12/31/07: New Years!

I was pretty pumped up to play poker today and told myself I was going to run good. Crazy enough, I actually did run pretty good and actually got some action when I got AA/KK. I went pretty deep in the Sunday Warm-up and had a solid stack until I made a pretty stupid place and busted in 70^th for 1.4k.

I think I’m done with poker for a couple days. I’ve been playing way too much and really need a break. My friend is coming soon and I am excited to show him around Bangkok. Not quite sure what I’m doing for New Years tonight- probably going to a family friend’s place for a small party and then head out with some friends to bars and clubs.

I’ve got to take a nap right now though…had to get up at 2 AM to play the tourney.

The life of an MTT grinder

I have a very love/hate relationship with MTT's right now. I have been playing them nonstop for about 9 days now and feel like I've learned something. One thing that is for sure is I am 100% addicted to them.

The variance, beats and other shit that comes with MTTs though is almost too much to handle. I'm not great at MTT's by any means but feel that I am super +ev in every single one I play. There are so many weak oppenents who it seems like just don't really care about the money. But again, I make some dreadful plays myself that are really inexcusable. I really should take some time off as I think that the amount I've played has really affected my game.

But, I've dropped about 6-7k in the last 9 days playing MTTs and really want to hit something. Even if I was the worst MTT player I should have made at least one decent cash in the 200+ MTTs I played. Gad, some of the shit was just so frustrating its hard to describe. I was at that point where you expect AK to be cracked by AQ, lower pocket pairs to hit sets and flushes cracked by full houses.

The worst part of all of this was the beats always happened at the high buy in MTTs so I would do decent in the smaller events (never FT, of course) but just get owned by some stupid beat in all of the $100+ tournies. So yeah, I'm a little pissed off right now. Although because they are MTTs and its hard to tell, this seems to be the worst run I have ever gone on in my poker career. I really do hope things will start to look up or I'm going to have to figure out a way to deposit.

Oh, I also played a bit of cash and lost 3 buy-ins there as well. Go me!

I am decently close to crying.

I can't take this anymore. I finally have a good internet connection and am ready to play 20 hours a day but just take beat after beat. I know it happens- I run good in the grand scheme of things but boy, this is brutal.

At this point, I think I'm playing about a B-. I can't stop though, I really want/need/should/could alsdkfjsldkfds cash. I feel like a degenerate. I've been playing 20 hours today and like 60 of the last 90.

The quest for top 100 TLB

Stars has this pretty sick promotion going on right now whereby
(Ok, I'm about to bust with KK real quick AI pre. Guarentee I lose. Ok, I lose to AK obv. I run so good- more about that later though.) Anyway, whereby the top 100 TLB players on Stars play a tournament for a "PokerStars Passport" where they stake you for 20 $10k buy-in events. This would be the sickest thing ever and would pretty much make my life. I first have to make top 100 TLB...then I have to win it against the top 100 online players, no problem, right?

Well, I have been playing at least 15-20 hours a day. I'm on hour 19 right now and will probably play at least 30 today. Take a nap and then sleep until the Sunday majors begin. I'm not really a MTT player but feel this promotion is so sick I have to try.

So, how have these been going? SO BAD. I start off alright, took 3rd for $1500 or something.. Then its just been down hill from there. Bad beat after mother fucking bad beat, and a little of me playing so bad in there too but mostly such bad beats its crazy.

Ok, this post is terriable because I am so tired and playing 4 tables right now. I thought I should post something though.

oh, I went to Cambodia a bit ago. I'll give a trip report about that at some point.

12/11/07: Lots-o-poker

I’ve played more poker in the last three days than in the past three months. I’ve been 12 tabling $1/2 on Stars and booked around 15k hands so far, plus about 40 or so tournaments. The cash has been going well although the last 4k hands or so I’m down 5 buy-ins, only two or so are bad play. Tournaments were very frusterating as I only cashed in 1 of the first 39. Then I won the a 30+3 for 4k so I’m up a bit from all that. Its crazy- I hardly ever just make a nice score. I’ve never gone deep in a decent sized tournament without winning it. No big 2^nd or 3rds or even a big final table. When I go deep in a big tournament, I’ve won each time. Which says two things- I play bad the beginning of MTTs and don’t go deep often but also that when I actually do make it there, I do pretty well. I’m actually super, super happy with my play at this FT. I honestly don’t think I misplayed one hand- everything just went perfectly.

I don’t really plan on doing much in the next couple of weeks. My friend comes on the 4^th and I figure then I’ll leave my apartment and see more of Bangkok. I really, really want to play a lot of poker and think I have a good shot of making some serious cash.

Oh, I almost forgot. I got into the staking thing a bit and thought it was pretty fun. I staked a guy for a $55 tourny, he cashed for a little bit so I staked him for the 100k tourney and antoher $55. He missed both of those though so I ended up down $200ish. It was pretty fun though and will def. do it again. I’m even thinking about starting a site so that I can better verify people and whatnot.

If you happen to read this, think you are a good at MTT's but for some reason don't have a roll, PM me on 2p2. Name is Rolon.

First night in Bangkok

Last night, I went out witch a bunch of guys from 2p2. Ryo and I didn’t get to cookie and crews house until 11:00 but when we walked in the door we were handed a cup and poured a glass of homemade ‘long island ice tea.’ Chilled for a bit, played some dragon ball z (actually a pretty fun game) and then went to Santina or something on Eakami. Ordered two bottles of Chivas and after checking out the club got down to the serious business of drinking heavily.

I played quarters with the birthday boy who at this point was already pretty drunk. He didn’t think an American would be any good and that he would own me. Eh, I was in a frat and played a lot of quarters. I think I lost once or something against him. I played cookie a bit too- he was a bit better and I think we made out about even. Then 1k flips with Ryo who is the biggest luckbox ever. First one, 1k and he wins. Second, 1k and he wins. Alright, gotta win the third one so we bump it up to 2k. Fucking luckbox three in a row!! That was the quickest 4k I’ve ever left (not really, of course).

Its really weird hanging out with poker players because as a rule of thumb, poker players have no concept of money whatsoever. Myself included. For most people losing 4k (baht, ~$125) is a sort of big deal. But eh, poker players win and lose a years rent before they eat breakfest. There is this mentality, I think, that money is pretty much infinite. Going from hanging out with backpackers, who collect 10 baht from everyone for a 40 baht taxi ride, to poker players, who will treat the party to two bottles and think nothing of it, is just nuts. I mean, who honestly flips a coin for 1k? Could you be any more degenerate (and less creative, next time we have to think of better prop bets than flipping a coin)? Whatever, its fun and I’m loving it.

I digress, we were the last ones to leave the place and cookie and birthday boy tried to hire one of the staff to become their personal chef/cleaner/etc. I’m not sure what became of that but it was pretty funny. Us three headed over to Spice while Ryo and company went, I later learned, to a hair salon to pee or something and never made it.

Spice was what I had sort of pictured a Thai bar to be- tons of middle age, not great looking German men and TONS of scantily clad Thai girls (and boys). We drank more, birthday boy passed out and cookie had to take him home and I was left to fend for myself. I’m honestly really scared of picking up a ladyboy and fended off all the girls. I just stood at the bar, girls would come up and grind on me, I’d sort of push them away. They would try to say something but I’m deaf and hate more than anything trying to talk in a loud club so I’d wave my hand and they would grind some more. I was drinking pretty good at this point so I loosened up a bit and started to dance a bit with some of the finer gals. I bought some drinks for them, more girls came over, bought some more drinks and by the end of it all had about 8 or 9 girls in my ‘section.’ I felt like a pimp.

I’ve rambled a bit and this has gone far to long so I’ll end it here by saying the fear of picking up a ladyboy out wheighed the temptation to bring one home. I had dinner with 3 of the girls, got some phone numbers and went home around 7 AM as the sun was just rising.

I wasn’t able to post this before and had another eventful night last night. Went to Fransau (French names are hard to spell) for some poker and vodka. Good times, for sure. The highlight was definitely the last hand though.

The game was pretty nuts at this point. We were playing 10-10 blinds but the game was playing more like 50-100. A lot of times the straddle would get up to 80 and once we did a full table straddle, with me doing the 320! Tons of stupid crazy pots. But the last hand, Ryo open pushed for like 4k. Super nit birthday boy (I’m still trying to do names) insta pushed his 5k in. Goes around to cookie who thinks about it for 10 secs or so and throws his 3k in! Then I look down and have QQ! Wtf! I think about it for awhile, I figure I have to be dominated by super nit who had just announced he didn’t want to lose his hard earned money but called anyway. Ryo had 22 (wtf!?), nit had AKs and cookie had JJ. SWEEETTTTT!!! HOLD!!! Flop comes J 2 A. no joke. Jkadsfl;ajsdflkajdsf;l I lose every single side pot. So stupid. Anyway, then me and Ryo went to spice and didn’t get to sleep till 7 AM, again.

I'm back!

I completley forgot about this blog but figure I'll start updating it again. Its fun to go back and read my poker history. I sort of forgot how much I sucked back then, not that I've gotten any better now.

I'm traveling the world- stayed in China for 6 months. Did Korea and Manila as well. I'm in Thailand now and going to meet up with a bunch of 2p2ers for the first time, which should be fun.

As for poker. I'm playing $1/2 right now on Stars. I'm going to try and play 100k hands this month- not do anything else besides play poker really. I've never played poker really, really hardcore and figure I should give it a try.

It should be funny meeting these guys because I can be a douche sometimes online and hopefully someone won't remember me. =/ We'll see!