but it wasn’t good. I tried to stay positive because when I messed up my left knee I couldn’t walk off the court on my own. I managed to limp over to get my stuff and make it to my car. My leg was really weak. I got home and made an appointment for the doctor the next day.

The doctor couldn’t tell definitely if my ACL was torn from examining it. It was really swollen and sore. He told me he was 75% sure it was an ACL tear but of course we would need an MRI to confirm. I was supposed to leave to California the next day, Friday, to teach a DeepStacks camp at the Pala Casino.

Ironically, it was NBA All-Star weekend when I flew into Los Angeles. I met up with The Grinder at the airport and we boarded the same flight. The doctor gave me some pain killers but I was hardly able to walk. I had a bad limp, couldn’t straighten my leg or bend it all the way. I was advised to get up and walk around and stretch during the flight a couple times so I wouldn’t get a blood clot in my leg. That was a long shot, but that’s the last thing I needed. We made it to LA and then drove to Pala.

Pala Casino was very nice. The staff was great, they were really accommodating. We had probably 40-50 people show up to the camp. It was a great camp. Mike Matusow, Adam “Roothlus” Levy, Mike “The Grinder” Mizrachi, Chris Torina, and I all taught at the camp. That night we hung out and had a few drinks around the casino. The FTOPS was still taking place and the staff at the casino set me up with a router, internet connection, and power outlet in their poker room. I was playing online at an empty poker table while both Mikes played in a 5/10/25 NLH game. Like I mentioned earlier, nothing exciting to say there haha.

I stayed in Pala for two more days until Monday. I played online in my hotel room on Sunday and flew back to Florida Monday night. I landed in Fort Lauderdale at 6am and had my MRI scheduled for 7am. I was super tired. I didn’t get any sleep on the flight. During my MRI I was instructed to not move at all. I’m pretty sure I nodded off a few times but luckily I didn’t mess up the MRI results. My ACL was torn, but I expected this all along. Luckily I didn’t have any other damage aside from some sprains to other parts of my knee. Hopefully that diagnosis doesn’t change when they operate on me in a week.

Although it sucks to go through another knee injury to my other knee, I realize I’m still lucky to walk and be in the situation I’m in. I have a lot of things people wish they could have and no matter what, things happen and you just have to move on from it. It can always be worse so I definitely keep a positive mindset.

--- Now on to the present ---

Thursday I left Florida to come to Reno, Nevada. That is where I am now at the Grand Sierra Resort. My voyage to get here was a little crazy. I connected in Phoenix and we tried to land in Reno but it was too windy. Once we went down they pulled back up and said that they were going to take us to Sacramento. When we got to Sac they announced that we could either go back to Phoenix and wait for a flight to Reno after midnight, or stay in Sac. It was noon and I didn't feel like waiting around until the next day to get to Reno. I had to be there now. They said we weren't able to drive a car there because of driving conditions. Reno is only a 2 hour drive from Sac. The person obviously had no clue what they were saying, and US Airways was just a complete joke when it came to this situation. They did nothing to help. I rented a car with 3 strangers and we drove to Reno. It was an interesting time and everyone was nice and fun. I made it here safely luckily haha.

It's now Saturday night (early morning.) We had a training camp on Friday. Today was the start of the $2500 Deepstacks Main Event. It only got about 80 players. That was a little disappointing but it is still an awesome tournament and it has a sick structure. There were 17 people who survived the day and I happen to be one of them. I have 147k with blinds 1k/2k/300a. The average is 90k. 9 people get paid and first place is a pretty nice payday. There are still 4 other people who are involved with Deepstacks left. Adam "Roothlus" Levy, Hayden "nipsman" Fortini, Robert Croak, and Chris Torina. It should be fun tomorrow, we resume at 2pm. I'm going to get some sleep but hopefully I can take this tournament down. I have a really good seat/table and I hope some things go my way. I will update the blog more frequently so I appreciate everyone who stops by constantly to see if I've written anything. Goodnight!

Also sorry if this blog is all over the place. I tried to pile the last month into it and it's too late now for me to go over it. I'm pooped.

Made Day 3 of $2200 Hard Rock...

2011-02-07T02:24:00.003-05:00

I'm just going to write a quick post. I came into Day 2 of the $2200 at the Hard Rock with 33k in chips at 600/1200. I was one of the shortest stacks, ran it up to 238k by the end of the night. Going into Day 3 there are 24 players left, 18 get paid. First place is almost 100k. The blinds will start off at 2k/4k and go from there. The blinds go up every hour. I think the average stack is 150k or so. They only had us play for 5 hours today so we could all watch the SuperBowl. It worked out for the best. We play tomorrow at 11am so I am heading to bed. Follow my Twitter for updates. Goodnight.

Big Announcement...

2011-02-02T17:15:00.003-05:00

A couple months ago I blogged about an announcement I was going to make. Well that time has finally come. I'm proud to announce a deal with a popular custom poker/gaming table making company, Off Tilt Poker Tables. I've recently built a relationship with the owner of the company. He's a super nice guy and the tables he builds are awesome. The products he offers are high quality and can be personalized for every user. They make poker tables, blackjack tables, you name it - they can build it. I actually have a custom poker table being built for me now. Once I get it finished I will post pictures of it.

To celebrate the deal with Off Tilt, they are offering a special package for a custom poker table at $1624. You have to purchase the table through my my link on their website http://www.OffTiltPokerTables.com/Tristan to receive the discount. The package includes:

-Choice of table size up to 8 feet
-Choice of table style (dealer, full surface, racetrack, oval, octagon, etc or combo)
-Choice of wood stain
-Choice of vinyl rail color
-Choice of wood pedestal
-Stainless steel cup holders
-Choice of a custom designed cloth or dyed cloth OR hidden chip drawer
(My favorite part of building a table is the custom designed cloth. It personalizes the table.)

The table is then enclosed in wood crating and shipped and delivered to your house, which is included in the price. Also if you purchase any other upgrades or options for your table you get 10% off if you use the referral code "Cre8ive" or "Tristan"

I'm going to add some pictures at the bottom of the blog of some of the tables. They have a gallery of 50+ pictures of all different types of tables they made on their website. If there are any other questions you can contact Off Tilt Poker Tables directly through their website or contact me. Enough business talk!

I just got back on Saturday night from a trip to Montreal, Canada. It was awesome up there. I went to teach a DeepStacks camp at the Four Aces Poker club. The poker club was awesome and once again, I met a lot of cool people on the trip. Thanks to everyone at Four Aces and all the new friends I met in Montreal. I arrived on Wednesday and was supposed to leave Friday, but decided to stay an extra day. Although it was snowing and freezing, I liked the change of environment. I don't see snow often, especially for a few days. I got to walk around the city near McGill University a couple times. I also went out to a couple different clubs/bars/hotels at night. I enjoyed the city and want to go back and visit during the summer. My next camp is in California in a couple weeks. I will be traveling a lot this year.

There is a $2k tournament coming up at the Hard Rock in South Florida this weekend which I will be playing. I'm excited as usual haha. Check my twitter for updates if I don't update the blog before then.

Here are some pictures of the poker tables:

Pretty sick custom designed cloth.

FSU is OKAY lol.. but awesome table with hidden chip drawer.

They can basically build anything you want. Anyone who is interested in getting a poker/gaming table should check them out. Don't forget you have to use my link http://www.OffTiltPokerTables.com/Tristan to receive the discount.

Lots Of Live Poker...

2011-01-18T16:23:00.003-05:00

My trip to the Bahamas was profitable, but it could have been much more successful. I played only two tournaments. The $10k Main Event and a $1k side event. I was going to play the $2k turbo ($1k bounty on each person) but my friend was sick and going to go to the doctor, so I decided to skip the tournament and take him. It sucked missing such a great tournament but I had a good reason to. I should have played a couple more tournaments when I was there but I didn't make good use of the online registration like I should have. Live and learn.

The 10k Main event was a great tournament. My starting table had a couple really good online players. BKice and bigegypt were to my direct right and puffinmypurp was also at the table. Once a few players busted, Sorel Mizzi and gboro780 took their seats. Luckily I made it through day 1 with 119k, which was a pretty decent stack. I won JJ vs A4, and KK vs AK all in preflop and chipped my way up towards the end of the day.

I had a decent table draw on Day 2. Sam Stein was to my direct right and there were a few other good players scattered around the table. I stayed patient and didn't play that many pots early. I was really card dead and didn't try to force anything. I was happy about that. Later on in the day I started to pick up a few hands and make a couple plays.

I had about 120k at 1200/2400 and raised the cutoff to 5200. Pieter De Korver three bet me from the small blind to 12600. I 4bet to 28900. Pieter tanked for a good 2 minutes and decided to flat call me. I had roughly 85k behind. The flop came K35s with one spade and he checked. I moved all in and he folded pretty quickly. This helped me gain some momentum. I'd rather not say what I had in some of these spots though. I can't give away too much information. I had been fairly tight and I'm pretty certain Pieter folded a hand like TT/JJ (this is what he said he had too.)

The blinds were now 1500/3000 and I had about 150k in chips I believe. Someone I know was moved to the table. I know this person fairly well as we have some mutual friends. This person isn't the most respected and doesn't have the best reputation. I keep my distance though because I know better. His very first hand at the table he makes it 7500 with about a 90k stack. I picked up AKo on the button and 3bet him. He thought about it for a little bit, and didn't think I would raise him light here and decided to fold to me. I told him good fold, smiled, and showed him my hand. There's always a different level of psychology when you are playing against someone you know. It's tough sometimes to know which level you should take your thought process to. The next orbit he opened the hijack with 20bbs. I moved all in from the small blind and he folded A9 face up. The very next hand he opened again, and I 3bet from the button. He told me "I'm folding a pair this time!" Who knows if that was the truth, but we were playing a few pots against each other and he was still giving me playful banter saying he knew I had it every time. I then opened a hand to 6800, and he 3bet me from the big blind to 17k, with a little under 20bbs. I thought he could just be making a move on me here, but I took the lower variance route and decided to fold.

At break he came up to me and told me "Don't bust me kid." while a couple players were still at the table. Pieter asked me what he said and I told him. A couple minutes later he ran into me and I told him to just play poker and that I had a couple good spots against him. He told me he was going to stay out of my way and I replied that if he has 20bbs and I have AQ I don't plan on folding to him. Like I said earlier, the psychology behind playing against people you know takes things to another level and I would rather just both parties play their game. I will kind of talk about this a little later in the blog too, because I have a perfect example from a tournament I played yesterday as well.

We come back from break and we were about 20 away from the money. I won a big pot preflop where I 4bet and took it down. The blinds were now 2k/4k and I had around 180k. We were seven handed and I opened to 8800 UTG with AA. The guy I knew then flatted the button with a 79k stack. He had just under 20bbs. The flop came 892 rainbow. I bet 10200 and after a couple seconds of thought they said "I raise... I'm all in." I snap called and he turned over T8o for middle pair. The turn was a J and the river was a T to give him two pair and win the pot. I wasn't upset about getting my aces cracked. It was the principle that this person said they weren't going to come after me and made some ridiculously awful play on the bubble against me. I didn't expect less though, hence why I snap called the all in. That was a tough pot to lose on the bubble though. The player told me "I didn't deserve that to happen to me" and even tried to offer me a freeroll on him lol... This is why I say to people just to play poker. Don't tell someone one thing and do another. Play your game and that way you don't have to get into spots like this. This guy thought I would fold to him and he tried to take advantage of me. I got my money in good and got unlucky. I'm glad there are people that bad at poker that will continue to make me money in this game.

I made one really questionable fold on the bubble about 4 away from the money. In the previous orbit a really good/aggressive Internet player opened the lowjack and I jammed all in from the big blind for about 25bbs. He folded and I picked up the pot. He had tightened up since a couple players behind him recently got chips and we were nearing the bubble. In the same spot an orbit or two later he opened again. This time his bet sizing was a little different. I wasn't sure if that had any significance. I had 110k behind at 2k/4k. I looked down at 99 in the big blind. This is typically a spot where my default is to get all in preflop. Something about the game flow and the table dynamics made me think twice. I weighed my options. I didn't like calling because I knew the player very well and knew he was capable of triple barreling me with a bigger stack on the bubble. My hand would have been hard to play. I also thought his range was tighter now than previously before. I thought about it for a good two minutes. I also thought me tanking for so long gave away the strength of my hand in a way. With all of these factors combined, and with me shoving on him recently, I decided to make a super tight fold. I had such an awkward stack and I wasn't sure the correct play. I am alright with it, but I still am contemplating what is best in this spot.

I believe the first hand when we made the money it folded to Sam Stein in the small blind. He had 11 big blinds and moved all in. His range here is almost any two cards. I peeled the Qs and the Qd for a pair of queens. I called and he turned over Q8hh. I was an 86% favorite preflop. I had about 110k in chips (blinds were now 2.5/5k,) so winning this pot right after we made the money was crucial for me. The flop came 923hh and the turn was the 4h giving him the flush and having me drawing dead. I nursed my 10 big blind stack the rest of day 2 and entered day 3 with 69k at 3k/6k.

I busted about an orbit into Day 3. I moved all in for 62k UTG with KQo. The small blind had about 180k-200k and he tanked it for 2 minutes. He stared me down. I looked back at him with the expression "What do you want from me? I'm all in lol." Once he thought for so long I was fairly confident he couldn't have a hand that had me dominated. He stacked the chips for a call, put them back into his stack, and then ended up calling. The big blind folded and I turned over my KQo. He slammed down his hand.. which was AQo. I couldn't get there and I busted in 169th place out of 1560 players with 232 being paid. I made a little profit. I was very happy with how I played and I think my live tournament game is progressing nicely. I had a great WSOP and I am excited to keep improving my game and play more big, live tournaments.

I enjoyed the Bahamas this year. I got to see a lot of friends I know from the circuit. Not just poker players but also friends in the media. I met a lot of people I play online with and I had a couple fun nights going to dinner or going out. I think I've taken a different approach to the trip every year I go, which is just individual growth I guess or me getting older haha.

Yesterday I went to the Isle Casino in Pompano, Florida for their $1600 bounty tournament. There was a $500 bounty on each player you knocked out. I played a really ridiculous pot a couple hours into the tournament I'd like to talk about. It was my VERY FIRST HAND at a new table. The blinds were 200/400/50a and a guy I've played with quite a bit made it 1100 in early position with a 35k stack. I also had about 35k and called with 33 on the hijack. The button who was a younger kid wearing a pokerstars jacket, made it 3500 on the button. The first raiser called and I called as well. The flop came A24cc and we all checked the flop. The turn was the 2h and I bet 6400. The kid on the button made it 13500 with about 15k behind. I tanked it for a minute or so and moved all in. He snap folded. This was a pretty huge pot at that stage of the tournament. With the way the hand played out I thought there was only one hand in his range that he could call me with, and luckily I was right.

I continued to chip up, and I accumulated a few bountys along the way. With about 25 left I lost a 50k pot with 85o vs AQcc. There was a player all in for 2 big blinds and a really tight player I played with all day raised 3x. I called from the sb with 85o and the flop came A88dd. Bingo! I checked to the guy and he bet 10k into a sidepot of 1500. I knew he would jam the turn but might not call it off (and he had AK/AQ.) He had about 17-18k behind. The turn was the worst card in the deck. Another ace. He instajammed out of position and I folded. He turned over AQ and won the bounty. I could have won two bounties in that pot. No biggie. I ran an overpair into a set and then I couldn't pick up a hand and got super short. At 3k/6k the button opened to 13k. His range was pretty wide here. I had A8cc in the sb and moved in. He called with ATo and I flopped an 8 to win. A few hands later I doubled with KK vs AJ and I now was in contention when we were only 3-4 away from the money.

I saw a lot of people soft playing each other in this tournament. Especially shorthanded right before the money. This is what I was talking about before. Lots of angle shooting or just table talk. Such as "I have it I will call your all in. We can play for it all here." Things like that and people just being overly friendly thinking that they can all just help each other out and make the money, final table, or chop. It's really frustrating to see sometimes, but I also know some of these players are amateur players. It's almost impossible to play a normal poker game when you have 2-3-4 other guys at the table soft playing each other and making ridiculous folds. It's like you become the one they gun for. When I am not taking it easy on anyone, and I am playing pots against everyone, it is tough to come out on top. I know this happens a lot at local card rooms and there isn't anything that can be done. You really have to alter your game in these situations. I guess it also has to deal with experience too but I will stop my rant. Just play poker, don't listen or take anyones crap.

After witnessing some of the most ridiculous poker I have ever seen in a tournament. We made the final table of 10. A couple hands into it I saw something that shocked me even more. A girl who is attractive and plays poker, moved all in from the small blind for roughly 15bbs. The structure was 30 minute levels so it plays pretty fast. The big blind had her covered and had about 20bbs himself. He decides to fold TT face up. Now I am not sure if he folds because she is a girl or what, but I just couldn't believe it. Then he wants to complain how we aren't busting any players lol... I end up knocking out a shortstack JTo vs Q2o blind vs blind. Then I min raised the hijack with QTo, the same guy with TT from before calls with AT and the flop comes AKJ. He jams into me, I snap call and hold. Very next hand he is all in in the small blind at 8/16k. I raise 84o in middle position, the big blind calls. It comes K79h I bet 30k into a 60k sidepot, he calls. Turn is Ah I bet 52k, he check calls again. River is another K. He grabs some chips to bet, then checks. I move all in and he snap folds. I table my 84o and take the 230k side pot, and the other guy shows T5o and wins the main pot.

I then got it in KQ vs 77 all in pre for 400k pot it came J44Tx and my stack went from ~600 to 400k. A couple hands later I got it in KQo vs A6o and bricked again. My last chips went in KTo vs T6o blind vs blind. I would have gotten back up to 220k at 10/20k but I lost that as well. All in all I thought I played pretty good, got lucky in a couple spots, and did my best. I took 6th place, first place was about 40k.

There is a $2200 main event at the Isle this weekend I will be playing. Hopefully I can make another deep run. Also a $200 PLO Rebuy that I'm not sure if I will play tomorrow. Thanks for listening to my rants and ramblings.

Welcome To 2011...

2011-01-07T03:18:00.005-05:00

What's up world? I hope everyone had a good Christmas and a great New Years. Things have been alright on my end. I've had to make a couple difficult decisions lately. It hasn't been fun or easy but I did what I had to do. Sometimes doing the right thing is the toughest thing to do. I don't get too personal in my blog often, but I try to live my life with honesty and do what I think is right. I stress about what is right and wrong on a daily basis. There is no blueprint to life and I'm a person that needs specific answers. I'm still dealing with the reality that I can't know everything. Life would be boring that way I guess. I was going to write about decision making, but I think that topic would be too tough to relate to poker in the sense I'm talking about. So enough of that.

I've been having a couple good weeks at the online tables. I've made a few final tables with some top finishes but no victories. It's been nice to start 2011 with some deep runs. Typically the first of the year is kicked off by the PCA tournament in the Bahamas. I wasn't planning on going after losing heads up twice in heartbreaking fashion for a package. Now I've changed my mind and will be there this weekend. I can't win if I don't go, right? The PCA is the 2nd best 10k in poker behind the WSOP Main Event. I couldn't miss it. It will be nice to see friends I don't get to see often and play some big live events. I'm looking forward to it.

There is actually a funny story about me going to the Bahamas. Like I said above, I wasn't planning on going but I was contemplating making a last minute decision to go. This afternoon I got a text message from one of my buddies, Jeff. I don't talk to him too often. He is a professional poker player as well. We hang out when we are in the same city and are good friends, we just don't talk that much otherwise. He sent me a text that read "Had a dream me you FT of Bahamas Main.. I don't know, don't ask." Haha. It was pretty random like I said. He's not one of my friends I talk to on a daily basis or that often, so it is weird he is dreaming about me. That's why Jeff made the comment at the end saying "I don't know, don't ask." How could I not go after receiving that text? I'm hoping there is some foresight involved in his dream. If he loses the tournament before me, does that mean I won't final table? Time will tell!

There has been some shakeup in the online poker industry lately. Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke both left UB and then they signed Prahlad Friedman. I haven't followed along with all the drama, but I know a little bit about what's going on. I can't say for certain why Hellmuth and Duke left UB. I'm sure there are some hidden reasons but that is just my hunch. It could be something with UB they didn't like, something with them personally, legalization of poker in the states and other companies biting at them, who knows. I just don't think it is something cut and dry like they are trying to make it though. The signing of Prahlad is a little crazy. He said he would never take a sponsorship from an online poker site and he was also one of the people who was cheated out of the most money during the UB scandal. I don't think it is bad that he signed with UB. Who cares what he said in the past? He decided to change his mind. It's his decision. A lot of people give UB a lot of flack. I understand why. They also are trying to change their image and I think they realize a lot of people are going to hate them before they decide to play there again. As long as they keep trying to improve their product I believe UB can be successful. It might take a while though.

I will update from the Bahamas as well. I haven't done a tournament summary recently. Maybe I will do one for the PCA but I doubt it. It is too big of a tournament and there probably won't be enough time for me to blog that much. There are a lot of great live tournaments coming up in Florida after the PCA. I could do a tournament summary blog then. My mind is going blank. Sorry for jumping all around. Blogging can be tough sometimes haha. Talk to you guys later. Wish me luck at the PCA! Goodnight.

Happy Holidays...

2010-12-25T04:14:00.006-05:00

What's up world? Happy Holidays to everyone. It's about 4 in the morning on Christmas day. I took a nap earlier so I'm pretty much awake, on the lookout for Santa. I feel like I'm the only one awake. I might go for a bike ride after I write this blog, I'm in one of those zones I get into some nights. I'm looking forward to Christmas brunch and dinner tomorrow though. I'm starving haha.

Poker has been alright for me lately. I had a pretty good week but it could have been a lot better. It started with a 3rd place finish in the Sunday HORSE tournament on FTP. On Monday I entered heads up play in the 100r with a 5-1 chip deficit and couldn't beat JyMaster, so I took 2nd place, which I was happy about. I also got heads up for a PCA package (AGAIN) and somehow managed to lose when I had 3mil to his 400k at 40/80k. He won the next three allins. It was ugly. I then got deep in the 1k on FTP only to bust 25th place losing a monster pot AA vs QQ all in pre. My last score of the night was a 7th place finish in the 50r turbo on FTP as well.

On Tuesday I decided to grind again and went deep in the Stars 1k, busting 22nd place. I lost 4 coinflips in a row, went down to 5bbs and my 78 bricked vs AQ on a 463T board. Another ugly night! Wednesday, my parents put on a holiday poker tournament. I decided to play in it and so did online legend Stuart "Thedonator" Paterson. He bubbled it in 4th place and I made it heads up against my father. He doesn't really know how to play poker so Stu was helping him. He won the title by beating me KQ vs AJ all in preflop. If there was more room for play I hope I wouldn't have lost to him haha. After that I grinded online a little bit and made a couple more deep runs, getting 19th in the 100r 6max on FTP. I've been deep in a lot of big tournaments lately, so hopefully I can start pulling out some better finishes.

One of my dads friends showed up with a self made T-Shirt that was amazing...

Front...

Back...

Sleeve...

Sleeve...

Truly awesome. I didn't even know he knew that much about poker and the online websites, but apparently he knew a little bit haha. My dad actually won the T-shirt too. Maybe I will steal it from him and wear it to a tournament :-)

Other than poker things have been pretty good and busy. I'm looking forward to the New Year and whatever comes from it. I can't believe It's almost 2011... I hope everyone has a great end to 2010. Goodnight.

Also please vote for my friend Tim0thee for Mid Stakes Holdem Player of the year on poker table ratings. Here is the link. It says PTR voting right in the middle of the screen and you have to log in through facebook to vote. It's basically a popularity contest, but he deserves some recognition, so please vote for him because he deserves it!

Brazil Trip Report/Back Home...

2010-11-20T20:12:00.009-05:00

This post will be lengthy. A lot has happened over the past few weeks. I am going to start where I left off on the last blog post and talk about the other half of my trip to Brazil. The post date might say 11/20. That's when I started writing this blog, but I am officially posting it 12/7 real early in the morning.

I went to the BSOP venue the day after I busted the main event to play the PLO event. Once I realized that there were a lot of FTOPS/great online tournaments going on, I decided to skip the PLO event. I borrowed a laptop at the venue and sat in the Full Tilt Poker lounge all afternoon grinding online. I made a couple deep runs but nothing spectacular. First place in the PLO event was only around 10k. It was a much better decision to play online that day.

The next day I played the BSOP $2k High Rollers event. It had 111 players with 12 being paid. I ended up busting in 23rd place. I played with a good Brazilian online player almost all day and thought I picked up a physical tell on him. In the hand before I busted, he 3bet with AQ and was priced into calling an all in vs. KK, which he lost. He didn't give off the weak tell. The very next hand I opened the cutoff with 9To into two tight players and the good Brazilian player. He three bet me and did the same weakness tell I had picked up on multiple times throughout the day. I 4bet shoved and he snap called me with pocket Aces. I guess my tell was off. I had been going with my reads in the tournament and they hadn't let me down yet. I know my play was unnecessary but I really thought I had a stone cold tell on the player. I'm glad I went with my read, but I still need to be aware of overall tournament situations. I had position on a very loose, aggressive player who would have given me a lot of chips. I didn't need to get involved in a pot against a good player right after he lost a decent sized pot. Live and learn.

That was it for the poker I played in Sao Paulo. We went to a couple great restaurants. One was on the top floor of Tivoli, our hotel. It probably had the best steak I've ever had. Mike Matusow and I had to order seconds. It was a Kobe steak and it melted in my mouth. Another restaurant we went to was a Brazilian Steakhouse. I took some pictures of the place.

I didn't get the best pictures of all the meats they brought around, but at least I took some. I tried a chicken heart for the first time. It was interesting, but not really my taste. It was a great dinner and I had a lot of awesome food. Next time I go to Brazil I need to enjoy more of their food and visit some more restaurants.

After all the poker was out of the way and the BSOP was finished, we decided to party. We went to a couple different places in Sao Paulo. One venue was a "country music" club with a live band. I only recognized one song they played. It wasn't like American country music. It was more upbeat, fun, and dance worthy. I'd say it was like pop music. The place was packed and we showed up really late but still had fun. Another club we went to was a hip-hop club. This was more of my style. They played only American hip-hop music. It was weird being in another country, in a club, where I understood the music and most of the other people didn't. That night was also a lot of fun though. It was my kind of atmosphere and almost everyone who was with us and showing us around Sao Paulo made it out that night.

Here's a picture of Mike checking out the lights in the club.

I was a little sad leaving Sao Paulo. I met a bunch of awesome people and I really enjoyed the country. I want to thank everyone again. I won't name everyone individually but you guys know who you are. All the people who showed me around, all the poker players I met, and everyone else I came in contact with when I was in Brazil... Thank you. You guys made me appreciate Brazil and I plan on coming back often. With that said, I was supposed to fly back to Las Vegas but changed my connection to fly right into Florida.

Thursday morning was when I arrived back to South Florida. I rushed back home because there was a $5k WPT taking place Friday in my backyard at the Hollywood Hard Rock Casino. I played Friday, Day 1A. The field had some really good players. I was card dead almost all day and only played a couple substantial pots. I won a few early, but towards the end of the night I lost some tough hands. I ended the day with only about 20 big blinds. I still felt good going into Day 2 on Sunday.

I had a decent table draw for Day 2 but I would have to double up to be able to make some moves. After about an hour of play the following hand took place. It folded around to third position and the player was turned around in his chair listening to commotion from the table behind us. The dealer told him action was on him, after a few seconds I told him also "Excuse me, sir the action is on you." He looked at me and at the dealer and responded with "Jeez. The dealer is tapping the table telling me and now you're telling me it's my turn." I told him I was short stacked and he wasn't paying attention so we were trying to get the action moving. He said something else to me in a rude fashion like I was out of line and proceeded to stall before finally folding. The player next to him raised, it folded to me on the button and I looked down at KQo and moved all in. The blinds folded and the raiser called with TT. The board came T9xxK and I was eliminated. The jerk then told me "Good game buddy." I told everyone at the table good luck and I told the jerk "Good game to you too" while I went to go shake his hand. I knew he was being sarcastic with his good game comment so I tried to shake his hand haha. He wouldn't shake my hand, which proved my point and made him look bad. Anyways, I kept my cool of course and wished everyone good luck again and left the casino. I don't understand how some adults who are much older than me can be so immature at times. I wasn't out of line at all but I don't like being disrespected. Anyways...

I also played in the Florida Million at the Palm Beach Kennel Club. It's a tournament that goes on all around Florida. It is a $550 buyin and the top 10% of the field from each location meet up in the finals. I played well and ran well to build up a big stack late in the tournament. I was probably one of the chip leaders and then lost a bunch of brutal hands to bad luck. KK vs AJ and AA vs 45o on a 5522 board. After those hands I didn't win another pot for an hour and became a shorter stack. We were down to 25 players left, with 15 making the money/finals. An older amateur player who was pretty solid and somewhat new to the table (He raised in late position and showed an ace to gain credibility) raised from the cutoff to 9500 at 1500/3000. I looked down at QTo. I had about 70k in chips and the raiser had ~90k. I figured his range for raising here was wide and it would take a real small range to call so close to the money. I moved all in on him and was SNAP CALLED. I thought for sure I ran into aces. I turned over my QTo and he showed QJo. Everyone at the table was shocked. I also was shocked as well lol. I never would have expected him to snap call me with QJo in that situation. I bricked and was eliminated. I don't mind my play, but I never in a million years thought that player would beat me to the pot with QJ. He didn't seem like that type of player but maybe I didn't have enough information on him. I thought I would be able to move my chips around and pick up some pots nearing the bubble.

I've been trying to get back in the swing of things. Working out, getting on schedule, grinding online. It's a busy month as far as holidays and other celebrations are concerned. I think I covered almost everything I wanted to in the blog. If I forgot anything I'll be sure to write about it. It took me a while to get this blog up and I don't even know why.

While I was in Brazil I did a fun interview with Super Poker. They asked me a lot of good and interesting questions. I wish I knew Portuguese but I translated the interview and got to understand most of it haha. You guys can check it out here: SuperPoker Interview with Tristan "Cre8ive" Wade. Goodnight!

Brazil Trip Report Part 1...

2010-11-13T03:54:00.006-05:00

Mike Matusow and I left Vegas on the 10th to fly to Sao Paulo, Brazil. I have been to Aruba, Bahamas, and Canada. Other than that I've really never left America. I wouldn't consider those trips "international" since they are all pretty close and somewhat Americanized. I look at this trip to Brazil as being different. Which it has been so far.

It started off flying first class from Vegas to Houston. The flight was only a couple hours, but it was definitely more comfortable. Typically for me, first class flying is sitting in an exit row lol. I've never flown overnight or been in an airplane an unbearable amount of time in which I thought I would have to fly first class. Once we got to Houston, Mike took me into the gold lounge of our airline. I always saw people go into those places and never thought much of it. I was wrong haha. It was a four story room. Complete with internet, desks, sofas, couches, showers, food, and a bar. I was impressed. This was a place I see in every airport and I've always looked past it, maybe even looked down upon it, but I see the luxury behind it now for people who are always traveling.

The flight from Houston to Sao Paulo was not bad at all. Mike and I sat next to each other. Our motorized seats reclined backwards far enough to actually lie down. The leg rest portion of our chair also moved up, providing a nice reclining chair to fall asleep in. Each person had their own personal television that came up through the middle console which played 15 different movies. We were also served breakfast and dinner. Both of which were delicious. It was an experience and we were treated in relation to how much was paid for the tickets.

I've met a lot of great people since arriving in Brazil. Leo Bello (FTP pro and has written the most popular poker books in Brazil) picked us up from the airport. The traffic in Sao Paulo is ridiculous. I believe it is the second most populous city in North and South America. We finally made our way to the middle of the city and into our hotel. It took a while, but I like seeing how different countries are and experiencing what they experience. We met some more Full Tilt people at the hotel, all of whom are awesome. These guys have taken complete care of us and I'm sure my Brazil experience wouldn't be the same without them. For that I thank them.

That night I visited the H2 poker club. I was really impressed once again.

These are some pictures from the H2 poker club. It's incredible what they are doing. I don't want to talk too much about the poker. I have something else planned for all of that... So I will just leave you with the pictures of the club I took. There is way more to see then the few pictures I snapped.

After playing a little poker we went out for a couple hours and experienced some Brazilian night life. Like I talked about earlier, a lot of people have shown us a great time. After getting some sleep, we had a party to attend in Guarjura, which is about two hours away from Sao Paulo on the beach. I just found an article on the party here... From the Super Poker website.

The party was for Poker Villa. It is basically a house full of up and coming poker players. They are being taught how to play poker by some of the best. I met some great online and live Brazilian/South American poker players. I've either played with them for years or seen them around. There are too many to name right now but I will be sure to throw some names out in the last trip report. The house was gorgeous and right on the beach. Check out the link above.

Today I played in the $700 BSOP Main Event. The BSOP is the Brazilian Series of Poker. The tournament might have been the best run tournament I've ever been a part of. They did everything right. The venue was great, the service, the floor, everything! They don't have casinos here so pulling off what they did is pretty amazing in my eyes. If it wasn't so late I would rant and talk even more about it. Great job with the BSOP to everyone involved. I busted later in the night losing AJcc vs 88. I didn't get much going throughout the tournament. I even had to fold bottom set and was shown middle set (although it was an easy spot.) Tomorrow is the PLO event and then there is a $2k high rollers I will play too.

If you can't tell, I love Brazil. Part of it is because of the people I have met. They have embraced me and shown me around. Everyone has been really hospitable. I hope I can repay them one day when they visit Vegas or Florida. I have so much more to say but I am going to head to bed.. There's a lot more I will talk about in the future. Goodnight.

Goto http://www.mebeliska.com If you want to watch live or read coverage.

Also this is part of an interview I did with pokernews.com on Wednesday during the Deepstacks360 online camp I did. DeepStacks Interview

Man there is so much going on... LIFE IS GOOD! Learn to appreciate everything.

Vamooooo...

2010-11-09T06:28:00.002-05:00

Vamooooo. What an appropriate title. It's a word that is used all the time by Brazilian poker players who root for other Brazilian poker players. That just so happens to be where I'm going tomorrow; Sao Paulo, Brazil. I am going with Mike Matusow for 8 days. There is a tournament series there so I am going to play some of the tournaments and discover Brazil. I'm pretty excited. I've never been to Brazil and I've heard a lot of great things about the country.

It should be an interesting trip with Mike. I've been staying at his house for the past week while I've been in Vegas, which has been an adventure in itself. He's been a good host and is a really good guy. You just have to be able to handle random craziness every now and then haha. I will keep the details to myself, but there isn't a dull day.

I watched the Main Event Final table on Saturday. I won't give any spoilers on that because the coverage is tomorrow. Other than that, I've been getting some poker business done and trying to stay busy. I played basketball last night and had my first workout in a week. My body is dead but I had a good time. I'm pretty tired now and need to sleep so I will keep this blog short. The next update will be from Brazil. Goodnight.

Vegas In November...

2010-11-03T03:24:00.004-04:00

This is what I've always dreamed of. Coming to Vegas in November for the main event final table. The only problem is, I busted the tournament months ago...

I'm back in Vegas. I had a long day of flying in middle row seats. Southwest airlines and their first come, first serve seating policy doesn't fit me well. I had bad draws with the boarding positions. I'm not used to their system and always forget to check in early. The first flight from West Palm to Tampa was only about 45 minutes. That wasn't bad. The second leg of the trip from Tampa to Vegas was about a 5 hour flight. I slowly made my way to the back of the plane, hoping to find an aisle or window seat. I passed the last window seat that I positively knew wasn't occupied. The lady had her purse in the seat. I didn't want to deal with that and I also thought I saw a couple seats in the back. Well, I was wrong. I realized the bad news and decided to sit in the back row, middle seat. Another mistake. The guy sitting at the window was well built and bulky with broad shoulders. I also have wide shoulders and we were fighting for arm rest space. There are far worse problems in life though and I managed to make it to Vegas unscathed. No big deal, lesson learned.

I got picked up by a couple people from Deepstacks and we ate dinner at a tapas place. I believe it was my first tapas experience. The food was pretty good and I always enjoy eating a wide variety of food in one sitting. I tried a lot of different things and will definitely go back. Personally, It's fun to throw curve balls at your taste buds and try a lot of smaller dishes.

Tomorrow DeepStacks is having a Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi and Mike "The Mouth" Matusow 360 camp. They both will teach poker strategies using a 360 degree camera to broadcast live over the Internet. It should be pretty neat, so I am here helping them out with that. I should be pretty busy with whatever else is going on around here. Come Saturday The Grinder will play out the Main Event final table and I will be there watching with the crew. It's pretty exciting to have someone I know at the final table, but I still am thinking about my deep run and wishing I could have done better. Realistically though, your chances of making the final table of the main event are slim to none. I'm ready to try again next year though.

I'll blog more this week. Just wanted to keep this short and write a little something. I have a couple other things to talk about later on in the week. Goodnight.

Decent Week...

2010-10-30T20:27:00.004-04:00

I've had a decent week at the virtual felt. On Tuesday I chopped the 100r on Stars when I was the chip leader. I always bust after I chop. I never get the PLBs or anything haha. Both players were solid and the chop was in my favor so I went with it.

I had a couple other final tables throughout the week as well. Today I played and got deep in a few tournaments. I was heads up in a PCA package satellite. First place won the 15k package and 2nd place walked away with $700. I played a tough opponent who didn't fold much, ever, and he got the best of me. After that defeat I will still in the 50 cubed on FTP. I got heads up in that as well and lost an unfortunate pot with KJs vs K6o on a K23cc86 board. I check raised the flop, bet the turn, and shoved the river. I'm almost certain he would have called anyways with his king if he didn't hit two pair so I played it fine, just unlucky.

I feel like I'm playing really well, and I'm sure I've been running alright too. It would have been nice to get the PCA package win out of the way in October, but I have a couple more months to try to win one. I might be missing a lot of live tournaments I wanted to play in which I'm not happy about, but I will live with it. The NAPT in La, and the 5k WPT in my backyard at the Hard Rock in Hollywood Florida. I have a few things I might be getting into in the next couple of weeks so we will see what pans out. If those things don't work out then I'll be able to play those events. Either way its a winning situation.

Other than the couple exciting things coming up in the next few weeks, there isn't much going on. I am working out, playing poker, coaching poker, car shopping (STILL -- although I think I've narrowed it down) and other random activities. I will be making that announcement shortly too. This blog never does well with announcements but I promise it is coming lol.

I feel like this particular blog doesn't have much substance so I'm going to talk about mental toughness in poker for a second. It is probably one of the best characteristics you can have if you are a poker player. I was talking to my buddy Steve the other day and he was saying that because of our experience in poker, we would be able to make it doing whatever we decide to do. If we wanted to venture into another profession we would succeed. I agree with him in the aspect that making a living off of poker is tough. You can lose money, you are constantly defeated, it's an emotional roller coaster, etc... If you don't have a good understanding of how poker works, you can never make it in the field. I am a very competitive person. I've come to the realization that I will be a loser 99% of the time in tournament poker. Maybe it's not actually that high, but the probability of winning a tournament is very low. That's just what it is. The variance involved in tournaments is out of this world. Once you come to reality with all of this you will become a better poker player. There are times when I feel unlucky, or get frustrated with how a poker session went. If you are able to see poker for what it is and grab a hold of it, it will help elevate your game to another level. It's not just about winning the hand, or winning the tournament. It is about decision making. What you do and why you do it. If you are constantly making the right decisions, everything else will fall into place.

Short Post...

2010-10-23T12:11:00.001-04:00

I'm on my way to Calder casino in a minute to play the $225 Mike "The Grinder" Mizrachi tournament. We had a camp there yesterday and today is the tournament. Should be a good time. I have to wait a couple days before I make that announcement I talked about in the last blog pot, but it will definitely be happening this week. I have a couple awesome things to talk about...

Have a good weekend everyone!

Read This, Learn Something...

2010-10-20T01:46:00.003-04:00

First, let me say that I have been really busy doing a bunch of miscellaneous things. I went up to Orlando, back to South Florida... I've been all over. I played poker tonight for the first time in a week and got 9th in the 100r and was also deep in the $163 on FTP. With about 20 players left FTP/Stars disconnected me (along with a lot of other players apparently) and when it came back up 25 minutes later, I had 2.5bbs and lost. Hopefully they compensate me and the other players. Some players were still playing, so I'm sure they were just eating up the blinds and antes until we came back. We will see.

Last blog post I posted a hand that took place in the 100r vs ISpewChips.

PokerStars Game #50850218637: Tournament #334010506, $100+$9 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level X (300/600) - 2010/10/09 16:34:01 ET
Table '334010506 10' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: danskemann (7802 in chips)
Seat 2: Cre8ive (28600 in chips)
Seat 3: babyshark33 (18322 in chips)
Seat 4: TMoney0209 (25597 in chips)
Seat 5: I Spew Chips (32594 in chips)
Seat 6: flpro157 (10181 in chips)
Seat 7: ocrowe (55207 in chips)
Seat 8: Schildy1984 (15432 in chips)
danskemann: posts the ante 50
Cre8ive: posts the ante 50
babyshark33: posts the ante 50
TMoney0209: posts the ante 50
I Spew Chips: posts the ante 50
flpro157: posts the ante 50
ocrowe: posts the ante 50
Schildy1984: posts the ante 50
TMoney0209: posts small blind 300
I Spew Chips: posts big blind 600
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [Qd Kd]
flpro157: folds
ocrowe: folds
Schildy1984: folds
danskemann: folds
Cre8ive: raises 600 to 1200
babyshark33: folds
TMoney0209: folds
I Spew Chips: raises 2085 to 3285
Cre8ive: calls 2085
*** FLOP *** [2h 6d Kc]
I Spew Chips: bets 3795
Cre8ive: raises 4070 to 7865
I Spew Chips: raises 21394 to 29259 and is all-in
Cre8ive: calls 17400 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (3994) returned to I Spew Chips
*** TURN *** [2h 6d Kc] [9h]
*** RIVER *** [2h 6d Kc 9h] [6c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
I Spew Chips: shows [3c 8d] (a pair of Sixes)
Cre8ive: shows [Qd Kd] (two pair, Kings and Sixes)
Cre8ive collected 57800 from pot

I posted this hand because I wanted people to actually think about the hand. I wanted to give a legitimate response in the blog, like it was an awful play. It looks ridiculous, but sometimes you are going to have to look stupid in poker. I know ISpewChips is a good player. So what do I do? I look at a hand like this and try to understand why he did what he did.

We both have around 50bb stacks. Those are big stacks at this point in the 100r. I'm sure he thinks my min-raise opening range there is pretty wide on the cutoff, so he decided to 3bet. Now he gets flatted. So my range is changing in his eyes because my flatting range is different than my 4betting range (assumption for the sake of discussion.) Now the flop comes K62 rainbow. He continuation bets, and I raise. What can I have here?

From ISpew's perspective... AK would likely be in Cre8ive's 4betting range preflop, so for this to be a value raise to get it in for 50bbs Cre8ive's range is pretty small. Consisting of 22, 66, AA, maybe some other hands??? Would Cre8 set mine preflop with 22 or 66 here? Would he raise KK on the flop? Is his raise/get it in range AA/sets/bluffs?

Since ISpew felt like my range for raising the flop for value was really small, he decided to move all in on the flop thinking that I could only call him with a small range of hands. He is right in that line of logic. In a 3bet pot, my range is consolidated and hands can be eliminated. This train of thought is the same reason why I raised the flop with KQ. I'm representing a small range of hands that I want to get value with. Would I really raise the flop with 99/TT (assuming I didn't 4bet those hands) and want to get all the chips in the middle? On the flip side, should I be raising a board of that texture with a hand like 99/TT to get someone to shove worse? This is the evolution of poker.

Although the hand looks really ugly, it is poker at it's finest. Two minds battling it out. Who can solve the puzzle first? There isn't always a right and wrong answer in poker. Sometimes you will look stupid, but if you have a reason as to why you looked stupid, it makes it acceptable lol. I have looked stupid plenty of times in my poker career, but I had logic behind my stupidity. In poker... stupidity with no logic is still stupidity; otherwise it is enlightenment.

I could talk more about the hand, but I will leave it at that. I wanted to show everyone that although something might look horrible, it really isn't. Don't look at it for what it is, look deeper, learn something.

This Friday I will be doing a DeepStacks Live camp in Miami with November Niner Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi and Matt Graham. It's at the Calder casino at 1pm on October 22nd. If anyone is interested, they can contact me through my e-mail or sign up through DeepStacks.com by clicking DeepStacks Live in the top left corner. I'll have another blog post up on Thursday night with an announcement I've been waiting to make. Goodnight.

Great Weekend...

2010-10-09T15:12:00.003-04:00

I got back to Florida on Wednesday. In the last blog I talked about how I was going to Niagara Falls, NY for a Deepstacks camp. Let me say that this camp was overall one of the best I have been involved in. I had a lot of fun. I arrived at the Seneca Casino on Friday and played a cash game at night with Mike Matusow. After that, all of the DeepStacks crew went out to a great dinner with the staff that runs the poker room. Later that night I went to Canada to visit my friends I stayed with during the WSOP over the summer (Tim0thee, Smerks, Stainley 88.) It was nice having the Canadian border literally two minutes away from the hotel/casino. We had a couple drinks at Fallsview casino and caught up for a couple hours. I couldn't stay out too late because I had to be up early for the camp in the morning.

The camp was a huge success. All of the students were great and it went by really fast. After the camp all of the DeepStacks pros played in their $550 tournament. It got 140 runners. I played very patiently but could never get momentum to build a nice stack. I managed to survive and do my best, losing a flip 55 vs AQ in around 30th place. I went back up to my room and met up with Mike. He convinced me to go out with him and some of other friends. We went to Fallsview again to one of their clubs. It was a pretty quiet night again because we had to wake up in the early morning to go to the Bills vs Jets game in Buffalo.

We were supposed to get to the Stadium around 11-12 so we could tailgate but there was a lot of traffic and a couple of us were hungover lol. I was amazed at the stadium and the crowd. The whole atmosphere was just unbelievable to me. The NFL games in Florida aren't like that. It was raining and cold and the place was packed. It felt like I was in a Madden NFL game. The Bills fans are diehard fans! It was neat that they also played their in state rivals, the Jets. There was just something about being among tens of thousands of people in the cold and rain that made the experience that much better. The Jets ended blowing the Bills out, unfortunately. The energy in the stadium was great and I wish it would have been a close game.

Wow, I'm playing online right now and this hand just happened... in the 100r.

PokerStars Game #50850218637: Tournament #334010506, $100+$9 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level X (300/600) - 2010/10/09 16:34:01 ET
Table '334010506 10' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: danskemann (7802 in chips)
Seat 2: Cre8ive (28600 in chips)
Seat 3: babyshark33 (18322 in chips)
Seat 4: TMoney0209 (25597 in chips)
Seat 5: I Spew Chips (32594 in chips)
Seat 6: flpro157 (10181 in chips)
Seat 7: ocrowe (55207 in chips)
Seat 8: Schildy1984 (15432 in chips)
danskemann: posts the ante 50
Cre8ive: posts the ante 50
babyshark33: posts the ante 50
TMoney0209: posts the ante 50
I Spew Chips: posts the ante 50
flpro157: posts the ante 50
ocrowe: posts the ante 50
Schildy1984: posts the ante 50
TMoney0209: posts small blind 300
I Spew Chips: posts big blind 600
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [Qd Kd]
flpro157: folds
ocrowe: folds
Schildy1984: folds
danskemann: folds
Cre8ive: raises 600 to 1200
babyshark33: folds
TMoney0209: folds
I Spew Chips: raises 2085 to 3285
Cre8ive: calls 2085
*** FLOP *** [2h 6d Kc]
I Spew Chips: bets 3795
Cre8ive: raises 4070 to 7865
I Spew Chips: raises 21394 to 29259 and is all-in
Cre8ive: calls 17400 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (3994) returned to I Spew Chips
*** TURN *** [2h 6d Kc] [9h]
*** RIVER *** [2h 6d Kc 9h] [6c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
I Spew Chips: shows [3c 8d] (a pair of Sixes)
Cre8ive: shows [Qd Kd] (two pair, Kings and Sixes)
Cre8ive collected 57800 from pot

Pretty sick lol... I guess he was living up to his name. Just thought I would throw some poker in here since that hand just happened.

After the Bills game we went to the Big Tree Inn in Orchard Park, NY. It's right near the Bills stadium. Since we were with THE MOUTH we got hooked up of course and got to watch football and eat/drink upstairs above the bar. It's incredible how popular Mike is. Everyone loves him. Whether it be for his entertainment value or his poker skill, he has a lot of fans. So many people came up to him throughout the weekend. He handles his popularity really well.

The day after that, we were supposed to leave Buffalo but my flight was canceled. Me and Chris (DeepStacks CEO/Owner) were supposed to fly to Milwaukee for a meeting. While I was loading my luggage in the trunk, I gave myself a black eye lol. The rental car we used had a really low hanging trunk. I bent my head down as I lifted my luggage up and smacked myself right in the eye. It's still healing. So we left the airport once we found our flight was canceled and realized we had to stay in Buffalo another day! Great! Haha. There isn't much to do there as far as we could tell and the weather wasn't that good. We watched the Dolphins play the Pats in a local bar which was just about empty. The next day we made it to Milwaukee.

I must say Milwaukee is a beautiful city. I was really impressed. It was a big city, clean, and not that busy. I only got to explore a little bit but I enjoyed the colder weather and walking around. I'll talk more about the meeting and what I did in Milwaukee in couple days. Everything went well and it was a successful trip. We were there for only one day and now I'm back in Florida.

I did an interview over the phone a couple weeks ago for a website called PokerGob. If you want to listen to it check it out here.. PokerGob Interview. It's an up and coming poker site. I haven't explored the site too much but check it out and let me know what you guys think.

As far as the WSOP coverage goes, I haven't seen all the episodes but I heard I made a couple more appearances. I don't actually think I was involved in hands like the Day 1B coverage. I was probably just at the table or near the action. I didn't make any featured tables on my way to 113th place, so that hurts my chances to have more coverage. No big deal to me though, I don't mind, but a couple people hit me up saying they FINALLY saw me on TV lol. If I see the clips and it's anything exciting I will post the videos on the blog.

Hmmm.. what else did I have to say? I also got to see a little of the Niagara falls and the Horseshoe falls. It was really neat. I'm still playing poker online. I'm currently deep in a PLO tournament (4/16), the 100r (14/46), and a couple others. If I remember anything else I'll let you guys know. Hopefully I can win these tournaments. This blog is probably already long enough. Thanks for reading.

Deja Vu...

2010-10-01T02:28:00.005-04:00

Once again I have somehow managed to not blog in about a month. I've been thinking about blogging on the low, but didn't allow myself to get involved with it. Now that I'm staring at the template, I feel back at home... How I've missed my love, the blog!

Let me quit with all of that nonsense lol. Things have been pretty busy as of late. As most of you in the poker community know, the WCOOP just ended on Sunday. It was three weeks of hell. I had a couple cashes, couple deep runs, but nothing really substantial. I was having a good week last week in MTTs. I finished 1st in the 100 turbo on stars, and got three handed vs Thayer and DFish in the $163 on FTP. I finished third in that, which was disappointing to say the least.

You might have been wondering why I said "I was having a good week..." in the paragraph above. That is because even a couple decent scores last week were overshadowed by no success in WCOOP events. It is definitely frustrating. The WCOOPs are a whole different beast. The structures are absolutely insane. It can be tough to adjust to the long levels and 20+ hours of poker online. I think I played very well overall during the series, but that isn't to say I can't/couldn't play better. That is how MTT poker is as well. If you don't have immediate results or success, you apparently don't know what you're doing. Variance is either your best friend, or your worst enemy. Don't let it get the best of you though.

Now that the WCOOP is over, I am taking a couple days off from playing online. I am heading to New York tomorrow to teach a DeepStacks Live course at the Seneca Casino in Niagara Falls (on the US side.) On Sunday I am going to go to the Bills vs. Jets NFL game with Chris (DeepStacks CEO) and Mike Matusow. Hopefully some of my buddies from Toronto can make it down. It would be cool if I could take a day trip to Toronto and see the city. I've heard great things but have never been.

Other than that, I have just been working out, playing basketball, playing poker, coaching poker, and... oh and I am looking to buy a car. I'm not sure what I will get yet. Nothing too fancy or anything. I am thinking about getting a nice, used car with low mileage. When I figure it out I will let you guys know. Any suggestions or advice, throw it at me!

I will have some other news to announce in the next couple of days/weeks so that should also be exciting! I will wait to see how things develop before I talk about it here, but expect a blog post about it soon. I will be back blogging more frequently again. Goodnight and good luck.

I also edited the WSOP video coverage I had in the last post. The video was removed on youtube.

Long Time No Talk...

2010-08-30T03:14:00.004-04:00

Hey everyone! Glad to see some people actually still check my blog even though I haven't updated in it a long time. It's been about a month since my last entry. This blog will probably be real long and might include some ramblings. I will organize it so you can skip over parts you are not interested in lol.

LIFE:
Since I've been back from Vegas I've played SOME poker at the casinos and online. I haven't played too much in either but I'm starting to get back into the grind. I spent a couple weeks resting and relaxing from the WSOP, then was busy for another week or so. I took a one day trip out to LA for a meeting and have been bouncing around Florida as well. I've spent a lot of time with friends and family. It just feels like I have a lot going on around me at the moment, but I need to manage my time better too. I have to get a couple things sorted out before the WCOOP comes. I probably feel busier than I actually am, I just have to get some things accomplished that I've been putting off, that's all.

I played in a basketball tournament a couple weeks ago with a bunch of my buddies who play professionally. Stu (thedonator) and I put the team in the tournament. We had a couple tough games. We smacked the team who ended up winning it by 20 in the first game, then we lost a tough game on a buzzer beater that we shouldn't have lost. One of our best players hurt himself and a couple other guys couldn't make it to the next games. It was a disaster considering we should have won the tournament altogether and pocketed some money, but it was a good time regardless. There were a lot of professional players in the tournament. It was a tough tournament but we had a good team and would have done better had a couple things gone our way.

Other than that things have been pretty normal. Working out, hanging out, doing miscellaneous things.

POKER:
Like I said briefly above, I have been playing poker here and there. When I first got back to South Florida I played poker for like 5 days straight in the casinos. I played a couple tournaments and then a couple cash games sessions. I'm glad we finally have cash games here! It's awesome but I only played a total of three times. The games aren't as good as they could be, but it is still nice of having the option to play somewhere. I'm still trying to figure out the best way to play online/casino/etc.

I played a few FTOPS events last week and have come close to winning the 100r turbo on FTP the last 2/3 times I played it. I got 8th and 11th. I guess that really isn't close to winning, but close enough to mention! I was 1/8 at the final table and donked my way to an 8th place finish. I made a couple questionable plays that I wish I could take back. I'm not completely back into grind mode though but I probably will be once the WCOOP rolls around.

WSOP Day 1B:
So I've been meaning to talk about the WSOP for a while now. I don't remember all of my big hands but I remember most of them. I actually received some coverage from Day 1B in two pots I played against Phil Laak. I'm not sure if this will lead to more coverage from ESPN but it was cool finally making some TV time. People always ask me "Will you be on TV?" and I always respond with if I make a big final table or something. It's pretty neat. I don't really look at it like a big deal but I guess it is bigger than I realize. Either way it was cool to watch and maybe I will get more coverage down the road in the tournament.

At about 2:00 minutes in I win a small pot off Laak and then at 14:00 minutes was a big pot where I cooler Phil with top set vs bottom two. That hand is kind of interesting because I had picked up something on Phil and knew he was real strong on the flop, but there was a cannon behind us so I decided to flat.. It worked out when we got the money in on the turn but there was more to the hand than just a heads up pot with top set vs bottom two. I think it was 4-5 ways on the flop.

One of the craziest hands I played in all of the main event was on Day 1. What I'm about to type is going to sound absurd to some, but here it goes. At 100/200 no ante, a tight player opened from the hijack to 750. The button who was an aggressive player called and I called with KQo in the big blind. The flop came JJTcc and we checked to the button. He bet 1100 and I raised to 2900. The tight player folded and now the button reraised me to 4k. This wasn't a legitimate raise. His min raise should have been to 4700. The dealer didn't realize, and neither did I, because at the time the dealer had pulled in the bets and just my 1800 was out there, so it looked like it was a legit raise. I didn't realize that this happened until I told someone the hand later that night. So now it is 4k to me (and I didn't realize this wasn't correct.) and I put in a fourth bet on the flop and make it 6700. He calls instantly. The turn is the 6h and I bet 7k with 12k behind. He calls once more. The river is the Qh. The board is JTTcc6hQh and I check to him. He puts me all in and I call. He says "Do you have a jack?" I told him he has to show his hand. He says "Two pair!" while I wait for him to show me his cards. He finally turns over 99 and I scoop the pot to double up to 58k early in the day.

There was a lot more than meets the eye to this hand. I didn't play it the best way I could have but I had history (similar hand where I folded flop to 3rd bet) with this specific player and knew what he was capable of. I hadn't been out of line or played any big pots previous to this one, but I guess he thought I had some spazz in me. I probably gave him a little too much credit in the way he looked at poker. He was definitely trying to run over the table and in my opinion he thought he was the best one there. His banter at the end of the hand asking me if I have a jack leads me to believe he wasn't as good as I thought he was. Either way he said he thought I had nothing and I'm not sure why he bet the river if that was the case.

I didn't enjoy calling all in a couple hours into the Main Event, and I know this spot was probably stupid to take, but I was fairly certain of his holdings and how he would play certain hands up to this point. He had played a lot of pots and I felt in touch with his style. That's the reason I ended up playing this hand like I did. I don't suggest it to others though lol. It was not the best hand of poker ever played. It might be one of the worst hands ever played in the WSOP Main Event haha.

I'll talk more about the Main Event in the next blog. I have some other interesting hands to talk about. I have to get some sleep. It feels good to be blogging again! Goodnight.

Aftermath Thoughts...

2010-07-26T04:44:00.006-04:00

Aftermath is a very powerful word, but I'll let it stand. It's been over a week since I busted the WSOP Main Event. I am very pleased with my performance throughout the whole summer. I still wish I was a part of the November Nine though. Now I'm back in Florida relaxing. I've just been working out and hanging out. I haven't really touched poker, although I'm always thinking about it... even in my sleep.

I had a dream I was still in the Main Event last night. There were still 60-70 players remaining. I had a nice stack and I could feel I was on the verge of closing in on the final table. I woke up and I was thinking to myself "Okay Tristan... You're heading into Day 7 of the ME. Let's take a shower and get ready to play some poker today." I thought about it for another second while I laid in bed... I must be crazy. They already had the November 9! I had to convince myself I was already eliminated from the tournament. I haven't been dwelling on busting from the main event but maybe my subconscious has.

Life back in Florida isn't so bad. I've seen rain a few times in the past week. I enjoy it when it rains sometimes. Some people hate when it rains too much, but being in Vegas for two months with no rain, I'm glad I got to see some again. I caught up on Season 7 of Entourage. It is the only TV series I have actually followed. The other shows like 24, Lost, etc. I never got into because I didn't want to have to wait to watch the end. A couple summers ago I watched the first 3-4 seasons of Entourage and was hooked.

I'll get back into playing poker in a couple days. There is a $2k tournament in South Florida I will be playing soon. I also am looking forward to jumping in the cash games and seeing how they are now that poker is legalized in Florida. It hasn't really hit me yet. Once I get to see everything in motion I'm sure I will be amazed at the progress Florida has made on the poker end. I am also planning on writing a WSOP Main Event summary where I will talk about some hands I played, and most likely a summer trip report, where I write about my summer in Vegas/WSOP. We'll see. I will definitely do the former if not both. Goodnight. Expect that new blog shortly.

Edit: I guess this blog didn't have many thoughts in it lol. Wait for my next one!

113th Place...

2010-07-16T04:36:00.002-04:00

Thanks everyone for the support. It really means a lot. I battled hard today and things didn't end up going my way. I won the first pot of the day and got up to 1.5m and slowly lost it back. I couldn't get anything going. About 4 hours in at 15k/30k/4k ante I was knocked out when I had about 750k in chips. I'm happy with how I played and have no regrets. I felt like I had a good feel for everything as well as the players. I was super comfortable and not nervous at all. It just wasn't my tournament. I busted about 30-40 minutes before the dinner break in 113th place for $57,102.

Overall I had a great World Series of Poker. I had a couple deep runs (including a final table bubble in the double shootout), cashes, and bubbles. I felt like I played really well the whole summer and I look forward to playing more live poker tournaments. I believe my game has elevated to another level and I like challenging myself with that belief. Things can only get better from this point on. I doubt I will have to wait for the next WSOP to have another big sweat. The Main Event is one of the few poker tournaments in the world that can really change your life. I'm disappointed I didn't do better, but I am proud of myself for doing my best. Everything I did had a reason. Every fold, every call, every raise; I knew what I was doing. I stayed level headed the whole time and never got excited or dejected. My mentality has definitely changed this summer and it will only make me a better player and a better person.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do now. I am heading back to Florida tomorrow. I have been in Vegas for almost two months! It has gone by very fast. I look forward to playing poker in Florida now. I also want to continue to play high-level, live tournament poker. Maybe I will play my first WPT this year. Only time will tell. I'm going to get some rest and relax for a couple days. Right now I feel strange. I'm lightheaded and it feels like my ears need to pop. Definitely a weird feeling lol. I hope I'm alright and a little sleep cures my problem. I'll be fine.

Maybe I will talk about some big hands I played during the Main Event. There were definitely a lot of crazy pots that went down, including one hand from Day 1 which was just absolutely insane. We'll see how I feel, if I want to talk about some hands and give out some of that information. I will probably write a trip summary or something as well when I get some time.

Once again I just want to say I appreciate everyone who showed support and cheered me on. I know there's a lot of you. Thank you. I'm glad you guys could share the experience with me and I hope you enjoyed the ride. Two deep runs in the Main Event in 5 years isn't so bad. Hopefully I get a couple more chances in the near future. Thanks again. Goodnight.

Made Day 6...

2010-07-15T04:59:00.003-04:00

Another day in the bag, along with 1.23m in chips (Yes -- 1.23 MILLION chips. Enough of the K's.) The average chip stack is 1.07m. There are roughly 200 players left. Today was just a steady grind. I started with 767k and chipped up slowly throughout the day. Interestingly enough, I didn't play a pot over 300k today. That tidbit of information is mind blowing to me. We played 3k/6k, 4k/8k, 5k/10k, 6k/12k, and 8k/16k and I didn't get in one pot over 300k. Not to say that I wouldn't have.. it just didn't happen. It was a slow paced day for me and I'm fine with that. I was up to about 1.4m on my peak but blinded down some. There is an hour left at 8k/16k/2k ante and then I think we go to 10k/20k. The pots should be getting pretty big from here on out. I heard we play down to 63 players tomorrow. I believe I am 65th in chips out of the final 205.

I'm not sure what else there is to say. I have three more days to go. That's all. Three days. Three days until the November 9 is set. Hopefully I am fortunate enough to be one of those final 9. I will continue to do my best and see where it takes me. Thank you everyone for the support. I appreciate it a lot. Three more days.

Here's me decked out in some DeepStacks/FTP patches for TV. I hate hats lol. I never wear them and didn't want to have it on backwards at the time... oh well lol.

Made Day 5...

2010-07-14T05:48:00.003-04:00

Another day in the books. I am sitting on 767k in chips. The average is 380k. There are 574 players left and we are in the money. I am guaranteed 21k I think. I haven't looked, I don't care. I started off with a nice stack today, lost a couple decent sized pots, and moved to a new table. The new table had Cole South (CTS) who is an amazing cash game poker player. He was two seats to my left. It also had a couple other good players. I was settled into this table all day.

My stack went down from around 150k to 360k then I lost a massive pot where I folded top two pair on the river. The pot was about 300k and I went from 360k to 220k after it. I asked the floorman who was watching the hand "If I expose my hand is my hand dead?" We were heads up, I bet the river, the player moved all in, and action was on me to fold or call. The floorman answered "No." So I turned over my two pair. I ended up folding and the floorman then came up to me and told me I was receiving a one round penalty for showing my hand. I was completely baffled. Why didn't he tell me that was the consequence of showing my hand when I asked? I tried to ask for other opinions but all the WSOP staff said I had a penalty. Fair enough. I know the rule, but at the time I wasn't really thinking about it and was more focused on the hand and trying to get more information. I brain-farted and forgot that that was the rule lol. It's basically my fault, but I thought since the floorman was there he would tell me the rule. I was wrong. He claimed I flipped my hand over too quickly before he could say anything else... which is not true. Oh well.

So after that hand, I served my penalty (we were about 40-50 out of the money on the bubble) and went back to the table. We eventually made the money and I grinded the 150k shortstack until the 3k/6k level. I then doubled up twice to 650k and chipped up a little more to end the night where I'm at with 767k. There is an hour left at 3k/6k/1k ante and after that we will play 4k/8k/1ka. We will be playing another 8 hours of poker tomorrow and I imagine we will get down to the top 150 or so. We will see.

That's about all there is to say. Today went by pretty fast. I chatted it up with Cole for a while and another player named Tommy. Both are high stakes cash game players; nice guys and good professionals. It's going to be tough since we are now in the money I can't listen to my iPod anymore to keep my sanity. I will probably listen on break when I can. I really hate that rule. Is someone really going to tell me how to play my hand through my iPod? I know, I know. People can cheat... but it would just be so ridiculously hard to unless you were at a final table/featured table where the hole card cameras were. It's a pretty pointless rule. Anyone who isn't paying attention can miss the action. It doesn't matter if they are listening to music or not. Enough of that rant lol. I'm about to get some sleep and hopefully survive another day. Goodnight.

Made Day 4...

2010-07-13T06:40:00.003-04:00

Hopefully my blog titles stay boring for the next couple days. Anyways, I made Day 4 of the WSOP $10k Main Event. There are currently 1200 players left out of 7319 that started. I have 286k and the average stack is about 175k. We make the money when we get down to the last 747 players, which will happen sometime tomorrow. I'm assuming it will take at least half the day maybe longer for us to make the money. I believe we will play another 8 hours tomorrow.

I've just been doing my thing. Playing my best and not worrying about anything else. I'm in a good state of mind. I'm not excited, but I realize the position I'm in as well. I've realized you can't let your emotions roller-coaster when you play tournaments. You will just be bringing yourself up to let yourself down. I'm going to stay level headed until the tournament is over. I'm also going to do the best that I can do and whatever happens after that is out of my hands. I think I've finally come to terms with that (thanks tim0 -- although I'm currently sitting next to him while he is grinding 5/10 online and he is a little annoyed lol.)

I started off today at 151k, got up to 271k early... then lost a 110k flip and hovered between 220-180 for a couple hours. Towards the end of the night I won a couple nice pots and finished with 286k. Hopefully I can find myself in some good/easy spots tomorrow and things go my way.

After we finished playing, I headed home and then got dressed to go to the gym. I lifted weights, played basketball, and ran a little bit. I feel really good and I can't wait to go to sleep. My laundry is finishing up right now and my head will hit the pillow shortly after that. It's already later than I wanted to stay up but I want to keep this updated. I'll be updating my twitter like usual if you want to follow my progress. Wish me luck for tomorrow. Goodnight.

Made Day 3...

2010-07-11T05:07:00.004-04:00

It's about 3:30am. I'm pretty tired. My body is drained. My back is sore and my legs are stiff. Who knew playing poker could be so tough? Sitting down for so long takes it toll and I have to remember to get up every now and then, stretch, and get my blood pumping. If you're wondering why I'm exhausted it is because I played Day 2 of the World Series of Poker Main Event today. I survived and will play Day 3 on Monday.

I started the day with one of the bigger stacks in the room, 121k. Things didn't go my way early. A couple hours into the day I was down to 55k. I managed to grind back and finish the day strong with 151k. The average stack is probably ~90k. There are still a lot of players left in the field. We merge all of the starting days on Monday and come together for the start of Day 3. I'm glad I survived the first two days, but come Monday there is a week long grind of poker ahead of me. There won't be anymore days off in between playing. I have to be physically and mentally prepared for what is about to take place.

I've gotten deep in the Main Event before. A couple years ago I finished 163rd out of 6400 players. I think I busted halfway through Day 5. I wasn't ready then. I might not be ready now. I feel like I'm ready at this point, but only time will tell. Every year I improve dramatically, so I'm sure down the road I will reflect and say "I wasn't as good back then as I am now." With that said... I like where I'm at right now. I will just leave it at that.

My table had a lot of tough players at it today. Hopefully my table draw for Day 3 will be softer. I'm going to have to hold back on talking about hands that took place. I might play with some of the same players later in the tournament and I don't want to give away too much information. There have definitely been some insane pots so far.

On a side note.. Lebron is going to the HEAT! I'm super happy about this. I have been a Heat fan since I was a kid. I've lived in South Florida my whole life. I used to go to the Heat games all the time with my dad when I was younger, so I'm going to have to repay the favor and get some tickets this year. I tried to get season tickets but it appears they might have sold out. Hopefully I can make it to some of the games. I think South Florida/Miami is just going to be ridiculous now. Poker is legalized, Lebron James plays for the Heat, South Beach, great weather, it is just shaping up real nice down there. I'm happy to be in Vegas but I'm excited to head back to Florida and get the ball rolling there.

Tomorrow I'm going to relax. I will probably play basketball, workout, run some errands, and maybe get a massage or something. It's nice having days off from a tournament but I've become spoiled. It will be a grueling tournament if I survive from Monday to Saturday, but I hope that's a struggle I have a chance to go through. If you want to follow my progress check out my twitter page (twitter.com/TristanCre8ive) Goodnight.

Picture from Day 2B.

Good Start...

2010-07-07T20:51:00.003-04:00

Sorry for the lack of updates. Time just flies when you're playing tournaments all day. I haven't spent much time on the computer either, which has been typical this summer. Since my last blog I have played a couple more tournaments with no cashes. I went deep in a few but nothing exciting happened.

I played Day 1B of the $10k World Series of Poker Main Event yesterday. I finished with 121k in chips. I am 20th in chips for all Day 1B players. When all the Day 1's are finished I imagine I will be in the top 100-150 in chips. It doesn't mean anything at this point, but it is a good start. I had a good starting table. I didn't recognize anyone and most of the players seemed like they were amateur players. We were missing a player in the 6 seat. I was sitting in the 7 seat. The ESPN cameras were circulating around all table for the first two levels. We were then notified that someone special was coming to sit next to me. Along came........ Phil Laak.

Phil sat and we chatted it up through the day. He's a nice guy. Definitely unique to say the least. He's really smart and fun to talk with though. He gets you thinking, that's for sure. I played one enormous pot against Phil where we got it in my 99 vs his 45cc on a 9d45d board for 118k pot at 200/400/50a. He actually predicted the 5c being a bad card for him hours before lol. Crazy.

Another insane pot I played was at the 100/200 level. I don't want to give too many details about the hand, but it was three way action on the flop of JcJsTc and I had KcQd. Me and another player were heads up to the turn, which was the 6h. The river was the Qh and I had to call all in on the river. I tank called and my opponent showed 99 and I won the pot and doubled to 58k. I'll talk more about it after the tournament.

Overall my table was good but there were some tricky opponents and I had to switch gears a couple of times. Luckily a couple things went my way and I am where I'm at. I have a couple days off and don't play again until Saturday. I'm just going to relax and hang out. I will probably play basketball a couple times and hang out with friends. The Main Event is a long grind and I am prepared for another deep run. I'm pretty happy with how I've been playing. I've had a good summer overall, poker included, and I'm going to do my best to get deep in the main. Only time will tell.

ESPN took a lot of footage of our table. Phil Laak was involved in some pretty big pots, including the one with me. A couple of people have asked me why I've never been on TV or "Are you going to be on TV?" Maybe I will make an appearance if they air the footage. That is the last of my concerns but just something interesting to bring up about my day yesterday. I just want to do my best and have a shot to win. If I have anything else to blog about before I play Day 2 I will. Until then... wish me luck.

Here's a picture from yesterday towards the end of the day.

Another Bubble...

2010-06-26T01:48:00.004-04:00

I bubbled the $1500 NLH event the night after I lost Heads up to advance to the "final table" of the $1500 shootout. I actually lost on the last hand of the night. Let me explain how that tournament went.

I had a tough starting table with BelowAbove and SloppyKlod. I chipped up early and got moved to a different table which was full of amateur players. I stayed at this table for a couple hours and increased my stack to about 40k. I was one of the big stacks in the tournament. That table then broke and I was moved to the table I would finish Day 1 on. It was a tougher table, but still I could manage. I chipped up to about 50k at 400/800/100a. We only had to finish this level and the 500/1k/100a level and the night would be over. I opened to 2100 on the button with QTo. The small blind defended. He had been playing pretty solid but was a little loose preflop. The flop came JT6 rainbow. He led for 2700, I raised to 6900, and he moved all in for 24.2k more. I went into the tank. Some people say you should always have a plan for a hand, and I do a lot of times, but just because you have a plan doesn't mean it always works out. In this hand I raised the flop for multiple reasons and he still moved all in. I took a couple minutes to think through his range and then I told him "What else can you have here besides 89 or KQ?" It was still a big decision. 24k was a lot of chips at this stage and would hurt my stack. My instincts were screaming at me to call and I eventually made the call. He said "Good call..." and turned over 89o. I proudly turned over my QTo (also knew my Q was blockers vs 89 and QK) and now had to sweat 7 outs on the turn and river for a 70k pot. The turn was the 7h and I was now drawing dead. He won the pot and I was down to about 20k now.

I won a couple small pots and chipped back up to 35k. At about 32k Brenard Lee shoved the button for 11k and I called with KJo in the big blind. I'm not sure about my call here. We were about 15 minutes away from ending the night, I thought he would shove lighter, which is probably not the case. Anyways, I ran into the top of his range which was AA lol... I lost that pot. They announced 4 hands left in the night. The remaining entrants read 297 with 270 getting paid. On the last hand of the night I was dealt 99 with 5 people left to act behind me. I brain-farted and decided jamming my 20bb stack was a good idea. It is probably a profitable shove, but it is not the right play in this case. One guy reshoved behind me with QQ, JJ folded, and AA snap called in the small blind. I lost this hand as well and really regretted how I played it. It was awful. I then found out the next day that there were 277 remaining players going into day 2. If I knew I was 7 out of the money I would have never shoved either because I think that changes the dynamics for the table/tournament. Oh well.

After those two rough back to back nights I decided to take the next two days off. I wish I didn't take off any days. I should be a well oiled machine. I shouldn't let the results effect me. With that said, I still need to live a balanced lifestyle. Hopefully the days off will help me out for the last stretch of the WSOP. I've had a good series so far. I've had 3 cashes with a final table bubble. I've also had like 2-3 other tournament bubbles, which I'm not proud of. I'm getting to the end or putting myself in a situation to have a chance. If I can continue to do this I will eventually be in a position to win a tournament. Tomorrow is a new day with the $1k WSOP NLH event.

Also one last thing, for anyone who is going to be in Vegas July 2nd-4th Deepstacks is having a whole VIP experience/poker coaching session at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. Check that out here.. if you have any questions e-mail Buff (link at bottom) Goodnight.

One Word...Wow...

2010-06-23T06:54:00.003-04:00

Wow. Wow. Wow. I played my heart out today. I eventually got heads up at the second shootout table vs a random player. I definitely had the edge in heads up play. At 2k/4k he shoved ~80k with KJhh and I called with AKo and he turned a jack to double up. I then chipped him back down, got it in A6 vs 33 and lost that as well (2326A.) I butchered one hand real bad heads up and doubled him up. No biggie. We were about even going into 3k/6k. I chipped him down to 120k to my 330k and at 5k/10k got him all in with 57cc vs ATo. The board came 75463 and although I flopped two pair it went runner runner chop. He then shoved for 80k and I called with K7hh in the big blind. He had KJss. It came K79sQs2s. I thought I won lol. I didn't see that he had hit the flush. After that hand got it in QJo vs A3 it came T87xx and I bricked that as well. He now had the lead in chips. I had 130k he had 320k. I jammed 89cc and he called with QTo. It ran out A92AT and I was eliminated from the tournament.

I am the 15th place finisher. There were 14 people who were going to play tomorrow for a bracelet and I was the last loser. To say I am disappointed is an understatement. I've been real deep in a lot of big tournaments, online and live, and this was the hardest one for me to take. I absolutely played the best I could and I still wasn't able to win. It is definitely frustrating but it is also part of poker. I have to come to terms with that even if it's hard to see how I've gotten so close for so long without it happening. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. It's a sick game we play. I really would have liked my chances tomorrow, playing shorthanded to start until we reached the final table. I think that would have given me a bigger edge in the tournament. This is the closest I have come to winning a bracelet.

What can I do? Well I registered for tomorrows $1500 NLH event. That is a start. I have to go to sleep and forget about tonight. My buddy Tim0thee is really good at disconnecting himself from the results of tournaments/hands. He plays a hand or a tournament and doesn't worry about the outcome. I feel like I want it so bad that it's hard for me to be exactly like that. I still have to control myself better and realize that no tournament is over until it's over. I still have a lot to learn, but I'm learning. Tournaments don't normally bother me, especially if I play well and do everything possible... but getting so close to a bracelet and losing heads up is beyond annoying.

Today was one of the most grueling days of poker I've ever played. I'm not sure why it was like that. I guess because it was a good structured shootout and there was a lot of thinking involved on my end lol. We played short handed for a long time as well as heads up for a couple of hours. I don't know what else to say. I did my best, I still made some mistakes that there are no excuses for (one hand in general) and I'm really happy with how my game is progressing. Hopefully that big final table is coming soon and maybe a big win can come along with that as well. Sorry if this sounds like I'm complaining or whining. I am just typing what happened with my day and the tournament. That's it for now... thanks for the support everyone. I wish I made Day 3 but that is in the past. Goodnight (I'm essentially the final table bubbler if this was a real 3x shootout lol... I would have killed the final 14!!!) Okay time to sleep and shut my brain off for a couple of hours.

Third Cash in WSOP...

2010-06-22T06:01:00.002-04:00

Sorry for the lack of updates. I've had some long days playing poker and just don't get around to getting on the Internet. My housemate JD got 2nd in the $1k I finished 116th in! He won $310k. Congrats to him first and foremost! It was fun sweating him and watching the final table. Unfortunately he didn't win but he did great and played awesome. My other housemate Tim0thee has been deep in a couple tournaments also. He cashed in the $10k HU most recently. I watched a lot of his matches and he played really good. I could tell he couldn't get anything going in his last match and wasn't making many hands. It's tough to win at heads up if you're not making hands. He eventually got it in A6hh vs 84o on a 825hh board, turned the Ad and his opponent re-sucked the river with a 4d. He would have been even in chips again and been back in the running. It was a good performance either way.

Let's see.. I played the $5k 6-max WSOP event. It didn't go so well, although I played my best. I lost two monster pots. One with AJo vs 73dd on a J243dd board all in on the turn and lost. Then at 200/400/50a I was moved to a new table with Erick Lindgren. He opened the first hand UTG and I flatted JJ in the big blind. We got it in on a 365 board and Lindgren turned over 44. The turn was an 8 and the river was the 2 giving Lindgren the straight. That pot was about 100bbs, killed my momentum, and put me at about 50bbs. I couldn't get anything going after that. At 400/800/100a a shortstack shoved UTG at a new table for 10k, I reshoved A9cc on the button for 16k and the small blind woke up with AQo and called. UTG had K8hh and the board ran out Q9xxA...and AQ won it all. It was a frustrating tournament since I got fairly deep and did all I could. I wanted to do better in that tournament.

I've played a couple other WSOP in the last week as well ($1500 NLH, $1k NLH.) Today I played the $1500 NLH shootout. My table had a couple soft spots but I had two good players to my left. Adam Junglen and Jon "Apestyles" Van Fleet. Luckily they both busted pretty early. I doubled up quickly and had a couple other nice spots/pots and was chip leader at 5 handed play. I eventually got 3 handed. I got all the money in with AKo vs A9 on an A882 board for a 23k pot to have 33k of the total 45k in play. The river came a 9 and I got 3 outted for a monster pot. I battled back and eventually made it to heads up with the player I wanted to play heads up. The guy who got knocked out in 3rd was very aggressive and might have been a tougher HU opponent. I grinded the guy down, then we got back to even, and I eventually got it all in my AAs vs his 9sTd on a T54sss flop. I held and won the match. 140 players come back and play tomorrow. If I win my table tomorrow I will be in the final 14. We will then play two 7 handed tables and the rest of the tournament will play out like a normal MTT. Wish me luck!

Everything else aside from poker has been going well. I've been working out, playing basketball, hanging out with some friends and enjoying the summer. My main focus is poker but I'm still trying to stay balanced. Everyone in the house I'm staying at is cool and we all get along with each other. It's been fun and I'm glad I decided to stay in a house with some friends this year. I'll be updating my twitter tomorrow. Goodnight.

Busted 116th out of 3300...

2010-06-15T05:07:00.003-04:00

I had another deep run in a WSOP $1k/$1500 event. I've gotten 25th, 33rd and now 116th in huge fields at the WSOP. In 2007, 2009, and now 2010. This tournament went well for me. I was talking to my roommate and I realized that on Day 1 I only lost one showdown all day. I doubt I got to showdown more than 5-7 times throughout day one. I also didn't see aces the whole tournament. That doesn't really matter but I think it can definitely factor in at some point. I never woke up with a hand when a player was all in today. I battled hard and eventually moved all in for 34k at 1500/3000/400a in 2nd position with ATcc. The guy in 4th position tank called with 99 and I lost the race which would have put me at about 80k and in awesome shape.

I'm really happy with how I'm playing NLH tournaments. Hopefully I can run well and win the big flips when they matter/get some coolers/etc. I've still made some mistakes but luckily they have been small ones and haven't cost me my tournament. I am going to skip tomorrows $2500 PLO event. I didn't like how they did the $1500 event so I'm just not going to play it. If it was 6 handed I definitely would play. I will play again on Wednesday in the $1500 NLH WSOP event.

Tomorrow I will probably just hang out and relax by the pool, workout, and find a place to watch the Lakers vs Celtics game. I'm hoping the Lakers win. I made a small bet with a friend on the series. I typically NEVER bet sports or anything like that but a small bet doesn't hurt. With that said, GO Lakers! I think they can come back and win it with their next two games being at home and the fact that they haven't played that great lately. We will see. All is well aside from poker and everything else. Nothing is new. I'm on the hunt for a bracelet and I want to get closer than I have been. It will be nice to have a shot at it and I will do my best in the remaining tournaments. I'll keep everyone updated. Goodnight.

Into Day 2 $1k WSOP...

2010-06-14T16:46:00.003-04:00

Going into Day 2 of the $1k WSOP. I'm good on chips sitting on about 33k which is 77/503 I believe. We have 70 more knockouts until we make the money. I will update my Twitter on breaks (My Twitter - twitter.com/TristanCre8ive) I will update blog later after I make it through day 2. Wish me luck!

Couple Deep Runs...

2010-06-12T05:09:00.003-04:00

Well I called my shot, kinda. I made a deep run in the $1500 6max event. There were around 1700 entrants and I finished in 82nd place for about $4000. I lost a huge flip for 150k pot at 600/1200 (my QhQs vs AKcc came A98sss and I bricked) and grinded back from it. I'm not happy with how I played the hand that I busted out on. In the moment I felt like I was making the right decision but looking back on it I don't like what I did. It happens. The whole tournament was a lot of fun and a good experience. My buddy, Matt Waxman, was at my Day 1 table for over 3 hours until we ended for the night. That was a lot of fun and a pretty crazy time lol. We were the loudest table in the room I'm sure.

Since I made a deep run in the 6max I missed out on the $5k NLH. That tournament would have been great. I know the field would have been tougher than a normal WSOP NLH tournament but I enjoy playing against good players. On Wednesday I played the Venetian $1600. I made a deep run and busted 10 minutes before we finished play for the night and about 30-40 out of the money. I lost a huge flip AQ vs 99 in a great spot for me, then lost 88 vs a shortstacks JJ and AQ vs JJ. I was happy with my overall play.

Yesterday I played the $1500 PLO tournament. It was a weird structure. Instead of starting us with 4500 in chips like they usually do, we started with 1500 chips and three rebuy chips for 1k each. They could be used at anytime when you weren't in a hand. I opted to take all of them at the beginning so I could start with the 4500 stack. I mixed it up, lost a flip to Charder for a decent sized pot, and then got my money in with the best hand at the time... but my equity was only 30% lol. I turned top set when my opponent hit his flush draw and now had a 22% chance to win which whiffed and I was out the door.

Tomorrow is another $1k WSOP event at noon. Hopefully I can make another deep run and have a better sweat. I'd really like to make a final table and ultimately win a bracelet. I know everyone else feels the same way, but someones gotta win.

Aside from poker I went to the Palms pool party for "Ditch Fridays" today. It was packed and there was overcast weather. It wasn't ideal for the pool and kind of put a bummer on the afternoon. I wanted to get some sun and work on my tan... grinding online poker can really brighten your skin color lol.

I haven't been on the computer much. I was hoping to update the blog earlier but I have been pretty busy grinding these tournaments. I don't want to miss an opportunity in any of these events. That's all for now. Goodnight.

Still 0-fer...

2010-06-05T18:01:00.002-04:00

I've played a couple more events since the last post and I still have no cashes. The Venetian poker tournament got a decent turnout but I busted fairly early. The WSOP events have been good but I haven't been able to get it going deep and win those crucial pots. There are still plenty of events so I am not even worried about it.

The next event I will play is the $1500 6max and I'm really looking forward to this event. I LOVE 6max. I know a lot of poker players feel the same way. It should be an awesome tournament and I am excited to play it. It will also be fun to switch it up from the same old 9-10 handed NLH tournaments. After that there is a $5k NLH on Tuesday but I'll hopefully still be in the 6max and will have to miss that one. We'll just see how things turn out when I play on Monday. I'm not sure what I am doing tomorrow. I might play online for all the big Sunday tournaments. I'll see how I feel.

Other than that things have been pretty quiet. It was my roommates birthday the other night and we went to dinner. I've worked out a couple times and explored Vegas a bit. I also watched the Lakers vs Celtics game. I think the Lakers will win the championship fairly easily. The Celtics didn't look too good in game one but they are still a tough team. I just don't see them being able to compete with the Lakers. It's getting super hot here now. Maybe if I have some time off I will hit the pools or do something fun. All I'm really focused on is poker right now, and that's how it should be. I will leave it at that. This is a pretty boring post lol... maybe I will have something interesting to say next blog.

Long Poker Days...

2010-05-31T02:32:00.002-04:00

I've had a couple long poker days. It's not tough to play for hours on end but playing everyday and focusing so much attention on poker can be tough. It started with the $1k WSOP event. I made it through the dinner break and busted with a couple hours left in play. I got it in for about 35bbs with AKs vs KK. The guy who had KK was pretty loose and it was definitely just a cooler spot. I actually got in another cooler pot against him before that one and doubled him up. I played my best and only feel like I misplayed one hand the whole day.

Yesterday I played online and made a couple deep runs. I managed to finish 14th in the Sunday 500. I've made it to the final two tables in this tournament now FIVE times with only one final table. That's a pretty crazy statistic. That is also how tournament poker goes. You hope that when you get deep in a big tournament you can take it down. Two guys who are in the house I'm living in for the summer also made deep runs in big tournaments. Brad chopped the 100r turbo for about 30k and Tim got 9th in the FTP 750k. He lost a 1.5m pot with like 16 left KK vs QQ after a 643 flop. That would have put him at 2.1m chips with second having 1.1m chips. He would have probably cruised to a good finish but eventually ran into aces to bust in 9th.

Today I played the $1500 WSOP event. Again, I feel like I played great. I knew where I was at in almost every pot and I was able to get a good grasp on everyone's game. I ran my stack up to 9k from 4500 starting stack, then lost a couple pots to go to 3500, got back up to 9k before dinner break and played a pretty crazy pot. There was one guy across the table from me who would limp probably 30% of hands and any suited/kind of connected hand. He limped for 300 at 150/300/25a with about a 30k stack (maybe more.) I raised with AJss on the button to 925. He called. The flop came 9s8c3d. He checked, I checked. The turn was the Ts and he bet 1100. I had 8200 behind and for a couple various reasons I decided to move all in instead of raise small/raise big or flat call. He tanked for a couple minutes and called me with 79cc for middle pair and the bottom end of the straight draw. I had 19 outs and bricked for a 20k pot. They were also breaking my table after that hand and I was sent on my way 20 minutes before dinner break.

Tomorrow I am going to play the Venetian 1k tournament. I'm hoping they have a decent field. It starts in about 10 hours and I have to get to sleep soon. A lot of my friends are doing well or have done well in the WSOP already. I'm sure it is because I know a lot of people but it is good to see some friends having early success/cashes. Tim is going into day 2 of the $1500 with a 60k stack so hopefully he can make a deep run. Check out my twitter if you want live updates. Goodnight.

Back In Vegas...

2010-05-27T07:08:00.005-04:00

It really doesn't seem like it has been a year since I've been in Vegas. Time flew by and here I am again. I had a good time in Oklahoma and made it safe to Vegas.

I flew here with some of the DeepStacks crew and hung out with them on Sunday night. We went and checked out the new casino Aria. It is pretty impressive. I didn't get to see everything they had to offer but what I did see was very nice. The poker room is pretty neat and they have a room called "The Ivey Room." Apparently it is supposed to rival Bobby's Room at the Bellagio. Below is a picture of the Aria poker room. You can see the Ivey Room in the back.

On Monday I rented a car and was invited to Tom McEvoy's wedding. I attended the reception and it was awesome. He seemed really happy as did everyone else in the room. It was a fun reception and I had a great time. On Tuesday afternoon Tom was holding a $230 buyin tournament at Caesars to celebrate his marriage. There would be 10 pros with $1k bounties on their heads.

I woke up around 11am on Tuesday and found the nearest 24 hour fitness center. I worked out for about an hour, came back to the house, grabbed some lunch and headed to Caesars. There were about 180 players that decided to play in the tournament. I got off to a quick start and slowly built my stack up. The blind levels were 20 minutes long and we started with 4k in chips so the tournament would be over pretty quickly. My first table broke and I had a healthy 12k stack when the average was probably around 7-8k.

I was moved to a table that had a pro bounty, Kathy Liebert. The very first hand I had to post the big blind of 400. It folded to Kathy on the cutoff and she made it 1200. The action got to me and I looked down at J4ss. She had roughly 2k behind and this was a very easy shove on my part. Tom was watching and I told him "This won't be pretty." I obviously wanted her to call with any two cards. She obliged and called with A9o. The board ran out J94Jx and I won the pot and collected her $1k bounty.

I won and lost a couple pots/races and found myself down to 12k at 400/800/100a. About thirty minutes after being at the new table they filled Kathy's old seat with Mike Matusow. There was only one problem, he had everyone at the table covered. A woman I had played with all day limped for 800 to my right and I shoved KJss in mid position for about 12k. Mike called in the small blind with AQo. I lost the hand and Mike started berating me "I busted the Internet kid! These Internet donkeys suck!" Haha... he was just having fun with me, no harm done.

After the poker tournament I went to the Palazzo with Chris and Buff (From DeepStacks.) We went to Lagasse's Stadium. It's a sick sports bar with stadium seating in front of a huge TV screen as well as lounge seating all over the place. It was packed because the Suns were playing the Lakers and we had to sit outside. We found a table/couch next to a TV and ordered a great lunch. The food was really good there and I will definitely be going back to watch some sporting events there. Most of their seating appeared to be couches and comfortable chairs. Let me find a picture...

That's the area we didn't get to sit in but the seating is like that all over the place. It's different and fun to sit and relax while watching a game. I don't think that picture does the place justice.

Today I got some things done around the house and went over to Dan O' Brien/some other's house. Their house is definitely sick. Their setup in their living room with desks, computers, and a big TV is perfect. The whole house was very nice. I watched Jason Mercier play some 400-800 8game and then me and Dan played ping pong. The matches were pretty good and we ended 2-2. We ate some Chipotle and then I participated in the INSANITY workout with Dan and his two roommates. That workout is tough, especially after eating a chicken burrito from Chipotle lol. I managed to get through it and got my workout in for the day.

I'm still getting settled into the house. Brad (Smerks) will be coming tomorrow and then Tim (Tim0thee) and others will be getting here Friday. I will be playing the $1k WSOP event on Saturday. I'm looking forward to it. Goodnight.

Live From Oklahoma...

2010-05-23T04:05:00.003-04:00

Hello world. I'm in the middle of nowhere, which happens to be in the middle of the United States. The location is Quapaw Oklahoma at the DownStream casino. I got here Friday night for a Deepstacks one day camp. I flew into Tulsa and then I had about an hour and a half drive to the casino here. It's a pretty nice casino and I have enjoyed the trip so far.

On Friday night I ate dinner at the casino's Steakhouse. It was absolutely incredible. The chef is a 6'2 380lb beast and he knows exactly what he is doing. There was about ten of us at the dinner including Mike Matusow, a couple of people from DeepStacks, a few people who run the casino and some regular poker players here. It was an excellent dinner and a great time. After that Mike, Chris (DeepStacks CEO), and I went and played some 5/10 Holdem/PLO. It was a great game and I had a lot of fun.

Today I taught with Mike for a couple hours. It was a one day course so it wasn't too time consuming. I then relaxed for about an hour and ate at the Steakhouse again. Yes, it is that good. After another delicious dinner I played some 5/10 Holdem/PLO and here I am now. It's pretty late. It's almost 5 in the morning. It's the first time I've been on the Internet since Thursday night so I have been wrapped up in things for the last couple of hours.

Tomorrow I am going to Vegas. I'm really excited. I'm expecting something great from myself this WSOP. I'm going to do my best and hopefully things will work out. If I play my best at all times I won't care about my results. With that said, If I am playing my best at all times I can't imagine not doing well. I will be staying in a house with a couple of my Canadian poker playing friends (Tim0thee, Smerks and some guys they know.) I will have a couple days to relax, get settled into Vegas and prepare for the next couple of weeks. I should be blogging and twittering frequently.

A couple days ago I did the free coaching session I had talked about earlier in the year. Sorry for those who didn't get to check it out. I did it on UStream and probably had about 20-30 viewers. I reviewed a hand history of mine and talked about Super Turbo Tournament strategy. I think everyone enjoyed it and it was pretty simple. Coin flip, shove, fold... not rocket science, but still informative. I will probably do some more UStream things in the future but I am not sure exactly how much "coaching" or giving away free knowledge I will do. Probably not much, but I can figure out something that will be fun.

I also Made bluffmagazine's top tweet list three weeks in a row! My best poker accomplishment yet. BLUFF's Poker Tweets of The Week. Maybe I am mildly entertaining, I am not sure lol. I gotta head to bed. I'll get back in the rhythm of blogging soon. Goodnight.

USteam...

2010-05-20T20:54:00.001-04:00

Going live in an hour or so.. Little late/short notice since I talked about it on Tuesday night.. Anyone who is around come check it out. Will blog more later this week before I head out to Vegas.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/tristan-cre8ive-wade

Here's the SCOOP...

2010-05-10T17:08:00.006-04:00

FTOPS finished about a week ago. I made a couple more deep runs in some of the events. I finished 23rd in the $500 Super Turbo and finished in the top 100 in the Rush Rebuy tournament. SCOOP hasn't been going so great either. It is a little more than halfway through the series and I think my only close call is a bubble of the $1500 2x chance turbo. I was one of the chip leaders the whole way through and then lost AQ vs A7 blind vs blind to be a dominant chip leader on the bubble. With 65 people left and 63 getting paid I shoved AJ got called by KQ and lost the pot. That was a super frustrating bubble/loss considering I had a lot of chips before the AQ/A7 hand and knew I would do well in that.

The structures in the SCOOP tournaments are ridiculous. It is a positive thing to have good structured online tournaments but sometimes it can be a little overboard. Playing online for 22 hours straight is way too long. I think they need to adjust their structures and either make more events two-day events or just make the tournaments shorter. I guess the longer levels and deeper structures allow for more "play" and "skill" but even in structured tournaments like the FTOPS you have to be skilled to be aware of the structure and adjust. My point is that in tournaments like the SCOOP it allows more room for postflop play whereas in faster structured tournaments you need to have better preflop play. Both structures take skill, just different types of skill. With postflop play you do get more information and have more room to maneuver. I understand that those structures are better overall. I do enjoy the better structures but playing online for almost a day straight doesn't seem right to me in an online setting. That's like playing three days consecutively in a live tournament; Maybe even longer. I find it hard to be able to play my best when I'm awake for such a long period of time. I haven't final tabled a SCOOP tournament yet so I don't know how tough it really is. :-)

*********************************************************************

I started writing the above paragraphs a couple of days ago and didn't get to finish. SCOOP ended yesterday. It almost ended for me today though. I busted in 39th place in the $1k SCOOP Main Event. First place was roughly 580k. Another close call. I got knocked out about 30 minutes before play was done for the day. It was a two day tournament and I would have finished today if I had survived. I had a couple deep runs in other tournaments yesterday too but nothing panned out. That is how the cookie crumbles.

Now that I survived the FTOPS/SCOOP I will be heading to the WSOP (World Series of Poker) in a couple days. I am actually going to fly to Oklahoma for a DeepStacks camp and then onto Vegas after that. Fellow DeepStacks pro Tom McEvoy is getting married the day after I get in. I will probably attend that and get settled in to Vegas and have a couple days to myself before the WSOP hits. It will be nice to have a couple days of down time before the madness starts.

I have been slacking on the blogging. I was playing poker literally everyday and there wasn't much to say. It would have been the same old repetitive writing which I feel I succumb to every now and then. Sorry If I am boring, I try not to be! I will be blogging and tweeting (www.Twitter.com/TristanCre8ive) very frequently while out in Vegas. If you want to know how things are going just check my twitter which will probably be updated every couple of hours.

I will be doing the free coaching I promised this week! Thursday night is the only day this week I will be able to do it. I will shoot for Thursday at 9 PM EST quite possibly 10 PM EST. I will update the blog before then to make the time certain, but it will be going down on Thursday night. Sorry again for taking so long with what I promised to do. Hopefully this is enough notice and everyone who is interested can check it out. I will be talking about Super Turbo Tournaments and strategy for them and also answering poker related questions/anything else. It will most likely be done on UStream. I have to set it all up and make sure it's a go but I will figure it out by then.

One last question. Who is more famous GLOBALLY...Lebron James or Michael Phelps? Goodnight.

F the TOPS...

2010-04-30T01:43:00.004-04:00

It's Thursday night and FTOPS is nearing the end. I just cashed in my third straight FTOPS event. Yesterday I made a deep run in the $500 HORSE but ended up getting 36th place. Today I finished 95th place in the $200 FTOPS Cubed and 19th in the $300 Heads Up PLO event.

Overall I've been really happy with how I've been playing. There are always some hands I misplay or do something stupid, but in general I feel like I've been playing pretty well. I especially feel like I played the HU PLO very well. In my final match I had a chance to knock out the player twice. One hand I was 44% to win vs his 35% with 21% chance to tie. That hand brought him back down 2-1 in chips I believe. I grinded him down some more and got in a 50%/50% flip which I lost to get the stacks about even. The only hand I feel like I misplayed was the last hand. I had 33% equity but I just don't think it was the best spot for me. I realized I need to play more PLO. I definitely enjoyed playing heads up PLO today although it was a tournament and not a cash game.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the FTOPS events and hopefully I can get the ball rolling again. The SCOOP is also starting this weekend which I am excited about. I was looking through the SCOOP schedule today. I'm not sure how good the HIGH buyin SCOOP tournaments will be. It really depends on the satellites and who is playing them. I doubt they will be worth playing. I probably won't play any of them unless the fields are pretty large or I satellite in. I'll have to wait and see.

About 4-5 months ago (wow I can't believe it's been that long) I talked about doing some free coaching. I haven't forgot about that. I want to give enough warning so that everyone who wants to watch/partake will have enough notice. I don't want to do it last minute and exclude a bunch of people. I promise I will pick a date before I head out to the WSOP at the end of May. It will most likely be a Friday/Saturday night. It will be best if I just wait until SCOOP is over and do it sometime after that. I haven't forgot though and I'm sorry it has taken this long. In the coaching lesson I will review some super turbo strategy and answer questions. That seems like the smart thing to do. I'm sure a lot of people might be upset about offering a free poker lesson but there is enough information out there. I don't feel like talking a little strategy about Super Turbos and answering some questions will hurt the profitability of poker at all.

Let's see how this last weekend of FTOPS goes. It hasn't been so great to me yet but there are still a couple more events. Good luck to everyone who is playing and I hope to see some of you at the final table.

Not Much New...

2010-04-20T04:46:00.004-04:00

There isn't much going on around here. I'm in Florida and have been playing poker here and there. I'm gearing up for the FTOPS/SCOOP/WSOP. I'm really excited and trying to get mentally and physically prepared.

Last night I went to the Drake concert in Orlando. It was held at my old stomping grounds, UCF. I miss that place and I miss the college experience. The concert was pretty good. The negative to it was that it was general admission and I wasn't trying to fight thousands of people waiting in line for good seats. I decided to just sit up at the top where I had a good view of everything and that was the right play. The opening act was a hip-hop guy from Canada named K-os. I'm sure less than 5% of the people in the building had heard of him. He performed for about 45 minutes, then we waited for what seemed like another 45 minutes, and Drake finally came out.

There's a story behind my appreciation towards Drake. I stumbled upon his music one day on myspace years ago before anyone else had heard of him. I told a couple of my friends about him and they all basically laughed at me and said he was alright but nothing special. I'm really into music (in my own way) and saw the potential in him. Well down the road he ended up making a mixtape and getting some support from Lil Wayne and others and look where he's heading now... straight to the top. If only I had a record label a couple years ago lol. Anyways, that is my quick story behind Drake and how I discovered him. Haha, I hardly discovered him but that's how I make the story out to be.

Regardless of all that, I had a good time at the concert. He didn't perform as many songs as I would have liked but he did a good job. I'm pretty excited for his first official album to come out in a couple months. I've heard a couple songs from it and I'm impressed.

Before

After

Enough of the music talk. Everything else has been pretty low-key. As I said above I am ready to get back into the online poker grind and sharpen my skills for the WSOP. I went to a home cash game the other night and had a good time and a winning session. It's always fun to switch it up and play live poker. It helps when you win too. I wish there were more places to play live cash games but I hear that Florida is removing the $100 max buyin limit from their cash games. As soon as that happens you guys better watch out. Poker will boom here I guarantee it. There's another thing for me to look forward to.

I'll just keep this one short. I feel like I haven't had much to write about lately anyways. Suggestions anyone? Good luck to everyone playing all the big online tournaments coming up. I'll see you guys at the tables.

NAPT Tourney and Last Week...

2010-04-13T21:29:00.007-04:00

Last blog I updated quickly before I left to head to Connecticut. Let me continue off of that post.

I arrived to the airport in the morning and immediately ran into my buddy Matt Waxman. He was already in line to check in. A couple minutes later Jason Mercier showed up and we started to check in and try to get seats together so the flight wouldn't be so bad. We were chatting it up and along came another person we all are familiar with, Mike Beasley. Beasley was one of the first people getting on the flight so he said he would save us some seats. I ended up sitting next to him and Matt, but I was stuck in the middle seat. I don't know anyone who likes sitting there lol. We played some Chinese Poker and talked the whole flight. Beasley is a good guy and pretty infamous in South Florida.

We arrived to CT and all jumped in a van to head to Mohegan Sun. I was really impressed with the casino/hotel. It was very nice. I will definitely be going back there in the future for poker tournaments. I took a nap and later that night headed to the PokerStars party. There were a lot of people down there and I hung out for a couple of hours and talked with Beasley. He ended up heading to bed and then me and some other guys went to Bobby's Burger Palace and ate dinner. I must say, that place is delicious. I recommend anyone who goes to Mohegan Sun to eat at that place for a quick meal.

Let me get into how the tournament went. My starting table was very good. I didn't recognize a single person. There was only one other younger looking guy and all the other players were middle aged or older. I started off with my typical min raising blind under the gun strategy for the first couple of levels. I do this to generate action and give me a looser image. The first interesting pot I got involved in was actually one of those pots.

I blind raised UTG in the second level of play at 75/150 to 300. I received four callers and looked down at AsAd. I thought for a second and wished I had an option lol. The flop came QT7ss and I decided to check. The last player in position bet 800, I called, and one other player thought for a little bit and called. The turn brought the Ah, giving me top set. I noticed the other player in the pot who called jump a little and get excited. I wanted to see how he would react and checked. He also checked and the third player bet 1725. At this point the other guy was looking very uninterested in the pot. I read it as strength or ultimate weakness (he's folding) and just called. When the action was on the other player he immediately made it 10k. The player in last position folded and I thought for about 20-30 seconds before I mucked my AA face up. My stack was now at 28.5k from the 30k starting stack.

I showed my hand for a couple different reasons. Some of the players went crazy and commotion insued. I then got into a bet with another guy at the table who gave me 2-1 odds after almost getting 3-1 odds. I said that the player had KJ and he was allowed to have every other hand in the deck. We booked the bet, the other guy agreed to tell the truth, and I won the bet. He admitted he had KJ and turned the nuts. My fold was correct and I felt good about it.

Later on in the level I 3bet an aggressive player who was opening a lot of pots. He made it 800 and I 3bet to 2250 with A9o in position. He called and the flop came Q25cc. He check called my bet of 2850 and we saw the turn which was the 6h, putting two hearts on board. I fired 6425 and he mucked. My stack grew to 32k.

I opened to 800 with KhJc and the small blind and big blind called. The big blind was the aggressive/loose player from above. The flop came AcJdTd and we all checked. The turn was the 9d and the big blind led for 2400. I raised to 6800 and he called. The river was the 2d and he checked again. I bet 8300. He tanked for literally 3-5 minutes before having the clock called on him. He said he flopped the nuts and eventually folded the Qd. I did not see his hand but I wouldn't doubt it here. I'm up to 40.5k

I also ran one more big bluff where I floated a flop and barreled the turn and river to win a sizeable pot. My image was very good because I hadn't been in any showdowns and people perceived me as tight. I also realized that by winning these pots without showdowns people would start getting suspicious.

The aggressive/loose player opened the button and I looked at ATo in the big blind. I previously only 3bet him once with the A9 and figured since he was opening so light here 3betting would be the best option. He flat called me and I checked a J53 board. He checked back and I check folded to the 9 on the turn. The very next hand I had AJo in the big blind and he raised again to 1525. I 3bet him for the second time in a row and he actually folded which was surprising to me.

The very next orbit when I was in the small blind again he opened to 1525. I looked down at AJss and decided to flat call. With our recent history and me 3betting him often, I wasn't comfortable getting all in preflop with this hand, although I definitely think 3betting was an option with the plan on 5betting all in. The big blind also called the raise and the flop came AT6 rainbow. We checked to him and he bet 2525. We both called. The turn was the 3d and we both checked. He fired a second barrel and bet 7350. I flat called again and the big blind folded. The river was the Qh and we both checked and he said I got it. I was now up to 57k in chips at the 300/600 level.

I finished day 1 with 58.5k after being moved to a new table with about 30 minutes left in the day. I was happy with my Day 1 performance considering I only hit one set and had to fold it. I didn't hit any flushes/straights/etc either. So definitely a good finish to Day 1 when the average stack was around 45k.

I went into day 2 feeling great. I recognized one player at my table, Mike Martin (Martine23) he was to my right. This table had a couple younger players so I was pretty sure some of them were online players. Mike is a nice guy and we chatted it up for a bit. The first interesting pot I was involved in was vs him. He raised from the small blind to 2800 at 600/1200/100a and I defended with J6hh. We both were about 60k deep at this point. The flop came 823 rainbow and he bet 3300. I decided to float the flop. The turn was another 8 and the board was absolutely rainbow. He checked and I b et 5500. He called and the river came the Q. He checked again, I bet 9300 and he called with 89dd. I like my bluff here although I ran into the top of his range.

I mixed it up in a couple pots after that bluff. I limped with 33 in the small blind with about 32 big blinds. The big blind raised me a real small amount. He was definitely an internet player and I jammed on him, having him covered barely. He folded fairly quickly and I showed a 3. A couple orbits later I raised the button with KJo to 3k. He 3bet to 8300 from the small blind with about 25k behind. Given the couple of pots we played I thought he could fold here in real time, although thinking back on it its probably unlikely. I 4bet shoved on him and he called with TT. I was in a race situation and I failed to improve my hand. I was now down to about 11-12 big blinds.

I shoved K3hh UTG for 11800 at 600/1200 and one short stack isolated me. He had QQ. The flop came 864 and the turn was the King of spades. The river bricked and I was back up to 20bbs. A couple players busted from the table and new players sat down. The very first hand this one guy got to the table he raised, and I shoved KJo on him from the button for about 15k more. He thought for a little bit and folded. Immediately after that hand I picked up 22 on the cutoff and shoved for 19bbs. The small blind reshoved immediately with AKs and I lost another flip when the board came K97xx. I busted a couple hours into day 2. Bummer.

Overall I felt like I played real well. My two shoves on day 2 are pretty marginal although I was flipping. The table had gotten considerably tougher so I don't mind making some higher variance plays, but I probably could have waited for better spots. Trying to play perfect in an imperfect game is tough though so I won't beat myself up too much. I really want to do well in the next months leading up to the WSOP. I'm trying to clean up everything and make my game as sharp as can be.

After I busted the NAPT Main event I got on a flight to LA with Roothlus, who is also a DeepStacks Pro. Although he lives out in LA we both were going to teach a camp at the Commerce. We first flew from Connecticut to Washington DC then from DC to LAX. We had exit row seating on the flight from DC to LAX and nobody came and sat in the middle seat. That was good for us as we had a little extra room. We talked and played some Chinese poker. I was able to win a little money off of him. The flight went by fast and we were in California in no time.

Let's see.. California was a little different this time around. The first night I stayed at the Commerce and didn't leave the casino. I actually didn't leave the casino/hotel the whole time. Mike Matusow played a $200 NLH Tournament someone asked him to play (and to take seriously) and he final tabled it. He ended up getting 3rd place and some of the DeepStacks guys and I stayed up and watched him til 3am. It was pretty fun and exciting to sweat it. Mike could have won it but he screwed around a couple of hands and didn't seem to care too much about it in the end. It was a good time though.

On Saturday/Sunday I taught at the camp and met a lot of interesting and good people. The students seemed to enjoy it and got a lot out of it. Scott Huff from PokerRoad came through on Sunday and I somehow managed to get on the radio show once again. I don't know how I'm so lucky but here is the link. Poker Road Radio - Scott Huff/Mike Matusow/Roothlus/Me

On Monday I flew back to Florida and here I am now. I grinded online a couple of tournaments tonight and got deep in the $100r 6max on FTP and the $300NL. I cashed in both but had a couple rollercoaster hands in the 6max tournament. I was trying to push the envelope tonight and play a couple hands differently. I haven't played online in a week so I was mixing it up. I busted 18th in the 6max and 67th in the $300 NL.

I'm excited to grind online for the FTOPS/SCOOP and get my game prepared for the WSOP which starts at the end of May. That's it for now. It's 4:40am. Gotta get to sleep. Goodnight.

Real Short Update...

2010-04-06T04:46:00.004-04:00

It's almost 5am and I have a 9am flight to Connecticut to play in the NAPT Mohegan Sun. I'm flying with my friends Matt Waxman and Jason Mercier. Should be a fun flight if we can get our seats next to each other. It's only a three hour flight so it shouldn't be that bad. You can check my updates for the NAPT Main Event on my twitter account www.twitter.com/tristancre8ive I will be updating it frequently.

If that tournament doesn't go my way I will fly back out to LA this weekend to teach the main poker camp for DeepStacks Live at the Commerce. I am hoping that I don't have to go to LA this weekend and I will be deep in the NAPT and hopefully at the final table. That is the goal. I am really excited to play this tournament. I missed out on NAPT Venetian and heard a lot of good things about it.

I still need to get packing but I just wanted to give a quick update. Haven't done much else. I played a little online poker here and there with a couple shots but nothing panned out. I feel really good about my game, especially live poker, and I can't wait to sit down at the tables on Wednesday. Check out my twitter and I will update the blog as well. Goodnight.

Week in LA...

2010-04-01T01:46:00.004-04:00

I am back in Florida. I haven't been on the computer much. I went to LA from Thursday to Tuesday. The Internet there was really slow and I was busy the whole time.

My flight was really early on Tuesday morning. The plane left at 7am and I arrived in Los Angeles at around noon. Later than night I went to a sushi place in Hollywood called Geisha House. It was pretty good. I really liked their Red Samurai sushi rolls. After dinner I headed back to the Commerce where I was staying and played some poker. I was pretty confused with their buyin rules. The 2-5 game had a 200 max buyin and the 5-10 game had a 400 max buyin. The next night I found out that they had a 5-10 game with a $1500 max buyin. Me and Mike Matusow played in that game on Saturday night and it was pretty fun/decent game. I only played for a couple hours before I decided to head to sleep.

On Saturday and Sunday I taught a couple courses for DeepStacks. We did two small courses on each day. It was pretty fun and informative. Although it was only a couple hours and a "preview" everyone enjoyed it. The instructors were Mike Matusow, Adam "Roothlus" Levy, Matt "MattG" Graham, Tom McEvoy, Justin "BoostedJ" Smith and myself. We went over some of the basics of the game and other things we picked up that the players were doing. I had a good time and so did everyone who showed up.

I got to see a lot of California and the LA area on Monday. I rented a car and drove around. I went to the Grove, Santa Monica Pier, Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, Korea town and even up to the Hollywood sign up in the hills. It was cool seeing a different city and actually being able to explore it a little bit. Sometimes when you travel a lot and play poker you don't really get to see the cities you are in. I'm sure there is a lot more to Los Angeles but it was good that I got to do as much as I did. I will actually be going back there next weekend if I am still not in the NAPT Mohegan Sun.

That's basically my schedule for the next couple of weeks. I am heading up to the NAPT at Mohegan Sun for the main Event in a little under a week. If I bust the tournament early then I will fly back out to LA for the DeepStacks Live weekend camp going on that weekend. I'd like to go back to LA but if I'm still in the NAPT Main Event I would much rather that lol.

I also did another cool thing while I was out in LA. I appeared on PokerRoad.com radio with Mike Matusow. You can listen to it here -- PokerRoad Radio - Tristan Wade/Mike Matusow. We played a fun game that was called Back, Bunk, or Book. Basically what they asked us is who would we back, who would we bunk with, and who would we cross book against. It was a fun time and I'm glad I got to be on the show.

I'm about to head to bed but I will be online this week grinding and also back on the computer/blogging a little more frequently. I'm kind of out of it tonight. Need to get back on routine with everything. Workout in the morning. Goodnight.

Oh.. quick story. Driving from Orlando to South Florida tonight I was on the turnpike and saw a state trooper with his lights on. He had pulled over a car about a half a mile ahead of me. I know the law in Florida is to get over in the left lane to protect the trooper. I put my blinker on and moved into the left lane. I drove by, saw the trooper near the drivers side window of the Rav 4 and passed the scene. I put my blinker back on and moved back into the right lane. No more than 30 seconds later I see the red and blue lights in my rear view mirror. I didn't think I was speeding and I had just passed the trooper. How did he come after me so quickly? Was it another officer?

He came up to the car and handed me a piece of paper that was a flyer for the Florida law of moving into the next lane when a trooper/cop has someone pulled over. I was aware of this law and followed it. He then asked me why I didn't pull into the other lane. My passenger started to explain that we had moved over until I told him to not say anything. I told the officer "Excuse me sir but I am 100% sure that I passed you in the left lane." The officer then went off on me saying that he knows I didn't and he felt the car fly by him and that he saw the spoiler and it was definitely me. He even said "You were in the same right lane when I pulled you over." I immediately thought... "Well Duh. Slow traffic stays right, the left lane is for passing, of course I was in the right lane! What kind of logic is that?" but I bit my tongue. I decided to try to explain once more that I was sure I followed the law. I repeated "I am 1000% sure that I was not in the right lane when I passed you sir." He interrupted me and said "Well I was going to give you a warning but now give me your license!" This can't be happening. I don't have the best luck when it comes to this stuff.

He went back to his vehicle, ran the license, and came back about 5 minutes later. This guy really was positive that it was my car that had passed him. What obviously had happened was that there was a car before mine 15-30 seconds or however long that had a spoiler and flew by him in the right lane. He then proceeded to finish his stop and track down the closest car with a spoiler, being the car I was driving. In his mind he couldn't be wrong. This is the typical experience I have had. I was once pulled over by 3 cops at gunpoint lol. That's another story. Anyways... I just wished this officer would look at his security footage from the traffic stop and see that it wasn't my car. He didn't seem like the type to admit guilt. He came back to my car and said "Well I'm going to do what I said I would do and give you a warning but I am sure it was you that flew past me." I shook my head and he went on his way. I learned a lesson a long time ago to never argue with officers, but it's hard to not argue when you didn't do anything wrong. Luckily I didn't get a ticket or I would have went crazy..Hopefully he checks his camera or something. I want him to admit his guilt lol.. Okay goodnight!

Bubbled...

2010-03-23T03:46:00.002-04:00

Yeah. I just about bubbled the money in the $1k Hard Rock. There were I think 23 people left with 16 getting paid. I had a very good table and I thought I had a very tight image. I had about 130k stack at 1.5/3k (the structure goes bad after this level really) and opened to 7k in 3rd position with KQo. A regular from the Rock called in position. The flop came 862hh and I bet 9500. She grabbed a stack of 20 1k chips and slid them into the pot. I was almost certain her range here was 77-99-TT and JJ at best. I had a really good read on how she played all her hands/sets/flush draws. I tanked for a little bit and thought I could get her to fold. I shoved 95k on top of her raise, she thought for a little bit and called with TT.

She screamed that "She knew I had nothing! LOW CARD! LOW CARD!!!" and the next two cards were indeed low, lol. Just like my spirits when I lost the tournament and had to listen to someone scream for cards/celebrate my loss. Haha just kidding, but I was pretty annoyed. I really thought I had a great image. I played with her a lot on day 1 as well and played solid. I guess I just have to have it at some point.

I was happy overall with how I played but can't help to think about what could have been. The prize pool wasn't as big as I had hoped. It only got 157 total entrants and was just under 50k to first. It still would have been a nice score.

After I lost I came home around 2:00pm and laid in bed. I was going to play online poker but my sister and my nephew came by and we ate dinner. I was too tired and decided to take a nap and missed all of the good tournaments. It felt good not being confined to my computer on a Sunday but I really wanted to be at the Final Table of the Hard Rock tournament.

Today I came up to Orlando. I played a night session and was lucky enough to get 3rd in the STT on Full Tilt Poker. I had a really interesting spot 3 handed.

Full Tilt Poker Game #19488565043: $30K Super Turbo Knockout (147044812), Table 13 - 2000/4000 Ante 500 - No Limit Hold'em - 2:16:41 ET - 2010/03/23
Seat 1: jbkvoeg (136,339)
Seat 3: Johan Storakers (20,228)
Seat 9: Cre8ive (19,833)
jbkvoeg antes 500
Johan Storakers antes 500
Cre8ive antes 500
Cre8ive posts the small blind of 2,000
jbkvoeg posts the big blind of 4,000
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [9h Kh]
Johan Storakers raises to 19,728, and is all in
Cre8ive has 15 seconds left to act
Cre8ive has requested TIME
Cre8ive

I'm pretty sure with ICM this is a fold. The big blind is almost always going to call and I have a chance to move into 2nd place without playing the pot. On the other hand I feel I am ahead of the buttons shoving range and I want to play for the win. What would you guys do? I'm going to keep this post short and sweet and I'll most likely post again before I leave to LA on Thursday.

Advanced to Sunday...

2010-03-21T02:29:00.007-04:00

Hey guys. I played the Hard Rock $1k yesterday. There were two starting days. Friday and Saturday. If you lost on Friday you could buy back in on Saturday. Fortunately for me I didn't lose and have to play again on Saturday. I ended the day with 123k going into blind level 1k/2k. The average stack is probably right around 100k.

I played a couple really interesting pots. I was going to do a write up for this tournament but I played against a lot of good players and I don't want them to know about some of the hands I played against them.

At my first table I had Hayden "Nipsman" Fortini (who is another DeepStacks pro) and my friend Hans. They were both to my left, Hayden being to my direct left. I stayed at this starting table about halfway through the day before I was moved to a new table. I took my seat in the nine chair and recent PCA Main Event Winner Harrison "Gibler321" Gimbel was two to my left. We played a couple interesting pots. There was one really crazy hand where he thinks I might have mucked QQ. I'll talk about it.

We were playing 7 handed I believe, I opened for a raise to 3800 at 800/1600/200a. I was in 2nd position. He called two to my left and Eddie Jones called in the big blind. The flop came Ac9d9h and we checked to gibler. He bet 5400 and I called. The turn was the Qh putting two hearts I checked again and this time he bet 10.4k. I raised to 24.6k and he tanked for a while and called. He had me covered. He started with probably 180k and I had about 90k to start the hand. After the turn bet I think I had about 55k behind. The river came the As and I tanked for a while before I checked, gibler moved all in, and then I tanked and folded. I didn't tell him what I had yet but he thinks I might have folded QQ. Pretty interesting hand, and I think I'm going to wait for a while before I reveal what I had, if I ever decide to do so.

I doubled up right before play ended. One of my friends opened to a 4k raise in middle position. As soon as I looked down at my AKo in the big blind the tournament director announced 5 hands left until we were done for the night. I 3bet to 11600 and my friend thought, stacked his chips, thought some more, restacked his chips, and moved all in on me. I called. He turned over 33 and we were off to the races. The board came QT5TQ and I won the pot. I had him covered by a couple thousand chips and ended the night with 123k. Gibler is the chip leader with over 300k. I think he might have 350k. Another good player has about 250k as well.

It's going to be a tough tournament still but I like my chances. I figure there will be 30-40 players tomorrow left. The top 18-20 will probably be paid and hopefully it is a decent prize to first place (70k+) I'm hoping some things can go my way tomorrow and I can spend my whole day winning that live tournament and avoid playing online tomorrow. I will be updating my twitter account (TristanCre8ive) so check out all the updates there.

A couple days ago I went to Sonic one late night with some friends. My buddy recently came back home after playing professional basketball in another state. We were all hanging out at my house (There were five of us.. my two friends, one of their girlfriends and their girlfriends cousin -- not so confusing lol) We decided to go get a snack from Sonic and I drove us there.

Once we parked I noticed a guy trying to enter Sonic. If you don't know about Sonic it is a fast food place where you park and they deliver your food to you. You can't actually go inside but they have tables to eat outside and a bathroom near the back.

The design of sonic. One way road that goes around until you go out the exit.

It was weird seeing someone try to go inside and I became suspicious. My friend Brian told me I'm always suspecting something (KNOW YOUR ENVIRONMENT!) and I kept observing. I placed our order and we were sitting there waiting when the guy approached the car. I locked the doors and the guy approached the driver's side back window. He was mean mugging my buddy in the back. He had dropped a box of cigarettes and started going back a couple feet to get them. I thought my friend in the back was going to get out of the car so I backed the car up a little bit so I could get out. The place where you order the food was blocking my car door from opening all the way. I started backing out a little bit in case I had to open my door and the guy started coming toward my window, looking like he was going to smash my window. I backed out quickly and he was running up to the car and I peeled off as he swiped at my car.

Where we were parked originally when the guy came up to us..

I stopped at this corner inside the Sonic area and waited to see what the guy was doing. Obviously he was on something and not in the right state of mind. I saw him grab at something in his pocket as he approached the car so I wasn't sure what he had on him. He started running after the car once I stopped here.

I took off to the left and stopped by the Sonic and honked my horn while the guy was chasing the car lol. I tried to get their attention so they would call the cops but they didn't notice. My friends thought I was antagonizing the guy LOL. He was about to catch up to the car and I drove off and out the exit.

I pulled off into a parking lot right near Sonic and waited to see if the guy came lol. I tried to decide if calling the cops would be the best solution right now. I knew this guy was really messed up and obviously out of his mind. I was trying to avoid a situation where something bad happened. Like I said I wasn't sure what the guy had in his pocket or what he was capable of. You never know. We didn't want to leave our food there so we decided we would go back and be a little more careful lol. It was a scary situation but everyone else didn't seem too worried about it. I was a little more worried since I was driving and I didn't want anything to happen to the car.

We pulled back into the entrance/exit part (The exit actually is an entrance/Exit -- so they have two entrances) and the guy was hiding in the back and noticed our car. I am pretty sure he was sniffing a paint spray can or something. He saw us and I pulled up to the side so we could try to get our food.

He started running at the car with what appeared to be a paint spray can to me (some of my friends say otherwise.) I took off again and saw him cut through Sonic to block me off on the other end of the road. Luckily I had already prepared a getaway plan which was going out the one way entrance.

I went through the one way entrance and left the area and looked back and saw the guy in the middle of the road of Sonic with his can. I would of had to run him over. He seemed pretty disappointed lol. He got severely outplayed. At this point we had enough and decided to call the cops so they could handle it. He ended up getting on his bicycle and the leaving sonic. We were stopped in the main street watching and the cops picked him up on the corner. We went back and got our food. It was the end of a pretty crazy night.

That's it for now haha. Hope you guys enjoyed the story. We all made it out safely, nobody was hurt, and nothing bad happened. Hopefully the visuals helped. I'll update again in a couple days and hopefully I win the Hard Rock Tournament. Check out my Twitter for updates! Goodnight.

The Last Week...

2010-03-16T02:59:00.006-04:00

I've been real busy the last week or so. It started with me going up to Orlando on Wednesday to do some DeepStacks videos. I spent about 8-9 hours and shot a bunch of modules for the site. After that, the plan was for me to go to Daytona Beach for Mike Skinner's (used to be a Nascar driver/now drives in a different league) Charity Poker Tournament.

Mike Skinner and his people had two days of festivities planned. Thursday and Friday. A big storm hit Orlando and all of Florida on Thursday. DeepStacks and I decided it was best to not drive through the storm and I didn't make it to Daytona on Thursday. The next day the weather had cleared up a bit and I drove up to Daytona in the afternoon and played in their charity tournament. I was at the "celebrity table" with a bunch of Nascar/Napa/other league drivers. To be honest, I didn't know any of them lol. Some faces looked familiar though. Also, the runner up to Carrie Underwood on American Idol (Bo Bice) was playing too <<< I didn't know who he was either until someone told me.

The guys didn't know much about poker but I was helping the people I was sitting inbetween. Since it was for charity there were unlimited rebuys and then an addon at the end of the hour. I ended up losing AKcc vs K9 vs 55 vs 24cc for a huge pot after the rebuy period when I moved all in and got called in 3 spots lol. I flopped an ace but the turn brought a five and that was that. They were giving a first place prize of 1k to a charity for whoever won the Charity SnG so that would have been cool. I had a fun time and it was nice meeting the guys. They were all friendly and pretty rowdy. It was a great experience.

Once that was done I headed back to Orlando and then drove back to South Florida. It was now Friday night and on Saturday I was playing the Isle $900 Main Event Tournament. It started at 2:30pm and 22k starting stacks. The blind levels were an hour long and I had a great starting table. I recognized one or two faces and didn't exactly know anyone, which is awesome. The table had a couple soft spots and I had position on the looser players. I was doing my typical blind raise under the gun for the first couple of levels. I was playing a lot of pots early because the table was so soft.

One of the players at the table got into a little verbal altercation with me and questioned my ethics. He limped I raised JTo and he called. The flop came A9Tdd and we both checked. The turn was 5s he bet I called, the river was another T and he bet the pot, 1400. I thought for a little bit and decided to just call. He had been pretty tight postflop and I thought he could have a better kicker. Once I called he said "You win I missed." and motioned to muck his hand but didn't actually throw his cards in the muck. I asked the dealer if he mucks am I allowed to muck without showing? The dealer said no a winning hand has to be shown. I told the guy he has to muck his hand or show his hand. He started getting upset with me and then the dealer told him to show his hand. He tabled 24dd and then I showed my JTo. The guy then made some comments about how that was bad etiquette on my part, etc... He was pretty annoyed with me. I tried to explain to him that his hand wasn't mucked nor dead and if he had the best hand he would have won but he wasn't listening.

Later on in a pot he bet the river with a flush and a guy just called with two pair. When the player saw the guy had the flush he threw his cards into the muck but the guy asked to see him. The dealer turned over his two pair. After the hand I asked him "Isn't that the bad etiquette thing you were talking about? That's what you meant right? That seems like quite the contradiction." He mumbled something under his breath that I asked him to repeat. "Did you say something rude?" I asked. He mumbled it again but I couldn't hear over the loudspeaker at the casino. The kid to his left motioned that he said something questionable and the guy told me "If I say something rude you will know." I told him "Thanks, I appreciate it." and continued to play. I was nothing but a gentleman and always am at the tables. People just dislike me at times.

The first big pot I got involved in was against the guy to immediate right. He was tough to play against because he would bluff with hands that had value and value bet hands that didn't have much value. You never really knew if he was bluffing or what. He limped the lowjack for 150 and I isolated with 9To from the hijack. Everyone else folded and the flop came AQhh9c he lead for 550 and I called. The turn was the 5d and he bet 1100 this time. I called again. The river was the 2c and he bet 3200. I had a feeling he wasn't that strong, along with what I thought was a bet sizing tell, and I tanked for a little bit before I decided to call. The player said "Nine." and didn't show his hand. Uht oh.. he could easily have a better kicker than me. The situation from the previous paragraphs made me tell the guy "Well if you don't think you can win you can muck your hand." The player then showed 97ss and I won the pot with my ten kicker. My stack was now at 24.5k

My next pot was against the same player. I raised T6cc UTG and got called by the button and the big blind. The flop came AQKr and I bet 650. The big blind called (Same guy who never knows where he's at etc.. I think he's just learning the game or just has a very unorthodox style.) The turn was the J still making a rainbow board. He led out for 1200 and I just called. The river was another Q and he bet 3300. I called and he showed A4o. This is what I mean. Was he value betting or bluffing? I really don't think he was capable of folding top pair.

I lost a big pot to the guy who was upset at me. He opened UTG for 425. It was literally one of his first raises all day. The blinds were 100/200. I didn't think he had a real big hand here due to his bet sizing and how he played. He got 5 callers and I called in middle position with A6cc. The flop came J74cc and he bet 2500 which was about the pot. With 12k behind. I called. Everyone else folded. The turn was the Ac and he jammed for 12k. I didn't think he had AA/KK/QQ/JJ (he shoved 5k all in pre about with JJ at 75/150 into my 350 UTG raise.) So I thought his range was AJ/KQcc/etc. Basically there was no way that ace helped him unless he held exactly AJ. I thought for a while and since I thought AJ was the only hand I couldn't beat in his range decided to call. He had limped ev ery hand previously, so that's where I got most of my info from. He did in fact have AJ and I bricked the river and doubled him up. I told him "Nice hand." and moved on to the next pot.

A couple orbits later at the 150/300 level he opened to 725 and I made my first 3bet of the day to 2425 with AKo and 9k behind. He asked how much I had behind and called. The flop came 954ccc and I didn't have a club. He checked and I thought and checked as well. He put me all in on the 6h turn and I folded. I then blinded down to about 7k and got moved to a new table where fellow deepstacks pro Hayden "Nipsman" Fortini was sitting. This table had a few more familiar faces.

A couple hands into the table the guy to my right limped with a shortstack and I shoved all in for 6k at 150/300/25a with AKdd. The big blind tanked it and folded and the limper folded. About an orbit later I was in the small blind and the hijack opened to 750. Hayden called 750 (They both were deep) and I shoved TT in the small blind for 6500. The opener folded and Hayden snap called. I showed TT and he said "Wow you have Tens?" I thought he was going to show me 77-88. Instead he turned over AKhh.. What a slowroll! lol Just kidding Hayden. I won the flip and was now up to about 14k.

A few hands later Hayden opened in early position to 800 and I looked down at KcKh. I thought about 3betting but decided against it and just flat called. We were heads up to a flop of JTcc4h and he checked. I bet 1225 and he raised to 4500. I moved all in for about 9k more and he called fairly quickly. I turned over my KK and he showed J9 of spades. The turn was the 8 giving him eight more outs and the river was the 7 giving him the straight and knocking me out. Shucks. I wished everyone good luck and told Hayden to take it down.

On Sunday I played online poker and it didn't go so well again. I played real good in some tournaments and then made a couple mistakes in others. I didn't run the best either and that made for a losing Sunday. Sundays are always frustrating. You are going to lose more times than you win.. But I'm still convinced I might not be playing my best overall. With the fields being so large there is a ton of luck and variance. I guess as long as I play my best I will be happy but I'm not sure I'm doing that. I have a lot to learn still and need to continue to always improve my game. That's where I'm at right now. Sometimes I feel like I have it figured out, but I am always thinking of what I need to do to improve.

On Monday I decided I would play an all out grind. I played a ton of tournaments and had a lot of close calls. I finished 4th in one tournament during the day and got deep in the $1k Monday before I busted about 20-30 out of the money when I slowplayed top set and my opponent rivered a gutter straight draw. I check shoved the river and I was on my way out. It was a pretty big pot.

Later in the night I was lucky enough to get to the final heads up match of the $100 Heads up Super Turbo tournament. My opponent in the finals: Hayden "Nipsman" once again! We decided to chop it even and then he proceeded to beat me. I shoved J7o and he called with K4o and he held. The odds of us both advancing all the way to the end and playing each other in the FINAL match is astronomical. It was a good way to end my Monday night.

One last thing before I wrap this blog up... A couple months ago I talked about my buddy Amir's website, PokerWit. He just added a Pro Section to his website. If you want to discuss hands with poker professionals then you can sign up for $5 a month in the Pro Hands section.

If you haven't signed up for his website yet (which is free to be a member of - just no access to the Pro Hands section) and you sign up now, put me in as a referral when you sign up ("Cre8ive") He said he will give a FREE WEEK of access to the Pro Hands section for all the readers of the blog who put me as their referral. That's pretty nice of him. Check out his site though it is the next step in online poker discussion. PokerWit Signup Page.

I have a couple interesting stories that happened this week but I will save them for the next blog Saturday/Sunday. Tomorrow I am going to play the Hard Rock $1k Tournament. They are having two Day 1's again. If I lose tomorrow I can buy back in on Saturday and we finish playing on Sunday. It should be a good tournament. Until then...

Art Winner/Poker...

2010-03-07T23:20:00.005-05:00

First I would like to say Congratulations to the winner of the art contest, Chris (ChrisA69 on pocketfives.) I will be sending him his prize money after I am done writing this blog. Thank you everyone who participated, I appreciate it. Chris sent me a few submissions and his stood out the most. Thanks again everyone.

I'd like to send another congratulations to one of my students, Nick, who just placed 10th in the Chicago Poker Classic. He started receiving my coaching about a week ago before he went to play in the poker tournament. It was pretty exciting sweating him. He would send me text message updates and call me on breaks. I was hoping he would take it down but 10th place is a great showing and a nice cash for him. He wanted to win as well but he admittedly still has a lot to learn. He could have avoided his bustout hand if we were able to go over some more fundamentals of late tournament strategy. Still an awesome finish and I'm happy for him.

Let's see... I played the Isle $575 Heads up Tournament on Friday. I won my first match. My opponent was fairly tight and didn't make many mistakes. He made a couple big folds where most people would have went broke and I eventually beat him AK vs TT when he had about 10bbs left.

My second opponent played every single hand of the match. It was frustrating because the first match we started with 70bbs and the second match we started with 50bbs. It was a really bad structure. I ended up getting in a pot where I raised with Q6s on the button, he defended and the flop came KcJc7s we both checked. The turn was Js and he checked. I bet 550, he made it 1100. I was fairly certain he had Jx here and I decided to call. The river was the 3s. He bet 2k into a 3100 pot and I had 8k behind. I had him covered barely. I decided the best play was to move all in and he called with J7dd. I was pretty sure he wouldn't fold any Jx on the river, but it was a tricky spot regardless. His min raise is pretty strong on the turn and can be interpreted a couple different ways. I was pretty disappointed losing the second match, but the structure was really bad. Oh well. Next time.

On Saturday I played online poker and it didn't go so well. I think I got deep in a couple tournaments but nothing panned out. Today was just absolutely horrible. I think I lost my first 20 flips. I'm not exaggerating either lol. I decided to follow up my best Sunday ever with my worst Sunday ever. I don't want to cry too much but it was a pretty painful day haha. Luckily I kept smiling all day but the poker gods had it out for me. I cashed in only one tournament, the Second Chance, where I lost AJ vs AT and then 33 vs A2. Let me just leave it at that. There wasn't much hope for me today. I don't think I've ever ran worse in a day of grinding online poker than I did today. It will all even out though and hopefully next Sunday I run scorching hot!

I have a pretty busy schedule ahead of me. I am going to Orlando early this week to shoot some videos for DeepStacks and then I am playing a Charity Poker Tournament in Daytona. The tournament is Friday. I will most likely be coming back down to South Florida to play the Isle Main Event on Saturday. Towards the end of the month I will be going out to LA for a DeepStacks Live camp. Some of my friends were talking about heading to the Wynn so maybe that will substitute the Isle Main Event.

I had another article in the Ante Up magazine. In the March issue I talk about defining ranges. You can look at the article on page 49 here: Ante Up Magazine March Issue Page 49. There was also a nice article about my third place finish last Sunday in the Sunday 500 on Pocketfives. Tristan "Cre8ive" Wade final tables Sunday 500.

I guess that's all for now. I will probably be grinding online Monday/Tuesday before I head to Orlando. Signing out...

Biggest Online Score (Barely)...

2010-03-02T03:02:00.005-05:00

I will start off by saying that I hit my biggest online score this weekend on Sunday. I finished 3rd in the $500 NL On Pokerstars for $47,500. I just edged out my previous best online score of 46k which was a couple months back in the Full Tilt Poker $1k Tournament.

This tournament has been my unicorn in the past. There was a month period where I made it to the final two tables (10th-18th) without making the final table three times in a four week period. I was pretty unlucky in those finishes. It was very frustrating. I guess I broke the streak even though I didn't win. I was very lucky to get third in this tournament. I had a couple suck outs on the way to the final table and then one suck out at the final table. It was probably the worst final table I've ever played. I was totally card dead and handcuffed. I had a couple loose/aggressive opponents to my left, but for the most part I had absolutely zero hands at the final table. Again, I was super lucky to finish in third place. I'm happy about the score but I still have a lot more to accomplish.

Like I said in the previous blog I went and played the Hard Rock $1k on Saturday. I had a really crazy table to begin with and it seemed like the field was extra soft. A lot of the regulars didn't show up. There were four or five people to every flop and nobody was folding to 7x-8x isolation or anything. It was a great table to be at. My stack fluctuated down then up. I lost a couple unlucky pots where I had to make some big folds. They all turned out to be the right fold.

In one pot I was down to about 35bbs and held QTdd on a Q56hh board. A player who had just called led into three of us. I was in a pretty tricky spot but my read on the player was that he had a set or a straight flush draw. I know it seems crazy for me to call out an exact range like that but from playing with the guy for 3 hours I was pretty sure these were his holdings. I decided to fold and he ended up showing 78hh. My read was spot on and avoided getting in a bad spot vs. his range. I then raised AA to 525 and got five callers preflop. I had about 6300 behind. The flop came 235 rainbow. I bet 1250 and the big blind called. The turn was the 8s completing the rainbow board and he checked to me. I didn't think I could get value from hands like A3/A5/66/77/56/etc so I decided to check back and let him fire the river. The river was the Ts and he put me all in for about 5100. I called and he turned over 55 and I was done. That's just how my day went. I played fairly well I believe and just got put in some unlucky situations.

After that I made it home in time to play a couple online tournaments. They didn't go so well for me either. Here's one of the hands from Saturday.

Full Tilt Poker Game #18821784514: $100,000 Guarantee (130362564), Table 2 - 20/40 - No Limit Hold'em - 15:25:40 ET - 2010/02/27
Seat 1: cocoa_butter111 (3,675)
Seat 2: gretko (3,035)
Seat 3: Flaanders (1,840)
Seat 4: Cre8ive (2,880)
Seat 5: TAKETHECAN0LLIS (2,950)
Seat 6: philbort (3,650)
philbort posts the small blind of 20
cocoa_butter111 posts the big blind of 40
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [Kc Ac]
gretko has 15 seconds left to act
gretko has timed out
gretko folds
gretko is sitting out
Flaanders folds
Cre8ive raises to 120
TAKETHECAN0LLIS folds
gretko has returned
philbort has 15 seconds left to act
philbort raises to 360
cocoa_butter111 has 15 seconds left to act
cocoa_butter111 folds
Cre8ive has 15 seconds left to act
Cre8ive has requested TIME
Cre8ive raises to 780
philbort has 15 seconds left to act
philbort raises to 3,650, and is all in
Cre8ive calls 2,100, and is all in
philbort shows [8s 7s]
Cre8ive shows [Kc Ac]
Uncalled bet of 770 returned to philbort
*** FLOP *** [8c 5d 5h]
*** TURN *** [8c 5d 5h] [2d]
*** RIVER *** [8c 5d 5h 2d] [Js]
philbort shows two pair, Eights and Fives
Cre8ive shows a pair of Fives
philbort wins the pot (5,800) with two pair, Eights and Fives

Saturday just wasn't my day. I couldn't win a pot. Some days are like that. Luckily I was able to make a deep run on Sunday and have a very successful weekend.

I still need more submissions for the art contest. If you think you are "Cre8ive" enough to design some artwork, check out the last blog and shoot me an e-mail. The contest ends Thursday night so you better hurry up and get the artwork to me as soon as possible!

Here's an interesting spot from early on at the final table in the Sunday 500. What would you guys do here?

PokerStars Game #40492645246: Tournament #286020018, $500+$30 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XXIV (12500/25000) - 2010/03/01 2:22:49 ET
Table '286020018 50' 9-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: ANIMAL5050 (1651889 in chips)
Seat 2: tabzzy (2309715 in chips)
Seat 3: jdtjpoker (414640 in chips)
Seat 4: HundoFight (390978 in chips)
Seat 5: Cre8ive (1111675 in chips)
Seat 6: shampusik (1046500 in chips)
Seat 7: leoe29 (1190151 in chips)
Seat 8: BoldNutz (968585 in chips)
Seat 9: badbeatman06 (895867 in chips)
ANIMAL5050: posts the ante 2500
tabzzy: posts the ante 2500
jdtjpoker: posts the ante 2500
HundoFight: posts the ante 2500
Cre8ive: posts the ante 2500
shampusik: posts the ante 2500
leoe29: posts the ante 2500
BoldNutz: posts the ante 2500
badbeatman06: posts the ante 2500
Cre8ive: posts small blind 12500
shampusik: posts big blind 25000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [6c 6h]
leoe29: folds
BoldNutz: folds
badbeatman06: folds
ANIMAL5050: folds
tabzzy: folds
jdtjpoker: folds
HundoFight: folds
Cre8ive: raises 50000 to 75000
shampusik: raises 969000 to 1044000 and is all-in
Cre8ive: ?????????

Lastly congrats to my buddy Steve Karp for a deep run in the LAPC, finishing 27th for about $50k. Also good luck to Jason Mercier who just final tabled the LAPC High Rollers event where first place is 425k. Steve wanted me to fly out to LA today but I declined. I wish I was out there now... Oh well. Goodnight.

Art Contest! Win $50...

2010-02-27T01:29:00.002-05:00

I am doing a contest. I need some artwork done. It doesn't really matter the size of the artwork. I guess somewhat good resolution is good but not too small. Basically here's what I want. I need a "Cre8ive" logo made. I want the C capitalized and all other letters/the 8 used in some way. Be CREATIVE/use your imagination/make it interesting and exciting but don't go too overboard because it still has to be visually easy on the eyes. It doesn't have to be just "Cre8ive" across .. as long as it is easy to read "Cre8ive" then anything is possible. Like I said, have fun with it, make it cool. I will pick a winner and the one I like best will receive $50 on FTP.

I would just focus on making a LOGO. Remember it doesn't need background art, it's just a LOGO. So make sure you follow LOGO standards when submitting your artwork/doing your artwork.

Some examples of some Logos.. I'm sure you graphics/art people will have a better idea of what is supposed to be done than me so I will leave it up to you. Just make it interesting and be creative. That is the whole point of the name, creativity. I will probably post all the submissions on my blog as well. I think having everyone judge them would take too long so I am just going to pick the one I like the best. If there are a couple really nice ones maybe I will give out some other prizes or something but as of now there is just one winner. Contest will be over Thursday at midnight EST. Not sure what else to say about that, so if anyone has any other questions let me know.

Submit your artwork to my email Cre8iveCoach ~-AT-~ Gmail ~-DOT-~ com.

1) Logo
2) Reasonable size/not too small
3) Submit to my email
4) Capitalize the C and use the rest of the letters/number in "Cre8ive"
5) Contest ends Thursday at midnight EST.
6) Be Cre8ive!!!!

Other than that.. let's see. I have been grinding a little online poker. Have been close to a couple nice scores. I made a final table on Tuesday in the $162 on Stars and got 5th. Played pretty well in that and just lost a monster coin flip for a big chip lead at the final table. Tomorrow I am going to play the $1k at the Hard Rock. It's always fun playing a nice live tournament so I am looking forward to that. I will probably be grinding a little more online this coming week. I didn't go as hard as I could have this week so I expect I will step it up this week!

That's it for now. I wanted to throw this blog up for the weekend so if anyone has some free time and wants to earn $50 for an hour of work or something they have the opportunity. I will do a tournament summary from the Hard Rock if it goes well and I will also post soon when I can do a group free coaching session on some Super Turbo Strategy like I promised a couple months ago. I should be able to get to that this week. Goodnight.

Change of Plans...

2010-02-22T02:54:00.006-05:00

Last blog I talked about how I would be playing poker this weekend. Well that was somewhat true. I got invited to the Jay-Z concert at the last second by my buddy Stu. I made it back to South Florida late Saturday afternoon and headed over to his house. Instead of playing all the Saturday tournaments I was now on my way to the concert. (Sidebar real quick - my buddy Raj won the $2600 FTOPS outright, so congratulations to him!)

Stu and I got to the Bank Atlantic Center at around 7:00pm. The concert was supposed to start at 8:00pm. We got some food and then I thought it was best to get down to our seats before the place went crazy. It was pretty mellow and everyone was just hanging around.

We had good seats on the floor probably 30-40 yards away from the stage. I ran into a couple friends who were also sitting close by. I knew a lot of people going to the concert. The opening act surprised me. It was Trey Songz. He's an up and coming R&B guy I'm pretty familiar with his music, but he's more so for the ladies. He just put out a CD a couple months ago (which I've listened to) and most of those songs are directed towards his female fan base. He sang a couple of those songs and warmed the crowd up. It was alright, but I was there for Jay-Z.

I went to get a drink and ran into my other friend Tim (cane3418.) He told me that Jeezy was also going to be performing. Wow, pretty sick lineup for one concert. I wasn't even aware of the other acts. I hadn't even thought about it. I like Jeezy too but like I said before; Jay-Z is probably my favorite rapper/hip hop artist. I also think he is one of the best, if not the best ever. I won't touch too much on that, but I am definitely a fan of good music and Jay-Z is my favorite.

It was a pretty cool setup they had on the stage. They had good visuals. I tried to get a decent picture but the Iphone camera isn't too good. During the performance the crowd started screaming a little louder around me and P. Diddy walked by with Cassie. Stu and I were in the front row of our section and everyone who was sitting in the special middle section had to walk by us. So Diddy walked by a couple times with Cassie, A Rod, and even Beyonce. She is beautiful lol... I actually got to snap a picture of her on her way out of the concert. It's a little blurry but I did my best.

All in all I had a great time at the concert. Jay-Z's performance was awesome. Jeezy did a good job as well. I'm really glad I got to go. I don't think I've been to a concert since a Green Day concert when I was in middle school. I was disappointed I missed out on all the good tournaments on Saturday but it wasn't a big deal. Who knows when I will/would have another chance to go to a concert like that. I missed out on a Jay-Z concert over the summer in Vegas so I was definitely happy that I didn't miss this one too.

Today I played my typical Sunday schedule. I got deep in the Sunday Million, Sunday 500, FTOPS 6max, and the Mulligan. I might of had some other cashes but that's what I remember off the top of my head. I played really well today (I believe.) I just didn't have everything fall in place to win a big one. I just have to run a little better to make a big impact on a Sunday. Sunday's are rough, period.

I'm gonna get to bed. I gotta wake up early tomorrow to run some errands and then I will be grinding the typical online schedule. It sucks that the FTOPS is over and I missed so many events, but oh well. Still no gold jersey. Maybe next time. Goodnight.

Poker and Poker Coaching...

2010-02-16T17:38:00.002-05:00

I have been pretty busy over the last week or so. I spent some time away from my computer over the weekend and didn't get to play poker once again. At the beginning of the week (Last Monday/Tuesday) I grinded online and had a couple sweats/Final tables. Nothing too huge though. I came up to Orlando on Wednesday and then was expecting to go to Tampa on Friday for a DeepStacks poker camp.

On Friday I was asked to help out Mike Matusow with a one day poker camp he was running in Daytona. I drove from Orlando to Daytona, which was about an hour drive, and met up with Mike and the rest of the DeepStacks crew. He had 20 people come to his one day camp and we both instructed the people and taught them cash game and tournament strategy. Everyone really enjoyed it and it was fun teaching them the basics and some advanced things in poker.

After the camp we sat down and played some 1/2 no limit. You can only buy in for $100 in Florida cash games. I ended up winning about $90 in an hour. We ate at the casino and then I came back to Orlando to get my things and head off to Tampa.

I got to Tampa at around midnight and went to sleep. I had to be up early in the morning on Saturday because we had a bunch of students coming in for the weekend camp. I taught poker from 9am-8pm on Saturday. We had a turbo bounty tournament at the end of the day where all the DeepStacks pros had prizes you could win. I ended up making the final table but busting in 7th place when I was really short on chips. I tried to win the tournament, but it was nice that someone won the bounty as well.

That night Adam Levy (roothlus), Alex Outhred, and I went to dinner at the Palm Restaurant right across the street from the hotel we were at. We watched the NBA All-Star Slam Dunk contest and 3 point contest. I was pretty disappointed with the overall dunk contest. I know it's tough to be creative and come up with new dunks that people haven't seen but I think you should have some good dunks planned ahead of time. The dinner was awesome and Adam ended up losing credit card roulette which is always nice too. Sorry Adam.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel. I was super tired and tried to fall asleep but couldn't. I ended up watching TV for a couple hours til I finally fell asleep around 3:30am. I woke up at 8am again and headed down to the conference room to teach some more poker. On Saturday we went over cash game strategy and on Sunday we did tournament strategy. Everyone learned a lot and a lot of good things were said about the camp. I was happy that all the students enjoyed their time hanging out with us and learning a little bit about poker. They played a championship tournament that night where first place won a trip to California for one of our later camps and second place won a free entry to a camp TJ Cloutier is hosting in Tampa in a couple weeks. Some more prizes were given out and everyone had a blast.

Since I was doing all that work for Deepstacks I didn't get to play poker this weekend. It's going to be tough to balance out my time between playing poker and coaching. I'm still getting my schedule straightened out and seeing when I will be doing what.

I played the 1k FTOPS last night along with all the other decent tournaments. I got deep in a couple but nothing developed. I made a couple silly mistakes and need to fix some of the things I am doing. Overall I feel like I know what I need to be doing and most of the time I am doing what I'm supposed to. I know that sounds pretty vague but I know what I'm talking about! I basically feel like I have a really good grasp on tournament strategy. If I don't make mistakes and run good at certain points than I will definitely have a shot to get deep in tournaments/win tournaments. I have been cashing a fairly good percentage as of late and need to continue to play well and put myself in a position to win those tournaments.

I was supposed to be going to the Jay-Z concert in Miami this weekend. A couple months ago a friend said he was getting the tickets and something fell through and we didn't find out until it was too late. I tried to get tickets but all the good tickets were sold out and I didn't want to sit so far away from the stage where I wouldn't be able to see anything, so I decided not to go. It might actually be a good thing because now I will be able to play poker this weekend. There will be some really big poker tournaments and I'm looking forward to it.

Tonight I will be playing the FTOPS turbo and probably some other good tournaments. We will see which one's I feel like playing. Definitely at least the turbo FTOPS if not anything else. I am about to get a workout in and then get ready for poker. I will update more frequently just haven't been around a computer too often.

Crazy Hand...

2010-02-08T03:47:00.004-05:00

I was supposed to do something really cool this weekend on Saturday for the Super Bowl. It fell through and I ended up playing poker instead. Oh well. I bubbled both $300 NLs on Stars and FTP. I cashed in a couple and bubbled a couple other. I have one pretty interesting hand I'll post here.

Full Tilt Poker Game #18240396543: $100,000 Guarantee (130357892), Table 81 - 120/240 Ante 25 - No Limit Hold'em - 17:19:49 ET - 2010/02/06
Seat 1: SavePluto9 (1,765)
Seat 2: uRuGwa1 (12,682)
Seat 3: Cre8ive (13,325)
Seat 4: Drewby17 (11,301)
Seat 6: gusavo (9,516)
SavePluto9 antes 25
uRuGwa1 antes 25
Cre8ive antes 25
Drewby17 antes 25
gusavo antes 25
uRuGwa1 posts the small blind of 120
Cre8ive posts the big blind of 240
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [5s 3c]
Drewby17 folds
gusavo has 15 seconds left to act
gusavo raises to 650
SavePluto9 folds
uRuGwa1 folds
Cre8ive has 15 seconds left to act
Cre8ive raises to 1,800
gusavo has 15 seconds left to act
gusavo calls 1,150
*** FLOP *** [9c 2h 6d]
kasper74 sits down
kasper74 adds 18,398
Cre8ive has 15 seconds left to act
Cre8ive checks
gusavo has 15 seconds left to act
gusavo checks
*** TURN *** [9c 2h 6d] [9s]
Cre8ive has 15 seconds left to act
Cre8ive bets 1,500
gusavo has 15 seconds left to act
gusavo calls 1,500
*** RIVER *** [9c 2h 6d 9s] [5d]
Cre8ive has 15 seconds left to act
Cre8ive has requested TIME
Cre8ive checks
gusavo has 15 seconds left to act
gusavo has requested TIME
gusavo bets 5,150
Cre8ive has 15 seconds left to act
Cre8ive has requested TIME
Cre8ive: lol this is sick
Cre8ive calls 5,150
*** SHOW DOWN ***
gusavo shows [Td 8d] a pair of Nines
Cre8ive shows [5s 3c] two pair, Nines and Fives
Cre8ive wins the pot (17,145) with two pair, Nines and Fives

It was from the $300 NL 6max on FTP. It's just a crazy hand all around but I think the river call is pretty easy. Poker at it's finest.

Well let's see about Sunday... I debated if I should play or not. The Superbowl was going on and I had family over. I decided to play just a couple tournaments today. I played the Sunday Million, FTP 750k, 100r, 100r turbo, Second Chances... I think that was about it. A couple other small super turbos too. I tried to keep the volume low today to see if I had better results. I got deep in the FTP 750k and cashed but other than that no dice. I made a couple good bluffs in some tournaments where I knew what the opponents had that didn't work out. Happens.

I will probably be grinding this whole week and them I'm back up to Orlando/Tampa for the actual DeepStacks camp. The one last week was just the free preview. So I will be missing poker next weekend. The FTOPS starts on Wednesday so I want to have a lot of time for those and try to win one. We'll see how it goes, maybe I can get lucky enough.

The Saints won the Superbowl if you didn't know! I wasn't rooting for anyone in particular. I was indifferent. I thought Peyton couldn't lose. He is probably the best QB ever. I really thought they would win so I guess I was rooting for them, but it was a good game and I was happy that the Saints won too. I really could have cared less lol, but if I said I was rooting for the Colts I guess I cared? I just thought they would win (if all that makes sense.)

That's it for now. Just wanted to throw something up real quick. It will feel good to get back on the online grind. I have been slacking lately. With the exception to next weekend I should be playing a lot online. I'll let everyone know if anything exciting happens. Goodnight.

Let's Slow It Down...

2010-02-05T02:45:00.003-05:00

It feels like I've been all over the place lately. I have been out of my comfort zone which is typically attached to the computer. I normally spend the majority of my days on the Internet. That hasn't been the case lately. In the last week I've been to Orlando, Tampa, Atlantic City, Orlando, and now back to South Florida. Let me touch on all of that.

Like I stated in the last blog I went to Tampa to a DeepStacks workshop. That ended around 9pm on Sunday night and I had a 8:30am flight out of Orlando to Atlantic City for the Borgata Winter Open Main Event. I only got about an hour of sleep on Sunday night. I packed and went to bed at around 4:45am and woke up at 6am to make it to the airport for my flight.

The flight to Atlantic City went well. I slept most of the way there. I wouldn't actually call it sleeping. I guess it was fading in and out of sleep while bobbing my head around the headrest. I'm sure everyone knows what that is like. It's hard to sleep comfortably on a flight. Regardless, I got a little rest on the plane and made it to the Borgata at 11:15am. The tournament had already started (11am) and I quickly bought in.

I went to my table and seat and someone was already sitting in it. I grabbed a hold of the floor and we tried to figure out what was wrong. Apparently the guy in my chair was at the wrong table (table 29) and should have been at table 28. They told me I had the option to pick either table. I could pick my original seat, or I could take the guy's original seat. I surveyed both tables and decided to take his seat at table 28. At moment's like this I always wonder if destiny runs it's course. Did I alter my destiny, or was this a curve ball to have the stars align for me this tournament? That's what I asked myself after I sat down at table 28. Did I make the right decision?

The starting stacks for the Main Event were 30k. The blinds started at 25/50 and the levels were 75 minutes long. I was sitting in the nine seat and the table looked good. Irv Gotti was in the two seat, and the table was mostly middle aged men. Eric Buchman (who finished 4th in the WSOP Main Event) was in the five seat. I thought this player looked familiar, but I didn't recognize him at the time.

I started min raising blind UTG. Every time I was UTG at 25/50 and 50/100 I min raised blind. It generated some good action and gave me a nice, loose image. I typically do this in some deep stacked live tournaments and see how my opponents react.

The first interesting pot I got involved in was actually at 75/150. The small blind made it 700 with about 5k behind. I had QThh in the big blind and called. I wasn't really worried about his 4x+ raise. The flop came T99r and he checked to me. I bet 1k, he shoved all in, and I called. He turned over A4o and rivered an ace for about a 12k pot. I didn't let it phase me. On to the next hand.

At 75/150 UTG made it 700. He had been fairly active and his opens were always large, in the 4x area. I called in 3rd position with QQ and two more called. Eric Buchman moved all in from the small blind for 10.5k. The UTG raiser thought for a little bit and folded. He was the only one I was worried about in this hand having me beat, aside from the all in player. I thought about it for a little bit, got a read on the player, and moved all in myself. The other two players folded. Eric turned over AQo and I held to go back up to about 35k.

This next hand is a tricky spot but it was a fairly easy fold. It was the hand before break and I opened to 400 with 66 in 2nd position. The button called as well as the sb and the bb. The flop came A86r and I bet 900. The sb called and the big blind made it 1300 more. The sb was a very tight/straightforward player and the big blind was an active, more aggressive player. I didn't think I would get much action from the sb if I just flat called so I put in a small reraise to 4700 total (2500 more.) The small blind thought and he made it 5k on top of that. The big blind mucked and I thought about it for a little bit. Obviously I could rule AA out of his range. So therefore his range was... well he had no range. His hand was exactly 88. I didn't think this was a spot where this player would ever try to bluff or take this line with two pair. I still thought about it for a little bit and told him he had to have 88 here. I mucked bottom set and he showed me 88, for middle set. I made the correct fold, but it was an easy fold. If the sb would have flatted my reraise on the flop I think I would have shut down as well. It was just a player dependent situation. Down to 28.5k

Mike Gracz was moved to Eric Buchman's seat and made it 600 UTG at 100/200. The tight player from above called in 2nd position and I made it 2200 with KKs in middle position. Gracz flat called with 10k behind, the other player called too. The flop came AQJsss and they checked to me. I bet 3300 and they both folded. 43k now.

Hijack opened to 625 and the cutoff called. I made it 2125 with AA on the button. The hijack folded and the cutoff called. The cutoff was the same player with the A4o vs my QT and he only had about 5.5k behind after calling. The flop came T75r and he checked to me. I bet 600 and he called. The turn was a Jack and he moved all in. I snap called and he turned over AJ and I held. My stack had grown to 51k.

A couple hands back from break the blinds are now 150/300. I open AcQh in 2nd position to 800. A short stack player called to my left and the big blind called as well. The flop came TT9cc and I bet 1600. The big blind raised 2500 more. He was by far one of the most active players and was also a thinking player. At this point in time my image was really good. I had stopped min raising blind and all of my showdowns I was involved in were good for my image. I won't explain too much thought process but I thought there was a chance he was on air and I could float for clubs. The turn brought the Kc and he checked to me. I bet 5600 and it looked like he wanted to fold, but he decided to call. The river was the 8h and he lead for 8500. I thought about it for a little bit. I was fairly certain he did have a ten at this point and was trying to block bet the river. I took everything into account and made it 15k more on top of his 8500 bet. He tanked for a little bit and folded. It was a little risky bluff but I knew what he held, knew my image, and knew he was capable of folding. I was now up to 69k.

The very next hand I get AKo and make it 800 again. The short stack player to my left made it 2k with about 8kish total. It got back to me and I put him all in. He called with TT and won the race. I was down to 60k.

Nothing too interesting went on throughout the night until one hand before we were about to end for the night. The online player "AreTheseUtz" came to my right. I wasn't sure who he was. At first I thought it was him because he chopped the Aruba tournament that I played at the end of 2009. I just thought he was shorter. We started chatting and turns out it was him. Anyways...he was playing well. Playing pots in position, didn't build any unnecessary pots, hadn't 3bet yet. I pick up QQ UTG and they announce we have 3 more hands until the end of Day 1. So 3 hands after this hand. I make it 1300 at 250/500. The most aggressive/active player at the table calls in 3rd position and AreTheseUtz makes it 5100 from the big blind. I was really in a tough spot. He had 37k behind and I had him covered, having about 65k. The other player had probably 80k or so. I knew that if I flatted the other guy would flat too. I thought and thought. I can't remember the last time in my life I folded QQ in this spot to a single 3bet, in position, semi deep stacked. I decided I didn't want to call (which is my norm here) and play a 16k pot three ways, so I folded. The flat caller said he would have called if I did (which I already knew) and I told AreTheseUtz to tell me what he had when the last 3 hands were finished. He later told me he had AA. I am not sure if this is the truth or not, but I do believe him. Either way it was a pretty insane spot and I am happy with how I played it. I obviously had more information than just what I wrote, but I thought it was an awesome hand regardless.

We wrapped up play for the night and I finished with 62k. The average was about 49k. I was happy with my performance and felt like I made minimal mistakes. I was also excited that I got through Day 1 on so little sleep. That was my goal. Get through Day 1, get some sleep, and kill it on Day 2.

When I woke up for Day 2 I tried to take a shower and the water was absolutely freezing. I am not even talking about COLD water. This water was FREEZING water. I can't operate being dirty and decided to get my hair wet so I could wash it. I stuck my head in the water for 3 seconds and it was immediately frozen. My head was hard as a rock and colder than ever. I washed my hair real quick, rinsed it off with another 3 seconds of freezing water and decided to wash the rest of my body with a wet rag and soap. It wasn't the best time getting clean but it worked out. I made my way to the tournament area and found my seat.

I only had about three hands to talk about from Day 2. There was one guy who was really spewy/loose. He played a couple pots early and bluffed off about half his stack. For example he called an early position open with K6o on the button which got to showdown. Remember him for later.

Anyways, the first fun pot I played was when a player limped for 600 in second position, the cutoff limped, the sb called, and I checked my option with ATo. The flop came J33r and I bet 1100. The first limper called and the other two folded. He had been pretty solid so far and I felt his range was pretty polarized at this point. The turn was the 3c which brought two clubs. I fired again, 3300. He called once again. Now there was about 12k in the pot. The river was the 4s. I thought for a little bit, he started chatting it up, and I bet 20k. He ended up folding rather quickly, saying he had KJdd, and saying that he would have called up to 8k and didn't want to call more to chop or run into quads. They asked me to show it but I declined for obvious reasons lol. I know this bluff seems suicidal, because nobody is probably folding a Jack here ever, but hey... it worked.

The next spot I was involved in was when the cutoff limped in for 600. He actually threw out one black (100), one purple (500), and two greens (25 each.) He quickly grabbed the green chips back, so it looked like his intentions were to limp. I picked up 99 on the button and the player who limped only had 27k behind so I made it 2600 so he could call without having to make change. This is probably a stupid thought but something I do every now and then. It folded back to him and he thought about calling, and made it 4k more to 6600. He had about 21k behind and I went into the tank. He had been pretty snug but I really thought he meant to limp. His reraise sizing was pretty small too and typically these type of players would re-raise larger with their big hands here. I decided to move all in and he snap called with KK. I didn't get lucky and lost a big pot to go down to 40k. I went with my read and really thought the player meant to limp since he grabbed his greens back so quickly. His sizing was good and he said after the hand he had meant to raise. Oh well.

The last hand of the tournament happened after I had been fairly active and it was my second hand raising in a row. I made it 2100 at 400/800 with AKo. The guy I 3 barreled with AT earlier (who had commented on my play/wanting his chips back/almost called in the big blind when I made it 2600 with 99 with 46o so he said) made it 7k in middle position. The button (who was the crazy loose spewy player I first talked about) flat called the 7k. It got back to me and I moved all in for 30k on top. With all the dead money out there and me being about 99% sure the flat caller doesn't have KK/AA it's an easy shove. The 3bettor called and the flatter folded. He turned over KK and I didn't get lucky and was eliminated.

I immediately booked the next flight back to Orlando. I was pretty happy overall with my play but of course disappointed. I still made mistakes and messed up in certain spots I shouldn't have. It happens.

I got on the flight and it took a little bit until we got on the runway. They said we had weight distribution problems. We finally got ready to take off and the engines cranked up. We started moving and after gaining some speed, the plane started swerving left and right. Holy crap. We ended up coming to a stop, which is exactly what I was hoping for! The pilot got on the intercom and said the engines didn't balance out together and we were going to go to the end of the runway and try it again. Uht oh. I sent out a last second Tweet in case I didn't make it lol. We ended up taking off and I made it to Orlando safely.

I relaxed for a day in Orlando then played some online poker Wednesday night. I got deep in the 100r 6max on Stars but didn't close it out. I made a 4bet bluff shove and didn't get lucky to bust in 33rd. It will be nice to get back to grinding online. Like I said earlier I have been on the go and haven't been by the computer too much.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do tomorrow. I have to do some things and definitely hit the gym. I wrote an article for Ante Up Magazine in their February Issue. It's on page 52. Check it out here Ante Up Magazine Cre8ive Article Page 52. That's it for now. I've been writing for a while with interruptions here and there. Hopefully this blog came out alright. Will update again soon. Goodnight.

Rush Blog...

2010-02-01T02:39:00.003-05:00

I will try to make this update quick, but decent (notice the spin off of the newly formed rush poker!) It's 2:40am right now and I am in Orlando. I have a flight to Atlantic City in 6 hours at 8:30am. I arrive in AC around 10:40am to play in the 11am Borgata Winter Open Main Event (Day 1B.) I am pretty pooped. I just got back from Tampa as well. I was with DeepStacks University/DeepStacks Live doing a free preview workshop for people in the Tampa area.

It was a good time. We had a lot of people come through the doors who were interested in poker and wanting to improve their game. We offered a couple free, quick lessons and some people were interested enough to sign up for the camp we will be hosting in two weeks at the same location. It was fun meeting everyone and I had a great time. It was a long weekend though and I am pretty tired. I didn't get much sleep throughout the entire weekend.

Unfortunately the downside to hosting a workshop this weekend was the fact that I didn't get to participate in the Saturday/Sunday poker tournaments. Full Tilt Poker doubled all their guarantee tournaments and PokerStars doubled the Sunday Million to the Sunday Two Million. Ultimate bet was also hosting their UBOC. I came to the conclusion that today was the sickest Sunday for poker in the history of online poker. I just had to look at the Sunday Million lobby. It got almost 20k players with a first place of 550k. Wow. I won't even dare load Full Tilt Poker because I will be absolutely tilted to see the prize pools and all the crazy tournaments I missed this weekend. I am pretty sad to miss such an amazing day in online poker but I had a commitment and had to stick to it. Hopefully the sites continue to do things like this. It really shows the interest level in poker and it is an amazing thing to see that they could generate prize pools like that.

On the next note I am hoping that since I missed so much poker this weekend that I will be fresh for the Borgata Winter Open Main Event tomorrow. I am trying to just get a quick blog out so I can catch a couple hours of sleep before I have to catch this flight. I haven't played much poker in the last week. I feel really good and am super excited to play this tournament.

I will just leave it at that for now. Thanks to everyone who came through to the workshop this weekend. Also I am super jealous of everyone who was able to play poker this weekend and the whole week! I normally end my Sundays hating poker and I'm not sure today would have been any different. Haha.. the only thing I can say is I didn't play so I will never know. Sorry if this blog is really sloppy. I'm super tired, gotta sleep. I will have some good blog/Twitter updates while I'm in Atlantic City. Goodnight.

Weeks Worth...

2010-01-23T20:20:00.006-05:00

**I started this blog on Saturday night... and didn't finish it. So the first part will be from Saturday**

I just finished playing MTTs for the day. I had a 20th in the $300 6max on FTP. I was near the top of the leader board the whole time until a couple big pots in the end when I busted. I made one borderline call where the opponents range was really polarized and I was wrong. It was a really big pot and I could have folded the river but I thought I had a good read, which apparently I didn't. I bubbled both 100rs today on FTP and Pokerstars. Oh ya also got deep in the 100 cubed turbo again but that didn't work out either. I had a couple other deep runs but I still have to play better, still making mistakes. I'm still trying a lot of new things though too, so it's tough to play flawlessly doing that.

Let's see... I went to Orlando to do some DeepStacks University work on Monday and Tuesday. I should have some modules up on their site within the next week. Lol... funny sidetrack story.

I was just writing the blog and saw white shoes outside in the dark run by my window. I got a flashlight went outside and didn't see anyone then I saw 2 kids take off from a couple houses over. I shouted "Hey what are you kids doing?!" and they kept running, so I ran after them lol. I haven't ran than fast in years. Luckily I had socks on and I caught up with them down the street and they told me they were just playing man hunt. Haha.. I used to do the same thing. I just wanted to make sure what was going on though. Me and all the neighbors have fences so it was weird noticing someone outside but they seemed legit. I have heard some kids have tried to break into houses around here so that's why I tailed them.

Anyways. Yeah I did some videos for DeepStacks University. It took a little bit to get comfortable and understand what was going on but it wasn't bad at all. I got the hang of it and pumped out a couple modules on Super Turbo Strategy. I will see how they turn out. Hopefully it's not too embarrassing being in front of the camera and I can get 100% comfortable to doing it. I'm excited to see how the finished product looks.

On to the Isle tournament... My buddy Steve Karp, who was featured in my last blog explaining how to beat live poker must really know what hes talking about lol. He went on to win the Isle Tournament for about $45k!!!! Congrats again to him!!! I'm not sure how many times he closed his eyes praying for his gutter or had to beat glow in the dark opponents but he did it lol... He's a pretty funny guy. Don't take anything he said too seriously, he knows what he is doing.

Steve "The Sleeze" Karp

What else is there to say.. Hmmm... On Thursday/Friday I will be going to Tampa for a DeepStacks Live workshop. With DeepStacks University we also run live camps around the country. We have a FREE preview workshop that is taking place in Tampa on Saturday. The location is at the Embassy Suites at 555 N. Westshore Blvd. The times are both Saturday and Sunday 10am, 3pm, and 7pm. If you want to go register at DeepStacks.com. I will be in Tampa until Sunday and then I am going to hop on a plane out of Orlando and head to Borgata in Atlantic City for the Winter Open $3k Main Event. Hopefully everything works out according to plan.

I booked my flight for early Monday morning and I will be arriving in Atlantic City around 10:40am. The tournament starts at 11am. Hopefully I can get settled in and everything and not miss too many hands. I wanted to leave Sunday night but as soon as I went to book this one flight, it was filled. I ran really bad today lol. It was a 9:20pm flight out of Orlando on Sunday. It would have fit my schedule perfectly. I wanted to get there the night before and settle in but oh well. Maybe traveling to the tournament the day of will be good to switch it up.

As far as poker goes today I didn't do very well. I probably wasn't playing my best and didn't run the best either. Those two factors combined never make for a good Sunday. I got deep in the 100r Turbo on FTP and ended up busting 14th by losing a flip. That tournament has a lot of luck involved but it was nice to be deep and have a shot at the 44k first place. I wish I could have done better.

I also might play in the Stars Blogger COOP thing... so let me post that link now.

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 044890

That's about it for now I guess. This blog has been all over the place. I haven't forgot about the free coaching and I plan on doing that in the next couple of weeks when I get some more down time. Pretty sure FTP has double guarantees this week so I will be grinding online the days I can this week. Goodnight.

Back Home but Busy...

2010-01-17T02:58:00.002-05:00

I've been back home for a couple days now. It's good to be back. I am trying to remember what I've been doing the last couple of days. I went to the gym a couple times, hung out, played a little poker today. I saw "The Book Of Eli" last night and enjoyed it a lot. I liked how the whole movie was done and thought they did a great job. The story and acting was good as well. Some people say they don't like it but I thought it was an awesome movie all around.

I played in a live tournament at the Isle yesterday. The buyin was $900. It is a three day event having two day 1's and a final day 2. I didn't survive the end of day 1. I played for about 9 hours before I busted. I DEFINITELY didn't play my best. I did make some good plays but overall I need to play better. I think I have realized what my live game has been lacking and I think I am ready for some live success in the near future. I feel like my live game has always been real good but I also have patched up some leaks I believe too. I guess I can write some of the biggest hands of the day from that...

I basically donked around with my 22k starting stack. Getting down to about 12-13k after getting in a couple normal pots and having to bet/fold the river twice in decent sized pots.

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Sorry I had a skype video call for a second with my buddy while I was writing this blog..

Steve Karp on what it takes to win live tournaments: "Live...Hang around until the end. Win your three big pots in a row at the end. And then get really aggressive short handed. P.s. Hopefully you can get your over pair in against the 19 year old kid who glows in the dark because he hasn't left the house for two years and when he has to math call you with two unders, you hold. The reason I wear glasses when I play live is so I can close my eyes and pray I hit my gutter on the turn. I just cbet the gutter and close my eyes and pray."

LOL. This guy is the best. Anyone who knows Steve will agree with that statement. He's a hilarious South Florida poker player who has some of the best one liners I've ever heard. Definitely a good guy. He's actually the one who told me to start this blog years ago. Anyways...
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The blinds are 75/150. I raise to 400 with KK. The button, Scott, a good player from South Florida calls and the big blind calls. The flop comes KJJdd I check call a 700 bet from Scott. The turn is the 6h and I check. He bets 1100. At this point I am about 99% sure he has a Jack here. I raised to 3200 and he put me all in. I called, he had AJ and I faded to double up to 25k.

Again I open to 400 with KK. A regular, younger kid from South Florida 3bets me to 1100. He has about 11k in chips. I 4bet to 2200 and he instajams all in. I call. He turns over J9o and the board runs 2349T and I am now up to 37k.

I raise A9ss in mid position to 525 at 100/200. The button flats and the bb calls. The flop came TT3dds and I bet 825. Button floats, bb folds. The button was a player who floated me with AQ on an 893 flop and then bet a K turn. So he wasn't too experience but definitely capable of messing around. The turn was the Ks and I turned a flush draw. I thought about betting but decided checking was best. He bet 2k with about 7k behind. This line was similar to the one he had taken bluffing before. I decided to semi bluff shove the turn with my flush draw. He called with QThh and I hit the 5s on the river to go up to 54k.

The third hand back from break at 150/300 I open the lowjack to 800 and the cutoff makes it 1600. It was a pretty cheesy 3bet by this player and I didn't give it much credit. I called. The flop came KT6r I checked and he bet 1100. His bet was weak to me and I made it 3200. He called. The turn was the 2 and I decided to check here. He checked back pretty quickly. His range was pretty narrow at this point in the hand. The river came a 7 and I decided to move all in. I figured he couldn't call off his tournament at this point and he folded.

Lost a small flip AhKs vs JJ for like 10k pot. Came hhxhx and doubled him up.

This active aggressive player opened to 1150 at 200/400 and the player to my right called. I called with 63dd. The flop came 345d. The opener bet 1600, other player to my right shoved 10.5k and I reshoved for about 45k (I had lost chips at this point.) I bricked this pot and was down to about 31k.

Scott opened to 1200 preflop, the button flatted and I flatted with 66 in the small blind. The flop came 67ss4d. I checked, Scott bet 3500, button folded, and I moved all in. Scott called all in with his last 12k or so with 89ss. The turn was the Tc and river was the 8d and he hit his straight to double up and I was now down to 13k.

I had about 15k a couple minutes before we moved to 400/800. I was now at a new table and trying to get a feel for it. The table was full of amateurs and lots of people making crazy plays. I was excited about this table. There were three limpers and I had 66 on the button. With about 3k+ out there, I decided to move all in. I'm sure this play is profitable but I don't know if its optimal. If I think the limpers are folding that often then it is super profitable with a wide range of hands but with 25bbs (going to 18bbs) I think I could "pick a better spot" possibly. Anyways, the UTG limper had 99 and snap called my shove and I was out.

I didn't play my best that is for sure. Luckily it's always a learning experience and I think I have figured out some things I have been doing wrong in a live setting.

Today was my first day back on the online grind. I bubbled two big PLO tourneys today. I had stacks in both of them and got unlucky in a couple huge pots. I also made two final tables. One was a 400 player Aid For Haiti tournament. It was a $5+5 tournament and I ended up losing in 7th place. I like that the sites are helping players donate money to the relief in Haiti. They need it. The second final table I made was a 2nd place finish in the 100 cubed turbo on Stars for 12k. I made a really silly mistake heads up and shoved on an open. I didn't realize how deep we were. I had the chip lead and the raiser had about 30bbs+ We had just gotten off break and I thought the blinds were higher/stacks shallower. Oh well, stupid mistake. It happens.

I am going to Orlando in the morning. I will play a full schedule online and I have some stuff to do on Monday for DeepStacks University. It's a great thing that they have people located in Orlando. It really works out to see everyone in Orlando and spend time up there as well as in South Florida. I will be back home Tuesday night from Orlando. That's about it for now, hopefully I can get deep in some tournaments tomorrow. I think I'm due on a Sunday. Good luck everyone.

Busted Two Live Tourneys Same Day...

2010-01-11T01:22:00.003-05:00

This morning I woke up and decided to play the $1100 PLO 6-max tournament at the PCA. I registered and got to my table. I had a pretty good seat. I had position on the better players I believe. I only played one big pot really.

At 25/50 UTG made it 150, the cutoff made it 525 and I flatted in the big blind with T9cc67dd. We started with 10k in chips and 50 minute levels. My hand plays really well post flop so I think it's an easy call, especially since the UTG raiser will not be 4betting here much. The UTG raiser did actually 4bet to 2125. The cutoff called and I was priced in as well. The flop came QcTd2c and there was about 6400 in the pot. I had around 8k and decided potting it and going with this flop was the best play. It is obvious the UTG raiser has AAxx and I figured he would have to fold dry aces here on this well connected board assuming he didn't have clubs along with his AA. He ended up tank calling with AcAhQh9d for dry aces. He flopped top pair as well but my hand had 57% equity vs his hand, so I was actually a favorite. The turn and river bricked and I was down to about 1200 in chips.

I doubled up and then 3bet Nam Le's open with AKQTds. He flat called and I had 700 chips behind. The flop came J82ddd and I didn't have diamonds. This is one of the only flops I would ever check fold here with my remaining stack of about 700-800. I check folded and eventually got my stack in having to fade 8 outs and he hit. On to the next tournament.

The 5k 8 handed tournament started at 4pm. The PLO started at 2pm. I registered for the 5k after relaxing for about an hour and eating lunch. I got in the 5k at around 5pm and was moved to a tough table. Here was the seating assignment:

Seat 1: Roothlus
Seat 2: Busto_soon
Seat 3: ToeTagU
Seat 4: GotURead
Seat 5: Me (Cre8ive)
Seat 6: Angel Guillen (Stars pro)
Seat 7: BigEgypt
Seat 8: Danny Wong

I will talk about some really interesting hands but I don't know how much I want to go into detail. The first big pot I got involved in was at 75/150. I raised UTG with A7hh. Angel called in 2nd position and Roothlus called in position. ToeTagU 3bet to 1600 from the small blind. I wanted to put him in a tough spot with Ace blockers and 4bet to 3250. I was about 15k deep and everyone was around the same. I really like my 4bet sizing here. Angel and Rooth folded and ToeTagU called. Uht oh. The flop was A63 rainbow. He checked, I checked. The turn was another 3 and it went check check. The river was a 5 and he bet 4600. I made a really easy call in my mind and he showed me AA. Ouch. I was now down to about 7k in chips.

Since I was at such a tough table I decided to mix my play up and step outside the box a little. I took some different lines and played some different spots than I usually would. I got in one big pot with Roothlus when he raised the hijack to 525 at 100/200 and I defended my big blind with 64cc. The flop came J44ss and he bet 550 after I checked. I check raised to 1450 and he called. The turn was the 2h putting two hearts and two spades and I bet 2450. He called once again. The river came the Jc and I hated the river. I don't think he has too many jacks in his range, I really thought he had an over pair like AA/KK and I thought this card would kill my action. I bet 5k leaving myself with about 2-3k. He thought for a while and ended up mucking.

Another big pot I got involved in was when GotURead opened the cutoff to 525 and I called with KQo. Angel called in the sb too. The flop came Q74r and both me and Angel called GotURead's flop bet of 900. The turn brought Qs putting two spades on board and they both checked to me. Normally I bet here but I wanted to get more value and disguise my hand to both opponents and I checked as well. The river wasn't the best card, it was the Ad. Angel checked, GotU bet 2200 and I raised to 5700. Angel folded and GotU made a great fold showing a Q (Q6 he said) and I won another pot.

I was playing pretty weird but aggressive. I liked how I was mixing it up a lot. I grew my stack up to about 22k and picked up AQo a couple hands into the 150/300/25ante level. I opened to 800 on the hijack and Danny 3bet from the small blind to 2500. He had about 7k behind and I moved all in. He tanked for a long time and really wanted to call but ended up folding what he said was AJ. Oh well. I was very active and was playing a ton of pots. I won a couple nice pots off Danny. Two hands after the AQ I picked up another real hand AKcc. I made it 800 from 2nd position and Danny moved all in for 7k. Roothlus tank folded and then it got to ToeTagU in the big blind. He instantly moved all in for around 30k. I was pretty surprised to see a snap shove by him. I thought he would of tanked for a little bit with QQ/KK/AA so with that thought process coupled with my image, I thought this was an easy call although it was a huge pot. I called all in with my 25k stack. Danny turned over 55 and ToeTagU turned over AKdd. I had AKcc and the board ran out 6d7d3h8dx and ToeTagU hit a flush to win a monster pot. I think it would be hard for ToeTag to just flat there with a lot of his range because I could put him in tough spots by shoving over his call with a wide range. I think it's an easy call for me.

So today I was pretty unlucky and that's the theme of the trip. I have been playing really well in the bigger events and I really like where my game is heading. I still have a lot more to learn and practice but I'm getting there. It was nice playing against great players today to test where I'm at. It was a fun challenge. I'm not sure what I'm going to do for the next couple of days. I leave here on the 12th.

That's it for now. Will update later. Goodnight.

Eliminated From PCA Main...

2010-01-07T20:56:00.005-05:00

I feel like I did everything I could. I am back in my hotel room right now. The feeling of losing a big tournament is horrible. Nothing else matters except the tournament. When you lose you just wish there was a way you could jump back in there. It's more of a lost feeling I suppose. The tournament was your home and now you're homeless, lol. Enough of the woe is me. I played really well today and I am not upset with myself, it just didn't go my way. I'll talk about a couple of big pots I played today.

I started with an average stack and looked up my table draw in the morning. I had 4 other HSMTT regulars on my starting table. Jcarver, Kleath, Allanon, and DaBears87 (puffinpurp, gimmeda1time.) I chipped up good throughout the day at this table with not many showdowns. In the first couple hours of play I think I won all but one pot without a showdown. My first interesting hand was against JCarver.

I raised the lowjack with AdQs to 2400 at 500/1k/100a and he called from the small blind. The flop came QJ9hh. We both checked. The turn was the Jd putting two diamonds up. He lead for 4200 and I called. The river was the Td. He bet 8500, I made it 19.8k and he folded. My stack grew to 61k.

I was up to around 80k when Allanon raised to 2700 utg with a little over 30k stack. I had 99 in 2nd position and called. The chip leader at the table called as well as JCarver. The flop came 658ss and we all checked. The turn was the 7d giving me the straight. Me and Allanon checked again and the chip leader bet 12k. Everyone folded to me and I decided smooth calling was best. The river brought the Ac and I decided to check again. He bet 19k, I called and he mucked his hand. I was now up to 139k.

At 800/1600 I made it 4k UTG with JJ. The player in 2nd position called and kleath shoved in late position for 22k. I reshoved when action got back to me and the 2nd position player folded. Kleath showed 88 and the board ran out A76A river 8. I couldn't fade the 2 outter for a ~55k pot and I was down to 122k.

I make it 4800 UTG at 1k/2k and a player who was new to the table but had 3bet earlier before we went on break made it 13k. I didn't have too much information on him and felt like calling preflop was the best plan of action. The flop came T84r and I check called a 15k bet. The turn came a 6 and we both checked. The river was a beautiful card, a Q. I had top set. The player had about 70k in chips and there was about 60k in the pot. He had 40k in blue (5k) chips so I bet exactly that. He called and showed KK when he saw my QQ. I was pretty lucky in this pot but I would have folded the turn if he fired again. I was up to about 190k now.

That table broke and I was moved to a new table with Vanessa Rousso and some other Internet players. One guy two to my right had about 500k in chips and was playing every pot. He played one pot where he opened the button to 5500, the small blind 3bet to 18k (with about 115k stack -- he would never fold here in his life) and the button moved all in with K9ss. The small blind called with JJ and the guy flopped a flush with K9. He was overly aggressive and getting hit with the deck.

I was just getting used to the new table and seeing how everything was. I opened to 6100 in 3rd position with KQo. The button, who was an Internet player (JBT449 I just found out) made it 15.3k. I was pretty sure this was a 3bet bluff so I decided to 4bet to 33.6k. In hindsight I should have made a larger 4bet but I don't mind it when I do have monsters. He decided to flat call me. He was probably 250-300k deep and I was about 180k deep. I priced him out to set mine but still put myself in a rough spot out of position. The flop came 952r and I bet 42k with about 110k behind. He thought for a while and just decided to call. The turn was a 7h bringing two hearts. I decided to check. He bet 20k into a pot of about 155k. I thought long and hard about this one... I'll just keep my thoughts to myself. I wont comment on his play or my play. Ultimately I ended up folding after about 5 minutes of thought and he showed K5o, for the best hand. My stack was now at 110k.

I raise QJo in 2nd position at 1.5k/3k/300a. Everyone folds. The very next hand I pick up QQ and make it 7200 UTG. It folds to CrazyMarco who moves all in for about 50k. I call and he tables ATss. The flop came Txxxx and I was up to about 165k.

Here is my bust out hand. Vanessa Rousso was very short and moves all in for about 26-28k preflop in middle position (at 1.5k/3k.) The crazy/loose/overly aggressive chip leader calls her all in next to act from the hijack. Her range is huge here as well as his. I look down at AQo on the button. With over 70k in the pot already, this is a super easy shove. I move all in. The chip leader calls with AK. I table AQ. Vanessa turns up 44. The board runs out 96362 and Vanessa triples up and I am eliminated around 300th place.

225 players made the money in this tournament. I played real hard and have that feeling that there's not much else I could do. I didn't let the K5o hand affect me and I think the AQo hand is just a huge cooler, So I'm not mad, just disappointed like usual. I was about 45 minutes away from Day 3 and only 80 or so players away from making the money. It was definitely a grind but I was getting more comfortable the deeper I got. My instincts were spot on today and I wish I could have done better. I just have to keep playing and hopefully one of these big tournaments works out in my favor. Good luck to everyone who is still in. Hopefully one of my friends will win it.

Survived Day 1 of PCA Main Event...

2010-01-07T08:47:00.003-05:00

I survived day 1 today. We played for 8 hours. I have a stack of 46k with the average being around 47k. I'm not in bad shape. I played a couple real interesting pots today. I won a lot of small pots after winning one big pot and found myself at 70k in chips before the last two levels of the day. I couldn't hit a flop or win a pot for the last two levels and finished with 46k. I played well though for the most part. I don't think I spewed off chips or anything. Just standard hands with continuation bets, etc. I avoided a couple of marginal spots which I'm not sure how I feel about yet. I had a pretty tough table with a lot of good players.

I didn't really get to touch too much on the DeepStacks University deal. I just want to say once again I'm really lucky and thankful for something like that. I'm sure there are a lot of poker players and people that are more deserving than me. In this industry it seems pretty hard to get yourself in a position for an opportunity like the one I have. They have a bunch of awesome players signed to their site already and I'm sure it will be a blast working with them as well as all the other guys involved with DeepStacks U.

The weather in the Bahamas has been a little chilly and windy. I had a few days off before I had to hit the tables. On Tuesday I tried to fight the cold weather and hit the pools/slides/beach. It wasn't so bad until the wind started blowing and the sun was stuck behind the clouds. It would have been nice to relax on the beach for a couple of days before playing. That's the least of my concerns at this moment. I want to stay inside as long as possible for the Main Event now!

I'll post one Interesting hand I had today. A good cash game player who was playing pretty solid at the time made it 500 in 2nd position at 75/150. The button, who was a loose player (but a thinking player) from Greece called. I called in the small blind with black JJ. We all had around 25-35k in chips. The flop came J97hhh. We all checked. The turn brought the 3s. I bet 850 and the Greek guy called. The other opponent folded. The river brought the 7d, pairing the board. I thought this was a good card for my opponent and the way the hand played out I felt like a check raise was best. I checked, he bet 1850, and I made it 6450. He then reraised me 6k more.

What do you guys do? I probably had a little over 20k facing his raise of 6k. Do you call or do you move all in?

Pretty interesting spot considering how the hand played out and what hands he can turn over on the river. I'll keep everyone updated on my progress. I will be updating Twitter every now and then. Follow me on Twitter to see the updates.

Huge Announcement!!!...

2010-01-06T01:02:00.002-05:00

It's pretty late in the Bahamas. It's 1:30am so I'm going to write a quick update. I am playing the $10k Main Event tomorrow. I wanted to let everyone know some great news before I started playing though. I recently signed a deal with DeepStacks University. I am now a part of Team DeepStacks! I am very excited to work with everyone involved in the company and I like what they are doing. I will be doing online modules as well as live coaching at camps for them. It should be an awesome experience!

That's the big news I have for now. Sorry for such a short update but I have to get going to sleep. I will update the blog tomorrow after play and I might be doing an interview for pocketfives as well. I'm going to try to wake up early in the morning and get a workout in before play.

The stay at Atlantis has been nice so far and I will talk more about that in the next blog. Goodnight guys.

Super Busy/2010 Goals...

2010-01-02T18:12:00.002-05:00

I have been pretty busy the last week or so. I haven't played much poker. I had a great month of December and am pretty upset I didn't get to finish it out with more volume. With the Holidays and everything, I just wasn't able to find time to play. I had a great Christmas with my family and friends and also a nice, relaxing New Years. Poker can't always be a priority.

I have not forgot about the free coaching I offered and I will definitely do that when I get back from the Bahamas. Sorry about that. I wanted to do it before I left but I just haven't had the time and I don't want to do it tonight on such short notice. I will do it when I get back and give everyone a heads up. I will probably go through a Super Turbo MTT hand history/strategy involved since most people hate them but they are really profitable.

Other than that let's see... I had lunch with my buddy Amir the other day. He's a nice guy and he owns the website PokerWit. It's a site for posting poker hands and it's pretty neat so check it out. It makes discussing hands and situations a little easier. We just had lunch, talked and caught up on everything. He was in town for a week so it was nice to meet with him.

I have also been running a bunch of errands before heading off to the Bahamas. My vision has started deteriorating in the last couple of years. I decided to get contacts today. I'm still getting used to them but it's nice to be able to see everything clearly. My vision wasn't that bad but at times it was hard to make out details that were far away. For example, when I would play basketball at the gym I couldn't really make out faces from across the court. It's different but it's not so bad. Hopefully I get used to taking them out and putting them in pretty quickly.

I'm leaving tomorrow to the Bahamas. It will actually be my first WPT/EPT/10k Buyin Event aside from the WSOP Main Event. I am pretty excited about it all. I went to the PCA two years ago but I just played a couple side events. The Bahamas is a nice place but I'm there to play poker and try to win a huge tournament. Hopefully I can keep my mistakes to a minimum and make a deep run in the Main Event. I'm sure it's going to be a tough field with a lot of good players but I am up for the challenge. I felt like I really played well when I went to Aruba so I am excited to play some more big buyin live tournaments. We will see how it goes!

I have some poker related goals for 2010. I will look back on them at the end of the year and see if I accomplished what I wanted to do. I want to...

1) Have 500k in profit between MTT/Cash/SnG/etc.
2) Final table a big live tournament (If I play enough live this will change to WIN.)
3) Win a major online tournament (Sunday Majors/FTOPS/WCOOP/etc.)
4) Continue to grow as a poker player and person.
5) Minimize mistakes on the felt.
6) Continue to control my emotions and keep a positive attitude.
7) Continue to balance poker and life.
8) Move up the rankings on pocketfives (almost in the top 100 now I believe.)
9) Frequently update the blog (at least once a week.)
10) Play more live tournaments while maintaining good volume online.
11) Stay ahead of the curve.
12) Have fun.

That's all I can think of now. There are a lot of things on that list and I would be ecstatic if I could accomplish them all. Normally I don't set goals but I think everything I said above is attainable. The end of 2009 went real well for me so I am hoping it continues over in 2010. Time will tell. My next update will be from the Bahamas in the next couple of days. Talk to you then.

Bored and Blogging...

2009-12-24T02:50:00.002-05:00

What's up world? I got a little bit to talk about I suppose. This week has been going alright so far. I had a pretty good day Monday, making two final tables, and have had some shots yesterday and today. The luck wasn't there in the end of the tournaments from Tuesday and today though. I'm getting there and that's all that matters.

I booked my flight for the Bahamas. I'm going a day early with my girlfriend on January 3rd. It will be nice to have a couple days of relaxation before I play the main event on Day 1b and ship her back to America lol. I'm excited to have her come out for a couple days and she is excited as well. I am definitely focused and ready for the tournaments out there and won't be distracted.

As far as my last blog about the free coaching I was looking towards doing something this Saturday night. I might have to change those plans because there is a $1k tournament at the Hard Rock this Saturday. It's a pretty good tournament that runs the last Saturday of every month and I will probably play that. If I survive in that I won't be around Saturday night. If anything maybe I could do it tomorrow night. I know that's kind of short notice but it's better than nothing. I could always do it again I suppose but I like the idea of a one time thing. Thursday is Christmas Eve so that might not be the greatest idea either. I guess I won't rush it and I will look to do something very soon before the Bahamas. I will keep everyone updated don't worry. I don't want anyone left out.

I'm kind of distracted and tired right now so I don't remember everything else I had to say. Hopefully everyone enjoys the Holidays and has a great time. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, whatever else anyone might celebrate enjoy it! Goodnight.

Hard Rock/Free Coaching/Vote!...

2009-12-20T02:03:00.004-05:00

Friday I played the $1100 buyin Hard Rock $175k guaranteed. They have two day 1's where if you bust out the first day you can buy in on Saturday again. All the survivors from Friday and Saturday return on Sunday to fight for the prize money. I played on Friday and didn't survive. I logged a bunch of my hands but I don't know if I should write about them. I had a couple interesting hands but the day didn't go my way and I lost about an hour and a half before play was over for the night. I decided to play again today. I had an even worse day.

I basically just hovered around the 20k starting stack until we got to 400/800/100a. It was the 7th level and the levels lasted one hour. We had just finished dinner break and the antes finally kicked in. I had about 14k. I shoved a couple hands and my stack was up to 16k. My table had one player who literally limped every hand and lots of people would limp behind him. He limped in 2nd position and another player limped in middle position. I had 33 on the button and moved all in. The first limper folded and the second limper snap called me. I thought I was in rough shape vs 88 or 99. He turned over ATo and won the race. It would of been nice to win that pot because I really couldn't get anything going today. I battled though and I cant complain. I didn't have many spots to accumulate chips today. I whiffed every flop and always had the second best hand. That's just how it goes some days.

I guess I am destined to win a huge tournament online tomorrow. I had two chances to miss some online poker tournaments tomorrow. Since I didn't make day 2 (which probably happens 10% of the time with two shots) I know I am supposed to play online tomorrow. Why else wouldn't I make it to day 2? :-)

That's just my wishful thinking. I haven't played online since I had that sick day Monday. I was in Orlando for some business and to celebrate my birthday with my girlfriend and friends. I'll talk more about all that later on in the week.

I am planning on doing some free coaching before Christmas if I can. I figure I will load up Ustream, Skype, etc. and give a free couple hours of coaching to whoever is available to watch. I guess it's just my way to give back a little bit for the Holidays. I am currently looking into a website I could use so that I could have as many users as possible. Once I find out some more information I will update the blog and let everyone know when this will take place. If anyone has any site suggestions that would be good for this let me know. I want to share my screen so I could go through a hand history from one of my tournaments but I don't think Skype conference calls allow for that and I'm not sure how many people I could get in one conference call. I don't want anyone left out. I think if I do it through Ustream you would only be able to see me and not my screen. I will try to figure it out but if anyone has any ideas let me know ASAP.

Also one last thing. Vote for my good buddy "Tim0thee" for TableRatings.com Mid-Stakes Cash Game player of the year! He has absolutely crushed the games on Full Tilt this year! He is currently second in votes. You can vote for him by going to TableRatings.com website for their player of the year. Here is the link. VOTE FOR Tim0thee for Mid-Stakes player of the year!!! He is a great guy and a great player and definitely deserves some recognition. I know the money he has won speaks for himself but I'm sure this is something he would like to win. Best of luck to him in the voting.

I'll update again soon. Lot's more to talk about!

Big Update...

2009-12-15T03:34:00.009-05:00

I have a lot to talk about. All of this will be a poker related blog and most of it will be how I have been doing the last week. So if you don't want to read about my results please don't continue reading.

Last Sunday I made it deep in a bunch of tournaments. I bubbled a couple huge tournaments (100r, Mulligan, 163, one other big tournament) all on the money bubble which isn't a huge deal because there was a long ways to go still. I was getting deep and getting close at huge scores though. Then I got 8th in the 6max cubed that same day along with a bunch of other deep finishes.

Come Monday I got 7th in the 100 cubed turbo, and then bubbled the 163 on FTP in 11th place. Tuesday I had deja vu and got 7th AGAIN in the 100 cubed turbo AND bubbled Stars 162 in 12th place. I took two days off because I was mentally drained from all of the close calls. Friday I played again and bubbled the 100r 6max on FTP in 8th place I believe.

Saturday I took the day off again. My nephew had his first birthday and I spent time with my family and friends. I was ready to win something big on Sunday. Sunday came and I finished 21st in the Warmup (142k to first) and 25th or so in the 163rebuy on FTP (67k to first.) I was getting so close. I didn't want to have another typical Sunday. I was deep in a satellite for a PCA package. The package is worth a little over $15k. It contains a seat to the 10k main event, 8 days in the hotel, food voucher, and 1k spending cash. It was my last hope.

With about 45 people left this hand came up.

PokerStars Game #36665957995: Tournament #219296327, $665+$35 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XX (700/1400) - 2009/12/13 23:18:47 ET
Table '219296327 42' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: kidsolid (9715 in chips)
Seat 2: Cre8ive (31275 in chips)
Seat 3: TheTaker (37817 in chips)
Seat 4: evo404hp (21121 in chips)
Seat 5: GavinGriffin (67748 in chips)
Seat 6: dragosgiu (78591 in chips)
Seat 7: newg_choier (77552 in chips)
Seat 8: NoMeNot (70788 in chips)
Seat 9: Luie Sojo (11719 in chips)
kidsolid: posts the ante 175
Cre8ive: posts the ante 175
TheTaker: posts the ante 175
evo404hp: posts the ante 175
GavinGriffin: posts the ante 175
dragosgiu: posts the ante 175
newg_choier: posts the ante 175
NoMeNot: posts the ante 175
Luie Sojo: posts the ante 175
Cre8ive: posts small blind 700
TheTaker: posts big blind 1400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [8h 8d]
evo404hp: folds
GavinGriffin: folds
dragosgiu: folds
newg_choier: folds
NoMeNot: folds
Luie Sojo: folds
kidsolid: folds
Cre8ive: raises 29700 to 31100 and is all-in
TheTaker: calls 29700
*** FLOP *** [7s 2h Ac]
*** TURN *** [7s 2h Ac] [8c]
*** RIVER *** [7s 2h Ac 8c] [Jh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Cre8ive: shows [8h 8d] (three of a kind, Eights)
TheTaker: shows [Td Tc] (a pair of Tens)
Cre8ive collected 63775 from pot

I'm pretty sure this is a standard shove in a satellite when you are this close to a package. I was lucky enough to hit a 2 outter and double up. I now had an even better chance of winning a seat because I was probably in the top 10 in chips with 45 people left. I then lost this hand...

PokerStars Game #36666091824: Tournament #219296327, $665+$35 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XX (700/1400) - 2009/12/13 23:23:42 ET
Table '219296327 42' 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: kidsolid (12690 in chips)
Seat 2: Cre8ive (60425 in chips)
Seat 3: TheTaker (5317 in chips)
Seat 4: evo404hp (24821 in chips)
Seat 5: GavinGriffin (64948 in chips)
Seat 6: dragosgiu (80166 in chips)
Seat 7: newg_choier (76852 in chips)
Seat 8: NoMeNot (70088 in chips)
Seat 9: Luie Sojo (11019 in chips)
kidsolid: posts the ante 175
Cre8ive: posts the ante 175
TheTaker: posts the ante 175
evo404hp: posts the ante 175
GavinGriffin: posts the ante 175
dragosgiu: posts the ante 175
newg_choier: posts the ante 175
NoMeNot: posts the ante 175
Luie Sojo: posts the ante 175
dragosgiu: posts small blind 700
newg_choier: posts big blind 1400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [Kh Kd]
NoMeNot: folds
Luie Sojo: folds
kidsolid: raises 11115 to 12515 and is all-in
Cre8ive: calls 12515
TheTaker: folds
evo404hp: folds
GavinGriffin: folds
dragosgiu: folds
newg_choier: folds
*** FLOP *** [6c Ac 4h]
*** TURN *** [6c Ac 4h] [Js]
*** RIVER *** [6c Ac 4h Js] [Td]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
kidsolid: shows [Jc Jd] (three of a kind, Jacks)
Cre8ive: shows [Kh Kd] (a pair of Kings)
kidsolid collected 28705 from pot

Another standard spot. Now I was on the other side of a 2 outter. This pot would have put me well over the average stack for being in the money. I grinded my stack and eventually made it until there were 31 people left. The final guy busted and I had won my package!

I was super excited and still am. I have tried for the last month to win a package and I have been running pretty bad in all the satellites and sngs. It's poker though and I knew it was bound to go my way eventually. I am so excited I won the package. This is actually my first satellite win on stars to a live tournament. My last satty win for a live event was on Party Poker for my first WSOP main event.

Now on to today (or yesterday if we are getting technical) Monday. I got back from the gym a little late around 2:40pm and registered for the 100r and my typical tournaments. I took a couple beats early and wasn't playing my best poker. I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been and my results suffered. I made it deep in a couple tournaments but didn't have any results. I went to my room and laid down. I knew I was playing bad and wasn't focused. I took a break and geared up to put in a good night session with a couple tournaments.

I registered for the 100r, 1k, 162, and the 100 turbo. I also played the 50r turbo and the $117 super turbo later on at night. I ran pretty well in the 100r on Stars and ended up chopping it even heads up for almost 18k.

I was still deep in the 1k with two tables left. I didn't want to try to play the 1k and play a HU match so I elected to even chop with the guy although I am pretty sure I had an edge on him in heads up play. I wanted to bring all my attention to the 1k.

I made a bad shove with A9 into a medium stacked players open 6 handed. I knew it was a bad shove but I was finishing the heads up deal and still made the bad play. He turned over KK and I was lucky enough to hit an ace on the flop. I won't talk about all the hands I played in the 1k but I played my heart out and that was the only pot I sucked out in.

Stuart Paterson also made the final table with me. He had a pretty good stack and I was one of the shorter stacks. He got it all in in a monster pot below. Unfortunately his hand didn't hold up and he was eliminated in 8th place.

Full Tilt Poker Game #16815226758: $1K Monday (120270734), Table 27 - 2000/4000 Ante 500 - No Limit Hold'em - 2:49:47 ET - 2009/12/15
Seat 1: Dudderz (306,638)
Seat 2: DimJarnaby35 (44,105)
Seat 3: A__theKevlar__2 (303,787)
Seat 4: BigMoneyBogart (450,771)
Seat 5: aka_advanced (86,190)
Seat 6: hoodini10 (101,281)
Seat 7: Cre8ive (116,226)
Seat 8: Stuart Paterson (211,002)
Dudderz antes 500
DimJarnaby35 antes 500
A__theKevlar__2 antes 500
BigMoneyBogart antes 500
aka_advanced antes 500
hoodini10 antes 500
Cre8ive antes 500
Stuart Paterson antes 500
A__theKevlar__2 posts the small blind of 2,000
BigMoneyBogart posts the big blind of 4,000
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [8d 3c]
aka_advanced folds
hoodini10 folds
Cre8ive folds
Stuart Paterson raises to 9,885
Dudderz folds
DimJarnaby35 raises to 43,605, and is all in
A__theKevlar__2 calls 41,605
BigMoneyBogart folds
Stuart Paterson has 15 seconds left to act
Stuart Paterson has requested TIME
Stuart Paterson calls 33,720
*** FLOP *** [9c 4c 7c]
A__theKevlar__2 bets 259,682, and is all in
Stuart Paterson calls 166,897, and is all in
A__theKevlar__2 shows [Js Jd]
Stuart Paterson shows [9h 9d]
DimJarnaby35 shows [Qh Kh]
Uncalled bet of 92,785 returned to A__theKevlar__2
*** TURN *** [9c 4c 7c] [Th]
*** RIVER *** [9c 4c 7c Th] [Jc]
A__theKevlar__2 shows three of a kind, Jacks
Stuart Paterson shows three of a kind, Nines
A__theKevlar__2 wins the side pot (333,794) with three of a kind, Jacks
DimJarnaby35 shows a straight, King high
DimJarnaby35 wins the main pot (138,815) with a straight, King high

I ended up getting down to 6 handed play and I lost this pot to bust...

Full Tilt Poker Game #16815533996: $1K Monday (120270734), Table 27 - 2500/5000 Ante 600 - No Limit Hold'em - 3:16:12 ET - 2009/12/15
Seat 1: Dudderz (374,188)
Seat 2: DimJarnaby35 (216,540)
Seat 3: A__theKevlar__2 (310,620)
Seat 4: BigMoneyBogart (469,596)
Seat 5: aka_advanced (150,530)
Seat 7: Cre8ive (98,526)
Dudderz antes 600
DimJarnaby35 antes 600
A__theKevlar__2 antes 600
BigMoneyBogart antes 600
aka_advanced antes 600
Cre8ive antes 600
DimJarnaby35 posts the small blind of 2,500
A__theKevlar__2 posts the big blind of 5,000
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [Qs Qd]
BigMoneyBogart folds
aka_advanced folds
Cre8ive raises to 12,226
Dudderz raises to 34,555
DimJarnaby35 folds
A__theKevlar__2 folds
Cre8ive raises to 97,926, and is all in
Dudderz calls 63,371
Cre8ive shows [Qs Qd]
Dudderz shows [9h 9d]
*** FLOP *** [5s 9c 6d]
*** TURN *** [5s 9c 6d] [Td]
*** RIVER *** [5s 9c 6d Td] [3s]
Cre8ive shows a pair of Queens
Dudderz shows three of a kind, Nines
Dudderz wins the pot (206,952) with three of a kind, Nines

Pretty unlucky. I got a great situation with pair vs pair and he hit his 2 outter. I did of course get lucky to get where I was but I wanted a better finish. I received about 16k for my 6th place finish. I have been getting so close to big final tables and I wanted this win. With 40bbs I would have been a problem and definitely had a chance to win the tournament. I had an amazing day. I can't really complain but if you don't win first you always want to do better. I fought real hard today and I am glad I gained my composure and put in a strong night session. I wish I could of had better results in the 1k but that's how it goes. That is tournament poker.

Today is actually my Birthday too. December 15th. It would have been awesome to scoop both tournaments for my birthday but I have to take what I can get. I guess I still have all day to win something else. Maybe the Pokerstars $1k? :)

That's it for now. That's how my last week of poker has been going. A bunch of bubbles with close calls and then I have put together a couple decent scores yesterday and today. There's always room for improvement and hopefully I can keep the success coming. Goodnight.

Close But No Cigar/Tiger Woods...

2009-12-08T02:40:00.004-05:00

Close but no cigar. That's been the motto lately. Yesterday I went down to Miami to play poker and also have a coaching session while I played. He watched me play, we talked a lot of poker, I watched him play. We discussed a lot of things and hopefully everything we talked about will help him with his game. It was his first lesson but he enjoyed it and wants another session soon. He had a couple sweats watching me. I got deep in the first 100r on stars, 163r on FTP, Mulligan, 163 on FTP, 100 cubed 6max, and maybe one or two smaller tournaments.

The tournament I had the best shot of winning was the 100 cubed 6max on FTP. I think I played it real well. I was real focused and didn't have many tables left when I was deep in it. My hands were holding up, I was controlling pots, controlling tables, and manipulating opponents. With two tables left in the tournament I 3bet the button from the sb with K7o. He flat called and the flop came J34r. I bet about 33k into 70k and he folded. I showed the bluff. I had a tough table and I wanted to generate a crazy image. I had been playing solid at the table since I got moved there. The next orbit this hand came up:

Full Tilt Poker Game #16599608529: $33,000 Guarantee (1r+1a) (121372191), Table 47 - 2000/4000 Ante 500 - No Limit Hold'em - 1:35:58 ET - 2009/12/07
Seat 1: Bustable (208,001)
Seat 2: Cre8ive (292,132)
Seat 3: AJKHoosier1 (278,195)
Seat 4: bestlayever (165,872)
Seat 6: ryanghall (215,936)
Bustable antes 500
Cre8ive antes 500
AJKHoosier1 antes 500
bestlayever antes 500
ryanghall antes 500
Bustable posts the small blind of 2,000
Cre8ive posts the big blind of 4,000
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [Kh Ks]
AJKHoosier1 raises to 11,000
bestlayever has 15 seconds left to act
bestlayever folds
ryanghall folds
Bustable folds
Cre8ive has 15 seconds left to act
Cre8ive raises to 34,632
AJKHoosier1 has 15 seconds left to act
AJKHoosier1 raises to 277,695, and is all in
Cre8ive calls 243,063
AJKHoosier1 shows [Kd Td]
Cre8ive shows [Kh Ks]
*** FLOP *** [Ad 3s Jh]
*** TURN *** [Ad 3s Jh] [3d]
*** RIVER *** [Ad 3s Jh 3d] [6d]
AJKHoosier1 shows a flush, Ace high
Cre8ive shows two pair, Kings and Threes
AJKHoosier1 wins the pot (559,890) with a flush, Ace high

Pretty nasty. I would of had all the chips with 8 people left. I now had 3bbs. I doubled up 56s vs 57s. Then A4cc vs Kx. Then I won a flip and suddenly I was back up to 20bbs. Wow. Time for a comeback! I built my stack back up to 280k and this hand came up:

Full Tilt Poker Game #16600054911: $33,000 Guarantee (1r+1a) (121372191), Table 47 - 3000/6000 Ante 750 - No Limit Hold'em - 2:10:19 ET - 2009/12/07
Seat 1: Bustable (178,635)
Seat 2: Cre8ive (278,600)
Seat 3: AJKHoosier1 (543,403)
Seat 6: ryanghall (159,498)
Bustable antes 750
Cre8ive antes 750
AJKHoosier1 antes 750
ryanghall antes 750
Bustable posts the small blind of 3,000
Cre8ive posts the big blind of 6,000
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [8h 7d]
AJKHoosier1 folds
ryanghall raises to 13,250
Bustable folds
Cre8ive calls 7,250
*** FLOP *** [Td 4c 7s]
Cre8ive checks
ryanghall bets 18,250
Cre8ive has 15 seconds left to act
Cre8ive calls 18,250
*** TURN *** [Td 4c 7s] [8d]
Cre8ive has 15 seconds left to act
Cre8ive checks
ryanghall has 15 seconds left to act
ryanghall bets 41,500
Cre8ive raises to 246,350, and is all in
ryanghall calls 85,748, and is all in
Cre8ive shows [8h 7d]
ryanghall shows [Ah Ac]
Uncalled bet of 119,102 returned to Cre8ive
*** RIVER *** [Td 4c 7s 8d] [Th]
Cre8ive shows two pair, Tens and Eights
ryanghall shows two pair, Aces and Tens
ryanghall wins the pot (323,496) with two pair, Aces and Tens

Another unlucky pot but I still had 120k behind. I won't go on with my reasoning for the hands or my thought process cause I think it's giving too much away. But it was dirty. I doubled up the #1 and #2 chip (like 900k combined) leaders now and still had 120k and a chance to win. I thought that was a pretty sick factoid lol. I got the last of it in KJ vs AT and that was all she wrote.

That's how it went yesterday. I bubbled 3 major tournaments yesterday with 40k+ to first place on some nasty beats. It's just how it goes with MTT poker and people need to realize that. You can lose any given hand at any given time. It's a continuous race/coin flip/domination. Just keep fighting and if you’re playing well you will have some sweats at big scores.

I had a pretty sick day today too. I got 7th in the 100 cubed turbo on stars, 10th in the 163 FTP, and just busted the 1k on FTP in 23rd place. I could have played better in all of them but still lost some pots in standard spots. As long as I keep getting to the end it will all work out eventually. I feel like I'm playing well overall though and that's all that matters.

That's all the poker talk I gotta say. Keep pluggin away... Let's talk about the Tiger Woods situation.

So I was thinking about this whole Tiger Woods situation last night driving back from Miami. I am not saying what he did was right. I think Tiger and his family need to handle the situation ON THEIR OWN, just like any personal problem in any family. I guess he is a role model to the world, and since he is in the public eye, people think his life should be in the media. I don't know how fair that is to Tiger. He is a golf player. Probably the best golfer to ever live. He is still entitled to his privacy and to be able to live his life. It must be real difficult to be a celebrity and have to deal with all that.

Another thing that bothers me is how the media points all the blame on Tiger. He is the world's most famous athlete. He is a billionaire. You're telling me these girls didn't throw themselves at him? He has to have women throwing themselves at him at all times. They are all making it like Tiger is to blame. LOL. Cmon now. These girls wanted it too. That bothers me that the media is portraying him like that. Yes he committed adultery. He is HUMAN. He made mistakes. We have all made mistakes.

I guess I just have an issue with the media. They are able to twist and turn anything however they want and they are definitely doing it here. I mean it would be tough for any man in his situation to turn down all the girls that come at him. Of course it could be done though. I'm not saying he had to cheat. He has a family he needs to take care of and worry about. This is horrible for all of them. I wish Tiger and his family the best. I just wish he was able to take care of his problem with his family. I mean this is huge for him. He made a mistake. What if he really wants to change now and be a better father and husband and not make the same mistake again? The media is just ruthless.

There's always two sides to the story though and Tiger is definitely at fault. So are the girls involved too though. So much could be said on this topic. Oh well, who am I to judge or comment anyways. Just my opinion and I wish them all the best. He seemed like a good guy and good role model for people but you never know what people are like behind closed doors. It's hard being in the public eye and having people watch your every move. I can't imagine what it's like. Enough of all that though. Goodnight.