Been a While- Jan Update

Hello All,

Sorry about the lack of updates since Christmas, but I just returned to Houston after being gone since December 28th! I cant believe its February already.

After Christmas I went to my parents house for a visit. I had a very nice time there, and Kim even came over for a few days. We celebrated "Christmas morning" with my side of the family on New Years morning. I think everyone loved their gifts. Mom and Kim headed out to the casino to play some slots, while Dad and I stayed home and watched football in the afternoon. We are HUGE college football fans.

Kim left for a business trip a few days after New Years, so I decided to stay at my parents for an extra week before I headed down to Biloxi, Mississippi for the WPT Southern Poker Championship. On my way there I picked up my good friend (a WPT champ!) from the airport in New Orleans. Somehow I talked him in to flying in from Vegas to join me for 2 weeks of poker on the Gulf Coast. We arrived at the Beau Rivage, and my buddy final tabled the first tourney of the trip. He finished 4th for a decent payday of a little over 8k. Unfortunately, that was about it for our trip. I had zero cashes in about 8 or so tourneys, with only 1 deep run culminating in me losing a monster pot with QQ vs 77 on a 722 flop. I played well in the cash games but more or less broke even in them. What I did accomplish on the trip was improving my game. I spent 20+ hours over 2 weeks watching my friend play online and taking notes on spots where I have leaks in my game. He also spent 10+ hours watching me play and reviewing hands after the session. I think this "tutoring" in itself made the trip extremely +EV!! After my friend busted from the 10k main event I dropped him off at the airport and went back to my parents to pick up all of my things and spend a few more days with them. I returned to Houston last week and enjoyed a relaxing weekend with my fiancee while catching up with mail and TV.

Today I had a very interesting conversation with a friend of mine who just crushes 6 max no limit games online. Last month he managed to win 100 buy ins playing 2/4 NL! He was nice enought to spend nearly 3 hours reviewing strategy and going over hypothetical hand examples that I made up in order to try to improve my game. I plan on putting all this studying in to action this month. I dropped my Deuces Cracked membership this month but kept my Bluefire Poker one. I felt like learning from too many instructors was just confusing me and making me question all of my decisions at the table. Now that I am back to just studying under 2 or 3 very talented and winning players, I feel much more confident about my decision making process at the table. It's good to note that no matter how good you think you are, you can ALWAYS learn more and get better.

On an unrelated note, my fiancee and I are pretty close to setting a wedding date. We are both excited about this and I would bet that we'll be married before the beginning of summer!

I guess thats about it for now. Plan on getting a good nights rest and then hitting the virtual felt hard tomorrow and putting all my hard work into practice!

A special congrats to FeltStars Pro Tyler Smith for final tabling the main event at the WPT Biloxi. Unfortunately he went out in 6th, but he did FeltStars proud! Way to go Tyler.

Remember, sign up for FeltStars at www.feltstars.com, and use the bonus code Boot n Tee for a 300% deposit bonus up to $3000 and 30% rakeback. See you on the felt!!

Til Next Time....

Merry Christmas

Its Christmas Eve and its been a while since I last blogged. I have been putting in medium volume online but my results have been abysmal. I am thinking I will take off until Monday after Christmas. I am really looking forward to going to my parents that day and staying there until the Friday after New Years. My finacee will also be joining me there for about 3 days but then she has to go to Malaysia on a business trip.

After I leave my parents I will be going to Biloxi Mississippi for a week or so to represent FeltStars at the Southern poker Championship at the Beau Rivage, which is a WPT event. Not sure if I'll play in the final televised event or not, but hopefully I do. Anyway, Merry Christmas to everyone out there, and best wishes for a wonderful New Year.

If anyone is in Biloxi for the WPT event stop by and say hello.

Remember, sign up for FeltStars at http://www.feltstars.com/, and use the bonus code Boot n Tee for a 300% deposit bonus up to $3000 and 30% rakeback. See you on the felt!!

Til Next Time....

Back from Vegas- Trip report and Online play

Well, I am finally back in Houston after a nice long trip to Vegas.

As far as poker goes the trip was pretty dismal as I ended up winning the equivalent of only 1 buy in in the games that I was playing for the entire trip. Overall I feel like I played pretty well so I am trying to not be results oriented.

Overall the trip was a great success though as I FINALLY (after 5+ years) proposed to my girlfriend on the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower at the Paris Las Vegas Casino. She of course said yes. It was very beautiful as we were 500+ feet above the Las Vegas Strip, with the fountains at Bellagio dancing in front of us as I asked her. She seems to love her ring that I picked out. After that we had a nice (but grossly overpriced) dinner at the Eiffel Tower restaurant (Thanks Mom and Dad for picking up that bill as our Thanksgiving gift!!). The last week of my trip was spent mostly playing slots and $4-$8 limit hold em with my fiancee. We got to spend time with our old friends who we used to work with and eat at all of our favorite restaurants in Vegas. We had a great time.

Today was my first full day back playing on FeltStars. I put in 2665 hands in my session and had a nice win. Planned on playing for 8 hours today but I started getting tired at about the 7 hour mark and called it quits 7 1/2 hours in. Oh well, close enough. I think my 6-max game is really coming around, and after 150k hands I am winning at a rate of about 5bb/100 which I would be ecstatic to keep up. I plan on playing a bunch tomorrow as well, and taking a break to watch the SEC Championship game. I think Florida will beat Alabama, but Im not sure enough to put any money on it!

Oh well, guess thats all for now.

Til next time....

1st live tourney in Vegas since WSOP=epic fail

I decided to join a friend of mine today at the Venetian for the DeepStack tournament. I of course entered the event with high hopes which faded away pretty quicky after losing half my stack bluffing and the other half when I got all in preflop with AQss vs AThh for 28 big blinds. He promptly flopped a ten and turned a ten. The good news is that I only wasted 2 hours of my day in it and got to grind cash games for the next 7 hours. The 5-10 was pretty tough today, and I started off my session by getting 100 big blinds in with QQ vs AK and losing that race. Luckily I managed to recoup those losses and ended up winning a half a buy in by the end of the day.

On Thursday night I went to the Wynn and played in a great 5-10 game. I was lucky enough to pick up AA vs KK to win a 200+ big blind pot and ended my session winning close to 2 buy ins.

The last 6 days have been swingy to say the least, but I am definitely enjoying playing live again. There definitely is still some very soft spots out there, more so than on the internet I think, but its just a matter of getting adjusted to the more passive style of live play. I am rarely ever running into other players who are 3betting preflop with hands like 76 offsuit and K5 suited like I do everyday online.

Anyway, gonna hang out with my buddy and do some poker coaching tomorrow during the day, have dinner with him and his wife tomorrow night, and then plan on playing a nice long session at either the Bellagio or the Wynn after dinner. I prefer the Wynn but kind of feel like playing 10-20, so I'll have to call them and see if they have a game going or if I need to go to Bellagio to find one.

Got a twitter update from all star tournament director Matt Savage saying that they are down to 27 players on day 1a of the 250k guarantee at Commerce and that my good friend Joe Tehan is still in and above average in chips with 101k. Sure hope he takes it down! Joe is a great player and has helped me a lot with my game. Good luck Joe and see you next week back in Vegas for some poker and bowling!

Oh well, guess its time for some TV and then off to bed.

Til next time....

Long Day-2 sessions

I played two seperate sessions today for a total of 12 hours table time. I felt that I really played well all day but ended up losing a buy in. It is still an adjustment getting back into live poker. Things are just so different from the internet. Even in the bigger games that I have been playing, there is so much more limping preflop and 4 way pots than I ever see online. I posted the question of the best way to handle these situations on the Deuces Cracked forum and am eagerly awaiting responses from other pros who play these size games. Speaking of training sites, I have subscribed to about 6 of them in the past few years, so I think one day I'll dedicate a blog to reviwing eacj site and my thoughs on their videos. Anyway, just thought I'd give you guys a quick update. I am really enjoying playing live again even though my results arent there yet, and even after 12 hours today I cant wait to get up and play again tomorrow night.

But now its time to watch an episode of Dexter and get some much needed sleep!

Til next time....

WSOP Heads Up Finale

Last night i went over to Bellagio and was playing in the 5-10NL for about 5 hours. I had been chatting some with the gentleman 2 seats to my left whom turned out to be Ken "Teach" Aldridge, winner of the $1500NL 6-max event at the 2009 WSOP. When he left he invited me to join him in the VIP seating area at the Rio to watch the conclusion of the main event of the WSOP final table. I of course jumped at this opportunity and proceeded to have a great tiem talking poker with him and watching history be made as Joe Cada became the youngest main event champ in history. Ken was a great guy and hopefully a new friend. I am also looking forward to seeing the ESPN coverage of the main event heads up battle and see if my ugly mug made it on TV. There is a good chance because I was sitting behind WSOP Novemeber 9'er Steve Begleiter, as well as one seat over from multiple WPT winner Jonathan Little and 2008 November 9'er Ylon Schwartz.

As for poker content, my hand of the day is one that I lost. Here's the setup:

5-10 NL at Bellagio, the table is unusually passive preflop, with not a lot of raising and very very little 3-betting going on.

I am dealt A5hh in the small blind. There are 3 limpers, i complete and the big blind checks. The flop comes down Q-5-3 with 1 heart. I decide to lead out with middle pair and an over, as well as backdoor nut flush draw. I bet 30 into the 50 pot and got called by a late position limper. The turn was the 5 of spades. I decide that his range is a lot of queens and all straight draws, so I think betting again was right because if he has a queen then he will likely come along thinking that i likely dont have a 5 since i led the flop. I bet 110 and he called. The river was an offsuit Jack and now I bet 300 for value, because he wasnt the type of player to bluff a missed draw if I check to him. Unfortunately he decided to min raise me to 600. I hated this, but ultimately decided that since my perceived range is heavily weighted towards Qx, and even QJ, that he could be raising any 5 for value, and of course I beat those hands. But as suspected he revealed 33 for 3's full and raked the pot. I still feel like I played the hand well even though I lost, because I thought the hand through and analyzed my opponents each move. It was because of this analysis that helped me recoup those losses later in the session.

Til next time....

Las Vegas

I flew into Las Vegas last night for a few weeks of cash games and tourneys. The Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza is in full swing and I plan on playing a few events while here. I will probably play one $340 event, and a few $550's, as well as the $2500 main event. I will mostly be playing cash games while here though. It looks like my mainstay will be the 5-10NL at the Venetian and the Wynn, and ythe 10-20NL game at the Bellagio.

I am staying with a friend and his wife for 16 days, and then my girlfriend is coming in the day before Thanksgiving and we will be staying on the strip for a week. I probably wont do much serious playing while she is here, but I plan on grinding a lot of hours before she arrives. Once she's here we dont haveany real set plans except for tickets to PeepShow starring Holly Madison frm "The Girls Next Door." That should be a fun show. We have 1st row center stage tickets.

Other than that I plan on eating all the foods that I miss most from my 4 years living here, and I also plan on doing some condo hunting as we hope to buy a place here sometime between now and February or March while the prices are super low. I'll try to blog poker results as I start to play more.

Til next time..