Moving on

So, after a few days in LA, finally left america and vegas behind to seek a more relaxing atmosphere. Arrived in bangkok today, but its just a brief stop while i orgainse a trip to vietnam. When i went travelling in 2005 i wanted to go to vietnam but didnt have time as I had to go to the Stars WPT event in bahamas, hard life i know, :-). Have pencilled in the aisan poker tour in manilla for my next live outing but that is subject to change and seems a relatively small event with a cap on the entrants. After that im heading to phuket for about 2 weeks scuba diving around the similan islands which are just breathtaking. Mid September sees me heading to australia to meet up with a few of my very good friends from home, one of which i havent seen since new year so that will be cool.

Our general outline for australia is to spend about 3 months travelling from cairns to sydney, arriving mid December just in to play the 5k Aisa poker tour event in sydney. Christmas and new year in sydney then down to melbourne to play the superbly run and structured aussie millions tournament that i was lucky enough to cash in this year.

As far as online goes ive been doing a lot better since my last post and am almost out of my $15k downswing immediatley following vegas. Mainly on Party $5/10 and Full tilt $10/20. I am having issues with poker tracker though on my new laptop. For some reason it doesnt find the full tilt hand histories after ive finished a session on there, and therefore my pokertracker doesnt give a true reflection of my play near enough rendering it useless. I have checked and double checked all the settings in full tilt and in poker tracker and cannot for the life of me discover whats wrong, not sure if its something to do with windows vista or not.

Thats about if for now, I will have my laptop with me everywhere i go so will be playing online still when i have noting better to do. A quick shout out to my mate Rick trigg (The Claimer) for his impressive finish in the Newcastle GUKPT event taking home 24k sterling, happy days.

Quick Summary

OK, been very busy and alwasy seemed to be putting off updating the blog, but here goes with a quick recap of whats being going on. My main event had a very good start with me reaching about 34k at the dinner break, without hardly showing a hand and was in confident mood. I was gettin maximum value for my hands, making good reads and had a good feel about what my opponents held most of the time. Then after the dinner break I had another meltdown sort of, similar to the venetian tournament a few weeks ago, but in my opinion i didnt play like a donkey as i did that day.

After a few orbits without playing a hand, then having a few raises snapped off by re-raises where i had to lay down my exit hand occurred. Playing about a 28k stack at 200/400, i open for 1200 in EP with 89 clubs and am called in the cut-off, no one else enters the pot. The flop is T J 2, with 1 club and i continuation bet about 1800 i think, and he calls. The turn is a 3 of clubs, and i check and he instantly bets 5k, around the size of the pot. Earlier this same guy had tried to float me out of position with AJ on a K 4 4 flop, but i had AK, so i knew he was definately capable of such a play. His bet looked to me as though he wanted to take the down right there, maybe with an AT type hand. My play looks as though i bet the flop because i raised preflop and was now giving up because he called me on the flop, so he could be trying to take it away from me. If i just call, I am out of position when the river comes, and think I will struggle to get paid off even if i hit my hand as i dont figure him to be that strong. Considering all the above factors I jam for 25k total with my up n down str8 draw and flush draw, he had me covered by around 6k. My line was that he would need TJ minimum to make this call, however he beat me in the pot with TT and i bricked out, gg.

No regrets, maybe overagressive, who knows but its how i play tournaments, always next year......... My vegas trip was in profit mainly because of online though withe the 2 nice scores i had mentioned in earlier posts.

August and September are 2 massive months in online tournament poker with the full tilt series of poker, and the pokerstars WCOOP festival. Some bankrolls will take a serious hammering during these two months im sure, just log on to the respective sites to look at the big buy in extravaganza. Im going to be in australia so will hardly be playing any of the events, but may set the alarm clock for 4am to play a couple of the ones I really fancy. One of the full tilt events is a $2.5k buy in and a 2 day event, with an awesome structure.

Since leaving vegas my cash games have gone pretty bad online, about $15k down. Some pretty sick hands on crypto in particular.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1272112

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1272115

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1272120

Someone requested that i animated the handhistory for my 100 rebuy win on stars a few weeks back but it kept slipping my mind, but here it is

http://www.pokerxfactor.com/HH71215/594_20070717_092857

Main Event

After some persuasion, I have decided to stay in Vegas and play the main event, time will tell as to if this is a wise decision. I play on day 1 d, and if i bust i will be arranging transport out of Vegas asap. The other day i lost my phone which is very annoying, coupled with the fact that i wasn't even drunk, just fell out of my jeans in a taxi. Moorman had his revenge vs me at bowling, beating me 3-2, although i was 3-0 down at one point, but managed to save face a little. Vegas is crazy hot, and this is what apparently provoked a man to open fire in new york new york the other day. He was taken down by 4 members of the public eventually, and to my knowledge no one was killed thankfully. Was weird as I had gone for steak with a few friends just 2 days before in new york new york.

Had another touch online today, finishing 6th in the warm up on stars for over $14k, putting my Vegas trip well in profit, even after shelling out for the main event, happy days. My main event last year was a pretty bleak affair, so will looking to improve on that showing.

vegas update

So, after my premature exit from the 5k short handed event I haven't got round to playing any more live tournaments. This is mainly due to excessive alcohol consumption leaving me feeling very rough the next day and not being fit to do anything until around 6pm. Have played a little cash online while i have been here and I'm $8k up.

The other night after a pretty heavy drinking session, me, moorman and noflopshomer visited the Orleans bowling alley at 7am, for some comical bowling. Moorman beat me 2-1 but i felt the copious amounts of white Russians were to blame and duly challenged him to a rematch when sober. The sober game resulted in a 4-0 whitewash in my favour from 5 games, and a cheeky 169 game to finish it off, OWNED!

Today is 4th of July so planning on going for a nice steak somewhere, then to sample the rides on top of the stratosphere followed by Independence day drinking somewhere along the strip. Poker stars have recently added new levels to the blind structure of its tournaments, making the re buys fantastic structures with lots of play, even on the final table. I was lucky enough to take advantage of the new structure yesterday and take down the 100 re buy. :-)