Wedding, Home Hunting, and Sweet Home Alabama?

Sorry about the lack of poker content in this upcoming blog, but my life has just been super busy with things outside of the poker world. I guess we'll get to poker first though. So far in May I have played 1 hour of online poker and am up 2.5 buy ins. While in the Bahamas I played one live sit-n-go and got 1st. It paid a necklace valued at about $1 which I of course gave to Kim. LOL. Now you're caught up on my month at the tables. If you're not interested in my weddingmoon in the Bahamas, my move to Alabama, my wifes blog, or my house hunt, now would be a good time to quit reading.

Still with me? Great. On May 7th Kim and I left for Sandals Royal Bahamian Resort in Nassau, Bahamas. My best friend Ben and his girlfriend flew in from California on May 8th and stayed at the resort as well. The four of us had a blast hanging out at the beach, the pool bar, going to the casinos, having great meals, sailing, kayaking, and just chilling out. On May 12th at 10am Kim and I exchanged vows right on the beaches edge with our bare feet in the white sand while overlooking the crystal clear waters of the Bahamas. It was truly an amazing wedding and we were very happy to have Ben and Liza there with us. They left right after the wedding, and Kim and I stayed a few more days before heading back to Houston. In our time alone we also went to the waterpark at the Atlantis, and went to Blue Lagoon Island and swam with the dolphins. That was an amazing day as we hugged, kissed, danced with, and petted 2 seperate Atlantic bottlenose dolphins, one of which played "Flipper" in the 1996 movie starring Paul Hogan and Elijah Wood (a robotic dolphin was also used in most of the film, but where a live dolphin was used it was that cutie named Jake). The dolphin encounter was capped off with a foot push where 2 dolphins swim up behind you and push you about 100 yards at 15 miles per hour or so across the water. It was very very cool. I have nothing bad at all to say about our weddingmoon, and would highly recommend Sandals as a vacation or wedding destination. Oh yeah, and thanks Mom and Dad for the trip, it was an awesome wedding gift!

After getting back from the Bahamas, we immediately started packing to come to Mobile, Alabama to start looking for homes. As I think I stated in my last blog, Kim got a job transfer from her companies Houston office to its Mobile office. They gave us a corporate apartment in West Mobile and we moved in last Wednesday. We are keeping our rental home in Houston for now until we close on a home here. I spent this week looking at homes in Daphne which is a suburb of Mobile. It's located on the East Coast of Mobile Bay, about 1 hour from Pensacola, Florida to the east, and 1 hour from Biloxi, Mississippi to the west. I think it's going to be a great location for me to start playing some more live poker. Many people know about the poker action in Biloxi at the Beau Rivage and IP (as well as smaller games in a few other casinos there), but I am really looking forward to playing at the Pensacola Greyhound Track. The law will be changing in Florida on July 1st and there will no longer be a $100 max on the buy in, so this should make games like $2-$5 and $5-$10 No Limit super juicy for a long time while players are adjusting to a deeper stacked game. I'm also looking forward to becoming a staple in the tourney series' at both the Beau Rivage and IP in Biloxi, as most of the tourneys fall into the buy in range that I prefer ($200-$2500). So, back to the housing situation. After looking at over 15 homes, I found the one that I really loved. Kim came with me today to see my top 4 choices, as well as a few more that we hadn't seen, and she picked the same one as I did as her favorite. We put in a legitimate offer on the house and will have a response by tomorrow (Sunday) at 5pm. We are trying to not get too excited, but we do have high hopes of getting the house. I promise to post pics if/when we do get an accepted offer on the house. Just a rundown about it, it's 2030 square feet, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom, huge bonus room, formal living room, formal dining room, breakfast area, and decent kitchen. Outside it has a pool with a waterfall, a covered screen 25ft tall enclosure for the pool, a decent yard for the dogs, and a covered patio good for grilling and just relaxing in the shade. The front of the house has a covered wrap around porch great for morning coffee and a cigarette, and relaxing in rocking chairs while enjoying the breeze coming off of Mobile Bay. All in all, we really love the home. I'll let ya'll know how it turns out.

Lastly, my wife Kim has started a blog. I thought it was kind of interesting and think other people will enjoy it as well. Her blog is called "Tales of a Roving Gamblers Wife" and can be found at http://www.bootnteewife.blogspot.com/. Her blog chronicals the ups and downs of being the wife of a professional gambler. It may not be the content that my readers are looking for, but if you guys' wives or girlfriends are into blogs you should definitely pass on the link to hers as I think they will enjoy and be able to relate to what she feels. Of course her blog also talks about whats going on in her life as well, but mostly talks of our "backwards" relationship where she has a big time corporate america job, and I play poker professionally. Because of the schedule that I keep I end up doing a lot of the laundry and cooking, which I guess is sterotypically the "woman's job." Don't flame me for that as I am perfectly happy doing these things and have no notions about it actually being a woman's job. But anyway, if you or someone you know is interested in a blog like that, check her out and follow her.

Hopefully we will head west to Biloxi tomorrow for the first time since moving to Mobile. I think we probably will just play some low limit poker, maybe some $1-$2 no limit or something for a few hours to help kill time in the day while waiting to hear from our Realtor about the house that we made the offer on. Good news one time please!!!

I really don't know when I'll fully get back into playing poker, but I hope it's relatively soon as I am starting to miss it. I was kinda tired tonight so I didn't think it was a good idea to play, but I did sweat a friend a while just to get my fix. Hopefully all my buds like talv, Nicolak, and my fellow FeltStars Pros are killing it this month and making up for my lack of table time. If anyone is in Biloxi on Friday June 4th or Saturday June 5th make sure to stop by the Beau Rivage and say hello. I will be there representing FeltStars as its featured pro when the Poor Mans Poker Tour rolls into town. You can find out more info on the Poor Mans Poker Tour at http://www.pokerjoeandthedoc.com/ and more info on the Biloxi tour stop by clicking on the word Biloxi on the sidebar of their website. Also, listen to their radio show at the website for an interview with FeltStars newest team pro Nadim "Lucky Dime" Shabou. Guess thats all for now though. Hope to see you all in Biloxi. As always, follow me on twitter at www.twitter.com/kajunkidpoker.

Til Next Time....

April Recap and Busy months to follow

So, April has come and gone already. Luckily for me it was another very solid month winning right at 50 buy ins. The above graph illustrates my month in big blinds rather than dollar amounts won. This is for my desktop only, as I won another 1200 or so big blinds on my laptop. Overall, I am quite pleased with my month in total both profit wise and winrate wise. I was able to sustain a winrate of 8bb/100 for the month. Where I failed during April was table time. I worked less than 100 hours in April, and only played slightly more than 55k hands for the month. I will grant myself a repreive considering HUGE things are happening in my life at the moment, but I'll discuss those in a bit.

I did not make the full transition to 2/4NL in April as I had planned to do. I had every intention of doing so, but after only one bad session of 2/4 I reverted back to 1/2 and started crushing again, so I decided to stick with it. I did manage to still win in the 2/4 games for the month, but only at a rate of 3bb/100 over a very small sample size of 3400 hands. I know that soon I will make, and succeed, at the full transition and climb the poker ladder, but for now I'm comfortable at my current stakes until I get all of the "life stuff" in order.

Last order of business on the poker front is of course FeltStars. Starting tomorrow, May 5th, FeltStars will be running its first "Pro Bounty Challenge" tourney. This tourney will be a standard MTT with a HUGE bonus opportunity. Each of the 4 pros will have a bounty on their head. Knock out a pro and get $100. Knock out 2 of the 4 and get $2500. Knock out 3 of the 4 and get $50,000, and knock out all 4 pros during the tourney and get $100,000! Sounds simple right? Well, sign up now using bonus code BootnTee and hop in the tourney tomorrow at 7:30pm Central time for this $10+1 buy in weekly $100,000 FeltStars Pro Bounty Challenge tournament. There are only 27 players signed up so far, so join in and take your chance at $100,000! You can find more details about it at the following link: http://feltstars.com/poker/promotions-pro-bounty-challenge.php

Poker aside, these next few months will be super busy. As I have previously written, Kim and I will be going to the Bahamas this week for our "weddingmoon." We will be getting married at the Sandals Royal Bahamian on May 12th and returning to Houston a few days later. After getting back to Houston, we will be going to Mobile, Alabama and start house hunting there. Kim was offered a job at her companies Mobile office and she accepted it. So along with a wedding in the Bahamas, we are also moving, buying a new home, and she is starting a new job. That's a lot of life changes in the next few months! We are both looking forward to living in Mobile. I am excited to be within 1 hour to the Beau Rivage and IP in Biloxi, as well as an hour the other way to a poker room in Pensacola, Florida. Finally I can play some live poker midweek and not have to jump on a plane to do so! Also, it will only be 3.5 hours to my parents home rather than 5.5, so I can make weekend trips to visit them. All in all it's going to be a great thing, but it will definitely be hectic for a while. Unfortunately because of all these plans, I will have to cut down on my WSOP trip, or may possibly have to miss it for the first time ever since I've been 21. I have attended 7 consecutive WSOP's and really don't want to break that streak! Hopefully all the cards will fall right and I'll still be able to make it out to Vegas for at least a week or so during the series.

One of the other FeltStars pros, Ken "DrCheckRaise" Callis hosts a radio show on his website, http://www.drcheckraise.com/, and they are taking the show on the road to a dozen or more cities for their "Poor Mans' Poker Tour". On June 4th and 5th their tour will stop at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi, and I will be the featured pro for this tour stop. On Friday June 4th there will be a meet and greet for forum members, as well as cash games to follow. On Saturday June 5th there is a $20,000 guaranteed tourney at Noon with a $300+50 buy in which I will be representing Team FeltStars. If you happen to be in Biloxi, come out to play the tourney or to just say Hi and learn more about what FeltStars has to offer. Hope to see a few of you there!
Because of all these events in my life, I really think May could possibly turn out to be my slowest poker month EVER! My realistic goal will be to play 40 hours this month. Yeah, it's a low goal, but realistically I don't think I will have time to grind considering the wedding, the temporary move to a corporate apartment, the house hunting, and the back and forth between Houston and Mobile while trying to pack up the house here. Such is life.

Guess that's about it for this blog. Hope to post another one after the wedding in the Bahamas, and maybe include a few photos. Best wishes to all of you and hope to see you in Biloxi June 4th-5th.

Til Next Time....