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Vegas Baby

I'm back from Vegas and maaan what a trip. Overall the trip was pretty good. Had alot of fun and got some good experience, but unfortunately I didn't come even close to making as much money as I wanted too. I kind of knew it would be a longshot to earn the $20k I was shooting for but definitely thought I couldve made more than I did make. One thing I did realize is my No Limit HoldEm skills need to improve. It had been awhile since I've really played HoldEm tournaments and it kinda showed in the six I played. The good thing was I have a new found passion for the game and gonna start playing it more.

The bright spot of the trip was playing Event #22 in the WSOP. It was my first ever live PLO tournament and would be the biggest tournament of the trip. It amazes me how bad people play live PLO. I managed to kind of cruise throughout the first day never really having an above average stack and was only all-in for my tournament life a couple times. I was excited after the end of day 1 because it meant I was going to have my first WSOP cash as we played down until we made the money. It was also awesome that my friend Siva, another shipshape crew member, also made the money with me so it was a double cash for the group. Day 2 started off promising as I knocked out some Russian pro (I think he was a pro) early on. But right before the first break, I lost a huge pot that would've put me over the 100k in chips mark. It seemed I never could get any momentum going after that but hung around for a few more hours getting down to the final 50 before going busto in 50th place. The final hand was an interesting one, and I've been replaying it over and over in my head and I still think I made a good play to put me in position to get alot of chips, but it wasn't meant to be. The finish was good for $5335 and it feels pretty good to get my first of many WSOP cashes. Siva was left to carry on the race for the bracelet but he went out soon after me in 43rd place. It was my only tournament cash of the trip, but I also did very well in the PLO cash games and probably shouldve played a few more sessions.

Another highlight of the trip was running into Jean Robert Bellande at Haze nightclub. JRB is a well known poker player and some of you may also know him from his stint on one of the seasons of Survivor. Even though he tends to act like an asshole when the TV cameras are on him, he's actually a real cool, down to earth guy. He even suggested we get a picture with him and put it on twitter so he can retweet it, so we obliged lol. Heres the pic:

This trip has just increased my desire to become a professional poker player. Since I've been back at home I've been thinking over my plans for the rest of the summer, but haven't come to any decisions yet. Right now moving out of the country so I can play online poker again is my favorite option but also would be the most difficult to feasibly do. I may also make another 2 week+ trip back to Vegas but for now I'll just look for games around the Houston area and try to get a bankroll together. Shipshape.

P.S. - Thanks everyone who wished me good luck in the tournament. The support was great.

Vegas Update

Man it's been only three days but it seems so much has happened. I've played two tournaments and three cash game sessions so far with mixed results. The first tournament was a $560 Deep Stack Extravaganza (DSE) event at the Venetian. Having not played too much poker before this trip it went really well. 353 people entered the tournament which paid out 36 spots and made 1st place a little over $41k. I got down to around 60 people but ran 99 into 1010 and that was that. The second tourney was also a DSE but it was a $350 buyin. I busted out in standard fashion as I turned a flush with QJ of diamonds and got it all in against KK. I just had to dodge a diamond on the river but it wasnt meant to be. I feel these tournaments are really soft and I still have quite a few tournaments left that I will be playing so I'm looking forward to making a splash at the final table.

The cash game sessions have been much better. My first session was $1/$2 PLO at the Rio and made $720. The second session was an all nighter $1/$3 PLO session at Aria. It didn't go as well and I ended up losing $200. Yesterday I played $1/$2 PLO at Venetian and made $555, so overall I'm up on this trip in cash games. My favorite place to play is definitely the Rio mainly due to the fact that it seems to be the only place you can button straddle. It makes the game much livelier. I've been playing really well in the cash games and look to continue my good play.

Today I will be playing some more cash games at the Rio while Ben, Siva, and Dartez play the $1500 NLHE 6mx WSOP event. Until then good luck to the shipshape crew in todays event. Shipshape.

P.S. - Dont forget to follow me on twitter for live updates while we're here in Vegas. @RiverMePlz.

Blog Resurrection

So alot has happened in my life since I've last posted. I graduated college, online poker essentially got shut down in the US, and with that my plan to become a professional poker player hit a small hiccup. I've been meaning to go into depth on all three of those topics but since I'm lazy I'm going to just fast forward to now. I'm resurrecting the blog!

I'm currently in Las Vegas hoping for big things as this is kind of a do or die situation. As some of you may know I have no intentions of working a regular 9-5 so I'm taking this opportunity to kind of pursue my dream of becoming a professional poker player. Me and the rest of the shipshape crew will be living in Vegas for the next 18 days and the goal is to make alot of money. As opposed to last years trip, this will be more business than pleasure and alot of poker will be played.

Throughout the course of this trip I will be blogging almost daily, giving updates on the happenings and shenanigans that no doubtedly will be going down on this trip. I'll also be tweeting constantly so follow me on twitter @RiverMePlz. Well I'm about to go check out some poker rooms and try to play a little $1/$2 PLO so I'm gonna end it here. Dont forget to follow me on twitter for up to the minute updates "@RiverMePlz". Shipshape.

Rollercoaster Month So Far

FML. I am an idiot sometimes. I've started to develop a pattern where I go on a few good winning runs for about a week, only to lose it all in a couple of days. The good news is I've finally realized why that keeps happening and can now fix this problem. I won't go into much detail about what that is, but it essentially has to do with trying to make alot of money very quickly. So I'm back to square one. I have a $1000 in my account and my focus has changed. I still plan to keep playing cash games as it is good practice, and I'm still a winner at these stakes, but my main focus will be the 4k and 5k guarantee. These are the two $26 PLO tournaments Full Tilt runs every day, so my only goal right now is to play these two tournaments everyday (Mon-Thurs). I do well in these tournaments and can easily see myself getting a win every week (a little lofty I know, but you gotta be confident right). Cash games will be more of a secondary thing to fill time, get hands in, and earn Full Tilt points to keep my black card and iron man status. I'll also be increasing the number of buyins needed for each stake to 50, as this will put less pressure on my daily results. I forget sometimes that poker is really measured in long term success not short, and that it is truly a grind. Slow and steady wins the race. Of course its easy to lose sight of that when you hear stories about a guy running $100 into $50k in two weeks but I need not concern myself on such things and just focus on me.

I've played 10 events so far in MiniFTOPS and to say my results have been disappointing is an understatement. I've run so bad in these events it really isn't even funny. I'm reminded why I hate playing hold em online. Play for hours only to have your tournament decided by a coin flip or even worse putting in 3:1 or 4:1 favorite and not holding. So frustrating, but I'll keep chugging along. As the old adage says: all it takes is one. First place in one of these would set me up beautifully for this upcoming summer. I did pull out of a few events and only have four left that I plan to play, so time is running out for me to bink one of these. The good thing is three of the events are what I consider fun and +EV events for me. Today I got the round of each PLHE/PLO 6mx. Tomorrow is the PLO rebuy event which should be a nice prizepool. And then Wednesday is the event I came ever so close in getting my 1st jersey last year: 9-handed shootout. Well today's event starts in about 15 minutes so I'm going to end it here. Wish me luck. Shipshape.

Pretty Good Month

Last month was a really good month for me. It wasn't quite as profitable as it could've been but I did manage to make around $1400. At my peak though, I was up around $2200 but nevertheless, profit is profit. I'm inching ever so close to getting out of make up. My database crashed midway through the month and even though I still have the raw hand histories, I decided I'm going to create a whole new one. So this month the graphs will be back :-). I made a few tweaks to my game the last half of February and it really paid off. One of the things I decided was to cut down on the number of tables I play. I went from four tables to a more manageable three. Cutting out that one extra table seemed to make a huge difference as my bb/100 hands went from 7 to 16, albeit is was over a small sample. I also made some betting size changes both pre and postflop, and I won't go into much detail here but they worked out quite nicely. Overall my game has improved really from just trying to pay attention to each table and every hand and not just robotically going through the motions. I predict March will be a huge month for me. Not just at the cash game tables, but also on the tournament tables as well.

Speaking of tournaments, MiniFTOPS starts on Sunday and it is jam packed with 45 events. My tentative schedule has me playing 21 events, and right now I'm about 90% sure I will be playing all those events. Last year around this time, I came oh so close to winning that silver jersey in a $55 shootout event but ended up finishing 3rd. It was quite disappointing, but at the time that was my biggest online cash, so I couldn't be too mad. This year I'm definitely planning to better that result and take one of these events down. It would definitely make my spring break if I do. Well that's all for now. I'm about to get my first cash session of the month underway. Shipshape.

Mini-UBOC Event 6 Champion

That's right folks. Last Tuesday I got my first win of the year on a site I haven't played on in forever (unfortunately I forgot to take a screenshot and it's no longer available on their lobby grr). Ultimate Bet (or UB I think they call themselves now) is playing host to their online series called UBOC. Which like FTOPS, consist of a series of different poker tourneys and buyins throughout a two week period. I had no idea this was even going on until my friend called me up asking if I'd be interested in being staked in the $215 PLO 6mx event that was running and of course I was interested. Also running at the same time is the Mini-UBOC, which have the same events as the UBOC but for 1/10th of the price. So we figured might as well just put me in both. Well it almost ended up not happening at all. We had a tough time trying to get money on the site, so I was fine with not playing as I had been at school all day and was quite tired. But last minute we finally were able to get a transfer (which took forever as well), and I registered into the events about 45 mins late. On the very first hand in the mini, I doubled my stack with double suited aces going against double suited kings and I knew it was going to be a good tournament. After fizzling out in the main UBOC event, I concentrated all my efforts on the mini. It was a very interesting tournament to say the least. I played really well in the early stages, but the middle to middle late stages, I started to get tired and made some questionable plays. Luck, however, was on my side as I was all in and behind three times and each time I hit a river card to scoop the pot. Once we made the money I turned up the aggression. The adrenaline woke me back up and I played some of the best PLO I've ever played. My timing was just spot on and I was getting max value from my hands. It's a dangerous combination when not only are you playing good, but you're running good as well. I came into the final table as chip leader and when that happens rarely do I give it up. Wasn't until we were three handed where I finally had lost the chip lead and the stacks had started to even out. I regained it back however going into heads up, but I was so tired at this point I was getting outplayed heads up. My opponent took a small lead, when I decided to just gamble gamble. I got KQ96 double suited in the BB and I was facing a pot raise. I decided to just play for it all here so i repopped it pot and the guy insta-shoved. I knew I had just ran into aces but I had a good hand against them as long as he didnt have my suits covered. He turned over AA45. The flop came 458 which was not a good flop for my hand as I could only hit a 7 for the win or catch some kind of runner runner. The turn came Q, which opened me up big time as I now could hit any K,Q,9,6 or 7. The 6 came on the river and the run good was still on. He was crippled and the tourney ended a couple hands later. The win was good for a little less than $2400. UB called me right after the win and did a nasty little short phone interview with me which u can find here. I believe they merged about three responses into just one long clip. Had I known from the beginning they would've been using the interview on their site I probably would've thought a little more about my responses but as it stands it wasn't too bad especially considering it was around 2 or 3am and I had just played for 7-8hrs straight.

More good things are on the horizon. Its double guarantee week on FTP, so all the tournaments will have double the guaranteed prizepool. I look forward to taking down one or two of those this week and being able to have another brag post :-). Also FTOPS is right around the corner starting Super Bowl weekend, so it's going to be a jam packed February. So until next time. Shipshape.