Doin’ Work

$100-$200 NLH 6 max: Played one session and got coolered with set over set and ended up losing over two buy ins. I’d like to eventually get to 50,000 hands in that game, but it’s often difficult finding customers willing to play those stakes. Since January 2010 I’ve played 11,680 hands and am ahead $147,538.30. $5600 HU Sit n’ Gos: Mostly battling Piston87 and SkaiWalkurr and have done well with a record of 26-14. Micro Challenge: Still surviving. My goal was to turn $10 into $100,000 with a very aggressive bankroll plan, but I’ve been stuck at the $0.25-$0.50 level for quite sometime now. I’ve played 1782 hands at that limit and am down $87.65. My bankroll now sits at $166.03. You can follow the progress of that challenge at my personal website, www.fullcontactpoker.com. Go to the Forums, then find the Daniel’s Blog section, and you’ll find a stickied thread there with all my results. $400-$800 8-Game: I’ve had a cup of coffee in that game, hasn’t been my primary focus. If I play that game it’s mainly just a good way to make money, but I’m more concerned with plugging leaks in my weaker games, and 8-Game is definitely not an issue for me. $5-$10 NLH 4-tabling Heads Up: Hardly a secret, I’m a fan of Viktor “Isildur1” Blom and watching him play the SuperStar Showdown on PokerStars on Sundays has inspired me to see if I can get to the point where I feel like I could be a worthy challenger for him. As many of you know, I didn’t grow up playing online poker and I’ve always been adverse to multi-tabling. Well, since the Isildur1 showdown is a 4-table match, the only way to play him would be to hit the grind stone and see if I’m even capable of keeping up. The goal has been to play 2500 hands straight (the length of the Showdown) and see how well I could adjust to the speed of the game. In my first attempt, I played 1038 hands vs knecht_poker before he chose to quit. I couldn’t have made it much longer anyway, my brain was complete mush. Since then my stamina is improving as is my speed. I finally reached the 2500 hand mark against Nanonoko in a little over 4 hours. I didn’t even care about the result, I was proud of the fact that I hung in there. Mind you, I did time out against him a few times. He is lightning fast, I’ve never seen anything like it before. He is a SuperNovaElite who comfortably plays 20 tables, so while 4 tables is about all I can handle, it was a walk in the park for him. Dude was even having conversations with the rail! He started out ahead a few buyins, maybe as much as $6000-$7000 at one point, I’m not sure, but I didn’t throw in the towel, and with a couple hundred hands left in the match I pulled in front by about 4 or 5 buy ins. An ill timed bluff, where I was trying to represent the hand he had (that’s never good) saw me lose the lead, and in the end, he won $854.50.
The hand went something like this. He made it $30, I made it $100 with A-10, he made it $260, and I 5-bet to $560.
The flop came K-7-2 rainbow and it went check-check. The turn was a Q and I checked again. He bet $600 and I check raised him all in for his remaining $1576. He called and had KK! Oops. I did not play this hand well at all and was disappointed in myself for making this play… live and learn. Here are the results of my opponents who’ve faced me so far: Nananoko 2501 hands +$854.50
FMyLife 1546 hands -$11,057.25
dim–trix 1050 hands -$6,913.50
knecht_poker 1035 hands -$895.00
TCFromUB 323 hands +$3213.30
sergiobraga 258 hands -$118.00
adtina22 47 hands -$1.00 My results in total are pretty good so far: 6774 hands +$13,842.40
Playing against Nananoko was the best training I could ask for. He was five times faster than any other opponent I faced which forced me to not only time out a few times, but also led to a few misclicks. It’s all part of the learning process, and I’m a big believer in going all out against the fastest competition I can find, because then when I play others, the pace will seem comfortable. It’s no different than a baseball player swinging five bats before he goes up to the plate, or a golfer taking some practice swings with a heavy club. Nanonoko was also twice as aggressive pre-flop as anyone else I’d faced, 3 betting me 29% of the time, while my other opponents generally hovered around 15%. In watching Isildur1 play, more practice against aggressive players is what the doctor ordered. I plan on playing against various opponents in the coming week. I’m hoping that Justin Bonomo will be available tomorrow night, and then possibly play against my buddy, and fellow Team PokerStars Pro, Lex Veldhuis. This is just the early stages of my training for a match with Isildur1, so don’t expect any announcements anytime soon. I’m taking that decision very seriously, and it has absolutely nothing to do with money. None of this does. This challenge gets my juices flowing and I’m dedicated to the journey/process of building my way up there. I want to put in somewhere around 20,000 hands at the $5-$10 level, then make the jump to the $25-$50 HU specialists if all goes well. I don’t expect this to be easy, and I don’t expect to win every time I play. I do expect to get better… fast. One of my 10 goals this year was to accumulate 60,000 vpps on PokerStars by the end of the year. My career max is 55,000 in any year, and that was last year. Well, I’m already at 27,949.03. That’s way ahead of schedule, mind you, I don’t put in any time online during the WSOP, or when I’m involved in other live tournaments. Which reminds me, I’ve been meaning to write a blog about the new Bluff Player of the Year criteria, as well as my thoughts on this years WSOP schedule and how a key rule change will affect me. It’s all good by the way, you’ll hear me doing the opposite of complaining in that blog. This one is too long as is, so expect to see that blog next week sometime. Good night everyone. ]]>

That means taking away all results from events like NBC Heads Up, Poker After Dark, as well as the $1 million cash Phil Ivey had in an 8 handed sit n’ go in Monte Carlo that had a $125,000 buy in and was invite only. The $250,000 buy in event that occurred at Aussie Millions recently is an interesting one. It wasn’t on the schedule, and apparently was thrown together a day or so in advance. It was an open event, anyone could play, provided you were already in Melbourne. By the time the event was announced, it would have been impossible to get a flight from the U.S. in time to play in the event. For many years at tournaments people have thrown together one table satellites, before and after a main event. Similar to a side cash game, 10 guys would each put up $1000 or so and play a sit n’ go. Those events don’t appear on the all-time money list and rightfully so. There have been thousands of them and they’d be impossible to track. The $250,000 event got loads of attention because of the size of the buy in, but based on the way it took place, it’s identical to what would normally be called a sit n’ go. The fact that the whole event took less than 12 hours is also more indicative of a turbo sit n’ go rather than a standard tournament. As many people have pointed out, the all-time list doesn’t “mean anything” it’s just a stat that keeps track of long term tournament success. Having said that, the list does get a decent amount of attention and I think that’s good for poker. It’s for that reason that I think that if sites are going to track these lists, they might as well get it right and track what makes sense. Otherwise, the lists could become even less relevant. For example, a site could hold an invite only $5 million buy in event with 10 players, winner take all. The winner of that event would be at the top of the list. I do enjoy looking at the lists and made it a personal goal to try and get to #1. Again, it doesn’t “mean anything,” but it’s fun and obviously creates a lot of interest. I think it would be more fun to strip away all the invite only cashes and made for TV sit n’ gos and make the list a bit more pure. My number would drop for sure. I had a PAD win, a few cashes in the NBC Heads Up event, and a TOC cash that I actually had to qualify for, and did, but still don’t think it should count. If there are any computer geeks out there that want to spend the time compiling such a list, let me know! Seems like it would be a lot of work, but I don’t even think you’d have to track everyone. You could probably track just the top 100 list from other sites, strip them of the invite only cashes, and see what the numbers look like then. Might even be fun to track separate lists i.e. “All-time list in events under $25,000”
“All-time list in events $25,000 and up”
********************************************************* I’m back in Vegas now excited to be home for almost a month. I won’t be traveling overseas much until the WSOP, maybe just one trip to the EPT Grand Final. The dates for that event haven’t yet been released. On the immediate schedule will be lots of online play on PokerStars. Anything from: $400-$800 8-game
$5600 heads up turbo sit n’ gos
$100-$200 NLH in Daniel’s Room
$500-$1000 Limit Hold’em
$0.25-$0.50 (part of my micro challenge at about $200 now)
Sunday Tournaments My stats in the sit n’ gos have been really good so far this year, 21-9 which puts me in the top 5 I’m told. I like playing those because you get 550 vpps per sit n’ go which helps with my goal of hitting 60,000 vppps in 2011. I’m already close to 20,000 and January isn’t over yet. I’m also going to be doing P90x this month, and possibly switching to Insanity in the hopes of “getting sexy.” I also hope to get in some golf. Haven’t picked up a club in ages. In the meantime, find me on PokerStars, I’m “KidPoker.”]]>

SIDEBAR: It annoys me when players who play the tour for three years and don’t do anything chalk it up to “variance.” Yeah, has nothing to do with the fact that you suck… you are just unlucky. It’s often the young kids who may have had one or two scores, now have a backer, are bitter and miserable, and just don’t want to face reality. Either get better, or get a job. A kid like Jason Mercier isn’t just “luckier” than you, he works harder on his game than you do and that’s why he posts consistent results. One kid in particular I saw playing the WSOPE main event talking was about “donkaments” and variance, and whatever, and how it’s all luck. Well, he was bitter because he’s not very good and hadn’t had a score in ages. I looked over at Phil Ivey and his eyes were darting back and forth, watching every move, and gathering as much information as possible on his opponents. What was this punk doing? On day two of the main event he had his headphones blaring, barely lifted his head, and was reading a book! If I staked someone and saw them disrespect my money like that I’d cut them off immediately.
/end rant For the first time in history, ESPN2 aired the final table of the PCA live WITH holecards. I was fortunate enough to see all of the action as I was doing the commentary with James Hartigan who is amazing at what he does and is a pleasure to work with. James is an opinionated guy like me, and the truth is, if I didn’t agree with virtually everything he says I’d probably hate him! We do agree on virtually everything, so he’s obviously a smart guy and I like him very much 🙂 Galen Hall went on to win the event, but not before plenty of fireworks. Hall made an excellent lay down heads up that allowed him to claw his way back to victory. Congrats Galen, outside of two hands the entire final table I think you played flawlessly. The feedback from the poker community has been overwhelmingly positive and has left people screaming for MORE! MORE! MORE! Well, the people at ESPN as well as the people at PokerStars were extremely happy with the end result and seemed enthusiastic about trying out this format again in the future. I thoroughly enjoyed doing the commentary and I think it showed. Our energy stayed up during the entire broadcast and I found the whole thing very exciting despite not knowing the participants. Oliver was a treat to watch! He made some very unorthodox plays and held the chip lead most of the way, but there is no shame in losing to Hall. There was some high level play going on at the final table full of young players. SIDEBAR: The best no limit hold’em players in the world today are mostly young. It’s just a fact and if you look at tournament results over the past few years it’s trending younger and younger. Why? The younger players are using more advanced tools to break down the game, discussing hands with friends and on forums, and most importantly are putting in more volume than the older generation. I guess I’m part of the older generation now, but I’m never, ever, going to let the game pass me by and not learn how to improve. I think my game is better than ever today and much of that is due to the fact that I’ve put in the time to get better. For a while I was caught up with poker activities outside of playing, as well as golf, and life, but POKER is my life and I want to be the best I can be at it. I feel like much of the older generation has just “checked out” and are unwilling to get better. Much of the old guard that became famous during the poker boom are hardly relevant in terms of results at this point.
/end rant One of my other goals this year was to accumulate over 55,000 vpps this year on PokerStars. I got 55,000 last year, my highest total ever, and I plan on getting to 60,000 this year, and possibly even reach SuperNova status. One of the best ways to do it, I found, was to play the $5600 buy in heads up NLH turbo sit n’ gos.
So far this year I’ve accumulated 15,608.74 vpps and have run really hot in my matches going 17-6 so far playing against the best players on the site. I’ve also put in a little time practicing 4-tabling $5-$10 heads up. I have to be honest here, I find it very difficult. My goal is to play 2500 hands, the longest I’ve played without my brain turning to mush is 1038. 2500 is a key number. As you may have guessed, my plan is to practice at lower stakes in the hopes of being ready to take on Isildur1 in the SuperStar Showdown. I’m nowhere near ready. Hey, like I said, just being honest! As much as I’d like to play him now, I don’t think I’d give him much of a match at this point. I’ll need to get a couple months of practice in where I get comfortable with the speed of things. So, if you ever want to play me heads up on 4 tables at $5-$10 look for my tweets @RealKidPoker and I’ll let you know when I’m looking for action. ***************************************************************** During the WSOP I was doing P90X religiously and I was starting to get sexy! I only made it through 9 weeks and since then haven’t lifted a thing outside of a veggie burger with fries. Well, I want to get sexy again so I started up again 3 days ago. It’s tough to restart, because my mind knows what I am capable of doing, but my body is saying, “Dude, yeah, maybe three months ago you could lift that, how about starting with the girlie weights for a bit.” I do feel great though and hope to stick with it. The hardest part for me is travel. Outside of being busy, it’s not that easy to follow the diet (with me being a vegan) while I’m on the road. Month one calls for high protein/low carbs, and while home my assistant Patty cooks me the perfect meals everyday, but on the road I’m often stuck. Oh well, I’m going to just do the best I can and follow the best I can. I feel like doing “something” is better than nothing. Eddy Sabat is coming to EPT Deauville with me and we’ve promised each other to motivate ourselves to just get the workouts in. Speaking of EPT Deauville, I finally did my schedule for the next few months and there were some tough choices. For example, you have WPT Biloxi, Aussie Millions, and EPT Deauville all happening at the same time. In terms of pure value, the decision wasn’t even close. Online poker is legal in France and Pokerstars.fr is qualifying tons of new French players and the event may have as many as 1000 entries! EPT San Remo has always been considered the juiciest tournament of the year, but I think Deauville might just top that. We’ll see. The girls are not coming along on this trip, so it’ll be just business. Working out, and playing hard. Jan 25-31 EPT Deauville
Feb 20-25 TV Filming
Feb 25-Mar 1 WPT LAPC
Mar 3-5 NBC Heads Up
Mar 5-10 NAPT Bike
Mar 12-17 WPT Bay 101
Mar 20-25 EPT SnowFest (50-50 on this one)
Mar 27-30 WSOPC (I forget where lol)
Apr 8-13 NAPT Mohegan Sun
April 21st Patty and Lisa’s Wedding (congrats ladies!)
Apr 27-30 WSOPC (I forget where)
May 14-20 WPT Championship There is also the EPT Grand Final as well as possibly EPT San Remo that I may attend, but the schedule for either has not been released yet. Fingers crossed neither happens on April 21st, I definitely don’t want to miss my assistant Patty’s “ceremony”, wedding, or whatever you call it. Either way I’d hate to miss it. Outside of the WPT Championship in May I’ll be back on the golf course and working out, gearing up for a big run at the WSOP. The WSOP is always an important time of year to have my head on straight, and I’m hoping for a drama less WSOP this year! (just re-reading the blog and noticed at the top I said “I’ll try to make this brief.” Oops, fail.)]]>

2010 Blog.
Now, often people write in January how they are going to share their results for the year, but as soon as things go south, they don’t want to talk about it anymore. I’m not that guy. I’m more than willing to point at my failures just as often as my successes, and 2010 saw me miss my goals by a large margin. 1. $1 million in tournament earnings in 2010. Well that didn’t happen. I didn’t get that big score I needed to cross the $1 million mark and finished the year with $683,825 in cashes. The goal in 2011 remains the same, and I’m very confident I’ll be able to achieve this goal, starting out with some big events at the PCA in just a few days. 0-1
2. Stay #1 on the all-time money leader list. Phil Ivey played a full slate of tournaments in 2010 and walked away with a WSOP bracelet to boot. Phil Ivey 13,859,944
Daniel Negreanu 13,116,192 That’s a big hole to jump out of in 2011, as Ivey is once again expected to play a full schedule, but I’m a big believer in setting your goals high, so the goal is to get back on top the all-time money leader list. 0-2
3. Stay #1 on the WPT all-time money leader list. Carlos Mortensen knocked off another WPT in impressive fashion to take over the #1 spot. I, on the other hand wasn’t able to play many WPT’s as I was chasing tournaments overseas. In December I missed WPT Bellagio, an event I’ve had great success in, in favor of APPT Sydney which I final tabled. I don’t think I’ll be able to make too many WPT stops this year either, but nonetheless, the goal is to make them count, and surpass Carlos for the #1 spot: Carlos Mortensen $5,754,310
Daniel Negreanu $5,538,967 0-3 4. Two WSOP Bracelets. Never mind two bracelets, I barely got a sniff at one. I came 8th in 2-7 NL Single Draw, 10th in the $25k NLH 6 max, and then had a shot at WSOPE making the quarter-final of the heads up event there. The goal in 2011 is still two bracelets, but I won’t exactly be crying if I “only” win my 5th. 0-4 5. One Tour Win. The closest I came here was EPT Vienna. Ironically, I hadn’t had much success on the EPT until this season, having my first ever cash at the previous stop in London, but I was disappointed with the 4th after holding the chip lead from the middle of day two all the way down to the final 4. I felt like I let one slip away here and should have posted a better result. Lot’s of events to choose from in 2011 with the EPT, WPT, and NAPT, as well as possibly getting out to an LAPT or an APPT event… that’s a lot of PT’s! The goal is a win. 0-5 6. Move up to 12th on the WSOP all-time cash list. Ding, ding, ding, don’t call it a shutout! With 48 cashes I moved into a tie with Brent Carter and Mike Sexton in 12th place. The goal in 2011 may seem like a modest one, but it’s the only one that is realistically attainable, and that’s to move past John Cernutto (49) into 11th place on the all-time list. Sitting in 10th is John Juanda who has 55 cashes and rates to cash at least 4-5 times which would force me to cash 12 times to move in the top ten. Yeah, not betting that one! 1-5
7. Move up to 25th on the WSOP all-time money list. I started the year in 28th place, and ended the year in 31st! So yeah, that’s a fail. While I may have caught a few people I was chasing, the big prize pools in the main event shoots guys up the list in a hurry, so the goal this year is to bump past Antoine Saout and Scott Montgomery into 29th place. It’s an incredibly difficult goal actually, because realistically I’ll have to also catch either John Juanda or Chris Ferguson as well, who are currently about $500k ahead of me. 1-6 8. Get to the $3-$6 level in my bankroll challenge. I am not dead yet, but I didn’t have the time to really put in enough volume to reach the $3-$6 level. I’m currently at the $0.25-$0.50 level with $163.45 after starting with $10 at $0.01-$0.02. In total I’ve played 7244 hands, one tabling the whole time. I had my bankroll up to $250, but some bad luck at my current level has put me in jeapoardy. I plan on playing a lot more high stakes poker online this year, so I’ll leave this goal the same, hoping to get to the $3-$6 NL game without going broke. 1-7 I never expected to reach all 8 goals in 2010, but was hoping to hit 4 or 5 of them. 1 out of 8 I certainly didn’t expect, but it’s kind of fun at the same time. I have a lot to prove in 2011, and I like that. I’m actually going to add a few goals to the roster for 2011: 9. 60,000 VPP’s on PokerStars. For most of you grinders this may seem like an easy feat, but the most I’ve ever gotten in a year, last year, in fact, was about 55,000. You earn 550 VPP’s for playing $5600 sit n’ gos which should help. I’ve already played 8 matches and have been fortunate so far, going 6-2. I also plan on playing a lot more high stakes limit hold’em, another way to earn points fast.
Multi-tabling is also an option I’m looking into, and practiced a session 4-tabling heads up at $5-$10 stakes. I played 1038 hands, never timed out or sat out, and ended up winner, but my brain was mush. I have a long way to go before I could endure taking on the SuperStar Showdown again Isildur1. I plan on continuing to practice, and hopefully take him on one Sunday. I really enjoy watching him play, and thought the match vs. Tony G was very entertaining. 10. Win $250,000 or more on televised cash games. That will include any tapings of PokerStars.Net The Big Game that I play, as well as High Stakes Poker in 2011 (the session I played in December will not count.) This one is guaranteed to get some chuckles from forum posters and those that have seen me donk off more than a few buy ins on TV, but I feel it’s very doable provided I play at least 8 sessions. So to make that clear, I’m not talking about one single session, I’m talking about the total at years end. I would also play on Poker After Dark’s cash games happily, and PokerStars totally allows our Team Pros to take part in shows sponsored by our competitors, but I was told I would not be allowed to participate on the show which I think is unfortunate, especially for the fans.
I’m pretty sure both the players and the fans are sick of the politics associated with sponsored shows/tournaments and would all like the freedom to choose which events they play, within reason. Just to make things clear, PokerStars policy is to allow players of any affiliation play in their tour events, as well as shows like The Big Game. In fact, players like Durr and Phil Ivey were invited to take part in both The Big Game and HSP, but were not allowed to participate. So there are my 10 goals. If I hit 5-10 I’ll consider it a great year… 1-10, and I may join the ranks and not post a blog with my results in 2012! Kidding of course, expect to see my yearly goals blog for as long as I’m playing poker.
********************************************************************** Briefly, New Years Eve was an absolute blast. We had a decent group of about 20 people for dinner at Little Buddha. Then our host took us to a prime table at Moon where LMFAO performed. Everyone was into it, and I had a blast with some of my closest friends. Jennifer and Marco, my assistant Patty and her fiance Lisa, Stapes and Parker, Eddy flying solo, Sam and my Korean buddy John Smith (funny story how he got that name), my golf guy Christian and his wife Amy, Lex and Evelyn, and of course, no party is complete without Amanda and her sidekick Jeska. The plan was to head to Rain, but that changed last minute and our “guy” Lance Sherman hooked us up with a bus to meet some friends. We danced there for a while, and then moved the party to the Penthouse suite at Palms Place that I rented out for two nights. Place is pretty sweet. We had a hot tub on the balcony and didn’t get to bed until I was good and wrinkly from chillin’ out there till the sun came up.
Almost forgot, pro pool player Alex Pagulayan joined us after dinner and ended up sleeping in a chair. He’s so tiny he fit his whole body in the smallest chair ever! Must have been about 8 of who ended up sleeping in the suite, but Alex was certainly the most space efficient. The next two days were total veg days. We didn’t leave the suite on Jan 1st and did a whole lot of nothing! Yesterday, everyone headed over to my house to watch ridiculous movies and eat fast food. It took my hot tub almost 6 hours to heat up, and when it did it started snowing in Vegas! A little snow wasn’t going to stop anyone though… except me. I left Canada because I hate the cold! Happy New Year! ]]>

1. Vanessa Selbst $2,865,830
2009 (rank) $103,879 (40)
2008 (rank) $540,577 (12)
3 year total (rank) $3,510,286 (6) 2. Liv Boeree $1,825,425
2009 (rank) $173,642 (29)
2008 (rank) $55,542 (41)
3 year total (rank) $2,054,612 (13) 3. David Williams $1,583,274
2009 (rank) $221,909 (24)
2008 (rank) $327,739 (18)
3 year total (rank) $2,132,922 (12) 4. Jose Ignacio Barbero $1,543,463
2009 (rank) $115,058 (37)
2008 (rank) $100,617 (33)
3 year total (rank) $1,759,138 (15) 5. Theo Jorgensen $1,375,854
2009 (rank) $50,385 (57)
2008 (rank) $406,702 (15)
3 year total (rank) $1,832,941 (14) 6. Jason Mercier $1,059,908
2009 (rank) $1,354,026 (5)
2008 (rank) $2,752,423 (4)
3 year total (rank) $5,166,357 (4) 7. Martin Hruby $747,452
2009 (rank) $72,106 (48)
2008 (rank) $48,565 (46)
3 year total (rank) $868,123 (26) 8. Daniel Negreanu $683,825
2009 (rank) $1,224,895 (7)
2008 (rank) $1,301,853 (6)
3 year total (rank) $3,210,573 (8) 9. Vanessa Rousso $616,514
2009 (rank) $1,342,590 (6)
2008 (rank) $267,419 (20)
3 year total (rank) $2,265,523 (11) 10. Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier $459,701
2009 (rank) $1,642,560 (4)
2008 (rank) $3,686,476 (3)
3 year total (rank) $5,788,737 (3) 11. Arnaud Mattern $445,016
2009 (rank) $140,162 (32)
2008 (rank) $153,729 (28)
3 year total (rank) $738,907 (31) 12. John Duthie $371,607
2009 (rank) $393,609 (16)
2008 (rank) $50,471 (45)
3 year total (rank) $815,687 (28) 13. Marcin Horecki $366,430
2009 (rank) $68768 (50)
2008 (rank) $584,287 (10)
3 year total (rank) $1,019,485 (21) 14. Alexander Kravchenko $357,146
2009 (rank) $262,187 (21)
2008 (rank) $345,600 (17)
3 year total (rank) $964,933 (24) 15. Johnny Lodden $356,161
2009 (rank) $32,508 (63)
2008 (rank) $278,713 (19)
3 year total (rank) $667,382 (33) 16. Luca Pagano $$327,088
2009 (rank) $540,840 (14)
2008 (rank) $553,203 (11)
3 year total (rank) $1,421,131 (17) 17. Maxim Lykov $279,500
2009 (rank) $697,564 (12)
2008 (rank) $0 (65)
3 year total (rank) $977,064 (23) 18. JP Kelly $274,578
2009 (rank) $468,194 (15)
2008 (rank) $41,796 (48)
3 year total (rank) $784,568 (29) 19. Ruben Visser $241,330
2009 (rank) $62,346 (52)
2008 (rank) $2,495 (63)
3 year total (rank) $306,171 (46) 20. Van Nguyen $238,090
2009 (rank) $59,347 (53)
2008 (rank) $40,469 (49)
3 year total (rank) $337,906 (44) 21. Richard Toth $213,313
2009 (rank) $261,735 (22)
2008 (rank) $25,700 (54)
3 year total (rank) $500,748 (37) 22. Dario Minieri $191,983
2009 (rank) $180,253 (28)
2008 (rank) $1,147,934 (7)
3 year total (rank) $1,520,170 (16) 23. Tony Hachem $180,237
2009 (rank) $18,278 (65)
2008 (rank) $83,862 (36)
3 year total (rank) $282,377 (48) 24. Marcel Luske $166,532
2009 (rank) $6,449 (72)
2008 (rank) $381,194 (16)
3 year total (rank) $554,175 (35) 25. Thomas Bichon $166,100
2009 (rank) $860,225 (10)
2008 (rank) $32,320 (52)
3 year total (rank) $1,058,645 (20) 26. Barry Greenstein $161,829
2009 (rank) $318,590 (19)
2008 (rank) $939,921 (8)
3 year total (rank) $1,420,340 (18) 27. Lex Veldhuis $153,696
2009 (rank) $335,317 (18)
2008 (rank) $23,836 (55)
3 year total (rank) $512,849 (36) 28. Pat Pezzin $146,682
2009 (rank) $316,827 (20)
2008 (rank) $149,667 (29)
3 year total (rank) $613,176 (34) 29. Dennis Phillips $143,971
2009 (rank) $339,598 (17)
2008 (rank) $4,524,608 (2)
3 year total (rank) $5,008,177 (5) 30. Bryan Huang $139,485
2009 (rank) $55,607 (54)
2008 (rank) $181,123 (25)
3 year total (rank) $376,215 (42) 31. Pieter de Korver $136,888
2009 (rank) $3,065,565 (2)
2008 (rank) $15,659 (59)
3 year total (rank) $3,218,112 (7) 32. Alexandre Gomez $126,194
2009 (rank) $1,947,937 (3)
2008 (rank) $847,895 (9)
3 year total (rank) $2,922,026 (9) 33. Greg Raymer $120,487
2009 (rank) $780,927 (11)
2008 (rank) $34,579 (50)
3 year total (rank) $935,993 (25) 34. Victor Ramdin $118,242
2009 (rank) $55,146 (56)
2008 (rank) $182,439 (24)
3 year total (rank) $355,827 (43) 35. Chad Brown $116,007
2009 (rank) $603,995 (13)
2008 (rank) $141,511 (30)
3 year total (rank) $861,513 (27) 36. Raymond Wu $114,770
2009 (rank) $163,579 (30)
2008 (rank) $0 (65)
3 year total (rank) $278,349 (49) 37. Joe Hachem $105,829
2009 (rank) $111,600 (38)
2008 (rank) $214,719 (22)
3 year total (rank) $432,148 (38) 38. Leo Fernandez $94,036
2009 (rank) $244,083 (23)
2008 (rank) $54,469 (43)
3 year total (rank) $392,588 (40) 39. Victoria Coren $87,259
2009 (rank) $42,000 (59)
2008 (rank) $98,909 (34)
3 year total (rank) $228,168 (53) 40. Chris Moneymaker $70,712
2009 (rank) $97,801 (42)
2008 (rank) $72,442 (38)
3 year total (rank) $240,955 (52) I do have the results for all 75 players, but since I’m doing this manually, it takes a while, and the focus isn’t on who did the worst, I figured I’d stop after the top 40. Good luck to everyone in 2011 and I’ll see you all at the PCA!
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Well, it didn’t work out that way because somehow the Bellagio changed their dates which meant is conflicted with my Sydney trip that I wasn’t going to move for sure. It’s a shame too, because historically I’ve always had good Decembers and in that tournament specifically I’ve got a win, a 3rd, and I was chip leader another time with two tables left before running KK into AA and missing the final table in 12th. I was most excited about this trip because I was genuinely committed to making a REAL vacation out of it. Normally when I travel, alone, I fly to these exotic places only to end up in a casino, my hotel room, and then fly back home without really experiencing what the city has to offer. Again, being totally honest, the tournament was secondary to me and I’d already decided that I wasn’t going to stick to my strict rules for tournament preparation. Originally the plan was for six of us to travel together, but at the last minute we had two stragglers join us! Melissa Castello and Eddy Sabat were planning on going to Panama, but with Amanda convincing Melissa, and me reminding Eddy that he is “Mr.APPT” they decided to change their plans and join us. Eddy won APPT Macau and on top of that he won the heads up event at APPT Sydney. Seemed like a no-brainer since I do believe that people do better at places they’ve had success at before. I don’t know what you call that exactly, but subconsciously, I think going to a place where you’ve had success before gives you a bit more confidence that can make the difference, or vice versa, if there is a place you always seem to lose, that can affect you negatively. That’s why I’ve asked the producers of High Stakes Poker if they are ok with me burning the set 🙂 We all left from LA on December 2nd and arrived in Sydney on a direct flight on December 4th. I wasn’t scheduled to play my day 1 until December 8th so that gave me ample time to have some fun. The group included myself, Amanda, Eddy, Melissa, Parker, Amanda’s friend Jessica from North Carolina, her brother Chris, and his baby mama Kendra. When I was booking the rooms I thought the Shangri-La seemed nice. I swear, not until we pulled up to the hotel did I have a eureka moment, “I stayed here before!” Not only that, I stayed there for almost two weeks when I filmed that two second cameo in Wolverine. That trip would prove to be very different from this one. On that trip, I’d never been more alone and wrote these uber introspective blogs about “life” and all that. Kind of funny looking back now. I have them archived they start with this one: FCP Blog We were all hungry and a bit tired, but decided to walk around and find a little place to eat. We walked along George St. and it seemed the only thing that was open was Mackers and Hungry Jacks. Truth is, it was my fault. We walked the wrong way and it was a Saturday, so the only cool places we found weren’t open at noon. Eventually we found a place after a long walk that I don’t think Parker enjoyed. Parker looks like an athlete. Tall, slim, and fit looking, but MAN is that girl out of shape! We had to walk uphill a few times and she looked like a rag doll about to keel over as she mumbled, “Ugggggh.” It was kind of funny actually. That night we went to a really cool place called the Ivy. Super neat bar and we were lucky enough to find a table in a good spot and had drinks. I decided to “let loose” and do something I haven’t done in almost six years: Vodka Redbull. Truth is, I haven’t had ANY caffeine in that time, not even a cup of tea… unless it was decaf. I was a bit nervous about what it might do to me so I took it easy and only had one before my heart started racing and I switched to just beers. December 5th: We walked around the city a little bit and then ended up checking out a rooftop bar that looked really cool. We hung out there for a while, headed back to the hotel to change and then head out. It was a Sunday so we weren’t sure what we’d find, but we were told that King’s Cross would be the best place to go if we wanted to stay out late. We ended up at a place called Goldfish that was actually pretty nice. December 6th: PokerStars always throws an awesome welcome party, so we decided we were going to head over to Star City to check it out. Um wow… that night ended up being crazy! I decided to go with the Vodka Redbull mix again, but man, this time I went a bit nuts to say the least and had more than I can count. We had a blast though, taking pics and being silly.
At one point, me and Amanda basically got kicked out of Star City. Earlier in the day we all went to get spray tans, I’d never done it but they convinced me to try it so I figured “why not.” Well someone asked to see the tan line, so I showed them. All you wear is a tiny g-string so I had to kind of pull down my pants to show it, but I only showed the side, totally PG. Well, the security guard didn’t agree! He called Amanda and I over to let us know this isn’t America and we’d crossed the line.
I called over Danny McDonough who I figured would have some juice to save us from being booted. In the meantime Amanda and I apologized profusely, and said, “Thank you so much for the warning sir, we really didn’t realize, but we understand now and we’ll be on our best behavior.” He let us know this was no warning, we had to leave. Danny comes over, hears whats up and basically says, “Yeah man, you’re basically screwed.” HAHA thanks Danny! Luckily some other security guards saw what was going on, told the Nazi guard they’d handle it, and they let us go back to the sports casino bar where everyone was hanging out. December 7th: This was the night of our first concert on the trip, the Eagles. Amanda has been to a million concerts, but I’d been to maybe 3 tops in my whole life so I didn’t know what to expect. Apparently neither did Amanda! We didn’t have 8 seats together, so Chris and Kendra took two floor seats, the four girls sat on the floor together, and me and Eddy sat together in the stands. It didn’t take us long to spot the girls on the floor, they were the only ones moving and actually acting like it was a concert. So bizarre, but they were actually warned that they could not stand up or dance in the aisles which were wide open. Seemed more like Opera rules than concert rules to me. The lady in front of Amanda at one point, turned around and said “Shut Up.” Now, Amanda may be tiny, but she is really feisty and willing to “thrown down” if need be. This woman was close to three times Amanda’s size, but when I saw Amanda on the first intermission she let me know that she was about to throw down, but not to worry, the girls had her back. Jessica can kick some butt for sure, and we all saw Melissa fight Liv Boeree for charity- she has no quit in her. Parker? Not so much, but I’m sure she’d have Amanda’s back nonetheless. Near the end of the concert people were allowed to act like it was a concert, and it was just amazing. They are old, as was the majority of the crowd, but man were they good! So good. On the way back, someone had the bright idea to take public transit back because it would be fun. I’ll admit, I was down because I thought it might be faster… oops. We didn’t get home until after 2am and I needed to be up at 6am to do an interview for a local breakfast show called Sunrise. December 8th: A car arrived to pick me up bright and early and I made my way over to the studio. The interview went well, and I was back in bed to get some sleep before the 12:00pm start time. Eddy and I hopped in a cab and were ready to play. I have a great recollection for all the events on the trip, but for some reason I don’t remember too many of the poker hands. Obviously it wasn’t my focus, but I ended up playing pretty well on day 1 and doubled up. Eddy also had a strong day 1 which made dinner at Teppanyaki all that much sweeter. Everyone joined us for dinner and it ended up being a blast. We had some sake, some laughs, and some really good food. I think most of us agreed that is was the best meal of the trip. We planned on going to the Zoo early in the morning, but everyone was feeling a bit lazy so we didn’t make it there till the afternoon. A ferry will take you almost anywhere you want to go in Sydney and it was a nice ride over. We took lots of pictures and had a good time. One funny story from the Zoo, picking on Parker again: Parker is afraid of birds. On the way out of the Zoo she was considering peeing in the bushes (she wasn’t really going to), and she walked close to this one bush and all of a sudden this bird, about 4.5 feet tall just popped it’s neck out in Parker’s face! This thing looked like a cross between a turkey and an alien with bright blue and red colors on its neck and head. I am fine with birds, but even I was a bit creeped out and it wasn’t 6 inches from my face. Parker runs so bad! haha. We had to rush back to the hotel and change so we could make it to the Muse concert in time. It was at the same place as the Eagles concert, but we had some drama. Patty got us 8 tickets through a site called viagogo.com. When the tickets finally arrived, at the very last minute, I looked in the package and their were only 6. Worse yet, two of the tickets were taped up, looked totally fake, and to boot, they were for the wrong night! I was so frustrated, but also determined to make this work somehow. Chris and Kendra decided to stay in, so the 6 of us drove out there with 4 tickets hoping to score two more from a scalper. I didn’t see many scalpers, but I did find one who just so happened to have two standing room seats on the floor which are the best seats you can get. The guy was a fan, and he gave me a pretty good deal and we exchanged numbers which is relevant later. When we walked through, they gave the two people that had floor seats special wristbands, but we didn’t think about it and we put them on the wrong people. We went to have a drink and figure it all out, then I decided to walk back out and explain that we needed to switch the wristbands. Luckily, this security guard was a really big fan and he said, “No worries man, I’ll just give you another one.” Then a light bulb went off in my head so I asked, “Do you happen to have 3 more?” He shrugged, and ultimately gave me wristbands for everyone! Me and Jessica walked together and we were so excited to go back in there to tell everyone the good news. There was still a problem. You need a wristband to get on the floor, but you also need a ticket- and we only had two tickets. No worries, we devised an evil plan to get us all down there muah, hah, hah, hah. I went down with Parker. She gave me her ticket, and I walked back up and got Amanda, gave her a ticket, and we walked back down together. This time I gave Amanda my ticket, and she grabbed Jessica, and so on and so on. We are such rebels! 🙂 The concert was just amazing. Muse live is something to see. I didn’t know much about them before the concert, but I did download an album to listen to and thought it was good. It was infinitely better live. Everyone had a blast, Amanda danced the entire night and was smiling ear to ear the whole time. December 10th: Day two of the APPT Sydney. I have no idea what happened, other than losing a huge pot with QQ to KK. I flopped a Q and the river was a K. If you want to read about hands, sorry, I don’t remember many, but the good news is that PokerNews.com was there so you can always go to their archives if you are curious. Both Eddy and I once again made it through the day which also meant we were both in the money with a shot to win this thing.
We had dinner with Roland de Wolfe that night, and we were discussing our chances to make the final table. He had a ton of chips, and thought it was about even money that me or Eddy would make the final table.
I had a weird thing happen at dinner that night. It was a Chinese restaurant, and I ordered from the Vegetable section. I ordered Tofu with Mushrooms and Chinese Broccoli. It listed what was in it, all seemed kosher to me, so I ordered it.
When it showed up, it had minced pork in it. I told the waiter I didn’t want it with pork and he says, “You didn’t tell me that.” Huh? I found that to be such a bizarre response. Nowhere on the menu did it say it just so happens to come with minced pork, so why would I randomly say, “Oh, and no pork in it please.” That’s as random as ordering a pizza and saying, “Oh, and please no ice cubes, ketchup, or caviar on it thanks.” December 11th: Once again it was a poker day as we were scheduled to play down to the final table. While me and Eddy were working, the girls were out on the beach, chilling, enjoying the city, and while I was jealous, I was happy to be in contention and knew they were rooting us on. Near the final table bubble, the girls came out to the casino to cheer me and Eddy on. It seemed like it took forever to bust the last player as the short stack kept doubling up, but miraculously both me AND Eddy made the final table! Oh, and so did Roland! Pretty crazy trifecta there, not sure what the odds of that were. December 12th: I was the short stack coming in but felt like I had a fighting chance if I could double up. The very first hand I moved all in from the small blind with Qh 6h and the big blind folded. I didn’t play another hand that round, and in my next small blind, Roland decided to limp in for 20,000. Everyone else folded and I called from the small blind with Q-10. This was actually a mistake. My stack was about 267,000 and I should have absolutely moved all in and tried to pick up the blinds, antes, and Roland’s limp. Based on flow, I was quite certain Roland didn’t limp with a strong hand so I should have picked it up right there. Not a huge mistake, but still a mistake. The flop came 10-6-3 with two hearts. A great flop for my hand. I thought about the best approach and I knew I couldn’t bet/fold this flop with a few potential draws out there, so I decided to stick it in. Roland insta called with 33 so I was pretty dead. The turn was a 10 though which gave me life. A 7 on the river sealed my fate and I now became a cheerleader myself, rooting Eddy on with the girls. Roland was the next one out surprisingly, and then Eddy couldn’t win his race with AK vs 99 and he finished in 6th place. Oh well, still an amazing story with Eddy not even planning on coming, then both of us making the final table. Pretty crazy. We went to the harbor to have lunch at a middle eastern restaurant that had hookah. I’d never done it before, but thought, “why not.” Pretty interesting, but definitely not something I’m used to. That night we had a lazy night with everyone being a bit tired. Ended up watching Shutter Island and I didn’t think it was all that good. I totally figured out what was going on about 15 minutes in. I saw right through the plot. December 13th: I didn’t really get a chance to do the beach thing yet so I wanted to go. We headed over to Manly beach by water taxi which seemed WAY faster. On the way back I hired the water taxi to take us to the Jay Z/U2 concert. Yup, I called that scalper guy who said he could get me 6 tickets (Chris and Kendra left that day). He said he could, then Roland called me asking for 4 more. Scalper said no problem, come to the venue and I got you covered.
We got there on time, but the scalper told me his “guy” hadn’t shown up yet but was on the way. He said we should have a drink and he’ll be right there. This guy finally shows up, takes me into a bathroom all secretive, and hands me these wristbands. Something definitely didn’t smell right. They were blue wristbands that said “Worker” on them. So we put the bracelets on everyone and walked to the venue. There are like 3 scalper guys working together on this and they split us up into two groups of 5. I ask my guy, “Is this all legit?” He’s like, “Yeah, yeah, no worries mate, these guys will take care of you.” By this point Jay Z was already wrapping up which was a real bummer cause I wanted to see him, but we did get in. Once in, our guy gave us new wristbands that looked legit. When we caught up with the others, we noticed they didn’t get those bracelets. We had a problem for sure. These guys had no tickets, they were total scammers who must have stole these wristbands and charged us $500 a ticket. Nice score for them, $5000, and it seemed like it would work flawlessly except half my group didn’t have the right wristband to get to the stage. We paid for tickets up close. To make a long story short, we managed to make it all work but it did not look good for a while. We ended up seeing the whole U2 concert along with 80,000 other people with the roof open. U2 is awesome, that goes without saying, and once again we all had a blast. December 14th: This was a relaxing day on the beach. We ate a great lunch at one of the restaurants there, then me, Amanda, Jessica, and Parker just laid on the beach most of the day. It was really nice to do nothing.
Our last night in Sydney, we decided to do a late dinner… unfortunately Sydney is not like Las Vegas. It was 10:00pm and virtually nothing was open. After a lot of work we found a place that would feed us and it ended up being pretty good. After that, the girls were dead set on getting tattoos so we headed back over to King’s Cross. The area seemed pretty shady, but the tattoo place looked clean enough. The girls struggled through the pain while I winced. I wasn’t even getting one, but man, the look on their faces scared me straight! I hate pain. December 15: Travel day. I told everyone we had to leave at 9:00am, knowing full well we didn’t really have to leave until 9:30am. As expected, we got everyone together at 9:37am and we were on the road. Since we had to change our flights due to the final table, Patty had me and Amanda on a connecting flight through Fiji, while the others flew direct to LA. We had a 4 hour layover in Fiji, just me and Amanda, and we decided to hang out at the bar, grab a snack and have a few drinks. It was actually the perfect ending to the vacation. We were always in large groups, it was a nice change of pace to just chill and have a few laughs alone. Obviously lots of other fun stuff happened in Sydney, but I’m not trying to write a novel here, and besides, what happens in Sydney stays in Sydney 🙂
********************************************************************** We landed in LA, and I needed to get back to Vegas right away to be on set for a commercial shoot. I got to Vegas late in the afternoon and I talked to the guys producing the commercial and explained to them that I can knock this out in a day. We don’t need two days for it, besides I’d need to shower and change which would take a while since I live across town and it was rush hour. They agreed, but asked me to come in at 7am and said I’d be done by about 10pm-11pm. The next day I showed up at 7:45am ready to work. After looking at the shot list, I was confident I’d be home for dinner. In fact, the Canadian marketing guy bet the director $20 that I’d be able to finish by 5:00pm… with a one hour lunch squeezed in, we were out of there before 4:00pm. I have always found working with a teleprompter pretty easy. When you have to memorize everything, that takes effort, but when you have a prompter it’s essentially about just being able to read and deliver the lines properly. Piece of cake. High Stakes Poker: I was schedule to play on HSP the 15th, 16th, and 17th. I didn’t get home until the 15th, and HAD to shoot the commercial on the 16th. Originally the plan was to shoot the commercial on the 13-14, HSP 15-17, then film some stuff in Vegas for a UK based show the 18-20. Of course, me making the final table screwed that up. I can only be in one place at one time. I was asked to play HSP on the 17th, but I truly didn’t think I’d be able to. Jet lag coupled with the commercial shoot and the trip, just had me spent. I told them I wasn’t going to play tired. My phone was ringing off the hook at noon while I was asleep but I turn it off at night. Patty has access to the bat line, though, and she called me to let me know it was urgent. I guess they really wanted me to play, so I agreed to play the last session.
By the time I got to the set I felt a bit better, but was still a bit groggy.
The three day shoot from the 18th-20th went really well. I guess I can’t really talk about what we shot, but it should be a pretty interesting show if it’s put together right. We’ll see. So now it’s 4:00am and I’m wide awake. I woke up at 4:00pm and don’t expect to sleep at all tonight’. I’ve had a messed up sleep schedule before and I’m used to it, so no worries there, I’ll fix it. This may feel a bit odd, but I’ll be having Christmas dinner at the house my mother used to live in here in Vegas. After she passed, I had some friends move in and they invited me over. Not sure how I feel about that just yet. We used to do Christmas dinner there with my mother who used to cook up a feast. It won’t feel the same with her not there. Christmas day I’m going to head over to Jenn and Marco’s to spend the day with them and the twins. I’m really looking forward to New Years Eve. Normally I avoid the strip like the plague on New Years, but this year we are going all out! Not quite on the strip, but the Palms. I made all the reservations, reserved the table, etc. (by I, I mean Patty). We have 15 confirmed but it’s likely going to end up being 19-22 people with us. Some of the Sydney crew along with some other stragglers. After that, Bahamas baby! I’m really looking forward to the PCA this year. It starts off with a bang, the 100k buy in event and 441 Productions will be covering it. That’s the same crew that covers the WSOP every year and they are the best in the business. I think they do a really good job of connecting with the casual viewer as well as the die hards, which is a constant struggle for any poker show. They will be airing the final table on ESPN3 on a one hour delay WITH hole cards. This is groundbreaking, seriously. The cut version will later air on ESPN. There is also the main event, a $25k buy in event, as well as a $5000 Bounty Shootout event. Those are the ones I’m looking at playing, but there are plenty of side events for more modest bankrolls as well. You can check out the full schedule here: PCA Schedule Outside of the WSOP no poker festival rivals the PCA in terms of diversity of events, value, and prize pools. Ok, this blog really has become a book. Let me close by saying I’m very excited about 2011. 2010 wasn’t my best year by any stretch, but I’ve got plenty of confidence and plan on playing a decent number of events in the hopes of regaining the #1 spot from Phil Ivey atop the all-time money list.
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I was in LA for the NAPT event, and the night before I was planning on driving back to Vegas, my assistant Patty told me that we may have a problem. My passport expires on Dec 5th, but I planned on going to Barcelona for the EPT on Nov 20th for a week, and then on Dec 2nd I have a trip planned to Sydney for the APPT, but more importantly, it’s a group trip that I’ve been looking forward to for quite some time. The problem is, Patty made a pretty big mistake. My passport was supposed to be renewed quite a while ago, but got returned a few times for some random error. With a week before Barcelona, Patty mailed my current passport, along with my current birth certificate to the passport office in Canada, expecting it to return within a week! That’s simply impossible. It takes 4 weeks by mail. Patty thought that was the only option, and didn’t realize you could get an emergency passport within 48 hours if you have proof of travel.
So now I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to go to Barcelona, and also worried about the Sydney trip. The race starts out at 2:00am on Friday morning in Marina Del Ray, where I was staying during the NAPT. I took a nap at around 9:00pm since I had woken up really early that day and wanted to get some rest before the drive to Las Vegas. I left the apartment at 2:30am and was on the road home, expecting to get there around 6:30am. I ran into my first problem when the ramp to get on I-10 was closed. I had a navigator in my car and was able to find a detour that would hopefully get me to I-15. Then, no joke, the ramp to I-15 was closed too! There was a Detour sign that I followed, but my navigator auto corrects and it kept wanting me to make a U-turn and head back to I-15. I followed the navigator back to I-15, but that obviously didn’t work. Eventually I ignored the navigator and followed the detour signs and got on to I-60, which eventually led me to the I-15. When I got onto I-15 there was almost no visibility so I slowed down and followed a car in front of me at a safe distance until we got through that area. If you’ve ever taken that drive, there is one stretch where sometimes the smog is so bad you can’t see 50 feet in front of you. Kind of scary, so I took my time through it. I stopped off in Barstow to get some gas and noticed that I was feeling pretty tired again. I decided to keep driving, but then about 20 miles out from Baker, I was getting REALLY tired. I’d slap my face a little to stay awake, and then I decided to speak Patua (Jamaican) to myself out loud just to keep my brain occupied until I hit Baker. I would look at the signs and make songs out of them. Just absolutely foolish songs, but whatever it took to wake up. There is a road named Yzzyyx or something like that, and I had a lot of fun chattin’ to that one. I made it to Baker safely and pulled over to where some trucks were, got in the back seat and slept for about an hour. By that time the sun was starting to come up and I woke up a bit chilly and hungry. There wasn’t really anything open that early that I’d eat, so I stopped into a gas station, used the restroom finally, and grabbed a bag of chips and headed back on the road. I got home at 8:00am and immediately got to work on the passport issue. Patty got me a few numbers to call, and since this is a government thing I had to handle it myself, they wouldn’t release information to Patty. That’s when I found out how screwed I really was. They told me I had no chance of getting to Barcelona and that they won’t process my application until Dec 8th, which meant I’d miss Sydney also. I asked them to send me back my documents, figuring I’d miss Barcelona but still be able to use my passport for Sydney, but they informed me that the passport had already been canceled. Even if they sent it back to me, it was no longer valid. Without a passport or a birth certificate I had nothing to prove I was a Canadian citizen, so I was told I would not be allowed to fly to Canada. Instead, I’d have to fly to a border town, like Seattle for example, rent a car, drive through the border with my U.S. drivers license and green card, and go to a passport office in Vancouver. Once again, I was told there is no chance I’d get that processed in time to make my Barcelona trip, but I was now more concerned with Sydney. I called border control to confirm they’d let me in the country with a green card and drivers license and they said it would work. So the plan was to transfer my file from the Toronto office to the Vancouver office, and when the passport was ready sometime that week, I’d go pick it up, fly back to Vegas, and make my trip to Sydney. I was content with that, despite really wanting to make it to Barcelona. I was on MSN with a few “VIPS” if you will, and I explained to them that I’d no longer be able to go to Barcelona, unless they had any ideas. Good news is, they did! They had a contact in Toronto, a guy I also know well, and he said he’d need a bit of time, but he may be able to help me get this passport in time to still make Barcelona! I didn’t think there was much of a chance, and I was exhausted, but I threw on some sweats anyway, just in case I needed to make a mad dash somewhere. He made magic happen and said that I needed to get to the passport office in Vancouver by 4:30pm. It was now 10:30am and it’s a 2.5 hour flight to Vancouver. Patty and I looked up flights online, but there was no way I could make a commercial flight and get there in time to make it to the passport office. The only option was to try and charter a private plane and hope we can get pilots on short notice. Most of the places we called said they couldn’t get pilots in time for a 1:00pm departure, they normally need a 3-4 hour window. I couldn’t really leave any later, though, because I’d miss the closing time in Vancouver and the passport office was closed on Saturday. Finally, we found a plane, and pilots that said they’d do it. The fare was reasonable for a private plane, $15,000 one way, and if I came back with them that night they’d only charge me $2500 for the return. You are essentially paying for fuel, and that costs a few thousand an hour, so we decided to book it. It was the ONLY way I could make it to Barcelona, and I promised PokerStars I’d go, and I personally wanted to take another crack at an EPT. I’ve flown private before, but this plane wasn’t leaving from either of the two airports I normally fly out of. I was almost at the airport, yet still didn’t have an address! Patty was dealing with paying for the flight, and the lady still hadn’t given her the airport address. I went to both of the ones I knew, one on Las Vegas Blvd and the other one on Tropicana Ave, and Blue Star didn’t fly out of either. Finally, Lisa, Patty’s fiance, got me the address and it was a tiny road off of Koval called Reno Ave. A really tiny place, but I found it. When I got there, the pilot was on the phone and seemed to really be taking his time. I was told they’d be ready to go, but he did not look ready at all. When he got off the phone I explained to him my time crunch, and that if they can’t get me there in time there was no sense going at all. He got the message, found his co-pilot and started fueling the plane. The other pilot took my I.D. and faxed our info over to Border Patrol in Vancouver, and at about 1:15pm we were on the run way taking off. All I had with me was a plastic bag with some veggies and a tub of hummus, along with my I-PAD. I was pretty exhausted already, so I took a nap on the plane, and when I woke up we were landing in great time. We touched down on Canadian soil at 3:30pm, which seemed like plenty of time to drive to the passport office. Unfortunately it was raining, and we would have to deal with rush hour traffic. The estimated travel time without traffic was 30 minutes. We sat in the plane and I was wondering what the hold up was. Well, the Canadian customs people that were supposed to greet us weren’t even there, and the pilot said he can’t let me off the plane until they arrive. Well apparently, they messed up protocol. Yes, they faxed over my info, but Canadian law says they were supposed to also verbally tell them the names of the passengers on the plane. They didn’t do that, so we sat on the plane waiting. It was close to 4:00pm now and I figured I was doomed. Luckily my contact in Toronto hired a lawyer to go to the passport office and try to keep it open a little longer, just for me. I didn’t know how long he could stall them, and still no sign of customs. He tried to get an agent to bring the passport to me, but that wasn’t an option. Then the pilot hit me with something that made me lose my temper. He told me that if we didn’t get the passport, he couldn’t bring me back to Vegas with just a green card and a drivers license, which means I’d be stuck in Vancouver till Monday! Now, I love Vancouver, but had I known this I NEVER would have taken the chance. I brought my I-PAD, but forgot to add the international plan. I had my blackberry, but didn’t have chargers for either. I just dreaded the notion that I’d be stuck in a hotel room until Monday. It was a bit of a nightmare. After paying $15,000 to make this all happen, not only would I not be getting the passport, but I couldn’t return home either. No clothes, no laptop, no toothbrush! Ha, obviously I’d make due and buy clothes if necessary, but I just didn’t expect this to be a possibility. Finally at about 4:06pm customs finally showed up and approached the plane. They were nice, I explained my predicament, and they said they’d be as quick as they can. I got off the plane at 4:17pm and jumped in a car that was waiting for me. The traffic didn’t seem bad at all, and despite explaining to the driver that I really needed to get there asap, he was the slowest driver I’ve ever seen. He never left the far right lane while cars just whizzed passed him. I got to the office at 4:53pm, fully expecting security to not let me in, but he said, “We’ve been expecting you.” I walked into the office and saw Ron (the lawyer) and Tracy (the passport agent) standing there chatting. I couldn’t believe I made it! Sitting in front of her was my precious passport. Two quick signatures and that was it! I got it! It was a pretty surreal feeling to be honest, I went through a roller coaster of ups and downs to make it happen, and in the end I had passport in hand, gave it a kiss, thanked Ron and Tracy 100 times, and was back in the car headed to the airport. I got back to the airport lounge and the pilot said we might have to make a stop in Seattle because customs in Vegas may be closed already. I didn’t even care! I was like, “Whatever man, I don’t even care anymore.” A far cry from how I felt on my way to Vancouver. I was so relieved, that a delay wasn’t going to stress me out at all. As it turned out, we didn’t have to make the stop in Seattle. When we landed in Vegas we waited on U.S. customs for a bit, but nothing crazy. He stamped my brand new passport, and I was back in my car on my way home. I must have been asleep by 10:00pm and woke up at 8:00am Saturday morning. My flight to Barcelona leaves tonight at 8:00pm which gives me plenty of chill time. I fly to London then Barcelona, and will be playing day 1B of EPT Barcelona. How can I not win that tournament after all that? ]]>

M vs average big blinds. First it’s important to explain the difference between M and avg bbs in terms of how it relates to your life expectancy in a tournament. M calculates the number of rounds you can last if you ante off. So for example, if the blinds were 400-800 with a 100 ante at a 9 handed table and you had 8400 in chips, your M would be 4. 2100 per round, giving you 4 rounds. In terms of big blinds, you’d have 10.5. Lower antes increase your M, which allows you to go into survival mode on a short stack for a longer period of time without feeling the pressure of going all in. Average big blinds per player in the tournament is what you’d look at to see how much “play” there is in a tournament. The higher the average big blinds per player is, the more streets will be bet, and the more maneuvering will occur post flop. A tournament that boasts a higher bb per player average is one that is clearly more skillful because more intricate decisions will be necessary. Deep stacked poker is just harder, plain and simple. That’s not debatable. The problem with tournaments with tiny antes is that it allows short stacks to hang around longer without having to make a move. Great for short stacks, but much like the epidemic you see online of “short stacking,” when too many players are hanging around with a short stack, the avg bb per player takes a major hit, and average to above average stacks are forced to tighten up significantly because behind them sits three stacks ranging from 8 to 15 big blinds. The bigger stacks are forced to open less. Let’s look at two ante structures:
A) 4000-8000 (1000)
B) 4000-8000 (500) At a 9 handed table if you had 80,000 in chips you’d have 10 bbs, but your M would look like this:
A) 3.8
B) 4.8 The difference becomes even more significant when you have 20 big blinds: A) 7.6
B) 9.7 So why is this a bad thing then? Well, while short stacks do get a bit more time to wait for a hand, it absolutely handcuffs the rest of the players at the table so what you end up having is a tournament overrun with short stacks and the tournament becomes a pre-flop shove fest. Average and big stacks are forced to play the same style as the short stacks because there are simply too many short stacks still in the tournament because the antes haven’t pressured them to make a move. People busting quicker in a tournament often gives the event MORE play. Example: Say there is 10 million chips in play, the average stack would be 100,000 if 100 players remained. If there are 80 players remaining, the average stack would be 125,000. So if the blinds at that stage are 1000-2000, the average # of bbs would be 50 with 100 left, or 62.5 with 80 remaining. Essentially what this shows is that the tournament would have more play at this stage if less players were still in. Less Flops. With lower antes and more short stacks, you end up seeing less flops. The big blind gets a worse price to defend, and because the average stack is so much smaller, it doesn’t allow players to call as many raises with bust em’ type hands because their opponents simply aren’t deep enough to make calling profitable with hands like 44 or 6s 7s. With less flops being seen, less players go broke. That’s not a good thing at all. When two or more players see a flop the chances of someone going broke increases significantly. Higher Antes Give Incentive to Short Stacks to Shove. With higher antes, a stack of say, 10 big blinds has even more incentive to take risks and go all in. This helps eliminate short stacks at a quicker pace which will elevate the average # of big blinds per player average. As I already pointed out, when the avg bbs is higher, there is more “play” in the tournament. An extreme example. Have you ever played a no limit tournament with no antes? If so, what you’ll find is that the game is WAY tighter and eventually there is little to no post flop play. Stealing blinds becomes less important, and shorter stacks don’t get pressured to play any hands at all unless they pick up a monster. The more aggressive players are exploited if they play too many hands because A) they don’t pick up any antes on their steals and B) they’ll be in tough spots when they open for 2.5x and get shoved on by a stack that has a total of 9 bbs.
The only way to realistically bust players in a no limit tournament without antes is to get the blinds up so high that the average # of bbs per player dips well below 20. With stacks that small, you won’t be seeing any check-raises on the river 🙂 Anytime a level or two guys by where very few players get busted, you just know that the structure is going to suffer in the later stages. Conversely, if there is a level where lots of players bust, the chips become concentrated amongst a smaller group of players who will now get to play deeper in the late stages, allowing skill to prevail. ***************************************************************** I think its important to note that my position on antes is in direct contrast with the structures we see on many of the PokerStars sponsored tours. The EPT and NAPT both go with lower antes at several key stages of their tournaments. I am a company man obviously, and that’s why I thought it was important to point out that I’ve always been, and always will be a free thinker. When I say that I genuinely believe PokerStars is the best online poker company, and the best and safest place to play online poker, I genuinely believe that to be true. If I didn’t, I can promise you I wouldn’t say it. I don’t always agree with every decision that is made, and I think it would be wrong of me to not point out errors where I see them. I blasted the Bellagio structures a year ago, so it’s only fair that I also criticize the structures of the NAPT and EPT events. Off the top of my head there are a few key levels where they do it wrong: 300-600 (50) should be 75
400-800 (75) should be 100
1000-2000 (200) should be 300
1200-2400 (200) should be 300 or even 400
4000-8000 (500) should be 1000 It’s that last one, 4000-8000 with a 500 that I find the most disturbing. The standard ante should represent 25% of the small blind. If the chips don’t divide like that, you should veer between 20% and 33%, but no less than 20%. In this case, you could choose to go with a standard 25% of small blind ante, but instead they use a 12.5% ante. I’d be happy to discuss this with anyone who disagrees with me and I’d be happy to hear their points in favor of smaller antes. As of yet, I have yet to hear a single argument as to why it’s better to have a 200 ante at 1200-2400 than a 300 ante.
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2) He TANKED with the nuts and no action pending
3) After he called with the NUTS he wouldn’t turn his hand over I’ve never seen a worse slowroll on TV in my whole life, the whole thing was just so bizarre. I still have no idea why Martin would do that, but after I busted I asked him and he said something like, “It was a big pot.” I ended up finishing a disappointing 4th place, but the good news was that I busted right before the dinner break so that gave me time to hang with Amanda and Stapes for a bit before our trip to Romania. That night we had some drinks at “The BOX” with a lot of the masseuses and media peeps, as well as some of the players. We didn’t stay too late because we had an early flight to Romania… as it turned out, we didn’t sleep much anyway. When we got to Romania we checked into our room at the Radisson in Bucharest and I was able to get maybe a 20 minute nap in before having to head straight to a studio. I haven’t spoke much Romanian in many years, so I had no idea how well I’d fare being interviewed in Romanian. As long as the interviews were short and sweet, I figured I’d be fine. The first one they had me on is this soccer talk show. They are talking a lot about Romanian soccer, very laid back, two guys and me, problem is, I have no clue who or what they are talking about! I know nothing about the Romanian soccer league! On top of that, this “interview” wasn’t an interview. It was a one hour LIVE show and I was on it the WHOLE time! It ended up being a huge adrenalin rush and I loved it. I was so nervous and I love that feeling. In English, there isn’t an interview in the world I could do that would make me nervous, but having to do a live show, in another language, well that gives me a rush! After the interview we went to this palace to shoot a bit for a cool Romanian poker show that I can’t tell you too much about. Once again, all in Romanian.
The show went well and I headed back to the hotel and grabbed Amanda and Stapes and we tried to go to dinner somewhere. It was pretty late at that point on a Monday, so finding something open was a struggle. Luckily we had the mack daddy driver/tour guide Sorin taking us around town and he found a really neat place to eat. The place was closed, but Sorin told them they were open and they came to their senses and agreed that, “Yes, in fact we are open another hour actually.” Sorin is pretty convincing 🙂 The place was a very traditional Romanian restaurant and it looked like it might have been built in the 1800’s. It was very cool. The next day there was a special tournament at the Regent casino, but before that I did about 20 interviews all rapid fire style, back to back, all in… Romanian. By this point my Romanian was getting much better and I was feeling more and more comfortable, and I know the locals appreciated the fact that I could speak it, despite not even being born in Romania. It seemed like a big deal to them. At the core, I feel Romanian. While I wasn’t born there, I was raised like a Romanian and I still cheer for Romania at the Olympics and the World Cup. Being in Romania made me miss my parents a lot. They would have LOVED the spectacle, and would have been very proud I’m sure. We played the tournament, but I couldn’t stay for the whole thing, so despite building up a big stack, I had to start shoving it in blind! I had interviews scheduled, otherwise I would have been happy to finish off the 90+ player event. Stapes and Amanda were also bought into the event, and while Amanda busted pretty quickly, Stapes made a deep run just missing the final table. They treated us all like rockstars. Not only did I have a guard walking with me everywhere I went, but Amanda also had a security guard protecting her from the fans/media in attendance. I mean, they really went all out. I’ve never experienced anything quite like that. I guess “The PokerStars.net The Big Game” is a really big deal over there! ha. I had to go do a fun show called “Happy Hour” which is very popular in Romania, another live variety show, and I think that went extremely well. It was a mainstream show, and by then I’d been speaking Romanian for about a full day now so I was able to talk at my normal speed, and even crack a few jokes which is always tough in another language. I had to then head right back to the hotel and pick up Amanda and Stapes and head to the PokerStars James Bond themed party. We walked in, and once again were treated with an outpouring of hospitality. They really made us feel like royalty. I was introduced at the party, said a few words, took a few pics, then we sat and had a few drinks. I got whisked away a few times and while I’d normally worry about leaving my peeps behind, they are both so good at being comfortable in awkward situations that I didn’t have much to worry about. They quickly made friends and we had a good time at the party. The Romanian women at the party fell in love with Amanda, which is easy to do, especially after she spoke to them in Romanian! She learned a few key phrases and the women loved it. I originally thought we’d leave early, but we ended up being the last ones to leave! Our stay in Romania was short, but I really enjoyed it. The next morning we hopped on another flight to Amsterdam. We stayed at the Amstel and it was a neat hotel. Not modern like I’m used to, but very pretty. We vegged for a bit then met Lex and Evelyn for dinner at Dynasty, a Chinese restaurant that ended up being really good. After that we walked around a little bit, had a few drinks, then called it a night. We only had one day in Amsterdam and that’s just not enough! Truth is, for all the places we went we’d need at least a week to soak it in, but we enjoyed the little time we had in each country. On the way home we had a stop in London, then first class seats to LA. I fell asleep during take off and didn’t wake up until we were landing. I seriously had to be woken up to land. Stapes and Amanda fell asleep maybe an hour after me, but they were out cold the whole flight also. It was a lot of travel in such a short time. When we got off the plane we had the silly idea of walking out in our pajamas. I’d never done that before, but thought “why not.” Wouldn’t you know, the first time I ever did that, as we left the airport some paparazzi dude from TMZ stuck a camera in my face asking me what I was doing in LA. I was a bit shocked, and didn’t say anything witty at all, lol. Amanda saw the cameras and she BOLTED! She was wearing medium sized PJs that she was swimming in, so I don’t really blame her for not wanting to be on camera. That night we chilled in the U. S. of A. and as much as I enjoyed my trip abroad, being in LA doesn’t suck either. All in all, it was an awesome trip, a 4th place finish, great company, lots of laughs, etc… but I am now back in Vegas recovering from it all. 4 countries in 5 days makes the trip seem like it was a month long, but in a good way. ***************************************************************** My stay at home in Vegas will be short lived. I desperately need a tan so I hope to golf at least one or two days before heading back to LA for the NAPT. After LA I’m off to Barcelona to ride my EPT momentum, then it’s back home for a week, then I’m off to Sydney for the APPT. I’m a little annoyed, but not sure who to blame exactly, that the WPT event in December at Bellagio changed it’s dates at some point and I had no idea. My plan was to return from Sydney and play that event, but they moved their dates back a week so I can’t play now. I’m kinda pissed about it, but I can’t really do anything about it. When I did my schedule for the remainder of the year I looked on the website and it said it started on Dec 13th, then sometime after August the date was changed to Dec 3rd, but I’m already 100% committed to Sydney as I’m going with a group of people and it’s all booked. Oh well, it’s only one event, but it’s an event I have good history in with a 1st, then a 3rd the year after that, and two years after that I was chip leader with two tables left but missed the final table after running KK into AA. Oh well, PCA will be right around the corner and it starts off with a juicy $100k buyin event before the main event. I feel like things are looking up and my poker game has been really good, and results are finally starting to come in. I’m hoping to make a few more deep runs going into 2011 and get back into the winners circle. In the meantime, I also plan on logging a decent amount of hours on PokerStars.com, the $100-$200 game as well as my micro challenge. On that note, I’m about to log on… I’m “KidPoker” on there btw. ]]>

Based on my read from the previous day, this guy could never have JJ QQ KK AA or AK even. He was a weak player, and overbet ALL of his big hands the previous day. For example, someone would make it 1200 and he’d make it 12,000 and show KK. With Jacks, he came in for like 5.5x. I was certain he was weak…. then he snap called! He showed KK?? I was very surprised, oh well. Flop Q-Q-8, turn J with three hearts on the board now and I had the 10h, unfortunately he had the Kh. The other player had 44. The river… bink! 10! That got me over 800k. So while I’d like to claim that I skilled my way to the chip lead I’d be lying. Three coolers and a suckout, but hey, I’m not complaining and I’ll take it anyway I can. I’m off to the casino now to play day 3. I think we play down to 24 players today and the blinds should be 2500-5000 I think with a 500 ante to start out. ]]>