World Series of Golf

Ok, for those of you who don’t know the World Series of Golf, here is a quick breakdown of the rules: 125 golfers in 5 man groups generally grouped together based on playing ability, with the better golfers playing the back tees, and the weaker golfers up front. Each player starts with a 10,000 bank that they can use to bet throughout the round. There are antes each hole. The ante starts at 100 per person, and doubles every three holes.
Random cards are drawn for the dealer button and the order you are in is the exact order you will hit in the whole round. The button hits a tee shot first, as do the other four players. After the shot, the button starts the betting, he can check, or bet anything from 100 to all in. Once a bet is made, a player must call the bet, raise the bet, or give up on the hole. If no one calls the bet, the hole is over and the bettor wins the antes.
After that betting round, all players still in the pot hit another shot. Once again, there is a betting round that starts with the dealer. This continues until no one calls a bet, or the hole plays out to the end. In the event that two players tie the hole, they would split the pot.
The last player standing, wins the group and advances to the final 25. The buy in is $10,000 and if you win your group, you are on a freeroll. I got a really lucky draw playing against a pretty weak field. I went in expecting to be the worst golfer in my group, but it turned out that I was the best golfer in the group. My strategy going in was to take some gambles, but that all changed when I realized I was better off avoiding big risks. Kinda like avoiding coinflips. My group was Andy Bloch, Chris Ferguson, Dr.Murray who I played with last year, and a sweet lady named January Jones. -Andy Bloch, the longest hitter in the group when he got a hold if it and kept it straight. That was rare however. His strategy was to take some big risks and try to get all my chips in one hole. -Chris Ferguson, has a major slice. It is 100% related to his grip. There is no way he can hit it straight with that grip, and his caddie/coach must have been blind not to notice! Chris folded after the tee on all of the first nine holes before going all in on the 10th. -Dr.Murray, seemed like a threat, he was longer than me but also very inconsistent. -January Jones, she had a caddie with her, but he had no clue how the betting worked and was awful as a financial adviser. He gave her terrible advice and I kind of felt bad for her. -Me, bruised ribs kept me from hitting balls, but not from chipping and putting. Luckily I put together a decent enough swing to keep the ball in play. A quick wrap up of the key holes: On the front nine I won four of the holes, winning both par 3’s. Bloch was a thorn in my side, though, pushing me out of pots and costing me a lot of chips in certain spots where I decided to fold and wait for a better situation. After nine holes: Negreanu 13,000
Dr. Murray 13,000
Bloch 12,900
Feguson 7,900
Jones 3200 On hole #10 Ferguson finally kept a ball in play! Jones hit one decent and I hit one close to Ferguson. The lady went all in for 2400, I called, and Ferguson went all in for 7100. I had to call Chris! The lady hit it well short of the green, I came up just a little short, and Ferguson hit a shot to the back of the green leaving himself a long putt. The lady hit a bad shot over the green, I hit a pretty good chip in a tough spot and had about 12 feet for par. Ferguson wound up like a baseball hitter and absolutely crushed his putt well off the green!
I hit my putt to about a foot, and Chris left his next putt on the fringe. He needed to make and hit an excellent putt that just missed. I knocked out both of them on that hole and got my bankroll to 24,900. On hole #11 I hit a good drive, Murray was in the hazard, and Bloch was just behind me about 5 yards but in the rough and at a bad angle to the green. I bet 1600 and Bloch shipped it all in. Pressure was on and I stuck my best shot of the day, a 4-iron to about 18 feet. Bloch hit a wild shot way left. I hit my putt to 3 inches, and Bloch needed an absolute miracle up and down on a chip Tiger Woods would have trouble getting to 6 feet. He missed the green and was gone. By that point I had 37,000 to Dr.Murray’s 13,000. We had some betting on the next hole until he was on the green but a long way from the hole, and I was just over the green with a fluffy lie to chip from. He bet 3200 and I gladly called. He came up 5 feet short on his putt and all that chipping practice would need to come up big for me now… I hit the chip to 6 inches! I put him all in for his last 6600 and he folded. Close decision. I doubled him up foolishly, actually the croupier was talking in my backswing and I thought that was the end of me. Luckily I hit a great bunker shot on 15 to win 9600 on the hole leaving him 3600. I again, on a par 3 hit a nice bunker shot and got up and down for par. It was overkill, as his tee shot went in the water and I won my match on the 16th hole. I saw Ivey had a big lead on 18 but I hear he lost in extra holes. Allen Cunningham and Ray Romano were in the group in front of me, and I don’t know if Ray won, but I hear Allen lost. I wanted to bet everything I had on the following three guys winning: David Benyamine, Shun Ujida, and David Oppenhiem. David and Shun are really good golfers, and while Oppenhiem isn’t as good he can bomb it off the tee. I can’t beat him from the same tees in this format, no chance really. I wouldn’t get to play because he would just bet me out after the tee shot. He’ll have 80 yards in to my 160 yards. No chance. I don’t know who I play tomorrow but it will be fun. I don’t expect to win at all, my ribs are still sore and I don’t have my A game in terms of ball striking, but I’ll just hope to gamble with the boys around the greens. If I can do that, I could get lucky and make the final. I was twittering updates on my REALKidPoker account and plan to again tomorrow. Tee times start at 10:00am until 11:30am. Five groups of five and I expect to be in the last group at 11:30am.
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Annie goofed by picking Brandi first. She could have picked Brandi last, as Joan did. I was surprised to see this obvious mistake. Seriously, it was a major tactical error. Herschel ended up being a rock star on the challenge by selling the tickets to a friend and giving them away free, and then filling the room with celebrity impersonators. Both ideas were good, and both ideas were much more helpful than ANYTHING Tom Green or Dennis Rodman came up with.
With that mistake, Joan started out with the better team. Clint may have seemed to be tough to deal with, but he was pretty decent in a lot of challenges (not this one at all strangely). You should exclude Annie/Brandi and Joan/Melissa because that was already assuredly a team. Who would you rather of had? Clint Black and Herschel Walker or… um… Dennis Rodman and Tom Green? Joan owned in that round from a strategy perspective by stealing the number 1 pick. This isn’t even close to debatable, Annie should have picked Brandi last. I’m a fantasy sports geek, though, and that seemed obvious to me right away. The show was heated as expected. I was impressed that both teams were able to pull it off after the design team quit. Both rooms looked pretty good. I loved Melissa’s idea to incorporate EasyShare with shots of people sharing things. That seemed to make a lot of sense to me and she was lucky to get some great shots.
Dennis did his thing, brought in a few bucks and dressed in drag, but both Tom Green and Clint Black didn’t seem too into it. Tom Green didn’t seem to really want to work for Annie because he didn’t like her abrasive approach, but Clint, he just didn’t bring much of anything to the table. The star was Herschel. I honestly believe he won the task for Joan and without him it would have been a landslide victory for Annie. Both charities were good causes. Everyone will connect with one more than the other, but I thought the little piece they did on Joan’s charity showed more raw emotion and connection. Whether you liked Joan or not, you have to feel good about where the money is going and you could see how genuinely connected Joan was with the charity. Her emotional connection was very real and it showed in the piece. I was surprised that the majority of the celebrities polled overwhelmingly thought Joan deserved it. I thought Annie did a good job in the boardroom sucking up to Dennis, but in the end, he still went with “his girl” Joan. Both of last years finalists also went with Joan which surprised me. I always felt like Pierce was a big Annie fan, but in the end, he went with the numbers, and Joan won 3 out of the 5 criteria. Trace, his vote, and this is all speculation, I think had a little bit to do with the charity chosen as well. That’s just a total guess on my part, but I think with him being a full blooded American, he preferred a charity that would benefit people in the U.S. That’s just my “read” but I could be way off there. It was like he wanted to say something, but pulled back, and that’s what I thought he was going to say but thought it wouldn’t be PC to do so. It was fun watching the show each week. I’ve watched the show for years now and think it can be pretty interesting. While some people didn’t like Pierce from last season, I thought he did a brilliant job. He had to deal with Omarosa, and I can freely say that I can’t stand Omarosa. She brought out the nasty in him from time to time, but it often seemed warranted. I’ve received several e-mails asking me why I don’t try to do the show, so I’ll answer all those in one fell swoop: I would consider doing the show. I love competition and it looks like it could be a lot of fun. After watching this season unfold, it actually makes me feel like I should do the show. I wasn’t all that thrilled with how the profession of poker was portrayed on the show and I’d like a crack at giving people a different perspective. Too much emphasis was put on words like “deceit” and “manipulation” and while those are tools used at a poker table, I don’t believe that if you play poker for a living those tools are something that are necessary in order to succeed in life, or in a game like Celebrity Apprentice. Congrats to both Joan River and Annie Duke for making the finals and for making some interesting TV! In the end, with all the bickering and fighting, the whole reason to do the show is to raise a lot of money for good causes, and this season of Apprentice was a great success. The poker world played a big role in that this season which should say something about the kind of people poker players are. Many poker players stepped up to the plate to raise a lot of money for charity, and that shouldn’t go unnoticed. Good job all.
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In between I missed a ton of big draws. If I was more aggressive with them I may have lost more, but overall I didn’t do that bad losing $10,704 in 501 hands. We are now half way through the match and it’s very close, with me behind by close to a buy in. That is all…
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I got home and vegged for a bit before putting in a session against that kid I’ve been playing at PokerStars. It was my best session yet in terms of running good. Had a nice cooler come my way late in the session.
I don’t remember all the hands from the session because I didn’t log any, but I remember the one right near the end of the session:
I raise to 100 from the button with JJ and he re-raises to 400- I call. The flop comes 3-4-6 two spades. He bet like 450 and I called. The turn was the Jack of spades, he bet 1100, I made it 2800- he called. The river was a 4, he checked and I went all in for close to $5000. He called with AA. The plan is to play him 5000 hands, but scheduling will be a little more difficult over the next couple of weeks because of the time difference and the fact that he goes to bed early. I golf everyday, so I can’t play till about 8:00pm my time (11:00pm EST). That should give us about two hours a night to finish the match. Here are the results so far: Session 1: 350 hands +$6175
Session 2: 300 hands -$15484
Session 3: 353 hands -$2839
Session 4: 430 hands +$3174
Session 5: 500 hands +$1865
Session 6 245 hands +$13189
Total 2178 hands +6,080 After finishing the session with him I headed down to the Bellagio to meet some friends and have a drink. I was pretty tired from the travel, but still didn’t get much sleep at all. The next day I was golfing and showed up around 1:00pm. We had a foursome, me and my guy Christian, Zvi and E-DOG. When we got to the course I noticed David Benyamine and Patrik Antonius at the course too- they’d already played 18 and David wanted to play more so he joined our group. David is an interesting case. He’s only been golfing for a year and a half and is so much better than he realizes. He just doesn’t understand the handicapping system. He literally thinks he’s a 12 handicap. On hole number 3, a par 5 he was behind a tree. He cut a 3 wood around the tree to carry over a hazard close to the green. Not a 12 in the world has that shot in their bag! Realistically, he is somewhere between a 5 and a 7 handicap. From the blue tees at TPC Summerlin he should average right around 80. Now when factoring in a handicap you take the top 10 of your last 20 rounds. If David played 20 rounds there I think he’d have 8 to 10 rounds under 80, and the other 10 in the low 80’s. I believe his top 10 scored would average out to maybe 77 there, which would make him like a 5 handicap. That’s what he is… but he thinks he’s a 12, lol. He got the money again, but in fairness it was my first day back and I shot a 46-55-101 so I wasn’t supposed to win. Christian shot 79 and David shot 81.
After golf we had dinner at Kona Grill then I headed home to watch American Idol. I don’t know that Adam Lambert is going to win or not, but he has the best voice of any contestant in history in terms of his range. I’d be willing to bet, that win or not, he sells more records than any of the others. I was in bed by 11:30pm and now I’m up at 7:00am. Have a workout at 10:30am then golf at 1:50pm. After that a crew is coming to the house to shoot some video for an ad for Nintendo Wii. It should be fun and easy- hopefully it comes out good too. After that I will try to get online and see if I can play some of that match, otherwise I’ll just play my micro limit challenge for a while. I’ve been stuck in the 0.05-0.10 cent game for a while now and I’m anxious to get to the next level. I need to win $17 more. If not that, then the $400-$800 mixed game on PokerStars. My schedule should look the same most days until the WSOP. Workout, golf, play online. I’ll be home the whole month with the exception of one trip to Colorado on May 16th for Christian’s wedding. That should be fun.
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AK was the hand of the day. Here are the three all in pots we played: 1) We got it all in before the flop with me having AK and him AQ. He raised the button, I re-raised, he 4 bet it, I 5 bet it, and he went all in- I called. Flop K-10-3…. J on the turn cost me $6500. 2) he raised the button to 150, I make it 450 with AK, he makes it 1100, I re-raise to 2500, he goes all in for a total of $5000. Board runs out with four small hearts, I have the K, he has the Q… he had A-Q again! 3) I raised from the button to 150 with AK, he re-raised, I re-raised, he went all in for $4000 more. This time we BOTH had AK and split that one.
We ended up playing 500 hands and I ended up +$1865. We’ve played 1933 hands now and he is still +7109. The plan when I get home is to generally play at approximately 11:00pm EST until about 1:00am EST. I will be golfing all day and playing him after golf so if you wanna watch check out PokerStars around that time and also check for my twitter posts at REALKidPoker. I’m packing now, it’s 5:00am and I have to catch a 7:30am flight out of Nizza.
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A recap on the session first. I swear I had at least 12 big pairs today in the match and never saw one flop. He usually just folded the button when I had AA. It was incredible! Here are a few of the highlights: 1) He raised the button to 150, I made it 450 with AK he re-raises another 650 I think, and I called. Flop was 9-8-4 with two spades and I check-called 1350. Turn a 2s and it went check-check. The river was a 6 and again check-check. He showed Ks 6c… doh! 2) He raised to 150 I called from the BB with Ac 3c. Flop was Kc 10d 9c and I check called 150. The turn was the 5c and I checked, he bet 400, I made it 1200. River was an As I bet 2450 and he called. He also had a flush 7c 8c. Cooler. 3) I raised the button to 100 and he made it 400, I just called with QQ. Flop was Q-6-3 he bet I called. Turn a 6 he bet I called. River a 7 he bet 2500 and I went all in, and he folded. He said he had Q-10. 4) I raised the button with K-10 he re-raised to 400 I called. Flop 10c-5d-2c be bet I called. Turn a Qd he bet 1200 and I raised to 2800, he called. River was a Jack, check-check. He showed JJ. I was up $10,000 in the match at one point and obviously ran better in this session than the last one. Oddly, I definitely played better in the previous session and was a bit tired late in this, our longest session. We played 430 hands and I won $3174. To date, my results are: Session 1: 350 hands +$6175
Session 2: 300 hands -$15484
Session 3: 353 hands -$2839
Session 4: 430 hands +$3174
Total 1433 hands -$8,974 Not sure how much he is up, but I would guess close to $8000 considering the rake. You can keep up with the results here and I usually post to my twitter account also when we play on PokerStars at RealKidPoker
***************************************************************** Now to my day in Monte Carlo. My trip is just destroyed by a bad sleep schedule and it’s too late to fix it. Waking up between 2:00am and 4:00am and in bed by 9:00pm. I played in the high roller anyway and ran into the kid they call Full Flush. He is poker’s new villain, no question about that. Cocky, brash, and with a legit Ali G accent to boot. When asked in an interview to do word association with the following names: Durr… “Gay”
Ivey… “Cool”
To all the rest… “Gay. Durr and all his boys are gay. They are all geeks innit.” Ah how fun, gansta wars with the online kids! I have no idea if the kid is any good, but he claims to have beaten everybody heads up and has won a lot of money. So he was at the table today with me, Ivey, and Gus and was talking it up. He let everyone know he’s the best in the world… Ivey kind of perked up at the conversation. A discussion started with Ivey saying he’d play him 50,000 hands, but since this guy was the best, he’d need some kind of spot to make it fair. Then Ivey asked him, “Do you ever play live poker?” The kid says, “No I don’t play too much live poker, but I’m probably the best at that too, yeah.” LOL Classic! This guy is hilarious, I’ll give him that. He has tons of confidence and apparently he does play high limit no limit hold’em heads up against some tough players. In his interview he also said, “I’m the next Ivey.” Wowaweewa! Again, I have no idea if this guy is really good or not, but I was talking to Ivey about it a little bit and it seems like every couple years the “new best player in the world” comes onto the scene… they don’t always stick around though. Some do, but most end up changing screen names and playing smaller again. The ones that take on Ivey… well, they don’t normally fare too well. Like ever. I really think this kid is just great for poker, I really do. He pulls no punches, says things people often think of saying but wouldn’t dare. He stirs things up, creates some drama, and is funny for several reasons from the accent to his brashness. Someone like him would make for excellent poker on television, I really believe that. It certainly wouldn’t be boring! ]]>

I’m really having fun with this and PokerStars set up a private table for me so I can play 2eazy heads up. I slept ALL day today, on an awful schedule, and when I woke up I decided to play some more of the match. Here are some of the highlights that I jotted down as we went: 1) He raised the button I called with K-J. The flop was Qh 2h 10c and I check called. The turn was a 4c and I check called. The river I hit my straight with the Ac and bet 800. He raised me 1400 more and I got a sick feeling in my stomach, but pretty much had to call. He showed 9c 2c for the flush. 2) I raise the button to 100 and he made it 400- I called. The flop was J-8-3 rainbow and he bet 450- I called. The turn was a 5, he fired 1200 and I called. The river was another 5 and this time be put me all in for about $4000. I called him… he showed A-Q! Felt like a bluff to me, a little unlucky not to actually have a pair there, lol. 3) He raised and I called with 9-10, flop was 9d-10-3d and it went check check. The turn was a J and I bet. The river was a 5d and I bet 500- he called. He showed 7-8. Could have been worse I guess… 4) I raised the button with 34 and he called. The flop was Jc-5c-2 and he check-raised me to 400- I called. The turn was a 6, he bet 650 and I raised him to 1600- he called. The river was the Qc and he bet 2500. I moaned, then paid him off… he showed 6c 8c. 5) He raised and I called with 55. The flop was 2c 3s 4c and I check-raised him- he called. The turn was a 4 and I check called. The river was the Kc and I bet 800- he called with 99. 6) Right before the session ended, I’d crawled back to even despite being pretty unlucky on the session, he raised from the button and I re-raised- he called. The flop was K-Js-6s, I bet 500 he called. Turn a 6 I bet 1000 and he called. River the Ks. I had a 6, checked, he bet 2000, I moaned again and folded. That was a mistake. I played that hand wrong. Not going to say what I should have done there because I know he’ll read this, but I should have played the hand a bit differently. We played 353 hands and I lost $2839 which feels oddly like a win. I ran really bad in the big pots, but overall feel like I played very well in that session. I’m really having fun with this and I actually like the fast speed of it. If I get really comfortable one-tabling the heads up, after these 5000 hands I may try to add a table and do a two-table heads up match.
I’m feeling good about my chances in the match, but it’s crucial to get some coolers going your way also in order to win. So far we have played 1003 hands and I’m down close to two and a half buy ins. Session 1: 350 hands +$6175
Session 2: 300 hands -$15484
Session 3: 353 hands -$2839
Total 1003 hands -$12,148 I’m not exactly sure when I’ll be able to play again, and that depends on whether or not I’ll be entering the High Roller event today. It’s tough to play well when not rested and it’s 6am right now and I’m worried I’ll get tired right around start time. It’s literally a coin flip at this point as to whether or not I play the event. We shall see. ***you can keep up with the results of my heads up match and “other stuff” here in this thread at Full Contact Poker: Daniel’s Blog Also, my twitter name if you haven’t found me yet is RealKidPoker ]]>

I broke pretty much all of my rules going into this tournament, some of which just aren’t my fault. My rules are simple: 1. Unpack immediately (did that)
2. No socializing the night before
3. Dinner alone in the room
4. No drinking
5. 8 hours of sleep I broke 4 out of the 5 rules. I played in the Ante Up for Africa Celebrity event and came in 5th place. It was a lot of fun and I had a few drinks during the event. I had a fun table to start, but busted half of them and had the chip lead at the final table by a large margin before going card dead. After the event I planned on going straight to bed, then somehow got convinced to have “one drink” at the bar. That never works! I don’t know what it is about being in Europe but everything just seems like more fun. One drink turned into “more drinks” and then it just got late. I probably got about 5 hours of sleep and didn’t really eat the whole night. My goal for day 1A, knowing that I wasn’t in tip top shape was just to make it through the day and fight hard on day two. We started with 30,000 in chips, and after 8 levels I have exactly 30,000 in chips! I had 30,025 but lost the 25 in the chip race. My off day was anything but an off day. I woke up at close to 5:00am, headed to the gym at 7:00am, then walked the beach and up the mountain to the grocery store to load up on goodies for the week. It’s a beautiful walk. When I got back I had interviews from 10:00am to 11:00am. At 11:00am we took a van to a location about an hour away to shoot some fun stuff with Moneymaker and Barry Greenstien. That took us till about 6:00pm. I napped a bit on the car ride back and had interviews for another hour and a half and that was a struggle. I got to my room at about 9:00pm and went straight to bed, waking up at 4:15am. So the plan today is to workout at 7:00am maybe, and then take a nap again before play. If I can get tired again, maybe I’ll skip the gym and just sleep. We shall see. The blinds will be 500-1000 with 90 minute levels so I definitely have some wiggle room. I’ll do the best that I can, but I can promise you this: for the WSOP, there will be no issues with preparation whatsoever. I won’t have nearly as many things on my plate in terms of media, etc. and I plan on being more soldier like going into each day. It’s so much tougher for me to ever do that on the EPT because the demands on my time are so much bigger. I simply can’t prepare properly so I can never really be at 100% for one of these events. I just have to be satisfied with doing the best I can under the circumstances. ]]>

So I’m playing this guy online 2easy as I mentioned previously. I’m going to play him a total of 5000 hands and hope to be done before the WSOP starts otherwise I won’t have time for online play. In the first session we played 350 hands and I won $6175 playing $25-$50 no limit hold’em. The second session was much more swingy. Before I tell you how it went, here are a few of the key pots we played: 1) I have AA and raise to 110 from the button, he re-raised to like 400 or 500 and I call. Flop is K-2-4 with two clubs, I have the Ace of clubs. He bet 550, I make it 1200, he moves all in. I started the hand with about $5300 and called. Turn K and he showed AK! Yuk. 2) Not too long after that he made it 150 from the button, I made it 500 with K-5 off suit and he called. The flop was K-J-7 rainbow and I bet 550- he called. Turn was a 3, I checked, he bet 1100, and I went all in for like 3500. He had 77 and I was down 10k. 3) He won a few more pots and I got down to about $1700 before this hand (luckily). I raised from the button with QQ to 100 and he called. Flop was J-7-3 two clubs, he check-raised, I went all in, he called… with KK! Sick, but lucky I was short stacked. 4) He raised the button to 150 I made it 500 with A-7. Flop A-J-8 two diamonds. I check called 550. Turn was a blank, I check called 1100. River was a 2d I check called all in for about 3500 more. He showed A-10 and won the pot. Well played. 5) I raised from the button with 5d 7d to 100 and he re-raised me to 400- I called. The flop was Kh 4d 8d. He bet 550 I called. The turn was a 3c, he bet 1100 and I called. The river came the 10d and he shoved for about 3000. I called. He had Kc Jc and I won that pot. We played 300 hands and I lost $15,484, so after 650 hands I’m now down close to two buy ins, $9309. It’s really been fun for me. Obviously things may have turned out differently if I didn’t lose that first key pot with AA to AK on a K-4-2 board, but the hand probably plays the same no matter who has that hand I guess. If I have the AK and he had the AA, the money goes in anyway. Just a cooler and a bit unlucky. I’m going to be a bit busy while in Monte Carlo with “stuff” as usual, but I’m going to try and squeeze some more hands in during the week if I can. I like the idea of agreeing to a number of hands prior to play, just makes sense to me. I wanted to quit after the Aces hand, but I did agree to play at least 250 hands so that wouldn’t have been cool to do. Just from doing this, I’m starting to realize even more so how small of a sample size even 5000 hands is. So much of the result will depend on how you do in the cooler pots when both players have no choice but to get the money in (a la the A-9 vs 9-10 I won last time and the AA vs AK one this time). In between the grind it’s a battle of who plays fundamentally better and who is doing a better job of grinding in the small pots. I’m happy with how I’m doing in the small pots and think this match will end up having quite a few swings before we hit the 5000 hand mark. Next time we do play I’ll be sure to notify you all via twitter. My twitter name is RealKidPoker. Unfortunately I won’t be able to twitter during the EPT event, because my cell doesn’t work for texting over here (boooo Sprint). There wasn’t a lot of trash talk in the match, I could see myself having a beer with the guy, he seems like a good dude. I’m sure there will be some needling going on somewhere along the line, we shall see. ***************************************************************** It’s 6:00am here and I woke up around midnight. Going to have to work that out sometime today. My plan is to run to the grocery store to pick up some essentials, soy milk, walnuts, almonds, pineapple juice, bananas, and whatever else I can find to eat. I’m going to get fat this trip, that’s just a fact. Since working out I’m doing more protein and less carbs, but out here, that’s not an option. They don’t offer much vegan friendly protein and so I’ll be eating more carbs I guess. I’ll do the best I can and work it off when I get back. When I get back from the grocery store I’ll hit the gym for an hour, then prepare for a lesson for the PokerStars boot camp at 11:30am. I’m doing a seminar on tournament poker, the small ball way. After that I’ll have to get ready for the Ante Up for Africa celebrity event being held out here. It’s going to be a fun event with all of the proceeds going to charity. There will be no drinking for me, though, as I play day 1A. ****************************************************************** My mother is starting to realize what’s going on. She is regaining some of her brain function and while that would seem to be a good sign, it’s very saddening at the same time. The other day my brother asked her “How are you feeling Mommy, are you comfortable?” She can’t talk, obviously, but she can move her left hand. With her left hand she made a gun and pointed it to her head. That totally breaks my heart to hear that. Just crushes me. I know she wants to die. I can’t imagine what she’s going through.
She also seems aware now that her right side is done for. She pointed to her right hand and made a motion like, “no good.” She isn’t showing any emotion, not sure she is capable right now, but if she could she would. She’s a very emotional person. Very loving, very caring, and cries a lot. I don’t know what to think about all of this, but it’s definitely throwing me for a loop. I feel helpless in terms of being able to fix it and that’s not a good thing for me. I see a problem- I want it fixed. I can’t fix this one and don’t know what to do outside of pray. I’m trying NOT to self-destruct. I get tempted to a lot recently and am just trying to keep it all together and put on a brave face, but this whole thing just sucks. I miss talking to her and just having her around. She was such a big part of my life and I need to find a way to fill that void with good things rather than destructive things. I get pissed off sometimes at really little things lately. I mean things that just never should bother me at all. I wanna fight. Rather than physically fight, I’m finding A LOT of comfort in fighting at the poker table. Playing this heads up match, for example, is something that helps me take my mind off of “stuff” and instead I can focus on beating this little punk! He’s not a little punk, I don’t mean it that way obviously, just playing, but focusing my energy on poker and fighting there seems like a decent way to fill the void at the moment. At the WPT championship I fought like a pitbull. I seriously did. I was close to the bottom in chips from late on day on and never gave up through a few levels on day two. I plan on never quitting in Monte Carlo either. I can’t control what’s going on with my mother, but I can control how focused I am at the poker table.
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