Running well...

When it's going well, it seems to come in waves... The other night I played in the midnight $75 12k guarantee and took 2nd. I played solid and took home $3100. Some wild hands in the tourney, one in particular I’ll share. Wasn't in the hand but here's how it went down. We were down to 10 and two guys get it all in preflop. They show TT and JJ. The flop comes out 44J. The Js take a 99.8% lead. The turn comes another 4 and the river comes the case 4 for a chop… How bitter was that guy.

Then last night I played in the $100 +9 Satellite to the Aussie $1k Monday tourney (winner there will be going to Australia)... Only 15 players in the game but I was getting cards and rolling. We got down to 5 and I had a monster chip lead, I had about 36k in chips and the next closest had 6k and the other 3 were right around 1k. They were only giving one seat and paid the top 4… When we got heads up I still a sizeable chip lead but with the blinds only at 150-300 we could be here a while and we were. I ended up getting stuck and all of a sudden I found myself with only 8k in chips to his 37k. I double up a couple times and soon we were square. I almost blew it, but I ended up taking it down. Was a tough one, we were heads up for over an hour.

Let’s hope this wave continues, well at least though Tuesday...

A New Addition to the Family...

She came a little early, about 2 weeks early... Anna was born this past Sunday and came in weighing in at 6lbs 13oz. She's truly an Angel!

On the poker front things have been going well. Getting some nice cashes. I satellited into the Main Event of the FTOPS, a $500 buyin. I had a nice run and ended up cashing. A little over 1k but the 160k first prize would have been nicer. The main event was Sunday, the same day Anna was born. The tourney started at 6pm and she was born at 1:35pm. I ended up playing in the hospital room, was nice that they had wireless... That has to rank up there as one of the more interesting places I've heard of anyone playing.

I still keep going deep in these tourney's but some how keep getting cold deck'd near the end. FT is running tourney's for the Aussie Millions, World Poker Tour and the U.S. Poker Championship. I'll be focusing on the latter, either a WPT event or the US Poker Champinship. We'll see how it goes....

and that was that...

out judt before the dinner break, 5min from it... Made a bad call that crip'd me and then with under 1k left lost a higher flush...

Poor Don feom the beach, he lost quad 4s to quad Js.

Next time!!!

Break 1

sittin with about 7k... The play here, wow. Turned a straight and bet it, guy calls with a flush draw and hit it... oh well. had q's and there was a miss deal when the guy on the buttom grabbed the wrong cards, thanks pal...

just got moved before the break.

T -30 Min...

Just got to the Zoo and I'm relaxing in the Milwaukee's best light lounge... They have some nice recliners and flat screens. There are a ton people just sitting around, you can see the unrest on a lot of them. I'm really relaxed and ready. The GNR they playing in here is nice... Paradise City!

Short and sweet, will check in later...

Hanging out in Vegas and D-Day!

Day before the ME was relaxing. Checked into a our place we got for the week, the Marriott Grand Chateau, great location right on the strip and an amazing roof top pool/bar. I took some nice shots, including the one here with me and Shoe with the ole Monte Carlo (MC) in the background. The MC was our hotel of choice back in the day! We did something like 7 super bowls straight there with the boys, they treated us well.

After the roof, Shoe and I played a couple low buy in tourneys across the street from the hotel. Nothing much to write about, was out early in the first and went deep in the second but no cash. I made it over to the Rio around 5:30, met up with Don in front of the FullTilt (FT) lounge. The FT “party” was, let’s say, a little disappointing after the UB bash and a few others I popped in on. There were a few pros there, Mike the mouth, Eirk Seidel, Chris Ferguson and Phil Gordon. They were all nice, got some more pics. I’ll post a link to a gallery soon.

Well, I picked up my “FT gear” (one t-shirt, a pull over, a hat and small bag for it all, woohoo!). FT is a great site, but when it comes to marketing they need to look at the big boys and what they are doing here. Before I made it into the "party", I walked through the Amazon room (the Zoo). Where ever you looked all you saw was PokerStars (PS) hats and these big butt PS Jerseys. No wonder their number one. “Ok, just stop!” (I think I justheard someone say that). One little funny story here, for the World Series of Poker (WSOP) websites like PS and FT can’t put “.Com” on anything people wear. Well, PS had “pokerstars.com” on everything. A HUGE No No. They must have had their interns running all over Vegas buying every last roll of black take, you can read the story here. Too Funny! I’m sure there’s a marketing person out there looking for a job…

After the party and the Zoo, Don and I met up with Brian from MSR and his wife. We made it over to a The Palm and had a really nice dinner. Rob, a good buddy of mine from NC met us as well for dinner. The dinner talk was all about Poker, “imagine that” (that voice again, I can hear my wife Kathy saying that right now). We did talk about some funny poker stories, Rob had some great ones. Like the time he was hanging out with a bunch of guys on the poker tour and they were bowling Oranges for 1k a roll. The object was to get your orange closest to the wall with out hitting it. What??!!?? Don’t ask… Brian left to pick up his Mom and the three of us had some more after dinner talk, poker of course… The one consistent theme was, don’t me consistent. Make sure you keep them guessing and don’t fall into a pattern of betting the same way. Over bet a pot here, value bet there. Make it look like your stealing when you got the stone cold nuts and the next time just value you bet when you got them.

I always read and hear about the big players, like Dan Harrington, talking about how they’ll go out with friends after playing and talk about the hands they played that night. Why they played a hand one way and then played the same hand another way the next time. They always talk about how they learned so much from these conversations and grew into a better player. If they were anything like the dinner and after dinner conversation, I can see why. I looked forward to many more of these conversations.

After dinner we made it down to the Caesars poker room where Shoe was playing in the 7 pm tourney. He didn’t make dinner, if I were in his shoes (that came out funny), I would have been playing too. He was doing really well. Looking around the room, he definitely one of the chip leaders. Didn’t want to Ricky/Jinx (sry Rick) him so we left. Was going to head back to the Rio with the boys, but while waiting in line for about 30 minutes for a cab I decided to make it back towards the Marriott. I told the cab that I wanted to go to the Aladdin, it’s next to the Marriott and they have a small quiet poker room. The plan was to play a little cards and then go to bed, that was the thinking. As we were driving over I kept hearing some saying, “just go back to the hotel, you need to get some rest!” I think it was Kathy again. Well, you’ll be happy to hear that on the way over I told the cabby to drop me off at the Marriott. I’m glad I did.

When I got to the room it was a little after 10 I did a little email and read the updates on Card Player. Man, some brutal hands on day one. One hand I guy flopped Quad 5s (4 5s) only to lose to a runner runner straight flush. I think I would have been sick right there. Another guy got pocket Ace’s 5 times! If I lose and go out with Quads, that will be OK, it wasn’t my time. But if I get pockets A’s 5 times, I’ll be up there…

Shoe and I were talking yesterday and he’s got me on a plan… Have a good workout and a good breakfast before the Marathon. Might even play a little Hoops before the workout (I’ll be D’ing it, as my boy Doy would say). It’s going to be a long day!

I slept great last night. I was out by 10:45. After shutting down the computer I was out in 2 sec’s. Not sure how, but I was… Woke up around 4:30, 7:30 east coast time… That would be just around the time my “human alarm clock” that is Trey wakes us up. Not going to get mushy, I’ll just say I miss him and Kathy a ton. Thank God for cell phones. 6 hours of sleep is great. As for it being a long day today, they played day 1a until 3:15 this morning. That’s over 15 hours of poker!!! They played down to 800 with starting field of 2138. The chip leader is just over 100k and the small stack is at 3k.

The plan today is to play my game, see what the table offers me and get through day one (winning Kevin O some money). Let’s hope I can stick to the plan! Out for now, may check in before I head over to the Zoo!

T minus 24 hours...

Didn't get too much sleep last night, wonder why, could it be I have something on my mind that will take place in about 24 hrs... I did get a chance to play in a few tourney's last night, didn't cash but it was good to get the ole feet wet live. I actually went deep in both and seemed to get card dead in both. The late one I played in I went really deep, built up a nice stack early and pushed it a around some. Cards went completely south and the blinds were starting to catch up with me. I went out when I pushed pre flop with JJ (my nemesis) and ran into AK. A coin flip, but when the flop came out AKx and the guy next to me mentioned he folded a J, I was sent packing.

Will be nice starting out with 10k in Chips in the ME (Main Event), these others you start out with 1000 and 1500, pretty tough when the blinds move as fast as they do. Plus in the ME the blinds go up every 2 hours, which is Great! Unreal, you start off with 10k in chips and the blinds start at $25 / $25!! Lot of play there.

Hung out with a few friends at the Ultimate bet private party in the Voodoo Lounge on the roof of the Rio. All UB Pros where there, Helmuth, Deebs, Antonio... Had a drinkn with Freddy Deebs, a SUPER nice guy. He was wearing his signature Red shirt, the one Phil Ivey cracked on last year in the main event. Only took one pic while I was there and it was with Freddy... Speaking of pro's it's like a who's who of poker here. I've seen a ton of pros. There just walking around, taking pics, signing autographs, they are all really nice. If you get a chance to come to an event like this or a WPT event, you won't be disappointed...

Shoe ran into Johnny Chan smoking a stogy in the back parking lot area. They setup some trailers back there that are porta johns, a food tent (pretty good food and cheap) and a tent that is the "Milwaukee’s Best lounge" (bar/pool table/video games/couches). Outside has become the smoking pit and during the breaks there are a ton of folks out there, even not during the breaks… It’s pretty hot out here; going from a room that is pretty cold to 100+ is interesting.

Plan today is to take it easy, may play a small or two tourney around town with Shoe, then have a nice dinner at The Palm (the restaurant, not the hotel) and then *try* to get some sleep tonight!

Last thing… Met with a reporting from the paper before I left I received an email from my wife, who couldn’t make it out with me because were expecting in a month, that the article ran today in the VA Pilot, here's a link to it. There might be some people reading this from that, so if you are, welcome and enjoy the ride :)

I'll try to keep this updated as I mentioned earlier as often as I can. Out from Vegas...

8800 and counting..

Just left the Rio and as of 2am there were over 8800 people registered for the main event. There was still a line of people waiting to reg. It's going to be a big one, could it hit 10k??? That would be amazing!

The Amazon Room

In for a 5:30 tourney and Shoe signed up for the 8pm. The 4 was a bust, 200 to get in and you get 200 in chips and it was a rebuy! No thank you!

Here's a pic of my in the Amazon room, one word ZOO!!

We are here...

The flight...

Pops were still going. Met Don McGee from da beach... We played a $20 sit and go x 3. We each won, bust. The flight attendent gave us cards and we used peanuts, pretzels and wafers for chips. I played a number of my hands blind and sucked out pretty bad a number of times.
Don won his seat on FT as well. Watch out for him, a local VA Beach boy. We talked him into playing the 4pm sat at the Rio and it should be fun... 136 miles out from Vegas and its only 99 degrees there... We're going to be there 30 MIN early, LOCK......

We're on our way...

to mission of the... If you know that, you have kids too. At the airport. Shoe* and I arrived 2 hours early. Shoe is a little, how can I say, scared s-less about flying, so he needs to get a few pops in him before flying... We're about 4 pops (he about 6, he was drinking when we picked him up) in. We've already scouted out todays tourneys if we miss the super sat at 4pm. Shoe is still working on getting his seat, btw he will be playing in the big one... Thanks to card player we found some great tourneys, the 2am "Graveyard" $60 NL, that's our style... There's the 8pm super at the Rio and we'll be playing in that if we miss the 4 and/or out of it.

Still getting used to typing on this Treo, no spell check on here so if anything isn't spelled correctly , oh well....

that's it for now, will check in soon...

*Shoe- Gary

100 Seat Guarantee tournament results/debacle...

Well, with just over 3000 people registered, I finished 405th. They actually gave out 128 seats. Pretty bad, I had about 20k in chips and went up against a guy I started out the tournament with. I played solid poker for over 4 hours and on just one play I was out... Oh well.

Less than a week until the Big one!

Last Chance for a second seat...

This could be my last chance for second seat... Won a seat into the 100 Seat Guarantee tournament on FT last night. Got in via a $75 token I won via an 18 person $26 sit and go qualifier. There were about 30 folks the tourney last night and top 5 got seats.

I managed to make the final table with the chip lead and I was sitting with just over 19k in chips, the closest to me had about 13k. We were down to 9 and I told myself to play only premium hands. Well, I almost managed to F it up. We played 7 handed for more than an hour. I lost Ks vs a set and was low stack when I looked down at hooks (JJ). The blinds were 500/1000 with a $75 ante. I was on the button and made it 3k to go. Only the SB called, who was a large stack. I had position and when a K on the flop came, I was like CRAP! He bet out 1k and I just called. Turn was a blank and checked, I checked. Thinking this guy was trapping and I was toast. The river brought me a beautiful J. There was no flush out there and if this guy had Ks, oh well. I'm sure he would have pushed pre-flop. He checked and I pushed in my last 2k and he called with an A high. The game lasted a couple more loops and the set of Jacks was enough to get me into 5th... Whew!

Right now there are right around 1200 people signed up for the tourney, which is a $500 + $35 buyin. There's still a little over a week before the tourney and I could see that number getting close to 2000 before it starts. If they only get 2000, there would be a huge overlay, over $100,000. Nice!

Close again...

Keep going deep in these but can't close the deal... Played in the Sunday $200 again last night along with 110 others, one seat up for grabs. I was top 2 in chips for most of the way when I ran into Kings with about 16 people left. Was playing pretty aggressive the entire way, but it caught up with me. I hung tough for a bit but with the blinds the way they were I need to pick my spot, I did and that was that, 12th place. I really need to start focusing on my late game play. I just started reading Harrington's Endgame, so we'll see what he has to say and see if helps. Let’s hope it does!

And they are off! The WSOP Begins!

Well, the WSOP officially started this week and 2 events are in the books. It's great keeping up with all the action on CardPlayer (CP) and also on Pokerwire , but how I want to be out there. Would be great to play more than one event, but still, I can’t complain. Maybe next year…

Monday it was like Xmas morning. I couldn’t even imagine being out there for the first few days, the energy must be amazing… I have been listening to The Circuit on CP and reading their live tournament updates. Still getting use to the UI CP put together this year, a little to be desired, but it works. I was able to find a WSOP RSS feed that I've been using at work, very clean and the feeds are coming right from CP. Another down side to CP's updates is the not so subtle plugs for FullTilt, not just all the ad banners on the page, but the FT plugs within the updates themselves. Here’s an example:

Jennifer Harman Exits
Jennifer Harman finishes in 11th place and collects $51,155 in winnings.
Play exclusively with Jennifer at FullTiltPoker.Net.

I’m going to try and keep my family and friends posted while I’m out there and last night I found away via this blog. Just bought the wife a new phone, a Palm 700w (major phone envy, I must say) and was poking around last night and I was able to post a blog via the phone. It’s so geeky it’s cool. Hoping I make it while, I plan on posting chip counts and any big pots during breaks. Should be pretty cool…

The Poker front… Still trying for a second seat on FT. Played this past Sunday in the 200 and came up short again! Got to the final table with a nice stack, I was 2nd in chips. I ended up going out 7th, pushed a little too hard and also ran into Ks when I had Qs… Still trying and we’ll see if I can get one before the ME starts.

Just isn’t going to happen...

Man, I just can't get that second seat... Had a couple chances this past week, but couldn’t pull it out. Last night, played the Sunday $200 on FT where they were giving two seats. 130 started and I took 7th. Was a nice run but went card dead near the end and just couldn't find anything. I also played in a local bar tourney last week where they were giving away a seat for the winner. They played a weekly tourney at their 4 locations over the last 6 months and the top 10 from each location played in the tournament of champions. There ended up being 37 in the tourney and I ended going out about 30th. Got stung early and never recovered.

There are still a couple more opportunities and I'll keep trying for that second seat...

PPT - Season II - I'm In!

On the way out to work this am I stopped and grabbed the mail out of the mailbox, which I forgot to get yesterday... Well, in with all the junk mail was a letter from the PPT Professional Poker Tour. Looks like I met the qualifications for Season II of the PPT and I'm invited to play and participate in all PPT tournaments this coming seasons! I qualified I'm qualified cause my season 3 win in Foxwoods at the World Poker Finals, and I got a 1 year card.

Here's the link to the list of players that qualified, Season II Qualified Player List (Scroll down, 155...)... There are a total of 265 players that are eligible.

There are 4 tourneys and they are free rolls, nice! Here's the schedule: PPT Season II Tournament Schedule.

Borgata: Sept 11-12
Foxwoods: Nov 7-8
Bellagio: Nov 29-20
Commerce: Feb 12-13

Full Tilt is out to get me...

So I was playing last night in a tourney where the top two get a seat into the WSOP 100 seat Satellite. There are 4 left and I'm 2nd with chips, about 8k, the leader has me covered by about 4k.

Here’s the hand where I went out.

The action went,
I was first to act and bet out, about 4x the BB, with KK.
Button folds, SB folds… and the BB just calls
Flop came AK6
BB checked, I bet, he check raised and I pushed….

Unreal! I won $93, less the $75 entry, +$18 for about an hour and half of work…. Grrrr….

The funny thing, the guy on the button said he had a 6! So there were 3 sets on the FLOP! You have to wonder if they are doing this to generate action...

I know, this is a tourney where the top two get the seats and I was in 2nd in chips at the time, but how can I not play this or play it any different.

I think FT is out to get me…

The Ole "Why Not....."

Playing in the MSR rebuy tonight and down to 4 players... Woke up with pocket K's in the BB and the button calls. Blinds were 500/1000 and I Pushed in for the rest of my stack, almost 13k. The button thinks and says "Why not..."

He calls with 7s... Boy do I love poker!!

60 Days and counting...

Less than 60 days until the big show... Been reading up some and also have been playing as much as I can. Been playing a number of small buyin large field tourneys. Been mixing up my game up and trying different things. Still going for a second seat on FullTilt, the extra 12k would be nice!!

The count is on... Decided to start a Blog and keep you all updated on where I am once the WSOP starts as well as let you know what I’m doing before it starts. Well, if you found this, you’ve see my countdown page that I put last month.

So how did I get my seat to the WSOP? I was lucky! I ended up winning it on Full Tilt Poker. I played in a 9 person $24 +$2 s&g (Sit and Go) that won me an entry into the Sunday $200 WSOP qualifier, the Feb 19^th qualifier. Full Tilt guarantees one seat to the main event in this tourney will add on another seat for every 60 that play. As it turned out they gave two seats that night, there were 147 people playing that night. It actually was the first Sunday for the WSOP qualifier.

So what did I win exactly…

TOURNAMENT TOTAL PACKAGE WORTH $12,000

1. The winner will be provided a $10,000 entry into the World Series of Poker Main Event along with $2,000 in cash as spending money.
2. The Winner will enjoy a Dinner and a Seminar with Team Full Tilt members, such as poker greats like Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson. Dinner will be held before the start of the WSOP Main Event.
3. Full Tilt Poker will also provide the winner with the popular Full Tilt gear worn by the pros including a jacket, shirt, hat and sunglasses.
4. All players who earn an entry into the World Series of Poker Main Event through Full Tilt Poker will be eligible to collect $10,000,000 should they win the Main Event.

That’s about it for now… I’ll be updating this as much as I can.

Take care and see ya!