5/20/08- Santa Cruz

This past weekend I went to Santa Cruz to visit a friend from high school. It was a pretty fun trip. We played some bocha ball on the beach the first day where Alex owned me with his ball throwing skills for a 6 pack of beer. Then we hit up some pretty sketchy local bars where I did some pool hustling while drinking far too much. The next day we woke up pretty late and played some golf at Scott’s Valley. I played alright but it didn’t really matter because I finally got to play a course besides the Davis muni. We kept it pretty chill that night and just drank some wine/hard cidar/champagne/beer/gin&tonic/etc. When Alex and I drink together we, like, don’t mess around. Interspersed between all this was delicious food around Santa Cruz but shoot, we must have spent close to $350 on food/drinks in two days.

Poker has been eh. I’ve put in like 1k hands total the last two weeks and have pretty much broken even. I just can’t find the motivation to play much after such a big month in March. In a couple of hours, though, I’m going to start on my “BAP” where I’m being staked for about 37 tournies over 2 days. Hopefully something big happens and I crush fish.

4/25/08

Ugh, I’m never drinking again. I was going to take it easy yesterday and just play a round of golf with my buddy but of course I ended up going out afterwards. Between golf and the bar I got in a couple of hands where I lost some money. I was pretty stupid because I tried to 3 table HU + 4 SNG’s. Such a bad idea. The SNG’s were only $10 and I should have just closed them and forgot cause they cost me about $500 cause I couldn’t focus on HU.

I had one interesting hand come up though. I don’t have the HH because I was on my friend’s computer.

Hand 1:

Villain had been fairly tight the whole match, not doing much but again I was playing way too many tables and wasn’t focusing much on him.

I’m on the button and raise 10Jo. Guy calls.

I flop the nuts with 7c 8s 9c. I bet $20 into $24 and he calls.

Turn is the 6s. I bet 60 into 70ish and he calls.

Turn is the 2c. He shoves about $220 into $160.

Against most players this is a fist pumping snap call but because this guy was so tight I guess I should have at least considered folding. I just hate flopping the nuts and losing. I also see a lot of people take this line with just a 10 so I don’t think my call is bad at all.

I ended up down $300 on the session. I’m going to Santa Cruz tomorrow and won’t be back till Monday.

Its been awhile...

Its been awhile since I have updated this thing but figure its about time. A quick recap of the last 4 months.

I played almost 60k hands of poker in December, the most I've ever played in a single month. That with a 8 day break to hang out with my friend. The best thing..I made about $800 which translates to just over what a Thai worker made. Balla.

Feb. I played a bit, probably lost money (can't remember) and then my parents came to visit. I took a trip up to Chaing Mai with my Mom and took a two-day bird watching trip which although I hate to admit it, I actually enjoyed quite a bit. We also rode elephants, saw long neck people, etc. all the touristy bits.

My final two weeks in Thailand I spent island hopping which I should have done right when I got there so I could have realized how much better the islands are than dirty Bangkok. I met some 2+2er's during the trip as well which was a bunch of fun to talk and play some poker and of course make degenerate prop bets. By the way, I dominate prop bets. If anybody actually reads this and meets up with me- you have been warned and I will own you in prop bets. I should probably quit poker and take up prop betting full time.

So island hopping. I got my advanced scuba diving cert. on Kah Tao. Of course, it was the worst visibility in like two years they said and I couldn't really see shit. I did see a cuttlefish which is supposed to be rare and whatnot. Then it was Koh Pa Nang for the full moon party. This is a sick big party that attracts people from around the world. Everybody starts to congregate on the beach at about 2 PM and the party goes till about 10 AM the next morning. People literally buy buckets of alochol by the bucket load (lol, not) and precede to do fire jump rope, fire jungling and fire walks. Oh such a good idea. Who was the genius who thought to combine fire and mass quantities of alcohol/drugs?

I came back to the States on March 1st. Went straight to Palm Springs to visit my grandpa who had surgery. They also live near a casino where I spent most of my time. I'd donk around at the 1/2 game (and I mean donk around), make some money and then go blow it on craps. I'm such a fish for craps and really shouldn't be allowed inside casino's.

Then I was back for a week, played some poker and met up with high school friends. For Spring Break, I took a road trip with two friends from high school down the coast of Cali, stopping at Big Sur and Santa Barbara for some mad partying. Big Sur must be the place to go as about 90% of the camp grounds were filled with kids 18-24. A word of advice- never, ever take kids to Big Sir during spring break. There was enough booze to float a freaking battleship. I mean, it was the whole nine yards with a beer pong table, NC rednick hill billies and some high school emo kids smoking weed.

Santa Barbara was pretty sick even though none of the students were there. The highlight of the whole trip was after we had a drink at every place that served alcohol on Ila Vista (it had a special name that I forgot- like the Ila Vista walk or something). Anyway, Dustin (my buddy) built a 'heckling deck' where you pretty much sit out on this bored overlooking the street and heckle the shit of people. Before we went out for the night I was talking about how bad of a heckler I am cause I'm a nice guy and all. Well, when I'm near blacked out and have a mad dog (yes, baller) in my hand I'm not such a nice guy. I remember very distinctly people walking by and yelling pretty absurd things at them. Some guy with a skatebored actually stopped riding and sort of shurgged his shoulders and was like "whats your problem dude." That was funny. And then the best part, which is a little fuzzy in my mind was when a cop drove by. He stopped and asked us whats up and I was just super beligerent cause we were talking about how much of assholes cops are in SB. So I talked trash to the cop and told him he couldn't touch me, etc. etc, super beligerent. Good times.

Ok, so I suck at story telling (and writing). Whatever, suck it. I haven't written shit since my last blog entry.

Since then I haven't done much. I'm chilling at home playing some poker and rocking it with old high school buddies. I've been playing a lot of HU. I started off with 1/2, rocked it and moved up to 2/4. Rocked it. But now I'm bored and need to find a new game. I'll even put up graphs.

I also got into staking at neverbeg.com. Its really addicting to stake people and I've got over $10k out now. But, its also cool cause I've built up a bit of a rep now and just got my first stake for two nights of tournies. I played really bad the first day but turned it around the second and managed to FT a $109 FO for 1.6k for a 800 profit or so.


God, my graph is so sexy.