Memoirs Of a Leather Ass Grinder

This years fantasy teams

2008-06-16T22:14:00.000-07:00

Buck - Ivey, Rob Mizrachi, FBT, Tom Schneider,

Benyamine, D. Williams, Jordan Morgan, Boyle,

Scott Clemets, Humberto, Marco Traniello,

BeLoW, R. Williamson, Mike Wattel

FBT - Seidel, Fergueson, grinder, Gavin Smith,

Gracz, Efro, Kenny Tran, Todd Brunson, S.

Fischman, Cassidy, Raymer, B. Baxter, Rafi

Amit, Jeff Madsen

Jesse - Daniel, Barry, Singer, J.C. Tran,

Johnny Chan, Nam le, David Bennefield, Carlos

Mortensen, Brandon Adams, Danny Wong, Shawn

Buchanan, Josh Arieh, Mark Gregorich, Jay

Rosenkrantz

Baker - Helmuth, Lisandro, David Phan, Tom

Dwan, Ted Forrest, Patrick Antonius, Matasow,

Gus Hansen, David Chui, John Hoang, Eli Elezra,

Paul Wasicka, J. Phan, Joe Tehan

Ray - Cunningham, Chad Brown, Edler, S. Sung,

Theo Tran, Amnon, F. Deeb, Flack, Haralobos,

Nick Shulman, Noah Boaken, Havad Khan, Steve

Wong, Adam Geyer

Josh - Lindgren, Binger, ZeeJustin, Rizen, Andy

Bloch, Juanda, Watkinson, Markholt, Jonanthan

Little, S. Mizzi, Chad Batista, Scotty Nguyen,

Marco, Bill Chen

Stash! Must listen

2008-03-07T08:52:00.000-08:00

Phish

2007-12-31T18:57:00.000-08:00

I think for the rest of my life the first thing I think about when New Year's Eve approaches is the band Phish. The band just took it to another level on New Year's. This is a version of The Sloth played on New Year's 1995 at Madison Square Garden. This show is considered by many to be the best Phish show ever.

YouTube/Butane Variations

2007-12-25T22:51:00.000-08:00

I just learned how to post YouTube videos on my blog...here is one

Box Of Rain, One more Saturday Morn

2007-12-15T10:06:00.000-08:00

While waiting to go play some football in sub 32 degrees weather I opened up my ITunes and decided to listen to "The Pod" by "Ween", I downloaded "The Pod" yesterday and have yet to give it a full run through, although I am familiar with many of the songs on the 23 track album.

During the first track I lost a bit of concentration on the music, I was reading a preview of the Syracuse basketball teams match-up tonight vs East Tennessee State. When my attention returned to the music I realized my ITunes must have been set to shuffle. I had been listening to 90 seconds of a version of "Box Of Rain" by "The Grateful Dead" performed on New Years 1972. As I went to switch the music back to the "The Pod", I decided at the last moment before clicking the button that "Box Of Rain" is not the type of song u turn off 90 seconds in. It was a great version and man what an amazing song.

While writing this blog I had this very important IM conversation with my friend Justin.

(13:12:53) Me: well we didnt organize a game this weekend
(13:13:00) Justin: you gonna give woodrow the medicine again?
(13:13:03) Me: but my friend is itching to go toss it around so I guess I am going to
(13:13:13) Justin: hook hook, stop and go?
(13:13:13) Me: nah Woodrow cant handle it
(13:13:48) Justin: i feel like the out and up is pretty much unstoppable in pick up football
(13:14:06) Justin: everyone loves to jump the out route
(13:14:34) Me: eh
(13:14:45) Me: some people just take away the deep ball all day
(13:14:57) Me: but u can get em for button hooks up the field
(13:15:03) Me: I played some QB last week
(13:15:10) Me: dominated the short game
(13:15:15) Me: Pennington like precision
(13:15:24) Justin: lol, nice
(13:15:47) Justin: i would take away the deep ball all day i think
(13:15:54) Justin: most qb's aren't patient/accurate enough
(13:16:01) Justin: play bend but don't break
(13:16:02) Me: yea exactly
(13:16:05) Me: thats what I do
(13:16:11) Me: usually works
(13:16:31) Me: its a little lazy tho and clearly not optimal
(13:16:39) Me: it can be exploited but usually isnt
(13:16:48) Justin: yeah

Rights to the Ways and the Rules of the World!

Go Pats

How Does The Song Go?

2007-10-19T07:04:00.000-07:00

Grateful Dead class at UMass!

I am headed home for the next couple days to see the Red Sox play games 6 and 7 of the ALCS at Fenway Park, I really hope we can pull it off.

Move Over Shaniac

2007-09-10T15:16:00.000-07:00

I think I just found the best blog ever...http://doctormooney.blogspot.com/

Please search through this thing. The downloads are simply incredible and the guy writes very well too.

Bo Knows

2007-08-24T11:18:00.000-07:00

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hAAgfY_NHzw

TheHeavyPets.com

2007-07-23T12:17:00.000-07:00

I just returned from the midwest, I traveled with the band The Heavy Pets for 4 nights. These guys are a great up and coming rock and roll band, and luckily are all good friends of mine too. Here are my reports from the run that I posted on TheHeavyPets.com forum

REPORT 1

Out in Minnesota, following The Heavy Pets. Show tonight at 9:30 sharp. Everyone is super excited and in good spirits.

There is one slight negative piece of news from today that I will pass along. If u didnt know, Jeff and Mike each bought a new (sick) guitar amp Thursday in Warrenvillve, Illinois' "Guitar Center". Unfortunately while setting up for a mid-afternoon hotel jam session today, it turned out that Mike's doesn't work.

Luckily Jeff's new amp still works, and they still have Jeff's old amp in the trailer. The band will be fine tonight, but a big FU goes out to Guitar Center and Fender for selling the band a lemon amp. Mike plans on picking up a new one tomorrow in the Twin Cites Area Guitar Center.

The long drive from Chicago to Fargo, North Dakota was epic. Jim did the whole drive (12+hours), and Mike sat shot gun (shout out to both for a job extremely well done). I got to sit next to Ryan which was obviously a hell of a good time. He was as hilarious as ever, talking about "fucking cheddar eating gutter sluts" (in Wisconsin), and the Bob Weir smear campaign we are considering launching to get fans from his show during setbreak to come watch THP.

Yesterday at the festival was pretty heady, promoting the band and meeting some cool people. Many seemed very interested in checking out the band, people out here and in the scene in general are definitely looking for new bands to listen to. The girls at this festival are much less attractive than I was anticpating unfortunately...if u were wondering. Food also is not as good as Langerado or other festies, altho their are some hidden gems. Moe was pretty good, SCI was somewhat lame (imo). This festival is ready for some band to come in and blow some heads away, that should happen tonight.

REPORT 2

What's up guys.

The best thing about the show Saturday night was that a good number of people became instant fans of The Heavy Pets. The worst thing is that Bob Weir with Kimock was probably the worst act to be up against.

The more I think about it, the time slot really hurt the band here. If Trey was around then it would have been better in some ways because some people resent Trey or are sick of him, he isnt a must see really. Most feel differently about Ratdog, they may not love the band but everyone loved the Grateful Dead and their songs and Ratdog does justice to a lot of it. They have a very professional clean feel to them, and were my favorite act besides THP at 10Klf (I didnt see Derek Trucks)

The attendance at the show started off pretty good, and then right after a solid John Galt that kept everyone dancing throughout, a lot of people realized that Ratdog's 2nd set started and some people left. This definitely sucked some energy out of the room. The band has to be highly commended for keeping it going tho, and once Pleasure Tank started I don't think a person left the venue and many started trickling back in.

From Rise to Pass It Down the place was rocking. It was amazing to see all the people blown away by this murders row of THP classics. I talked to a bunch of heads after the show and they will definitely be remembering the band and telling friends.

I wish for the band that somehow we could have gotten such an energetic crowd for the whole show, these festivals are tough when u are 2000 miles away from home and noone has heard of u yet. Also, we all have been to festivals and it is like watching TV...wow this band is real good, but "I wonder what else is on". Its so hard to cement a festival audience, but they finally did it for the last 30 or so minutes.

It was a tough assignment, but the band got the job done. A good indicator of that is the solid job of merchandise sales Alex, Rachel and to a lesser extent I managed to pull off. Selling over $200 of merchandise to random people who have never heard of u 30 minutes earlier is pretty impressive and a testament to the buzz THP can create.

By the way, I had the absolute best time ever with these guys the past few days. It is really an amazing crew as we all know, and they all have the same goal in mind which is very encouraging. It is not easy what these guys are trying to accomplish, nor should it be, but we should all feel very lucky that we can be along for the ride.

See everyone in Philly

East Coast

2007-07-16T23:16:00.001-07:00

I am back, it was a great summer. As all poker tournaments usually end there was a bit of dissapointment to close everything out. Shane made a great run, but ended up coming in 4th. One key "coinflip" and he probably wins the thing. Razor made an incredible run through the 6000+ WSOP Main Event field and ended in 12th.

WOW

2007-07-15T04:55:00.000-07:00

Shane is at the final table of Bellagio Cup 3 WPT event tomorrow. First prize is 1.36 million, 6th is around 225K (I think). He goes in the final table in 2nd place. Behind Kevil Saul, an online crusher, and ahead of Mike Matasow, Danny Wong and 2 other guys I dont know. Its a tough table, but Shane is hungry and knows what to do in this spot. I will be rooting him on tomorrow starting at 4 PST.

Meanwhile, Rocking Ray Henson is 3rd in chips with 36 left in the Main Event! He had a sick day today, ending with 8.5 million chips (he started with 1.1). Its ridiculous how composed this guy is. He called a turn check-raise and river bet from Scotty Ngyuen with middle pair and it was GOLD BABY!

I gotta go to sleep, but hopefully tomorrow is another succesful day for 2 of the people in poker I root for the hardest.

Man Alive!

2007-07-14T20:13:00.000-07:00

Justin just busted from the Main Event, finishing 83rd out of 6500 runners. It was a simply amazing run by him. He played great and got it in super good at the end. AKs vs Q9o. The action went small blind limps, Justin makes a sizeable raise in the BB and the SB goes in to the tank and finally takes the bait and shoves it in. Justin snap-calls and he is a 68 percent favorite in a huge pot. Justin took home 82,000 dollars for his troubles, not bad when u look back on it.

The good news is Rocking Ray Henson is still cruising along. He is 4th in chips with 70 left. Him winning would be out of this world. I am headed down to sweat him now for the end of the day. First prize is 8 million

Shane Schleger is quietly expertly dominating the Bellagio Cup 3 in the meantime. Shane and I have discussed how an expert always seems to have his coming out party at this tournament and with 18 left, Shane has a real shot. He is second in chips and feeling good. First prize is 1.3 million

Gl to both

Update

2007-07-14T01:34:00.000-07:00

Very short update for now, maybe will write more in the morning. After watching them both for about 11 hours, Justin and Ray are still in the Main Event of the WSOP. 113 remain and average stack is 1.1 million. Ray and Justin both have right about 1.1 million left. They both played great today and I expect the same tomorrow.

JV - Razor (Who we are rooting for)

2007-07-13T07:15:00.000-07:00

I first met Justin Sadauskas in the winter of 2002. We were playing 15-30 or 20-40 limit hold em at foxwoods on some weekend night. Justin was to my left, and we probably played for 12 hours. He was on the end of a trip to Foxwoods with his Chicago crew. Our game was off the hook, and Justin and I shared some friendly chatter along with the rest of the people in the game.

A year or more went by before the next time I chatted with Justin, I sent him a message on a poker forum about the new big thing, online poker. Justin had become a pioneer and I asked him if it was really possible to win, among other newbish questions. He claims to have saved this Message for blackmail situations.

Justin has became over the years a great friend of mine, even though he often is way behind in any argument about life or sports, it is rare that I question his poker knowledge or instinct. I have even admitted that he is "kind of heady", not as heady as his girlfriend who is "super-heady", but I'm pretty sure he was honored by the mention. It's pretty cool how far we have come from those days of grinding 15-30.

Anyways, Justin is still in the Main Event of the World Series. He enters Day 4 with 600K chips. Around 360 remain and the average stack is about 375K. Justin is a great player, and he is completely focused on the task at hand. He needs the relentless support of the east coast crew so he can win one for the good guys.

Justin also is a Heavy Pets fan, and plans to attend the Chicago show.

Ray Henson is also still in with 330K, another friend and amazingly nice person, among other qualities that makes him hard not to like and root for. Him winning the main event would be great for the poker world, just cause there wouldn't be one person who wasn't super pumped for him.

Also Rep Porter has over 1 million chips...

If I forgot anyone, I will mention them later, I need to go to sleep so I can get a full day of sweating in tomorrow

Fantasy Pools

2007-07-12T15:18:00.000-07:00

Here are the stats for the Fantasy WSOP pool we did in the beginning of the WSOP. 1st line is Money won, second is cashes, third is bracelets.

Greg
$1,965,472
25
2
Jesse
$1,498,420
30
1
Ebo
$862,207
21
0
Kyle
$782,889
30
0
Baker
$522,976
18
0

Here are the teams

Ed Moncada - J.C. Tran, Patrick Antonius, Barry Greenstein, Ted Forrest, Kirk Morrison, Joe Tehan, Steve Sung, Joe Cassidy, Danny Wong, Jason Strassa

Jesse Martin - Allen Cunningham, Gavin Smith, Greg Mueller, Nick Shulman, Jeff Madsen, Chad Brown, Scotty Ngyuen, Jordan Morgan, Jarred Hamby, Robert Williamson

David Baker - Eric Lindgren, Johnny Chan, James Van Alstyne, David Singer, Chris Fergueson, Scott Fischman, Jen Harman, David Grey, Paul Wasicka, Lee Markholt

Kyle Wilson - Mike Mizrachi, Nam Le, John Juanda, David Williams, Greg Raymer, Efro, Men The Master, David Pham, Kenna James, Mr Smokey

Greg Mueller - Phill Helmuth, Daniel Negreneau, Roland De Wolfe, Andy Bloch, Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson, Erik Seidel, Gus Hansen, Alex Jacob, David Benyamine

It all comes down to the main event, althought Greg has locked up atleast a tie in bracelets, and Kyle and I are battling for cashes.

Also, JV, Matt, Jimmy and I did a Main Event fantasy draft...here are our teams, better late than never.

Me - Allen Cunningham, Barry Greenstein, Nam Le, Scotty Ngyuen, Alan Goehring, Juanda, Wasicka, Kenny Tran, Antonio Esfandari, Mr. Smokey, Brian Townsend, Eric Lynch, Cliff Josephy, Gabe Thaler, Takeover, Tex Barch, David Singer, Joe Tehan, Steve Sung

JV - Antonius, Erick Seidel, Grinder, Fergueson, Lindgren, Hellmuth, Doyle, Thomas Wahlroos, Shannon Shorr, Scott Clemetns, Jared Hamby, Chris Bell, Freddy Deeb, Sorrel Mizzi, Hoyte Corkins, David Plastick, Ian J, David Willaimds , David Benyamine, Devilfish

Matt - Negreneau, Matasow, William Thorson, Raymer, Shawn Buchanan, Brandon Adams, Thor Hansem, Joe Hachem, David Pham, John Pham, Robert Mizrachi, CMack, Gavin Smith, Joe Sebok, Neverwin, Johnny Lodden, Tad Jurgensen, Michael Woo, Peter Feldman, Darrel Dicken

Jimmy - Ivey, ???Jacob???, JC Tran, FBT, Jen Harmon, Michael Binger, C Brown, Jordan Morgan, Eric Fridberg, Tommy Hang, Shawn and Thomas Keller LOL!, Chip Reese, EFro, Shaniac, Noah Boaken, Theo Tran, Joe Pelton, Dave Baker, Matt Smith

JV FTW

2007-07-12T02:14:00.000-07:00

Well for most of us today wasnt a great day, but luckily Justin Sadauskas is carrying the torch of the crew.

Woodrow and Smaz both had close to 200K but ran in to some bad spots and are both now out.

Justin, has 235K and seems poised to make a run. I think for now I am gonna stick around and see how he does on day 3, but I am definitely ready to get home.

I played the Bellagio Cup 3, nothing really happened and I am out...it was an awful run of cards and there isnt much to say. Shaniac has 45K if u are looking for someone to root for. Also online player BeLoWAbove (Kevin Saul) is an absurd chip leader with like 130K more than second place.

Anyways, thats it for now...besides Justin good luck to Ray Henson, David Wells and John Spahn in the main event, among others

Poker Is Fun For Everyone

2007-07-10T06:27:00.000-07:00

I woke up at 11:00 AM this morning, unsure of what side of the country I would fall asleep on. I could either go back home and catch up with friends and rest up before Heavy Pets tour, or I could stay out here, see who makes a run in the main event and maybe play Bellagios WPT event. After talking to Ryan and Sonny, it didnt seem like there was much waiting for me in NY. Sonny seemed to have it right when he said, "if u can't make it back for Bobby in Central Park, there is no point in coming back during the week".

I jumped online, checked some email, jetblue flights, and NYC's 10-day weather forecast (didn't look too promising). I quickly won 6000 on pokerstars playing 100-200 limit and the idea of playing the WPT Bellagio event that started in the next few days started to make more sense.

I had a bunch of errands to do, including heading over to the Rio to take care of some things. While at the Rio, my buddy Matt Woodward happened to be at the feature table during his day 1 of the main event. The funny thing was that they were at the table because Phil Helmuth was at there table, but Phil didnt show up for over 2 hours. Anyways, Matt should get a lot of TV time and he ended the day with 95,000 chips! GO WOODROW

Back to my day, I arrived back to the Bellagio and decided to check out the tournament room. A 1000 single table was filling up and I decided to play. It turned out to be the absolute WORST single table satelittle I have ever been a part of. We got to the 500-1000 level, without busting one person, this is very possibly a satellite record. Someone commented we all deserved some sort of trophy/ribbon for being in the nittiest sit and go ever, I agreed. Anyways I busted from that after 2 and a half hours, and I was pretty unhappy with my decision to play a 1 table satellite when I could have been grinding cash games.

It was 6:00 when I got back to my room and there was a 10:00 super satellite on the horizon, I was about to lay down for a nap but I decided to jump on the computer first. I lost 4300 before I could blink and now I was up only $600 dollars on the day, I hated poker again, after loving life 3 hours earlier. I decided to take a nap and see how I felt when I woke up.
I woke up at 9 feeling great, as I normally do after naps (I really should nap more), and I headed down to play the Super Satellite. 125 people started, 18 people get a 10K seat. By the bubble I was the far ahead chipleader, I was moving in dark every hand and poker was fun again. I won my seat and will be playing the 10K Bellagio Cup 3, starting Wednesday.

The best part of the day was right after the satellite when I started calling all my friends who had just got done with day 1d of the WSOP Main Event. I had a bunch of good friends all playing today and the updates were almost all spectacular. I am very pumped for them all, and I hope they make me stay out here for another week.

Here are some chip counts :

Justin Sadauskas 98,000
Matt Syzmaszek 97,000
Matt Woodward 95,000

These 3 are some of my best friends in poker, Matt Smaz and I have pretty much mirrored eachothers poker careers since the days of grinding out $15-30 limit hold em, and him making a run would be so sweet (especially cause I have a little sweat piece taboot!)

Even tho I am out of the Main Event, I am still super enegerzined about it cause I have small pieces of TEN left in the field. Most of these guys have above average chips, and all of them have above average talent.

For you guys who check the updates, this is what my dream final table would look like.

Matt Syzmaszek
Matt Woodward
Justin Sadauskas
David Wells (has 39,000)
Steve Giufre (has 48,000, another of my very best friends in poker, played Day 1C)
Kyle Wilson (has 97,000)
Jon Spahn (has 65,000)
Courtney Harrington (has over 100 I think)
Rocking Ray Henson (120,000)
James Gorham (67,000)

Also I have a few friends who i do not have pieces of that I am also rooting for like Evelyn Ng, Carl Olson (top 10 in chips!) and Gavin Griffin to name a few...

Anyways thats enough rambling for 7 AM...moral of the story, there is still life after busting out of the main event.

P.S. has anyone seen or heard from Al "SugarBear" Barbieri? Did he play the Main Event? The answer to this question is pretty important to me, so if u have any info, let me know.

16 Outs Once

2007-07-07T22:50:00.000-07:00

16 outs once, thats what Kido Pham had when he decided to gamble all in on a T962 board with 2 spades for 11,000 more chips. I was holding KcKs, for the lead in the 33,000 pot but the 9 of clubs on the river officially ended my WSOP 2007 and most likely my trip to Las vegas.

Not sure what to write, I am bummed about busting out, but I thought I played fine. Today was not my day I guess. I played very tight in levels 2 and 3 after a level 1 that saw my chip stack yo yo around a bit. My tight image allowed me to make a few steals in the 400-800 round with a 50 ante and I was feeling extremely comfortable when the KK hand came up.

On the bright side Kido seemed like a nice guy, and I wish him luck in the event. He also mentioned earlier than anyone he busts at our first table will be rewarded their money back if he goes on to win the event! (lol)

Also on the bright side is I have a pieces of a bunch of friends still left in the event and I am basically guarenteed to atleast have a sweat of someone who makes it semi deep.

Right now I feel like I am a little numb, I am not super depressed like I am after busting from some events, but I certainly wasnt prepared for this. For whatever reason I thought I would make it thru day 1 one way or another.

See ya next year

2007-07-06T22:59:00.000-07:00

I play day 1B of the World Series Of Poker Main Event starting tomorrow. I will be sure to report at nights end how I stand. I am very excited to get in there and play. I have always felt strong on Day 1 of the WSOP Main Event, making day 2 both times I've played it (and day 3).

Today I spent at the gym, spa, pool with JV and then the rest of it in my room. I have been reading some poker books, hanging with friends who stopped by and even managed to win more than a WSOP Main Event buy-in screwing around playing some online poker.

I should have no excuses this year, and look to play some expert tournament NL hold-em tomorrow. It is a privilege to be able to enter this event each year, and I plan to give it maximum effort. Yet again, and for the forseable future this tournament is the most anticipated, most enjoyable, most hyped and best value of any tournament on poker tour.

At the beginning of my minor tournament successes a couple years ago, my good friend Eric suggested the nickname "Main Event Martin". It certainly hasn't stuck, nor did I hope it to, as it was quite pre-mature. However, if I can make a super deep run in this poker tournament, I might have to admit that Eric has a point when he says "it has a nice ring to it."

wish me luck

23rd

2007-07-02T02:48:00.000-07:00

I just wrote a long post about how I cashed in the 1500 NL for $25,000 and finished 23rd out of 3148, but it all erased and I need to go to bed for the 1000 rebuy. I am pretty dissapointed, but it was a nice run I guess. Greg Mueller, an exceptional player and good friend is at the final table and will probably win. I will write more when I have more time

Day 2 What It Do

2007-07-01T02:44:00.000-07:00

I made day 2 of the 1500 NL. We are already in the money and resume tomorrow with something like 250 players of the initial 3150. My stack is slightly below average but I still have some wiggle room with 23,000. I was extremely pleased with my play today.

My focus was there and I followed my gameplan out all day, I lost 2 coinflips early and was starting to feel sorry for myself, but then I won a nice one and built some chips from there. I also concentrated on learning my opponents today more than I ever have before (besides maybe a few 10K+ events), and although I am still far from expert at it, I think I did a very good job reading my opponents today.

I have my work cut out for me tomorrow, but I definitely have a shot in a relatively soft field, not to mention a nice boost of confidence heading in to the home stretch. I'm gonna try to get some rest.

I

Ray Allen

2007-06-29T22:20:00.000-07:00

The NL 5000 6 Max started off great. I built my initial 10,000 chip stack to 40,000 with relative ease and I really was looking like I had a shot at the first prize of 900,000 dollars+. Unfortunately things did not work out how I imagined. A combination of 1 or 2 poorly played hands, a lack of any cards for a couple levels, and a lack of any imagination from me when I was card dead led to my stack moving from 40K to 26K.

I then ended up in a coinflip with KJo vs TT when my resteal of the cut-off was interefered with by the Big Blind. No K or J and instead of having 55K with 110 people left I am off to the rail. I came home and broke my no internet poker rule and ended up booking a small loss after being up 2000.

Add to all this that the Celtics ended up with a 32 year old shooting guard who has been through multiple knee surgies as there draft pick this year and yesterday could have been better.

Today I woke up at 11:15 and hustled over to the rio by noon. This violates the "Jeffery Lisandro Rule" of waking up exactly 90 minutes before a poker tournament, but I needed the extra sleep. I arrived at my table feeling good, and soon had 7500 chips. I felt as tho I was playing slightly too loose before the antes in previous big field events, and my new plan of lock down poker was working like a charm.

I don't feel like going through the details...but I lost all my chips in the next 3 hours. A slowplayed KK hand was the biggest dent. I was and still am pretty dissapointed in my last 2 tournaments. I am playing ok, but I am not giving myself the absolute best chance to win.

I think the biggest thing I need to work on is learning about my opponents more. I find myself paying off too many river bets lately, I need to be more confident in my reads so that I don't err on the side of caution so often and pay these no names off.

Part of the obstacle with this is that with my ADD tendencies I find it hard to pay attention to the hands I am not involved in sometimes. I know many people have this same problem, but when playing live against no names we are giving up too much value by missing hands our opponents play. The best players are paying much better attention than I am. Although the series is almost over, I am going to do my best to learn as much as I can about the players at my tables over the next 2 weeks.

When I got back to Bellagio today I was itching to play a live game. The 10-20 NL games are pretty boring so I was hoping a 25-50 NL was going with a decent line up, or a 200-400 limit. a 25-50 NL was going, but the catch was there was a $25 ante. This makes the game super big.

I decided to jump in, and try to play super expert. I made some hands and at one point was up $9000. Unfortunately I started to slip down to 6000 and then ran a bluff for another 5K that didnt work out. There is obv much more to the story, but in the end I ended up +2700 or so.

I definitely only played my B game at best, but I did think I understood the changes in strategy when playing a game with such a big ante better than most of my opponents and that probably gave me an edge. I really need to improve my overall NL game, especially my river play, it is far from sharp enough.

The downswing in my session lingered with me and now that I already broke the seal of my "no internet poker"rule last night, I decided to try to win a couple thousand back online. I found some good games and booked a decent win, my recent live game upswing has definitely come at a good time.

As for the Celtics, Ray Allen-Paul Pierce-Al Jefferson and 9 scrubs isnt the worst, but they arent going to win a championship either and it seems like Danny Ainge is now just managing the team to try to save his job more than anything else. It's really a mess, and very sad. Who would have thought 15 years ago that the Patriots would be the class of the NFL, everyone would love the Red Sox owners, yet the Celtics were the laughingstock of the NBA.

For you NBA and/or Bill Simmons fans, this column is a must read if u havent got to it yet.

Update

2007-06-27T16:30:00.000-07:00

Check out this video on Vinnie Vinh

The short story on Vinh is that David Pham used to back him, but then dropped him when he didnt show up for a Final Table at Commerce earlier this year, after playing all day to get there the day before.

Vinh has sinced found other backers (rumored to be Tommy Vu) and this video does a good job of updating his recent progress.

In other news, I stuck around for a while in the $2000 limit hold em tournament. Finally I was knocked out around 80th place of the 473 players that started when my 99 couldnt outrun ATo.

Getting busted from the event turned in to a probable blessing disguise tho, because when I arrived back at Bellagio I jumped right in to a big limit hold em game and by 5:30 A.M. I booked my largest win in a live game ever. I ran pretty hot and was pleased with my play. Money wise the win doesn't do much more than clean up a few of my recent online blow-up sessions, but its nice to have a very positive result.

I woke up at 4 P.M. today, and will probably head over to the gym pretty soon. Tomorrow is the 5K NL 6-max event. There is a ton of skill in this event, and most of the best players in the world will be playing it. I am looking forward to the challenge.

Our Horse Fantasy pool is working out for me so far. With 16 people left, Matt and Ed are drawing dead with no team members left. Shane has Greg Raymer left, but Raymer is a short stack, while I have medium stack Barry Greenstein and top 5 stack David Singer (my pick at this point to win). Hopefully Fossilman goes busto soon.

In other news a prop bet involving Erick Lindgren is the talk of the poker community on NL 5K 6-max eve. Here is the bet outlined by the fine people at wickedchopspoker.blogs.com.............

We got a call from Gavin Smith last night saying that Erick Lindgren accepted a $100,000 prop bet with the following rules :::

::: He had to play four rounds of golf at Bear's Best in one day.

:: He had to walk all four rounds back-to-back-to-back-to-back.

:: He'd be shooting from the pro tees.

:: He had to shoot under 100 on all rounds.

Within 15 minutes, Phil Ivey added another $200k to the bet, and with a few others jumping in since, the total is now close to $350k.

Reports are he finished 2 rounds and shot a 46 through the front 9 on his 3rd round.

Not Leaving Las Vegas

2007-06-24T14:39:00.000-07:00

It has now been 25 days in a row living in Las Vegas, I have been off the strip twice so far. I can't say I am "sick of it" at all really. At this point I feel like I am in some sort of warped reality zone. If there was no end in sight it would be pretty scary, but as it is I am excited for what comes next. Everyday I have woken up out here I have been pumped up for the day that was in front of me. Although the trip has not gone perfect, I think that is enough of an endorsement to label my time out here far from a dissapointment so far.

The latest thing I am energized about is mixed game poker. I went to the Gambler's bookstore out here a few days ago when busting a tournament early. The Gambler's bookstore is the one stop shop for any book u need on gambling. I set out to buy 7 different books for sure, and the store had every title. I am very impressed at the selection these guys continually keep in stock. A Chinese Poker Workbook, Ray Zee's Hi-Lo Split Book and Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas were among my selections. I also bought a few other books with the plan of learning more poker games.

In the Bellagio poker room these days, it seems like the best game in the room most days is the 300-600 "mixed" game. They usually play a mix of Triple Draw, Badugi, Stud 8, Omaha with Razz, Stud and Hold Em making occasional appearances.

As a professional poker player I must learn these games, and I plan to. For a while playing anything but hold em seemed like a waste of time to me, and I think I was right. The games were great and I was still building a bankroll. I am probably a few months to a year behind in making the transition, but I think I have reached the point that I must become a very good mixed game player. I put A LOT of time in to becoming a good hold em player, so the task of learning 4 others games is scary, but hopefully the learning curve will be much faster with my poker experience to date.

Much of this urge to play mixed games for sure comes from the buzz created by the $50,000 HORSE WSOP event that starts today. Somewhere close to 225 runners will try to defeat defending champion Chip Reese and many other of the very very best poker players in the world today. This event has already turned in to a huge poker history making success in its 2nd year, and is highly anticipated by all players out here at the World Series whether they play it or not.

With that in mind, Shane, Matt, Ed and I drafted our "teams" for the HORSE pool. Here is what we came up with, keep in mind that we had no time to prepare for our draft. It was all off the top of our head picking while we ate dinner at Fix. The team that wins the most money in the HORSE event wins. Here are the teams

Shane - Chip Reese, Allen Cunningham, Thomas Wahlroos, Mike Wattel, Greg Raymer, David Oppenheim, Bill Gazes

Matt - Patrick Antonius, David Benyamine, Gus Hansen, Erick Lindgren, John Dagastino, Joe Cassidy, Jeff King

Ed - Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreneau, Greg Mueller, Nick Shulman, Chau Giang, Jen Harman, Kirk Morrison

Jesse - Barry Greenstein, Doyle Brunson, David Singer, Andy Bloch, Chad Brown, Minh Ly, Howard

I think David Oppenheim was the steal of the draft by Shane in the 6th round. I am a little upset I took Doyle over Allen Cunningham. I think Shane also had the worst pick in the draft with Thomas Wahlroos 9th overall.

Notable omissions include Jeffery Lisandro and Ted Forrest. These guy are easily top 28 players in this field IMO. Also people like Cindy Viollete, David Levi and Allen Kessler have great chances of cashing and probably could have been good late round picks.

The HORSE event will suck up much of the excitement in the room this week, but I still plan on playing a few events. My upcoming schedule will look like this, I am not including Day 2 or 3's of events, which would obviously overide a day 1 I was planning on

Sunday (Today) - 5 PM Mixed Limit and No-Limit hold em $1500 (3 day event)
Monday - Day Off
Tuesday - 12 PM Limit Hold em $2000 (3 day event)
Wednesday - Day Off
Thursday - 12 PM No Limit Hold em 6-Max $5000 (3 day event)
Friday - 12 PM No Limit Hold Em $2000 (3 day event)
Saturday - 12 PM No Limit Hold Em $1500 (3 day event)

Writing out that schedule really reenforces how much oppurtunity their is still left in this WSOP. 5 events in the next week and then 3 or 4 more including the Main Event. I am gonna try to give each one 100 percent focus.

Thats it for now, need to call room service

Blah

2007-06-21T18:34:00.000-07:00

In the 3000 limit tournament I thought I played well, but busted at the end of day 1 around 2:30 AM. I promptly went the booth and signed in for the next day's event, the 1500 NL. After my 8 hours of solid sleep I woke up and rushed over the rio in time for the 2500 person tournament.

My first table was ridiculously soft, but I got nothing going. Later I was moved to a tougher table, but managed to build 18,000 chips with some good situations after a few hours. 18,000 was quite a nice stack for that spot in the tournament.

My stack was 3rd biggest at the table when I got involved in a pot with one of the bigger stacks. A tightish player limped UTG, and the big stack limped in late position with 30,000+ chips. It was up to me in the SB and I had AKo. My image was a bit more loose-aggressive than it normally is, and for that reason I briefly considered just completing, but instead chose the pretty standard move of making a pretty big raise.

I made it 3000 total to go. The Big Blind short stack folded, and it was up to the UTG player. He thought for 20 seconds or so and then disgustedly folded his hand. Now, the Big stack player calls the extra 2600 in a shot. My read was he was spite calling this 2600 chips, I put him on a pretty mediocre pre-flop hand, but that could be many hands, including a small pocket pair, suited connectors or random biggish cards.

The flop was T85 rainbow and I bet 4600 in to a 7200 chip pot, leaving me with about 11,000 left. Again my opponent called fast. I really wasnt sure what he had, but I figured that if his hand was super big he might of just raised it there because it looked like I was pretty committed to the pot.

My best guess was he had a hand like 44,66,77 and was calling the flop to slow me down. With this being my best guess, I decided the only logical thing to do is shove any turn card and hope for the best (him folding).

Well, the turn was an 8, making the board T858. I shoved and he called instantly with 86 offsuit.
'
I was more dizzy after this hand then any hand so far this series. I could have done many different things in the hand. First I could have just called pre-flop in the SB, there are many reasons why to do this and why not to do this. I am not going to list all the pro's and con's but for you poker players I assume u already have considered them all.

After the fact I also realized that a flop check, followed by a check-raise or fold if I really hate the spot is possibly expert. It is going to be tough for him to call this power move without a read. Unfortunately I never even considered this move, and im sure thats a leak of mine. We dont get many options in a poker hand, its probably right to explore each one (in this case 2, bet or check) before we make a move.

In the end, my read of the hand was pretty accurate, and if he doesnt spike his 5 outer on the turn, he is going to be in a tough spot faced with basically calling off 18,000 chips with 86o after he flops an 8 vs an opponent showing maximum strength.

In the end im pretty annoyed because I had a nice stack and was in a very good spot in a tournament field that was pretty soft. Our table was also most likely breaking soon, I was just about to ask the tournament directors about that.

Ugh I wish I just completed my small blind one time

Limit 3000

2007-06-20T16:05:00.001-07:00

The limit 3000 event starts at 5 P.M., I am excited to play. It should be a small but somewhat tough field.

Last night a bunch of us went out to the Playboy Club at Palms. It was somewhat dead, but I had a lot of fun. Some great pictures were taken, hopefully I can figure out how to get them posted up on here. As the great Jordan Goldberg is famous for saying "Decent blog, need some pics tho".

I forget some details for my WSOP fun facts report, but hopefully I will be able to figure it out at some point and revive that popular feature.

Mid WSOP blues

2007-06-19T22:04:00.001-07:00

Well its around the midway point of the World Series Of Poker andI have hit somewhat of a wall. I have had very little success in the events the past week, and my online winstreak has come to an end. I am officially "stuck" for the series again.

I am still up in cash games overall for a decent number, but less than I was 48 hours ago, yet my tournament total is now $-28,000.

I can't think of much else to write. I could dig in to all the reasons why I am not having a super succesful series to date, but in the end it all comes down to the same reasons why I sometimes have these downswings in poker.

All I can do from here on out is try to pick up the pieces and set some goals for the rest of the series. I will hopefully refer back to this list for the rest of the summer. As long as I follow my goals and schedule I won't be too upset with myself at the end if I continue to have a mediocre series. Most of these things were the same goals and ideas I set for myself before the series started, but which I might have lost track of at some point.

Goal #1 - Make the tournaments the focus of my schedule

A lot goes in to playing these tournaments and its possible I havent given them enough respect. The cash games out here are tempting, and if a game is great I guess I can make an exception, but overall I think I have to make a decision every day what I am here for. As of now I am deciding that I am here to play poker tournaments, I have the rest of the year to be a cash game grinder.

Goal #2 - Have Some More Fun

I haven't been drunk since I have been out here, I havent really seen any friends but one or two outside of a poker room. This needs to change a little.

The problem is that I really still enjoy poker, and enjoy the Bellagio Spa. I have been mostly playing poker and going the gym, I can stay pretty happy just doing these things, yet for overall mental health reasons I could use some other activities mixed in.

Goal #3 - No More Online Poker (this is gonna be tough)

When I came out here, I told myself that I wouldnt play any online poker during the trip. This lasted for about 2 days. I started playing one night when I was bored and I started winning right away. I ended up running up a lot, but now I have lost the majority back. I am still up a bit so before I really regret my decision to play out here, I am gonna stop.

I will write more later...

Goal #4 Do some errands.

I need sunglasses, warm-up pants, a hat, a variety of other new clothing and several poker books I have been meaning to buy. I havent done any of these things tho.

Plan out my schedule and stick to it...this will come in my next blog. I will try to map out the rest of my WSOP

Tourneys Bad, Cash Games good

2007-06-16T15:33:00.000-07:00

I have hit a bit of a rut in tourneys. In the beginning of the series I was making every dinner break with chips and felt in a groove. I have now busted out of 3 tourneys in a row very early.

I would like to attribute this all to variance. I seem to be running in to great hands when I have very good hands, but I am definitely not playing my very best game. When u don't play your best, you open yourself up to variance much more often.

The good news is that I have been doing well in cash games for the trip, both online and live. I had one very nice win live where I jumped from 10-20 NL, to 25-50 NL, to 200-400 limit back to 10-20 NL etc. I was always jumping into good games and felt on top of everything (and ran pretty well.)

Last night I actually played in a great 400-800 limit hold em game, which is the biggest I have ever played. I ended up losing 1000 dollars but I know I was a nice favorite in the game and was happy to stay afloat when I didnt get a ton of cards. During the game I won a 14,000 dollar pot when my quad Ten's beat my opponents flopped broadway straight. So much for not getting cards I guess.

I am headed to the gym now and will probably play cash games later. Tomorrow is the 3000 NL tourney and I hope to refocus my tournament game and make a little run in that.

Another Day Another Tourney

2007-06-12T11:14:00.000-07:00

Out of the limit event, didnt cash. Some good friends did tho.

I am headed over the Rio to play the 1500 shooutout event. I think we only play one table today regardless of how well we do, so that should give me some much needed Pool/Gym/Shopping and possibly massage time later in the day. My record in shootouts has been decent so I expect to play well and have a shot at this one.

Online Video Games

2007-06-11T13:20:00.000-07:00

Usually I dont like to post about online poker very much because it isnt really that interesting. Also, now that my parents read this blog I don't want to sound like too much of a degenerate. That being said, I have been updating my poker playing since I have been out here and this snippet is part of the experience of living in a hotel room for a month and playing the WSOP.

I woke up this morning at noon, my tournament wouldnt start until 3. I had the chance to make some phone calls, check my stocks, email etc. After I made all my calls I still had 2 hours before the event started. Since I will be hopefully playing limit hold em all day I decided to "practice" a bit at 100-200 online on PokerStars.

Well, as the story often goes when u start a poker session against world class players when u havent havent had breakfast or changed out of your underwear I was stuck $6000 before I could blink. Before it got worse I decided to make the disciplined decision to quit my games (I was 2 tabling) and get on with the day.

I am up a little bit online for the trip, and I was prepared to take the loss in stride as a professional poker player must do all the time. I went to check my email one more time, and somehow during that time of reading a note from my buddy and looking at some pictures my dad sent me of my grandmother, I started to check the NL games on pokerstars.

I ended up sitting by myself in the 25-50 NL game with $5000. Before I knew it a short stack sat with me. He had 2200 and we played heads up. After about 10 hands, another player sat. I recognized this guy, and he is probably an expert short handed NL player.

Before I had the chance to quit the game, his Big Blind was posted and I was dealt KhKd on the button. Obv, I opened for $150. The small blind short stack folded and the BB made it $600 to go, he started the hand with $5000. I was left with a decision. I could reraise and hoped that he liked his hand enough to get it all-in right here, or I could trap him by just calling the additional $450.

I think I made the correct decision in calling the $450 and hoping to get his whole stack post flop. I am sure when I called the additional $450 he wasnt able to narrow down my range very much at all, especially because we have rarely if ever played together before. This would make it tough on him post flop to figure out where he stands. The flop was a good looking J-7-3 with 2 hearts. My opponent led for $900.

Now I had my 2nd decision point in the hand. I could raise and hoped that he had enough (but not too much) that he would go with his hand now, or I could call, trying to look weak and hope he decides there is a good enough chance that I have a draw, weak pair or am on a float.

I decided to call the $900. Maybe this was the wrong decision, but when the 6 of clubs rolled off on the turn, my opponent committed himself with his AJo, (I had TOP-TOP!) and I scooped a $10,025 pot.

Luckily my opponent didnt reload, and my shortstack opponent quit also so I didnt have to worry about hitting and running.

Now I am officially warmed up. Time to get some food, and wash up before I head to the rio for the event.

Long day at the Rio

2007-06-11T12:03:00.000-07:00

I just wrote my longest post but it got erased because I wasnt logged on in my hotel. Kind of brutal.

Here is the short of it. I am out of NL 1500 after running, 35,000 to 80,000 on day 2 before losing a coinflip that woulda put me in GREAT shape. I cashed for $8500

I am now in the Limit Hold Em 5,000 event, day 2. 112 are left of the original 257. I am slightly below average, but at a good table and in good shape.

Jesse Martin WSOP Fun Facts

Tournaments Entered : 9
Dinner Breaks : 7
Double Up Before Bust : 7
Cashes : 2 (One pending)
Bracelets : 0 (One pending)

Also congrats to Allen Cunningham for winning a bracelet and turning my fantasy squad in to an early front runner to win some loot. Allen is a great guy, and he is very possibly the best tournament player in the world.

Go Woodrow

2nd cash

2007-06-10T02:51:00.001-07:00

I am on to day 2 in the 1500 NL event that started today at noon. I built my stack up early from 3K to 15K and then went all the way back down to 3K, possibly playing too loose. I was pretty upset because I loved my table and thought I was going to make a run for sure when I had 15. Well...eventually I got back to 15 and then made a quick rush up all the way to 60K before we got in the money.

I paid off a 5K river bet that I probably shouldnt have and then hit a couple more bad spots the rest of the night, yet I still have 35,000 going in to tomorrow. 161 people are left, we are already far in to the money (270 cashed). First place is over 600K. The blinds are big which doesnt give us much play, but this is a spot I am familiar with so if a few things go my way I have a chance.

I am going to miss the 5K Limit Hold Em Championship event tomorrow. Its always a tough field but a very fun event with a lot of play. Good luck to the many limit hold em experts I know, im sure someone I know will definitely make a run, hopefully its someone I have a small piece of!

Im waiting for my Mixed Green Salad and Lobster Quesdilla and then I am going to do my best to sleep for a solid 8 hours.

Also, a few people have asked me the best spot to find live updates on the WSOP during the day. I am pretty sure BluffMagazine is the most up to date on their website.

OK GN

Update

2007-06-09T04:09:00.000-07:00

I played the 1500 NL 6 Max and the 5K Pot Limit the past 2 days...the 1500 was an amazing tourney with some pretty awful and scared players. It was a good spot but I ended up busting around 200th out of 1300...I have some stories from that tourney that maybe I will recap when I have more time.

The 5000 Pot Limit was a tough event, I busted after 4 hours despite having 10,000 chips to start. The funny thing is I thought I played as well in that event as any I have played, I made some nice folds, but could never get a good spot to win some chips.

Tonight I played $200-$400 limit hold em. Its a big game, but I felt comfortable and booked a small win after being down for most of the session. I had a great time playing and will most likely play a lot more this trip, the group of people who play are all fun to play with and the action is pretty decent.

Next to us in the big room Brian Townsend (sbrugby, aba etc.) played 1000-2000 PLO/NLH with Johny Chan and David Benyamine. From what I gathered Brian busted them both in one huge PLO pot. Brian supposedly has won 2.5 million in the past 2 days. Check out his blog on CardRunners.com, it will make u super jealous, but its incredible. He is becoming a legend in the poker world in record time, a 26 year old who was playing small stakes sit and go's 20 months ago or so.

1500 NL tomorrow. Need to get some sleep

2000 NL

2007-06-07T01:30:00.000-07:00

I am out of the 2000 NL, I never got my stack above 10K but was still around with 230 left of the 1500 person field. The highlight of the day was playing with Brandi Hawbaker and all that comes along with that. Maybe I will write more about it later, but probably not.

Good friends Shane Schelger and Jordan Morgan are both still around in their respective tournaments. Shane will be at the televised ESPN final table tomorrow with 9 left. The story of the broadcast will certainly be the reunion of Michael Gracz and Shane's shared TV final table in the same event in 2005. Amir Vahedi is chip leader....Shaniac ftw

Jordan was top 3 in chips in the Omaha event with about 16 left when I left the Rio at 1 A.M.

All the luck in the world to both tomorrow.

Thats about it...I'm playing the 1500 shorthanded NL tomorrow along with watching my 2 roommates from April win bracelets.

Jesse Martin 2007 WSOP fun facts

Tournaments played : 5
Dinner Breaks : 4
Cashes : 1
Double Up Before Bust : 80 percent

12th

2007-06-06T01:09:00.000-07:00

Well I finished 12th for $11,500. I am pretty dissapointed, but I guess it was a good run. I am definitely a better overall poker player today than I was yesterday, so atleast I can take that from it.

First Cash

2007-06-05T03:10:00.000-07:00

I made the money in the $1500 Limit Hold Em event. I ended the 14 hour day with 42,000 chips. Average stack is 30,000, and we return with 90 players tomorrow at 2 P.M. Unfortunately now I have to miss the 1000 rebuy NL Hold Em event which begins tomorrow, possibly my favorite event of the whole series, but obviously I am very happy to play a day 2 of a WSOP event. Hopefully I continue to run good tomorrow.

Long Day - Fantasy Poker Pools

2007-06-04T09:29:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was a long day, it was a good day too, but in the end went to bed feeling a little empty. Going in to the day a good friend, Greg "FBT" Mueller was 3rd in chips at the final table of the 5K mixed event.

There arent many people in the poker world that I root for harder than Greg. He has consistently been an ally in the poker world since the days of grinding the 20-40 limit hold em at Commerce Casino in Febuary of 2003.

Some people over the years have praised my ability to build a bankroll the proper way, avoid tilt for the most part and consistently grind. Well Greg does all those things also, but better than all but a possible select few in the world. While many of the super stars of the past 5 years moved up to0 quickly, jumped on the tournament trail too fast, or blew themselves in the pit, Greg consistently grinded away. He concentrated on game selection, improving his skill, and always with the big picture in mind. He learned all the games and now has put himself in a spot where he is the superstar, with the means to play pretty much anything he wants.

I played the 1500 PLH event with an eye on Greg's final table leaderboard throughout the day. When I busted around 120th, (75 got paid) I was dissapointed to loose my coinflip to make me healthy again in the event but looking forward to my consolation prize of hopefully sweating FBT in to his first bracelet.

Alas, it wasnt to be. After battling for about 2 hours with Mr. Smokey to a draw, the blinds got to a point where one good run of cards was gonna take it. Unfortunately Greg was on the wrong side of the run and he will have to wait a bit longer for the hardware.

Greg played an expert tournament and cashed for $350,000, the event will air on ESPN July 10th.

Fantasy Poker

At dinner break tonight, 5 of us did a fantasy WSOP draft. We are using 3 categories. "Most Cashes", "Most Bracelets", "Most total money won"..each category is weighted equally with its own prize pool.

Here are the teams, feel free to vote for which u think is best.

Ed Moncada - J.C. Tran, Patrick Antonius, Barry Greenstein, Ted Forrest, Kirk Morrison, Joe Tehan, Steve Sung, Joe Cassidy, Danny Wong, Jason Strassa

Jesse Martin - Allen Cunningham, Gavin Smith, Greg Mueller, Nick Shulman, Jeff Madsen, Chad Brown, Scotty Ngyuen, Jordan Morgan, Jarred Hamby, Robert Williamson

David Baker - Eric Lindgren, Johnny Chan, James Van Alstyne, David Singer, Chris Fergueson, Scott Fischman, Jen Harman, David Grey, Paul Wasicka, Lee Markholt

Kyle Wilson - Mike Mizrachi, Nam Le, John Juanda, David Williams, Greg Raymer, Efro, Men The Master, David Pham, Kenna James, Mr Smokey

Greg Mueller - Phill Helmuth, Daniel Negreneau, Roland De Wolfe, Andy Bloch, Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson, Erik Seidel, Gus Hansen, Alex Jacob, David Benyamine

WSOP 07

2007-06-03T08:23:00.000-07:00

I need to go back to sleep, but I thought I would post a quick update blog.

I am out in Vegas, staying at Bellagio. The World Series of Poker started yesterday right down the street at Rio, and I plan to play a ton of events before the summer is over.

So far I have played the 5K Mixed Hold Event and the 1500 NL.

The mixed hold em was an AMAZING event, with a perfect structure for me. Unfortunately I couldn't get it going and busted 5 or 6 hours in.

In the 1500 NL I had a little more success building up a stack. At one point I had about 13,000, but I ended up busting at midnight about 60 people before the money.

Today is the 1500 PL event, and I also plan to play a ton of cash games sprinkled in.

BTW for those who arent up to date, I did pretty well in a Bellagio pre-lim event last month...here's the link

http://www.cardplayer.com/players/videos/Jesse_Martin/10765

Poker

2007-04-07T13:32:00.000-07:00

http://www.pokertube.com/Films.aspx?UserID=690

This is a good series of cash game hands from a show filmed in Australia.

I am headed to the Bellagio on April 11th and for now plan to blog about the trip.

Kurt Cobain

2007-03-26T22:05:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM1ZVC2Lkjc

Pretty amazing performance

Link to Wikipedia site about the original song -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Did_You_Sleep_Last_Night

Other Stuff

2006-12-22T20:58:00.000-08:00

The Doors were unusual among rock groups because they did not use a bass guitar in concert. Instead, Manzarek played the bass lines with his left hand on the newly invented Fender Rhodes bass keyboard, an offshoot of the well-known Fender Rhodes electric piano, and keyboards with his right hand

- Wikipedia

Kids In The Hall - Until Proven Guilty

The Phish message board that I frequent did a top 100 poll of best albums of 2006...here is the top 20 FWIW

19. The Hold Steady - Boys & Girls In America
18. Lupe Fiasco - Food & Liquor
17. Tom Waits - Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, & Bastards
16. Hot Chip - The Warning
15. Joanna Newsom - Ys
14. Built To Spill - You In Reverse
13. Nas - Hip-Hop Is Dead
12. Beck - The Information
11. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
10. Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
9. The Flaming Lips - At War With The Mystics
8. The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers
7. Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
6. Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere
5. Yo La Tengo - I'm Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass
4. Bob Dylan - Modern Times
3. Thom Yorke - The Eraser
2. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
1. TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain

You Tube

2006-12-22T20:40:00.000-08:00

Kids In The Hall - The Eradicator

Kids In The Hall - Running Faggot

Kids In The Hall - The Doors

Mr. Show - Lie Detector

Playoffs!

2006-12-11T22:19:00.000-08:00

I am on 2 soccer teams over at Chelsea Piers, one in Division 1 and one in Division 2. This is my first year on both teams, and amazingly both teams made the playoffs. It has been a wild ride in both leagues and our playoff berths came down to the wire. Out of more than 60 teams that started off in each division we have advanced to the final 16 in both. Playoffs are a single elimination tournament.

Tonight was my first game. Our division 1 team the Equinunk Warriors, only went 6-4 this year, but we snuck in to the playoffs from a mediocre league. Amazingly we won 19-10 tonight, and advance to the "Elite Eight" on Thursday night at 7 PM. We should have our work cut out for us in that round as we most likely will face Melmac United, a tough team that went 9-1 in the reular season.

Tomorrow night, my division 2 team the BallStars play at 9PM. I have a lot of confidence in our squad in this league. We came on strong at the end of the year. Our goalie can't make the first round though which could really hurt us. Unlike Equinunk where we are underdogs and rely on our defense and hustle to scrap wins, the BallStars have as good a shot as anyone at making a run at the title.

If BallStars win then I will end up playing back to back games in the second round on Thursday night. The playoff brackets should be linked the morning after each game, so anyone who is a Chelsea Piers soccer fan should bookmark those pages!

In other playoff news, my squad "So Many Roads" in my fantasy football league, that I do with a bunch of my best friends in the world clinched a final 4 berth this week with the weeks high score. I am planning on riding Steven Jackson, Torry Holt, Rudi Johnson and company to a championship this year.

Updates will come

Apparently...

2006-12-08T22:07:00.000-08:00

It's J.C. Tran's World, we are all just living in it. He snapped off yet another pre-lim event. Congrats to J.C. and all his loyal fans

Why I hate Matt Maroon's online persona

2006-12-06T16:11:00.000-08:00

Matt Maroon's blog on December 6th titled PokerStars and Retards has hit a new low. Its such a disgusting entry and exactly what poker professionals SHOULD NOT be writing. Now I admit that he has done a good job cultivating a blog audience with this awful drivel he comes out with from week to week, but as has been proven in many forms of American Culture, just cause the idiot masses enjoy it doesnt mean it is any good. I am not sure if he is completely selling out to make a name for himself in the poker world, or as I suspect he really is this miserable and unlikeable, either way this stuff is garbage.

His recent post about calling out "retards" for playing bad is awful on so many levels. He is encouraging his reading audience (for the most part a miserable crew who share the same negative attitude, and curmudgeon-like attitude on the world as Maroon) to not only act like assholes and make this world a worse place, but also to make fun of people for playing poker poorly. Neither of these things do anything to help poker progress or even stay stagnant. I really wonder how someone like Maroon, who is presumably pretty intelligent (just ask him) can produce garbage like this. His entry is clearly a mediocre attempt at humor (although they also seem to be his true feelings), but just saying "retard" a bunch of times does not make you Howard Stern.

Im not sure what drove me to make this entry, but I decided to open up his blog like a do once a week or so, and I needed to get this off my chest. I have a number of good friends that vouch for Maroon in real life. These are all good people whose opinion I trust and respect. This is probably why it is so puzzling to me why Maroon continually spreads bad vibes and ideas through the poker world. I give him credit that he has built up a blog audience and a name for himself in the poker world for being the "bad boy of blogging". Having a succesful blog is no small feat (by the way this is certainly not a goal of mine, but I do respect the quest.) Its just too bad that Maroon has to act like a social retard while doing so.

Poker Content / Concussion

2006-12-03T17:51:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning I played touch football with a group of friends on the East River, early on I was injured. The injury and aftermath is documented here
I spent Saturday afternoon with a slight headache watching some great College Football games and Syracuse Basketball with a friend of mine. Afternoon slowly turned in to night and my buddy left around 10 PM to do whatever it is non-mild-concussed people do on a beautiful Saturday night in New York City. It was around this time that I decided to make the aforementioned post on a poker and Phish message board and research a bit more on my injury. After consulting with my mother and lurkers of many message boards, I was confident enough that I probably was fine and didnt need to go to the Hospital. My plan was to stay up for another few hours, watch a movie, surf the internet etc.

I hadnt played poker all day. I put in a lot of hours during the week, so I was using Saturday as a much needed day off from poker. My headache so far had further disauded me from jumping in and screwing around for a few hands, which is normally standard for a "day off from poker".

I was pretty bored though and was still reading up on mild-concussions on the computer. I decided to pull up Full Tilt in hopes of sweating a couple big games that I assumed would be running. I cant remember what real big games were running, but I had found Full Tilt Pro Roland de Wolfe playing Heads Up 100-200 limit hold em vs a tough opponent and also sitting in a 100-200 6 Max table playing Heads Up vs a guy I had never played with before.

For the first time all day I started to have the very familiar itch to play poker.

Roland, has had an amazing run at NL tournaments over the past year or two. By all accounts he is a great NL tourney player and probably a great NL player in general. Despite his tournament resume, my guess was that he might not be a great shorthanded limit hold em player on the internet, especially while also paying attention to another HU limit table and who knows what else.

I decided to sit down. My first hand in the bigblind I was dealt 85 offsuit and folded to the 3rd player Reshos' button raise. Once that hand was over Resoh quit and left me heads up with Roland. I was stuck 100 bucks now, so obv quitting wasnt an option.

We played 21 more hands over the next 7 minutes before Roland quit. I wrote up my recap of the hands mostly for entertainment value, but I do believe there was some interesting stuff.

Our complete heads up match unfolded as follows...

Hand #1 of HU

Me ($3900)
Roland ($5,034)

I raise 3c Qh on button, Roland calls...Roland check-folds A77 rainbow flop

Hand #2

PRE-FLOP : Roland Raises the button, I just call in the BB with [Ts Ad]

FLOP : [As 4c 2s] I check-call

TURN : [As 4c 2s] [6s] I check-raise, Roland 3-bets, I call

River : [As 4c 2s 6s] [9s] I bet and Roland folds.

Hand #3

I raise KK on the button and Roland folds

Hand #4

PRE-FLOP : I defend my BB with [9c Td]

FLOP : [5s 8d 7d] I check-call

TURN : [5s 8d 7d] [8h] I check-call

River is a 4, we both check and Rolands J5o wins.

(Right or wrong, I Played hand #4 passive because I had won the first 3 and figured he was gonna try his best to win this pot)

Hand #5

PRE-FLOP : I raise [As 3s] on the button, Roland defends

FLOP : [3d 7d 8c] I get checkraised and I call.

TURN : [3d 7d 8c] [Ts] Roland bets I call

RIVER : [3d 7d 8c Ts] [Kh] Roland bets I call, he shows 65 offsuit and I win.

Hand #6

PRE-FLOP : I defend my BB with [3h 5s]

FLOP : [6h 5c Td] I check-call

TURN : [6h 5c Td] [Jh] I bet and call Rolands Raise

RIVER : [6h 5c Td Jh] [5d] I check planning to raise and Roland checks behind with Kh8h

Hand #7

PRE-FLOP : I raise J3o, Roland calls in BB

FLOP : [Kc 9h 5d] Roland leads and I fold

Hand #8

Roland open folds his Button, I had K2

Hand #9

I raise 33 on the button. Roland defends and check-folds a QJ5 two-toned flop

Hand #10

PRE-FLOP : I defend my BB with 5c3c

FLOP : 2h As 5h, I check-raise and get called

TURN : 2h As 5h [Qs]....I check and call

RIVER : 2h As 5h Qs [Ac]....check-check and I beat his Jack High [3s Jd]

Hand #11

PRE-FLOP : I raise 63s, Roland 3-bets from the BB and I call

FLOP : [3h Ah 7c] Roland bets I call

TURN : [3h Ah 7c] [Ac] Roland bets I call

RIVER : [3h Ah 7c Ac] [5d] check-check and Rolands Fullhouse 5s Ad wins

Hand #12

PRE-FLOP : I defned my BB with [Kc Qd]

FLOP : [Ac Tc 4c] I check, he checks

TURN : Ac Tc 4c [6c] check-check again

RIVER : [Ac Tc 4c 6c] [8d] I bet, he folds

Hand #13

PRE-FLOP : I raise [As 6d] on button, Roland defends

FLOP : [4h Th Jh] Roland leads and I call

TURN : [4h Th Jh] [Jd] Roland leads and I call

RIVER : [4h Th Jh Jd] [2c] Roland checks and I check, he has (6h Kc)...I may have missed a value bet here

Hand #14

PRE-FLOP : I defend my BB with [Th Qs]

FLOP : [2s 7d 5d] I check-call

TURN : [2s 7d 5d] [5c] I check-fold...this was possibly poorly played, but a combination of not having much of a hand and also picking up something small on his betting speed, not wanting to give him momemtum and also obv being a pusse led me to take this line here.

Hand #15

PRE-FLOP : I raise [5h Kd], Roland defends

FLOP : [2d Td Ts]...I get check-raised and call

TURN : 2d Td Ts [Kh]...I call Rolands bet

RIVER : 2d Td Ts Kh [4d]...I call Rolands bet and beat his [2s 9s]

Hand #16

ME $7,345.50
Roland $1,582

PRE-FLOP : I defend my BB with AsTs

FLOP : [4s 8c 3s] I check-raise and Roland calls.

TURN : [4s 8c 3s] [2s] I lead and 3-bet when Roland raises me...roland folds (sigh)

Hand #17

ME $8,145
Roland $782

PRE-FLOP : I raise the button with AhTh and cap when rolland 3-bets me from the BB

The rest of the money goes in post flop and I lose to [Kd 9s]

Hand #18

Roland raises the button and I fold [2c Ts]

Hand #19

I raise 9h 4c on the button, roland defends and folds to my bet on a A39 two-toned board

Hand #20

PRE-FLOP : Roland raises and I defend with [Qh Th]

FLOP : 3c 6d 7d...I check-call

TURN : 3c 6d 7d [8s] I check-call

RIVER : 3c 6d 7d 8s [Kd] check-check and my queen high beats his [Js 9h]

Hand #21

ME $7,962
Roland $963.50

PRE-FLOP : I raise 9s 7h, Roland 3-bets and I call

FLOP : Ah 9h 4c...I call Rolands bet

TURN : Ah 9h 4c [6c]...Roland checks and calls my bet

RIVER: Ah 9h 4c 6c [3d]...Roland checks and calls my bet. His K8 offsuit loses.

After this hand Roland left the table.

I won $4600 in 7 minutes...now I just had to get through a night of sleep without falling in to a coma and it wouldnt be such a bad Saturday.

NFL Week 13 UnderDogs

2006-12-03T09:01:00.000-08:00

I put in some small bets on Underdogs this week. I think they all have value, If u are looking for a bigger play I would go with Buffalo or San Fran. Tampa Bay and Tennessee are just value picks where I think the line should be slightly lower.

BUFFALO +6 (-105) vs San Diego
San Francisco +7 (-107) vs NEW ORLEANS
TENNESSEE + 7.5 (-107) vs Indy
Tampa Bay +7 (+103) @ PITTSBURG

Want to post this now, just in case anyone is scrambling for ideas...will give a few reasons later

NFL Bet

2006-12-01T09:15:00.000-08:00

San Francisco (+7) @ New Orleans

I like San Fran to keep it within 7 vs New Orleans. The 49ers are still playing for something in this game and have been playing well for a number of weeks now. Public is still in love with New Orleans and are betting that side of the line at a 2 to 1 clip. Frank Gore is a monster, despite me trading him a few weeks ago in both my fantasy leagues (for Torry Holt in one and Peyton Manning in the other, so not too bad).

I am looking at some other games, but this one really jumped out at me.

2006-11-27T05:44:00.000-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061126/ap_on_he_me/be_happy

Thought I would pass along this article. Seems to have some value.

Soccer

2006-11-21T22:10:00.000-08:00

This is an EMail I sent to all the guys on my Tuesday soccer team. A funny thing to keep in mind while reading is that I met all of these people 2 months ago and they have all know eachother for years, so they might think I am a little psycho to be this excited about our mens league soccer teams playoff chances. A lot of them seem to be as into as me though, so its probably fine. I showed up for our game tonight but we won by forfeit, I missed the email so was there with no game to play.

Whats up guys,

Some good news to kick off the holiday weekend...I ended up going to the field tonight, scrimmaged for the hour of our game and then decided to stick around for the first few minutes and watch Salvatore Ferragamo play Rebels. We needed Salvatore to win to allow us to control our own destiny for a playoff spot. Well I got sucked into what ended up being a really good game. Both teams were playing very tough and very good soccer. Salvatore ended up winning by 2 goals late (despite a red card), which is huge for our playoff bid.

Now we are alone in 2nd place in our 8 team league with 18 points and 1 game to go. (Moody has 24, Rebels has 16, Clippers have 15 and Salvatore has 14) If we beat Foreign Legion next week we are in the playoffs (only 2 teams are guarenteed from our league)

Now for the minor bad news...I also caught the end of Foreign Legions game and they looked a lot tougher than I had remembered, seems like maybe they have all their players now and looked pretty decent beating whoever they played. (Obviously we can and will still beat them).
Anyways figured I would pass this news along, hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving...

Jesse

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving...

Line Move

2006-11-19T09:18:00.000-08:00

Cleveland moved to -4 on mansion...I like

NFL Week 11

2006-11-18T21:18:00.000-08:00

I bet 2 games this week on Mansion. I like them both a decent amount. Here they are

CLEVELAND vs Pittsburg+3.5 (+102) - Especially with no vig here I like this a good amount. Cleveland is a scrappy team with good coaches and they have a good chance to win this game. Pittsburg is not this much better than Cleveland to deserve being more than a field goal favorite on the road.

MIAMI vs Minnesota -3 (-106) - I like the value here. 2 teams going in different directions. Miami did the same thing last year coming on strong in the second half of the season with a lot of covers. Minnesota is going in the wrong direction.

I may try to write more later, but I am writing this at a friends house just to try to get this in.

BTW, Denver looks decent too but I really dont think I can bet against LT 2 weeks in a row

I love the fall in the North East (NFL WEEK 11)

2006-11-16T10:36:00.000-08:00

Last week my NFL picks were a bit of disaster going only 1-2. Coming off a great first week of posting NFL picks I felt obligated to catch lightning in the bottle again. I felt ok about my picks, but I guess I didnt have the same feel as I did the week before.

This week could be even worse because I didnt even get to watch the NFL this past weekend. I was at Foxwoods playing the 10K Main Event. I lasted kind of far into the marathon Day 1, but alas lost 2 coinflips and was BUSTO. Not too much interesting happened in the tournament. I played one semi-interesting hand vs Matt Mattros that I could write about at a later date. I thought the tournament structure was pretty horrible. 75 minute levels in a 10K event is ridiculous especially when u are skipping levels left and right. 20K starting chips seems to be all the rage right now, but it is really just a mirage when the structure ends up like it did at Foxwoods. For the most part the staff is miserable to deal with there also. No wonder I live 2 hours away from Foxwoods but only go there once a year.

Now I am back in NYC enjoying the ridiculously good weather we continue to get. My life pretty much now revolves around playing sports and I love it. It feels like high school again. I am on 2 soccer teams at Chelsea Piers and also have started a ritual of Saturday Morning-Afteroon touch football with my friends here. The soccer teams are in competive leagues and the football is incredibly fun.

THe Tuesday night soccer teams record is at 5 wins 3 losses after a gritty 4-3 win this week that I scored 2 goals in. We play in an 8 team league and 2 make the playoffs (In the playoffs u combine with all the other Division one teams from other nights). We are in some trouble though as the 1st team is 8-0 and then the team in second is 5-2-1. They (The Sinners) are gonna have to lose or tie one of there last 2 games. to give us a shot.

The second team I am on plays in Division 2 which is a less talented league. Our team has really come together in this league. We are 6-2 and control our own destiny to make the playoffs. I have become one of the stars of the team which has been a lot of fun. Tonight we play "12 Angry Men", a team that has been real hot as of late after starting slow. Its going to be a very tough game. The game starts at 11 PM which I think helps me a lot because I can adjust my sleeping schedule to be ready for the game and I am used to being up late on weekdays. I hope to have a huge game and carry the team to a win.

If u live in NYC and want to get involved in team sports they have everything at Chelsea Piers, it is really amazing. Check out the site. Also for any big fans of semi competitive adult soccer teams/players, if u navigate around u can find the standings for my soccer league. I play on Equinox Warriors Division 1 on Tuesdays and BallStars Division 2 on Thursdays.

http://chelseapiers.com/

As for the football, well if u dont play touch football every Saturday morning with your friends u are really missing out. I look back at the last 2 years and cant believe we didnt do this the whole time I have been in NY. Everyone looks forward to it all week. The games are a perfect mix of competive, but not too competive. Last week my buddy Andrew and I were paired on the same team and we made a pretty ridiculous QB-WR tandem. I would venture to say it was my best performance playing football ever as I pretty much caught every ball thrown my way all day, and put up some monster fantasy numbers.

One last thing that I have recently really been into is Sirius Radio, especially Howard Stern. I have a subscription now and can listen to all of Sirius radios channels on the internet. The Stern show is better than ever, and it is amazing to listen to while playing poker online. Everyone on the show is so fun to listen to, so real. Also with Sirius now u can listen to the show all day instead of having to wake up at 6 if u want to hear the whole show. The guests they get on are amazing and Howard is a brilliant talent. I suggest Sirius to anyone, probably a great holiday season gift for the right person also.

NFL

For now I dont have any real picks. The games I have narrowed it down to are...

Cinci +3
Cleveland +3
Miami -3
Jets +7
Denver -2.5

I am gonna try to do some real study at some point and get 2 or 3 picks that I feel great about. If I post something later its gonna be solid

NFL Week 10

2006-11-08T13:51:00.000-08:00

OK here is what I have taken so far. I might add some things later. I feel pretty good about what I have going at this point.

All the lines are from Mansion. Some are changing fast

(Home team in CAPS)

BENGALS (+1.5) over San Diego

Line opened at 1, obviously the half point isnt a huge deal but its a nice bonus and shows that the public is on San Diego. I dont see why Cinci cant win this game at home. They have played a tough schedule and this year so 4-4 isnt that terrible of a record and this is the make or break game of their season. I see Cinci scoring some points and winning this game to stay alive in the AFC race.

STEELERS (-4) over New Orleans

New Orleans seems to be going the wrong way, and as I have mentioned Pittsburg has not quit yet. They have too much pride and a great coach. Most smart people I know like Pittsburg, but the public (read : dumb people) is still in love with the Saints, driving the opening line from 5 to 4. I would like this game even more with Batch playing over Big Ben, but Ben should be ok at home.

VIKINGS (-5) over Green Bay

Just gonna echo what I wrote yesterday...I think Minnesota will be able to reclaim there offense at home. Green Bay has the lowest rated passing defense in the NFL which really helps the Vikings, maybe there below average recievers can actually get open this week. The old gambling rule of never betting against Brett Farve has really switched to, "bet against Brett Farve on the road in most spots. "

I am still looking in to this Detroit vs San Fran game...I think I like Detroit and u can still get it at 5.5 on Mansion but its 6 almost everywhere else. I think its a decent pick, but not gonna fully back it yet

NFL

2006-11-07T15:59:00.001-08:00

Last week went well with the picks. I won 4 out of the 5 games. Enough people expressed mild intrest in the post that I will try to make this a weekly feature.

I think I will make an official picks post later, but a few games I am looking at and might take right now are included here.

Any Input is appreciated...Remember these are just early ideas

CINCI (+1.5) vs Ravens - (Also Cinci money line seems good here), I think they are good enough to win this game at home.

VIKINGS (-5) vs Green Bay - I think Minnesota will be able to reclaim there offense at home. Green Bay has a real bad pass defense and as mentioned last week, Farve just makes too many mistakes these days.

DETROIT (-5.5) vs 49ers - I dont have a great feel for how San Fran is playing and maybe I am underrating them. I do know that Detroit has an above average NFL offense with flat out stars in Kevin Jones and Roy Williams. Seems like Detroit is decent value here

PITT (-4) vs New Orleans - The public is on New Orleans here, but most people I have talked about or read who actually know a thing or 2 about the NFL like Pittsburg a lot here. The Steelers wont quit on the season yet, this is a game they might start to show some life.

Other games I had a small feeling about but probably wont touch

Cardinals +7 or 7.5...public is all over Dallas, if the line is 7.5 which I think it could end up being I think Zona could be a small value pick

KC to beat Miami on the money line

Bears +3 if u can get it, but a lot of places it is down to 2.5

Titans +7...meh, but home dog against the public etc

NFL Week 9

2006-11-03T16:20:00.000-08:00

So I was sitting in the shower thinking, wow I have some expert football picks this week. I only bet $100 a game on football usually though. This combination of information made me sad, because I am obv gonna win all my bets but $500 dollars wont really mean all that much to me. What WOULD make me happy would be the respect and admiration of all my peers.

SOLUTION : Post My picks on my blog in advance so everyone (Or atleast Matt, Shane and Glenn) will be able to realize my genius once I sweep the NFL this weekend.

I made all my picks on Mansion. Here is what I took with a brief explanation

Drumroll please.....

(Home Teams in CAPS)

BUFFALO -3 (-110) over Green Bay

Line opened at 3.5, public is all over Green Bay. Buffalo has a solid record the last few years covering at home, Farve is due for a few picks.

JACKSONVILLE -9.5 (-106) over Tennessee

Another line move. Opened at 10, maybe went down to 9.5 because the QB questionables, but Gerard IMO is just as good for the Jags as Leftwich. Jacksonville is underrated by the public each week.

ST. LOUIS -2.5 (-107) over Chiefs

This is more of a value pick. I think the line should be 3 or 3.5. St. Louis still is atleast equal or better than the Chiefs. Rams know they need this game to stay on track for the playoffs and they play well at home historically

REDSKINS +3 (+104) over Dallas

Check the price I got. Again a value pick, especially getting paid 4 bucks to make it. This is a classic game I like though. Has all the variables. A HOME DOG and a division game AND the public is ALL OVER Dallas. Seems +EV to me, certainly no lock.

Denver +3 (-107) over PITTSBURG

I dont love this pick, but I already made it. I think it is enough value to justify though. Denver flat out has the better team this year. I think this line should be closer to 1 than 3. The only thing that scares me here is that usually when lines look weird like this Vegas has thought it through and sees something we dont see, so I'd be careful here.

Those are my picks and I'm sticking to em. Heres to another classic NFL weekend

Jacksonville

2006-10-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

Every week I help out my friend Shane with his "Survivor Pick" in the NFL. Basically u have to pick a different team every week to win its game...if they win u survive. If u are the last person standing in your "Survivor Pool" u win all the entry fees.

Here is our conversation about the pick this week

(17:40:00) shane: football pic?
(17:40:09) Jesse: Jacksonville
(17:40:18) shane: they have a team?

P.S. more blogs to come soon

BTW

2006-08-24T15:59:00.000-07:00

I didnt win the Main Event of The World Series Of Poker

GG Pluto

2006-08-24T10:41:00.000-07:00

Story of Pluto's demise

Science textbook publishers around the country are rushing to the printers in wake of this sad day in our solar system. We are now down to 8 planets

35,500 Chips and a Chair

2006-08-02T01:20:00.000-07:00

Well, Day 2 didnt go as planned. My table was pretty damn good all day, and I chipped up to 71K at dinner break. After dinner I couldn't find a hand and when I did find spots I got re-popped. Finally I woke up with KK and a short-sack pushed in on me with AKs. We ran it for about 42 thousand chips and I lost. Would have had 80K to finish the day but instead I have 35,500 and am a short stack...For some reason I am still in good spirts. Back to Back Day 3's in the main event is kind of cool and I certainly have more than enough room for a comeback.

Gonna relax for a few days and hopefully run good when we resume

Main Event Day 1

2006-07-29T05:27:00.000-07:00

Still in after day one with 52,450 chips. I was chipleader at my final table of the day and should go in Day 2 (Starting Tuesday) with twice the average chips. About 800 survived from a Day 1A field of 2300. It was a fun day of WSOP Main Event poker. I played well for the most part and things went my way most of the time. Still a long long way to go obviously, might post more in the next few days.

Main Event Picks

2006-07-27T12:35:00.000-07:00

Me, Ed, Matt and JV were sitting around yesterday resting for the main event and playing some online poker. Obv this developed in to a WSOP Main Event fantasy draft.

Ed won the first pick in the draft and we drafted in snake order. Teams will be rated in 2 catergories...(each catergory winner gets paid an undisclosed amount from the others) Most cashes, and Most overall money won. A special bonus catergory is won if u pick the eventual winner.

Here is how the teams shook out. Team members are listed in order they were chosen by the team owner. Also, all of us get ourselves on their team (slight edge goes to me of course on that rule)

Ed - Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Barry Greenstein, Erik Seidel, Patrick Antonius, Doyle Brunson, Chip Reese, JC Tran, Scotty Ngyuen, Victor Ramdin, Chau Giang, Lee Watkinson, Devilfish, Jen Harman, Roland De Wolfe, TJ Cloutier, Hassan Habib, Bengt Sonnert, Tony G, Ed "Ebo" Moncada

Matt - Phil Hellmuth, Erik Lindgren, Jeff Madsen(!), Nam Le, David Singer, Cliff Josephy AKA Johnny Bax, David Plastik, Marcel Luske, Kirill Girismov, Joe Cassidy, David Wells (the game theory expert not the left-handed over the hill Starting Pitcher), Rob Mizrachi, David Baker, Dustin Woolf AKA Neverwin, Michael Woo, Max Prescatori, Julian Gardner, Joe Hachem, Matt "Bubble Boy" Szymaszek

JV - Michael Mizrachi, Daniel Negreneau, Carlos Mortensen, Mike Matasow, Johny Chan, Mark Seif, Ram Vaswani, "Evil" Freddy Deeb, Ted Forrest, Josh Arieh, Nick Schulman, Men the Master, Llayne Flack, Bill Gazes, Humberto Brenes, Antonio Esfandari, John Gale, Alex Jacob, Darrel "Gigabet" Dicken, Justin Sadauskas

Jesse - Alan Goehring, Allen Cunningham, Chris Ferguson, Greg Raymer, Minh Ly, David Pham, Dan Harrington, Gavin Smith, Howard Lederer, Daniel Alei, David Williams, Gus Hansen, Mike Gracz, JDags, Juha Helppi, Phil Laak, Jason Strassa, Joe Bartholdi, Erik Lynch AKA Rizen, Jesse Martin

Blogs

2006-07-26T16:13:00.000-07:00

Sorry guys I kind of stopped writing in this blog for a while. I have realized that a day to day poker blog is not something I want to keep up with, but hopefully this will develop in to something worthwhile once I get home.

The last few weeks have been a lot of fun. Run hot in cash games for the most part, but havent made much headway in the tournaemtns. Day 2 of the 1000 rebuy went alright for a while, doubled up quickly but then never got anything else going and ended up busting with 88 vs TT with about 40 left.

I went kind of deep in the Pot Limit 2000 and got real unlcucky near the money, also had a shot in the 2nd 1000 rebuy but lost a big coinflip vs Greg Raymer somewhat close to the money.

Random Tidbits :

- Both of Chip Reese's interview on "The Circuit", are very worthwhile to listen to. Some of the things he said have led me to not writing in this blog very often. (http://cardplayer.com/thecircuit/

- I am leading JV and Steve G overall in ping pong but there have been some big battles and nothing is determined by way of house champion yet, but I have a small lead down the stretch.

- My fantasy baseball pitching staff is in shambles. If anyone has some sleeper starters down the strecth please tell me.

- New York is a pretty amazing city

Still In 1000 Rebuy...Made the Money

2006-07-09T01:42:00.000-07:00

This is gonna be short cause I need to get to sleep. I am still in the 1000 rebuy WSOP event. The money was 72 people and I think there are about 68 left now. My stack is 29,800 and if my math is right that should be slightly slightly above average. The lowest money spot is $4800. Big day tomorrow, starts at 2 PT, hopefully I will play well.

From the archives...I wrote this up but never posted it...

2006-07-08T10:14:00.000-07:00

Another TJ story. (The quotes are not exact, but they are pretty damn close.)

While sitting next to Tom McEvoy, another semi-highprofile old-timer, a TJ Cloutier borrowing melee again occured. This time it was TJ in the flesh approaching McEvoy. These posts are not meant to slander or insult anyone, they are purely for entertainment and to bring those of u not in Vegas inside the world of degeneracy that we/I sometimes get used to. T.J politely waits for Tom to finish a hand and then asks...

T.J. : What is our number at now?
Tom : Around 2700, actually I think its 2745.
T.J. : Ok, well lets make it 500 more.
Tom : (hesitates and checks his hole cards) OK, one sec...(it seems like Tom feels he got off cheap and is gonna give TJ the 500) He reaches for the 500 and begins to hand it to TJ.
T.J. : Lets just make it an even number actually to make it easier, give me 800.
Tom : Well I have the number at home, not even sure its 27, I'll give u 5 now and we can get to an even number soon.
T.J : (In the voice of a 13-year old begging for a new Nintendo game, no joke) Come on Tom give me 800.

Tom eventually gives in, and gets back to waiting for premium hands. Tom later tells us he is the only one in the casino with an "out" against T.J. cause he apparently gets the royalty checks that TJ and Tom continue to get from the sale of there jointly authored books they have produced. He also tells us that the 800 he gave TJ probably wont last him till dinner.

On a related note, when Tom McCevoy got to the table to start the day he was eating a salad and talking to a friend...meanwhile he flings his seating card to the dealer. The dealer looks at it, glances at the name and asks for Tom's ID. Tom, freezes in mid conversation and says,

"wait, u dont know who I am do u?", the dealers doesnt have much of a reaction to this. "U have no clue who I am huh? Wow, amazing...u have no clue who I am seriously? wow...ok hold on."

Tom reaches for his wallet and opens it up exposing his ID through the laminated holder, just close enough so the dealer can possibly squint and make out a few of the letters but no closer. The dealer accepts this and Tom goes back to his asian chicken salad, while expressing his amazement at what just transpired.

OK I am pretty pissed off

2006-07-07T21:47:00.000-07:00

OK this blog is probably gonna be pretty damn short, maybe I will have more to say later...right now I am pretty dissapointed cause this was my best chance at a great finish so far. I started the 2500 NL today slowly but during round 3 I won a big 3 way pot with JJ vs AJ and A8 and then was off to the races.

By dinner break I had 18K with 300 left and the average stack was around 10 maybe less. I was very excited to get back after dinner break because I was prepared to really take advantage of the tight nature of my table. Well, I got back and lost AQ to 66 for 4K chips and then another 2K vs some guy I hate (more on him later).

So now I have 12K and the guy I hate makes it 1200, gets a cold call from a 7.5K stack and I call with 55. Flop T75 with 1 diamond. Guy I hate bets 2000, next guy makes it 6300 All-In and I hollywood for a bit to make sure that the other guy comes with AA-QQ, well he does. He moves in. I am up against AA and ATs. The pot is over 30,000 and the chip average is around 11,000.

Turn MOTHER F#$&#@&* ACE. ONE OUT and I am DONE

So instead of having about 32K and being at a ridiculously easy table with everyone covered by a ton I am out of the dumb tournament. Its pretty unreal. I would have been a huge favorite to go deep in this thing. My table was really unbelievably good and wasnt breaking anytime soon. I am so sure I could have gotten away with raising half of my hands and I was already prepared to do so. UGH, this is a tough one to take. One ace in the deck and it spikes right off.

Also I am pretty sure I have a cavity. If my life wasnt so good in general I would be pretty damn unhappy right now. Hopefully I can bounce back from this but u dont get this type of oppurtunity every tournament. Its a tough one to take.

I will include a lighter blog later. Gonna go throw some things for now.

Omissions

2006-07-05T12:53:00.000-07:00

Forgot to add 2 things to my last blog. First a story...

Sitting at Billy Baxter's table, Shawn "Sheiky" Sheikan walks up and gives Baxter 7500 dollars in casino chips. Baxter asks, "where is the other 25 ($2500)."
Sheiky says, "remember u told me to give the other 2500 to TJ. "
Baxter : "Hmmm u sure, I dont remember that. What did TJ give me that I owed him 2500?"
Sheiky : "I'm sure TJ gave u nothing but he needed 2500 and u told me to give it to him. I'm sure he owes u a lot more than that."
Baxter : "Thats the truth. U got that part right."
Sheiky : "Me and u we are even though, take it up with TJ"

Ping-Pong

We got a ping pong table, special props to Bubble Boy Syzmaszek for putting most of it together. I will be periodically posting my overall ping pong record vs different opponents this summer. So far I have only played Steve, we are really really even so it should be a battle all summer.
JV shows up today after going back to Chi-town for a bit, he claims to be expert so I am a little nervous.

So Far

vs Steve I am 6-4
vs JV 0-0

Catch-Up Blog

2006-07-05T11:04:00.000-07:00

Sorry to my many loyal fans but I have suffered my first blog lag. Haven't got around to writing in the past few days but I am ready to pump a few more out coming soon.

I have played 2 events since I last posted. The NL 2000 event and the NL 5000 event.

NL 2000

In the NL 2000 event my original table draw was a tough one. I had former World Series of Poker Main Event champions Greg Raymer and Tom McEvoy at my table. Also John Juanda was directly to my left. Not really the draw u hope for with a field of 2000 random donkeys.

Regardless, I brought my original stack of 2000 to 2750 before our table was broken. I played 2 hands vs Raymer, for all u Fossilman fans here was the action.

Hand #1

Blinds 25/25 I opened in MP with red AA for 100. The button calls and Raymer calls in the SB. The flop comes 752 with 2 diamonds, checked to me and I bet 200, button folds and Raymer reaches for 200 chips behind his trademark goofy glasses and slings em in. Headed to the turn with the former patent attorney turned world champ we see the 9 of diamonds, giving me the nut diamond draw with my aces. Raymer checks and I decide to practice some pot control and check behind. (for u guys who know me but are still learning about poker, definitely feel free to call/IM/EMail etc. about some of these plays and I will try to explain my thinking.)

So the river comes a 4th diamond giving me the nuts. Raymer checks, the pot is 725 and I bet 450. In retrospect 600 or 150 would have both been better, but im pretty sure no matter what he was gonna look into my soul and fold. Greg folded, claiming not to have a Diamond (I think he had black 66 or 88.)

The second hand was much quieter. I raise in MP to 75 with AcJc, its Raymers button and he calls (obv) and we take the flop heads up. Flop AK4 and we both check, turn 4 and we both check, River 6 and I throw out a 100 dollar chip and say 50, he thinks and calls. I win 2 for 2 vs Raymer.

I got moved to a new table. The most notable player was Billy Baxter supposedly an expert Sports Bettor who also is a very solid tournament poker player. I dont seem to recall much about that table except that I built my chips all the way up to 6000 but then paid some blinds had some unsuccesful steals and then lost a 8000 chip pot with KK vs AQ to bust with 450 people left. Win that pot and I am in great shape at a decent table, but unfortunately the A door card did me in.

NL 5000

This tournament seemed doomed from the start and I am not gonna report much. I didnt get a great nights sleep and also was a little bummed I was gonna miss yet another World Cup match (Italy vs Germany was on at the same time as the tourney) Also I woke up with a tooth ache. Combine that with a bunch of missed draws and flops in the early going and then losing a big blind vs blind all in with A6 vs A7 and that was all she wrote for one of the tougher WSOP events out there.

I dont think I really made any big mistakes in this tournament, just really didnt find much to play and also didnt find spots to make things happen. I ended up going home and grinding out a decent wage online for a few hours and then meeting up with some old poker friends and one of my best friends in the world Eric.

Eric is definitely one of the coolest people I know and he was on his A game this night. Everything that came out of his mouth was hilarious and the people I was hanging out with absolutely fell in love with him as people often do. The girls in our group seriously couldnt get enough of him. Eric is here for a few more days with his parents so I expect to take it easy and try to hang with with them a few more times.

BTW Eric and his dad Harry played the 225 second chance NL tourney at the Rio. Here are there bust hands as reported by them.

Eric is on the button with 800 chips and A9s, blinds 50-100. Folded to him and he makes it 250 with A9s (I would have pushed personally). The BB calls and they get the money in on an AT8 flop. The BB ends up having AT and gg Eric, not much he could do there.

Harry's bust hand is a little more interesting. I could have some of the details wrong and Harry might have had some wrong too, but here it goes. Blinds 100-200, Harry raises UTG with ATs to 400 total (I think that was too small) one of the blinds calls and the flop is T43 rainbow and the blind makes a small lead at the flop. Harry decides to shove it in for about 6500 total. In a vacuum I dont love the play, but Harry was at the table so its hard to debate it. I would opt for a much smaller raise, possibly folding to a push or even better a flop call in an attempt to control the pot size and not fold out a better hand. Well all this analysis seems silly because apparently his opponent called him with K4 and hit one of his 5 outs twice and that was it for Harry.

So the last few days poker wise havent been great, our house still hasnt got much going at all but I am still in a great mindset and am ready to play these upcoming events. Regardless of poker though I am having a great time out here. Our house is really fun, we have a ping pong table/pool table/maid service/pool etc, and I really like the people I have met through poker so its good to spend some time with everyone.

Then again, I better win one of these fucking events soon

Day 2 Limit Hold Em Event #4

2006-07-01T21:09:00.000-07:00

Not much to report. Arrived to the table very confident with average in chips and 69 people left but it clearly was not meant to be. I lost my first 2 hands and that was basically all she wrote. I think I played both hands fine, just bad spots. So I cashed for $3700 and finished in 56th place. Nothing special but atleast I have my first cash and a little more confidence under my belt.

Limit Hold Em Event #4 Report

2006-06-30T08:51:00.000-07:00

For those looking for the Limit Hold Em tournament report still ongoing it is right underneath the Sports entry.

Break Out The Brooms, Telfair, World Cup

2006-06-30T03:56:00.000-07:00

A lot going on in the sports world right now, but its tough for me to follow out here in Vegas with so much poker going on. Here are some quick thoughts.

- I am on the fence about this Sebastian Telfair trade to the Celtics. I was really pumped when I first heard about it, and I still am kind of in favor of it, but hearing all those ESPN guys rave over Foye and thinking back to how dominant Foye was in the NCAA tourney its really a tough call.

- The Red Sox look amazing. We just swept the Mets and have made the National League look silly. I propose the American League playoffs this year should crown the World Series Champion and the National League champs can play the Triple A winners in some sort of mediocrity baseball challenge.

- I need to go to bed right now and possibly wake up to watch Germany-Argentina tomorrow and then go back to bed to play Day 2 of this limit event at 2 PM Las Vegas time. This could very easily be the match of the World Cup, definitely 2 of the 3 best teams in the whole world.

Limit Hold Em WSOP Event #4 Day 1 (I'm Still Standing, Yea, Yea, Yea)

2006-06-30T02:47:00.000-07:00

After consulting a few people I decided to go against my original plan and enter the 1500 Limit Hold Em event today. Limit Hold Em has always been my bread and butter game and the majority of the money I have made playing poker has come from grinding out live and online Limit Hold Em cash games. All that aside I lately have become bored/frustrated/sick of Limit Hold em and have pretty much made a full transition to No-Limit full time.

My plan for the World Series was to concentrate on big bet poker and take the limit hold em days as days of rest or days to play cash games. However, I woke up this morning feeling good and itching to play another WSOP event after tasting a small amount of success the day before. The biggest obstacle in my way was that the 1500 limit hold em was going to get over 1000 entrants making it a 3 day event. This meant that if I made day 2 I would have to miss the 2500 6-Max NL tourney, an event I have been looking forward to for months. When I expressed this concern to my cousin Danny he referred to this as being a "high-class problem", and suggested I ignore this variable when making my decision. That in mind, I ate some breakfast and headed down to the Rio in plenty of time to play Event #4.

My starting table featured Kevin Song , a very good old school professional poker player who has had particular success in limit hold em tournaments including a bracelet in one a few years back. I started off pretty hot, in spite of Kevin being directly on my left and had 2500 before I knew it. Unfortunately I got involved in a few bad spots and eventually found myself back to my 1500 starting chips at the first break. Soon after the break I hit a rush, and then this hand occured.

2 players limped in EP to me and I made it 200 to go with 2 red Jacks. Kevin called right next to me and when the smoke cleared it was 6 to the flop for 2 bets. The flop came 8c3c2c, and when it was checked to me I bet my very vulnerable overpair. Kevin raised me and cleared the field. My plan was to call the hand down at this point unless I improved or it became extremely obvious my hand was no good. I check and called a turned 2 and then the river came my Gin card...The Jack of Clubs. This put a 4 flush on the board, but made me top full house. I decided to go for a bet 3-bet and Kevin raised and then crying called my 3-bet with what he said was a flopped set of 3's. This hand put me at 6000 and I was the table chip leader and well over twice the tourney average.

For the next few hours I went up and down, and ended with about 8000 chips when I was moved to a new table right before dinner break. I had a very enjoyable dinner break where I changed up my normal routine of going to sit down at a restaraunt for a meal. Instead I went to the snack bar and got a chicken sandwich and a fruit plate and headed over to the cash game area to fire up a $4-$8 limit hold em game. I have been talking with a few people including my friend Shane about expert dinner break routines, and I was really intrigued by this one which allowed me to stay in the gambling/poker mindset while also being able to unwind a little bit and play without pressure. I dropped about 35 dollars in the game but had fun and was ready to go when play resumed.

Post dinner break I went on a nice little rush to get to 15,000 in chips when this hand developed agaisnt Adam Katz's favorite poker player Phil Gordon.

Folded to Phil in middle position and he opened with a raise, I was the lone caller, defending my blinds with 55. The flop came Q65 rainbow and I went for the check-raise, Gordon obliged by betting and then rapidly 3-bet when I raised. At this point I had 3 choices. I could 4 bet and keep the heat on the rest of the hand, I could just call and attempt to check-raise the turn, or I could call the 3 bet planning on leading any turn. I chose the 3rd option. The reason for this was I thought that Phil would not be able to fold a Queen if I took this line but he might smell out a huge hand from me if faced with a 4-bet on the flop and could get off a Queen much easier. There is probably more about this hand to discuss, but for now I am going to move on to the turn action and maybe revisit the flop later.

The turn was an A, and it also made 2 clubs on the board. I went with the plan and led into Gordon, and he called but was noticably disgusted. When a good (great) player gives off such an obvious tell usually he is up to someththing and in the heat of the battle I didnt really pick up on it. (I will explain later what he was up to)

The river was an offsuit 4 and now one of the hands I feared got there (87). I still decided to lead and paid off Phil's river raise and was shown the 8c7c. This hand would have put me up to 20K but instead I was knocked to around 10...a tough break, and a key hand.

Back to what Phil was up to by his turn body language. Now that we know his hand was 8c7c, we know he turned a monster draw. By giving off weakness on the turn he encourages me to bet the river no matter what I have pretty much. Also, when someone reluctanly calls a bet, usually that hand isnt a solid draw, because limit hold em pots are almost always big enough to chase garden variety draws. Phil gets the best of all worlds if he can sell a weak made hand to me...If I am bluffing I will fire one more bullet if I think he is weak, if I have a decent holding I will be more inclined to make a thin value bet, and if I have a monster I wont attempt a check-raise because if he is weak he wont bet. This means that the 65 percent of the time he misses on the river he just folds his 8 high and moves on, he wasnt gonna win the hand anyway so no harm done, but the 35 percent of the time he does hit he is in good shape to get 2 bets. Anyways, I am getting tired so that is enough about that hand, but it was an interesting one for sure.

Soon after I got down to 10K I vaulted back to 14 and for the next few hours I was between 9 and 14, hitting a bad run of cards but winning some small pots to stay alive.

Then this key hand crippled me. I opened Under The Gun with AKo and was 3-bet by a guy who I had seen play extremely tight for 2 hours. I was pretty nervous about the 3-bet and put my opponent on a very narrow range of hands. The flop came AT9 and I was happy but planned to play the hand cautiously. The turn bet was 600 and I just called, figuring I didnt want to scare JJ-KK away but also didnt want to lose any more than 1 bet per street vs a hand that beat me. Although I hit a good flop I did not feel comfortable. The Turn was a small card and again I check and called. I wanted to have a playable stack if I lost this hand, and I think this is the type of hand that is supposed to be played differently in a cash game than in a tournament, especially if u are a short stack. The river was an offsuit Q and I considered betting, but luckily check and my opponent gave me a break by checking behind with ATs for a flopped 2 pair. My pre-flop read was wrong but luckily my cautious play left me with 4200 in chips to keep fighting. I was annoyed with my luck, but happy that I stayed disciplined and aware of the situation I was in.

My stack dwindled down to 3500 with 104 people left of the 1068 starters, I was in bad shape and in danger of bubbling and not making the top 99 places which were being paid. Phil Gordon raised UTG and I had 99 and a decision to go with it or not on the button, after talking to Phil a little I got the feeling that he didnt mind an all in by me at all which made me think he had 99 or better, AK or maybe AQ. My read could have been wrong for sure, but he was playing ultra-tight and it seemed like he had a hand he was happy about. I folded, but then 2 hands later I decided to gamble.

The UTG player raised, he was short stack and I knew he had a big hand 88-AA, AK and maybe AQ...he might have folded AQ im not sure. I was actually planning on folding my AKo when it got to me, but then there was a cold caller. Througout the tournament Cold-Call meant pair between 22-TT about 90 percent of the time, so thats what I put the caller on. Vs 2 pocket pairs smaller than me I all of the sudden would be faced with a nice triple up situation and I decided to go with my hand. To make a long story short, all the money got in pre-flop more or less between me and the other short stack and the bigger stack cold-caller...UTG had QQ, Cold-Caller had KK and I was in a world of hurt. Flop came rags and I was already devising my expert 6-Max NL strategy for tomorrows event, sure I was done in this one. Turn nothing and then....BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM Ace of diamonds on the river and I have 11K again!!!!!!

From then on I hit a nice rush and also played some hands well post flop making some good value bets, inducing a few bluffs/calls and by the time I was moved to a new table I had 25K and was well in the money. I built it up to 27K and then lost a few thousand back when I picked up KK but ran into an ace high flop, I was raised on the flop and got off the hand, my opponent showed me AQs and I was feeling good with about 22K right on average with 69 runners left going in to tomorrow.

Cliff Notes : I have 22K in the 1500 Limit Event, I am already in the money and first place is 330K. All the payout structures and real time updates should be available on Cardplayer.com and Pokerwire.com. Blinds start at something ridiculous like 1000-1500 tomorrow so a lot of luck will still be involved, but I do feel pretty confident that maybe I can get something done here.

Thanks for reading...Go Red Sox

Pot Limit WSOP Event #3

2006-06-28T22:36:00.000-07:00

I had more fun today than the first one, Pot Limit is really a great game, but still nothing monetary to show for it. We started with 1500 and my high point was 6000 My first table featured JDags, he played fine but made a somewhat bad call against a guy for 1000 chips and then got unlucky to lose 3 straight coinflips including the final one vs me to bust.

I got moved to a new table and soon started to chip up from 2500 to 6000. Won a few pots in position and then some guy decided I didnt have it and took a stand with ATo vs my TT. Soon after this hand happened...

Blinds 75/150, my stack 6000 and the blinds have somewhere between 2 and 3K.. Folded to me on the button and I limp with J9o (semi-debatable play but I thought I had good control over the blinds, but didnt want to raise pre-flop because I had recently been active.) Blinds check and the flop comes J97 2 toned. Checked to me I bet 325 and the SB calls. Pot is now 1100, turn is an offsuit 4 and when my opponent led at the pot for 1100 (the full size of the pot) I was loving life and put him in for 400 more chips. It seemed very very unlikely that my opponent would take this awkward line with 77 or T8, and these were the only hands that could make any sense from the complete action thus far that would have me beat. On the other hand I could think of many many hands, most including some sort of Jack that would take this line that I would have had drawing very slim. When he called and flipped up T8o my dreams of having an early monster stack were dashed.

Nothing much went right after that, lost a coinflip or 2, missed a flop or 4 and before I know it I was out with 300 or so people left from the original 1100.

Other Highlights : Playing with both Minh Ly and Chau Giang, these guys are the nuts to play with. Always talking and making happy go lucky broken english jokes at every oppurtunity. Genuinely good guys as far as I can tell, hope to play with them again.

Limit Hold Em 1500 tomorrow, unclear if I am gonna play cause I really want to play the NL 2500 6 max on friday.

Oh yea and Go Red Sox, they are absolutely on fire

Summer Camp

2006-06-27T18:27:00.000-07:00

Growing up the best months of my life were often the summer when I went away to overnight camp. I looked forward to the 2 months of camp all school year. Arriving at camp was one of the single most exciting days of the year. Seeing old friends, checking out the girls and seeing how they had developed over the past years etc.

After my Freshman year of college I went to camp for my final year as counselor and head of tennis and I knew that I was getting too old for summer camp and I had to move on. It was a sad feeling that I would never experience the anticipation of a 2 month summer excursion in to fantasy land.

Well, my non-standard life has brought me back to a new summer camp of sorts named the World Series of Poker. Last year I was in Vegas for 6 weeks in the summer, living with a buddy in a nice condo and playing a bunch of the World Series of Poker events. It culminated in a nice showing in the WSOP Main Championship event.

I was sad to go home when it was all over but there was only 10 months to go till next summer when I could do it all over again. Well I am back in Vegas living in a house with 4 expert poker players in a 5 bedroom bunk with a pool table, pool, hot tub and big screen TV (and a few random insects for that authentic summer camp feel.)

Anticipation of fame and fortune is rampant throughout our house and I'm pretty sure atleast one of us is gonna crack it big. Either way there is no place that I would rather be than at summer camp and I plan to make the most of it one way or another.

BEWA

NL 1500 Event #2

2006-06-27T18:24:00.000-07:00

I played event #2 of the WSOP today. Not much to report. We started with 1500 chips and I never got over 2000. My biggest pair was 22. My bust hand went like this...folded to the worst player at our table on the button he made it 300 (blinds 50-100). I moved in for 1625 total with Ac8c. He called with KQo gg...

I'm not too sure my play was correct, but it cant be that bad and I dont feel like analyzing it right now.

Tomorrow is Pot Limit 1500 and then I have to decide if I am sticking around here or I am going back for the Mike and Trey shows this weekend.

Claudio Reyna - Soccer

2006-06-27T18:07:00.000-07:00

Claudio Reyna made the single worst play I have witnessed in the past few years of professional or international soccer. Reyna not only tried to dribble past his man as the last defender, but then he faked an injury once his man stole the ball and scored a goal. He went as far to get carried off in a stretcher only to be back 2 minutes later. Reyna really didnt come to play all World Cup and this HUGE BLUNDER in the Ghana game is unfortunately how I will remember him, the mistake was inexcuseable at a U-12 Select Team Level, on a world stage it was honestly shocking to me.

On a related note, I really hate how all these guys flop all around the field whenever they fall down during this World Cup. Could u imagine Charles Barkely getting nudged by Karl Malone, not getting the call from the ref and instead of hustling back on D he just grabs for his hamstring and lays on the ground while Stockton brings it up the floor 5 on 4?? I don't see how what these soccer players continue to do is any different. My friend Matt said they do it cause the grass is all newly cut and soft and comfortable so they dont want to get up, he is probably on to something...

Dell Customer Service RANT

2006-06-27T17:48:00.000-07:00

I have had the absolute worst past 3 weeks with Dell, I am spending a good amount of money on a computer system and a 30 inch Dell Monitor and for some reason they could care less if I am happy or even if I recieve my stuff. I hope noone here ever uses Dell again, I know I never will. I dont care how good there stuff is, it cant be worth it. My desktop has already been stolen once because they sent it to the wrong address.

At one point I called to double check on my order and they said yes Mr. Martin everything is being sent to 1118 Thomas Ave. in San Diego...well thats great but I havent lived there for 3 years, somehow they switched my order over to there. I got that cleared up but there have been 2 more address mistakes since then.

There are so many horror stories it is just amazing. Here is the latest one... after weeks of being hung up on by the system by mistake, talking to over 20 different Dell Reps (not an exaggeration), complaing to anyone who will listen....

I called up today and used this super duper extension that this guy Francis (he was the 5th guy who claimed to be upper level management and assured me he would follow my case until I was happy) left for me because I was trying to check on the new computer they are rushing out. Well, all the extension was good for was a good ole automatic hang up after 2 minutes of waiting.

Anyways, I called back and finally got a hold of a live person, she said my computer wont be here for another 10 days....I asked her to look through my file and see if they could either rush it to me or compensate me for the computer since they are wasting so much of my time, not to mention costing me money every hour I dont have my computer to play poker on. Well this girl said to me, "we are not in the business of giving computers away for free we are in the business of selling computers" Well after she spouted that to me I asked her name, audibly frazzeled she quickly thanked me for calling dell and HUNG UP ON ME. I could not make this up.

Cliff Notes Version : NEVER USE DELL

Blog

2006-06-27T17:44:00.000-07:00

I am starting a blog about life, this is my first sample