I attended the funeral the other day and the place was overflowing with people which is a testament to how many friends he had. I showed up early and yet still there was no sitting room and people were standing anywhere they could. Chip
So in my last blog I described the news as both good and bad and that
I need a poker break…. so I’m taking one. Period. The next tournament I play will be the 5 Diamond at Bellagio in December. Until then I’ll be spending my afternoons on the course, my nights working in the PokerVT studio, and maybe hanging with the guys, playing pool, etc. Aside from that, have to start getting back to writing my book too. There is a lot of good stuff already done, but I want to polish it up a bit and edit some of the work. Speaking of writing, I’ve decided that I need a break from the columns too. When I took on the syndicated weekly column I didn’t realize how much work it could be when I added it to the CardPlayer columns I was already writing. So, I’ve decided that I’m going to have to pick one, and I decided to keep the syndicated column which means I’m not going to be writing a regular column for CardPlayer anymore. No reason at all other than the fact that I can’t keep up. All of this and a lot more is covered in a video blog I just shot the other night while at the PokerVT studio. Check it out at www.fullcontactpoker.com, you should be able to find it right there on the homepage. I also did an interview while in Niagara Falls with Amanda Leatherman for www.pokerroad.com, a cool new site that will host Barry “The Bear” Greenstien’s blog, some more of Joe and Gavin’s radio show, and some “other stuff” I guess. Anyway, in that interview I said some stuff publicly that I’ll bet you’ve never heard before, which is kinda shocking considering how many interviews I’ve done. This one was WAY different, though, as it covered my teenage smoking stint, my break ups with Evelyn Ng, and some other stuff too… anyway, I just dumped off $20,000 to Genius28 in the $100-$200 NL game at Poker Stars, so it’s time to click send and donk off some more.]]>
Who would of thunk it? I certainly was suprised and never thought in a million years that the Canadian dollar would be worth more than a US dollar. Who could predict that the US would allow an administration to reign for eight years despite horrible decision after horrible decision.
Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, I can’t imagine anyone genuinely believing that the current administration has done a “good job” handling the war, the economy, education, heath care, etc.
The strange this is, though, that I really don’t think this is good for the Canadian economy at all in several areas. One being entertainment. Toronto become the hotbead for filmmaking and at one point there was more going on in Toronto than in Hollywood since it was much cheaper. With that no longer the case, studios won’t be coming to Toronto quite as often. That’s just one example, but there are many others.
I have, like, no Canadian money at all, but was still happy to see the Canadian dollar do as well as it is. It’s a pride thing, I guess, and it’s a nice feeling to not be the butt of the dollar jokes.
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So I’m in Niagara Falls playing in a bigger buy in event than most in the U.S. In the U.S. the typical WPT buy in is $10,000 U.S. but here is Canada it’ll cost you closer to $11,000 to play. How weird is that????
Anyway, I’m getting ready to play tomorrow. I took the day off today outside of going to the driving range. It was freezing cold and I was the only nutcase out there in the pouring rain, but what can I say, I’m totally addicted. I read a book on the plane by Jim Hardy, a golf teacher who has a theory about a one plane swing versus a two plane swing and that all golfers fall into one of two categories. I’m about as one-plane as you can get I think, and understanding that helps me process bad information better.
Too many random people always tell me that my backswing is too flat, when in fact, they are often dead wrong. My takeaway may have been too far inside, but my shoulder turn is supposed to be flat. I’m learning a lot about the golf swing and I find it fascinating. I’m going to buy a tripod and a video camera so that I can analyze my own swing. I honestly don’t even trust most golf pros to teach me. I think if I can look at my own swing I will be able to identify the faults and am learning ways to correct all sorts of faults. It’s a lot of fun, for me anyway.
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Fantasy hockey, my absolute passion is going amazing this season. My team is the best in my conference and I’ve won 9 straight games with my win tonight, making my record 9-2 early on in the season. I have a deep, young, talented team at every position. Goalies: Luongo, Lundqvist, Nabakov, Defense: Cory Murphy, Tom Poti, Roman Hamrlik, Brent Seabrook, Marc-Edouard Vlasic…. then at Forward: Simon Gagne, Jason Pominville, Olli Jokinen, Anze Kopitar, Alexander Semin, Henrik Sedin, Alexei Kovalev, etc.
It’s silly, I know, but I get immense pleasure from my fantasy hockey league, it’s impossible to explain…
Anyway, not a ton to say tonight, other than it’s time to play some poker! I’m rested and ready to go and look forward to improving on last years bad performance.
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and I still don’t actualy, lol. Just finished writing two columns tonight, been going to bed early, etc. What have I been up to:
-Missed my flight to Baden for the EPT. Looked into other flights that may leave later where I could get there in time but it was cutting it close and that’s just no way to play a tournament after several long flights, etc.
-Been working hard on PokerVT stuff. Yeah, that’s all I can really tell you about that, but you’ll all know eventually anyway so don’t sweat it.
-Went to the Manny Pacua fight at Mandalay Bay. First fight I ever been to and it was awesome. I’m going to go to a lot more fights in the future for sure.
-Played two rounds of golf. Had my best 9 ever followed by three straight nines of… I don’t even know what to call them, horror? Playing at Spanish Trail I started out with 5 pars and 3 bogies and made a 7 on number 9. Then my swing fell apart completely and I shot a 52 on the back. Yuk. I ended with a 94. Then today I put together quite a round… 57….53….110!!! Normally I can figure it out but I was dealing with a nasty reverse pivot that I couldn’t correct the whole day. I hit my irons fine, but couldn’t get a 3-wood in the air and hooked every drive in a bad way, coming over the top of it everytime. Golf sucks.
-Been watching the hockey… got my fantasy league work to do again and I’m loving it. This is going to sound really stupid to most of you, but I enjoy nothing, and I mean nothing, more than sweating the hockey games to watch my fantasy team score. I have a load of young players on my team that are lighting it up and it’s the most exciting thing ever.
Want more stupid? Seriously… no joke… I’d rather win my third AHL (Alternative Hockey League) title than winning a bracelet. The league is so important to me I can’t use words to describe it without sounding like a complete idiot!
On the upcoming schedule:
-Playing Online
-Playing Poker After Dark twice next week
-Working on PokerVT Stuff
-WPT Niagara Falls (Toronto Trip also)
-PGA Tour event at my home course, TPC Summerlin
-Fixing this stupid reverse pivot/swaying problem I’ve developed!
Next up on the schedule… sleep. Nite.]]>
I’d say the most annoying thing about busting out is that the reporters covering the event ended with a perfect record: they got 100% of my hands WRONG in the coverage! They have me check raising IN position, playing against the wrong guy, etc., lol. I swear I think I should come back as a tournament reporter in another life so that I can show them how to do it properly.
My last hand actually went like this: I had just raised two hands out of the last three and won both with no contest. Based on that, I limped in under the gun at an 8-handed table with A-Q, also because I knew the big blind call my 2.5 times the blind raise. The button made it 2500 and it felt to me that it was simply a position raise. THE SMALL BLIND CALLED and I called.
The flop was Qd 6s 2s. The small blind fired out 5000 and I called- the button folded. The turn card was the 10s and once again the small blind fired out 5000. I was pretty sure he didn’t have a flush so I figured I had him outkicked unless he had Q-10. I went all in for 11,100 more. He thought for about, oh, I’d say three and a half hours before finally calling with….. Ks Kd! LOL. The river was a Q….. of spades 🙁
The guy slowplayed KK there in a dangerous spot, and knowing absolutely nothing about him other than he looked a little “tight/bad” I didn’t think I had any choice at all.
The EPT structure is a good one as far as how the blinds escalate, but the WPT structures are actually much slower (leading up to the final table) since they usually offer 75-90 minute levels. The EPT uses 60 minute levels which catches up with you quickly and forces the play to get really shallow a little earlier than I’m used to. Obviously way more play than a typical WSOP event (outside the main event) but not quite on the level of the WPT.
It’s going to be a little tougher than I thought to win an EPT because I’ll have to depend on lady luck a little more than I’d like. Luckily for me, I’m a lucky guy and am still confident about my play in the tournaments.
EPT Structure (60 minute levels 10,000 in chips)
25-50
50-100
75-150
100-200
150-300
150-300 (25)
200-400 (50)
300-600 (75)
400-800 (100)
500-1000 (100)
600-1200 (200)
800-1600 (200)
1000-2000 (300)
1200-2400 (400)
1500-3000 (500)
2000-4000 (500)
2500-5000 (???)
As you can see it’s pretty close to a perfect structure, but by going from 90 minute levels to 60 minute levels the higher limits kick in much faster than the WPT’s structures.
Not complaining really, just an observation. Obviously I’m a fan of slow structures but fully understand the reasoning behind these structures for European events. Many of the venues don’t open until the afternoon and also have regulations that force them to close at a certain time each night (this was true for the WSOP Europe as well).
I imagine the WPT event in Barcelona will also be effected unless they decide to make it a 6 or 7 day event which seems unlikely (haven’t looked).
So I’m on the next flight back home until the next EPT event in Baden. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to playing in the WCOOP on PokerStars.
I’m also going to try and get a round of golf in (brought my clubs to London but couldn’t play) and have more work to do on the PokerVT project.
I’ll be home for a week and then back on the road to Baden. Oh, also, for those higher limit online players, PokerStars has listened to your input and has added 25-50 NL 6-Max tables. All three of the tables will have a $2000 minimum buy in to prevent short stackers from ruining the games. ]]>
I’ll be playing on day 1B so hopefully by then jetlag won’t be a problem. Right now I’m not yet on a good schedule but hope to fix that today somehow. I’m going to keep this super short as I just shot a video blog from my house before I left for London that covers a whole bunch of stuff. It should be up at www.fullcontactpoker.com but if it’s not up there just yet than you’ll be able to find it at www.rawvegas.tv. The link to my blog is here: http://www.rawvegas.tv/watch.php?vID=9f3c017830e241ab53d1f69682f8d6]]>