Poker Game Journal

July 2008

July 31
I played the first Legends event last night at The Bicycle Casino and made it through to day 2. There were two heats of Day 1 and I played the night one because I function so much better at night time. There were almost 800 players combined with and a total of about 180 of them made it through to day 2. While it is great that I made it through the first phase, there are so many people to get through still. They pay about 70 spots with first place taking home a little more than 60k.

While I was playing the tournament, I was looking at the schedule for the rest of the series and am disappointed how tournament poker has turned into a No Limit frenzy. Of the 26 events, only 4 of them are games other than No-limit. Four! And it is crazy how only one of those four events are Limit Holdem. Ten years ago, who would have ever thought that there would only be one Limit Holdem event at the Legends of Poker? Not me. There isn't even a frickin HORSE event. I made sure to tell the staff what I thought about the crappy schedule.

July 24
I have still been working on my No Limit game and have gone to the Bike a couple times this week. My live action game has improved and I am hoping to also improve my tournament game since I will be heading to South America for the PokerStars event held in Uruguay in a couple weeks.

One of my friends has been working with me a little bit and we spent a portion of the weekend going over my game. I have been playing No Limit for several years now, but it is something that I continually work at. In fact, I try and work on all of my games regularly.

Since the World Championship of Online Poker is approaching, I will be spending a lot of time playing various games on PokerStars. It will not be surprising to see me in a $5-10 HORSE, $30-60 Omaha, or even a $3-6 Razz game. I just like to play and I figure that any kind of game or tournament whether it be for small stakes or high stakes can teach me something about poker.

July 12
I finally booked my flight to South America for the Latin America Poker Tour event hosted by PokerStars. I am really looking forward to making the trip despite it being Uruguay's coldest month. Originally I thought that Halli and I would be hanging out at the beach and stuff, so we planned on staying a few extra days. When we finally figured out that it was winter, we decided to still stay a few extra days so we can see the town and if all else fails, we will play poker. I am not sure if I will ever get over there again, so I have to soak up as much as I can from the experience.

My flight leaves on August 5th which means that I am still going to be able to play the first Omaha Hi-Low event at the Legends of Poker tournament at the Bike. I will be missing the second one however, but will probably play in at least a couple NL ones.

I noticed that PokerStars announced its big online tournament. The WCOOP on Stars is set to take place Sept 5-21 and I will be playing at least five of them including the HORSE, Razz, and the Omaha Hi-Low. I will look more closely as it approaches. The 8-game Mixed Event looks interesting and I might get prepared to give that a shot. I don't know the exact games yet, but if it involves Deuce to Seven then I definitely need some work.

July 11
I went to the Bike a few nights ago with my friend Halli and we sat in a No Limit game with $5-5 blinds. We were sitting across from each other and a man who was about 65 was hanging out around the table. He kept staring at me and I thought he was a little creepy. Halli looks over at me and says, "Do you know that guy?" When I told her "no", she said "He keeps staring at me" and I said, "He keeps staring at me too." About two minutes later, he decides to join our game and wouldn't you know it he sat directly on my right.

The man didn't know how to play very well and was muttering things about his hands. He was also very bad about keeping his cards hidden and was exposing them to anybody who wanted to see. If I was involved in the hand, I made it a point to tell him to be careful otherwise I would hide my eyes the best I could. I know a lot of players would just look, but I didn't feel right about it. After a few hands, I noticed he was moving a little closer to me and before long I felt like he was sitting on my lap. Instead of muttering things about the cards, he started muttering things directly to me like "I'm really intrigued by you" and "I want to back you for a thousand." I told him, "I don't need it", but he still kept on. As I stated earlier, he was seated directly to my right so most of the time I could only see the side of his face. His eyes reminded me of Manson's. There was a sparkle in them, but if you looked closer they were just really spooky. I discreetly said to Halli, "Does Manson come to mind?" and she said, "I really wish you wouldn't have said that." He only played for about an hour, but he wouldn't stop whispering to me. He said, "You know what I would really like? I would really like for you to communicate with me." He eventually upped the ante and said "I will back you for 10 thousand" and I still replied, "I don't need it." He finally left and I thought I was done with him.

Overall the game was good, but I lost a pretty large pot with pocket queens when a guy flopped a straight. I recuperated some of my losses when I made a great call on the river of another hand when he moved in when a scare card fell. I was about even and had been playing for several hours, so I was about ready to leave when the old man showed up. He came over to me with some younger guy and said, "I want to back you for 10k and have him watch." The guy was nuts. At that time, Mike (Halli's boyfriend) walked up and the old man said, "Is that your boyfriend?" and I said, "Yes it is" and he asked Mike if he could talk to him for a minute. I whispered to Halli, "I just told the guy that Mike was my boyfriend" and she said, "I was going to tell him to go pretend that he was so the guy would leave you alone." Mike walked back and told me the guy said "I want to back your girlfriend for 10k" and Mike replied, "She doesn't need your money" and the guys response was, "She doesn't have 10 thousand dollars" and Mike said "You would be surprised" and walked away. I have such a way with creepy guys. What a nice talent to have.

July 9
I took the long way home from Vegas and drove over to San Francisco to hang with family before heading down the coast. It was a nice little trip and I was happy that I could spend the 4th with the gang.

On the way home, I stopped at San Luis Obispo, Solvang, and Santa Barbara and I enjoyed that as well. Now it is time to get back to reality and start doing some work and catching up on business. I will be going to South America for the Latin America Poker Tour event hosted by PokerStars and I haven't even booked my flight yet. I hope to get my plans finalized tomorrow. It is amazing how backed up a person can get when they are gone for five weeks. Grocery shopping, bills, going to the bank and running a few errands are just a few things that I have had to do over the past couple days and there are still things on my list.

Overall the series was good even though I ended up in the negative. I had fun (most of the time) and did okay in the cash games which helped. I finally wrote a small report regarding the main event and you can read it on my 2008 WSOP report.

July 3
My main event only lasted four hours. I got all-in before the flop with AA versus KK and a very optimistic guy with 77. I had about 23,000, the KK had about 13,000 and the 77 had 25,000. Of course the 77 managed to bust both me and the KK player when the board came a four card straight. If I win that pot I would have been just a little behind the tournament chip leader at the time who had 60,000 so I can't ask for a better opportunity than being such a big favorite against two players.

I'm heading out for the long drive home now, so I'll write more in the next couple days.

July 2
I took the day off from poker and went to go see the movie Get Smart at the Palms Casino. Even though I "took the day off" I was surrounded by poker because the Palms is the hosting site for PokerStars during the WSOP. They had a large banner hanging outside their casino with the PokerStars logo and even their valet drivers had shirts on with Stars name.

After the movie, I just hung around the Luxor and had dinner and then decided to relax for my big day. I had a brief conversation with Mark Seif earlier today and he told me that tomorrow is not about accumulating chips. His advice was longer than that, but he basically said to make sure I last through day one. Sounds like a plan to me.

July 1
I was really considering playing in the $1500 No Limit event at the 2008 World Series of Poker because it was one of the last couple chances for a bracelet before the main event starts. I tried to get to sleep at a reasonable hour, but my schedule is so wacky. At ten in the morning I briefly woke up and then decided that going back to sleep was more appealing. There was no way that my mind was going to be functioning like it should be in a tournament and I am glad I made the decision I did. Once I finally woke up, I talked to one of my friends who informed me the event was sold out and a lot of people who showed up who needed to still buy in were turned away.

Later that day, I did make my way over to the Rio to buy in for the main event. The online companies can't (or won't) buy in for players any more, so PokerStars credited my online account and I had to buy in for myself. This afternoon, I took my receipt over to the PokerStars Suite at the Palms and they gave me my goody bag.

The bag was full of great stuff and included five different types of hats, a wide variety of shirts, a couple sweatshirts and even a bathrobe. They sure do know how to treat their players. I will be playing day 1 of the main event which is the day after tomorrow.