What Happened?

Yes, I'm alive and well and I'm back home in Vegas. I spent four days in St. Louis visiting with my family and I had a blast. Okay I'm Miami Don but I did in fact grow up in the St. Louis which is such a wonderful midwestern city. Unlike most of you home boys and girls this was my first trip back home since 2000 when my brother got married.

One of the benefits when I lived in South Florida is everyone seemed to like visiting me there which made going home not too high on my list. That and the circumstances of my leaving St. Louis to begin with and you can see how it all makes sense. Anyway it was a great trip and I was able to enjoy some time with my family and clear my head from poker and life in Vegas.

So eight days off from poker and man was it much needed. I decided to make my restart at last nights Mookie and did I start off rusty. I butchered a few hands in spectacular fashion and before I knew it I was once again on the short stack. Fortunately I'm a decent shorty and I made my way from last to first within the last half hour before the second break.

How you ask? Well I won my coin flips. There is no other way to climb from worst to first than to win coin flips and keep on doubling which is what I did a few times. Once we got to the final five and into the money we decided to chop the last Mookie on Poker Stars five way. I'm the one who initiated it and since we were all fairly equal in money it made sense to not leave our fate in the hands of the suck-resuck know as River Stars.

I'm glad the Mookie is moving to Full Tilt and I can only hope the other blogger events follow. Now I know live poker is rigged unlike online poker but one week ago I moved 95% of my money off of Stars for a variety of reasons mainly I think they got too big for their britches. Did I really type that?

Change is good and nobody should be afraid of it. Anyway I just wanted to drop a short note and let everyone know I'm still around and that I'll be blogging much more frequently as I fight off the summer doldrums and start playing live on an near every day basis.

Vegas Hurricanes Rule

Here there and everywhere but only small bits of poker. Carmen and I met up with Pauly at the Red Rock for some Yankees-Sox, some serious craps fun, and a great dinner. Pauly has the craps write-up and they both have great pics of the scenery. It was a fun night without seeing a hand of Poker.

Sunday night we all played in the Sahara donkfest donkament and it really reminds me of the $4 180 on Stars. Complete with the, "Are you kidding me?" and "Did he really call all-in with that?" and even a couple "You fucking donkeys." I was in very good position with almost T8000 right at the end of Level Five (200/400) when I found KK in the SB. Three limpers then I raised to T2500 and got one caller. The flop was T74 and I pushed only to be called from the button who turned over AQ. Did he think I was bluffing? Of course he turns the Ace and instead of having almost T14,000 I'm down to T1200 right as the blinds hit 400/800. Whatever we had fun.

I have been playing some online lately and I've decided to make the jump to $200 NL. So far the play hasn't excited me too much in that I haven't seen any great moves or players but the games are slightly looser which I love much more than the tighty whitey games at $100. There is a lot more post-flop play which suits my game better. $1/2 online is definitely much better than the live $1/2 games here in Vegas. That level is a complete joke here as the players/tourists/fish are basically horrible.

BTW don't let Hoyazo fool you, my team is gonna stomp some ass in the Bloggers Fantasy Football League. Go check out JJ for the draft analysis.

Hey Waffles did you get those multiple restraining orders yet?

Yes Finally

Perhaps I'm back?

I got a text from a blogger who shall remain nameless that said he was at the Red Rock. Well I had a 5:30 appointment at the salon, yes salon not saloon, and I had been planning on playing in the Mookie which we all of course know is the finest MTT around, when alas the salon called and said can you come in right now?

Well thankfully it was 3pm when they called and I had just gotten out of bed and showered so I said certainly and rushed to brush my teeth, collect my money, kiss Carmen goodbye and hit the door a runnin'.

I got my hair cut and done up with enough product to make this dude happy and I then buzzed up the hill to the Red Rock. Some other blogger chick was there too and we all enjoyed a soda pop and had a nice conversation for an hour or so.

My new friends left so I decided to sink my teeth, wow teeth twice in one post, into the 1/2NL game. I was fortunate enough to catch the last seat at a newly opened table which is beautiful since we all started with equal stacks.

Anyway I played for seven hours, had a blast with some of the people at the table, and left with over $700 to the good. The table was tight at times and loose at times and all I did was play the opposite of the particular table flavor. Lots of steals and bluffs when the table was tight and a couple of nice flops when the table was loose was good enough for me to steamroll it.

Let's hope I'm back on track and I can put another long winning streak together.

Enjoy your commutes to work as I get ready to get my eight hour nap. BTW how the hell did Xanthius win the Mookie? Fuck it must be rigged.

Push Monkey

How do you go from top 5 in the WWDN to out in 13th within three hands? It's easy run AK into AA and then run 77 into QQ.

My last seven MTTs have ended with me running into AA, AA, AA, KK, QQ, QQ, QQ. How's that for timing? When it gets time for me to push make sure you have the monster.

How sad are the suck resucks on Poker Stars? Try this one on for size. Hey I won that hand.




Actually I think I was the third blogger of the night to get a straight flush although mine was of the cheesy variety.

Why are bloggers so sensitve? If you're not sure go watch these two bitch slap each other around. Can someone start a poll so we can vote on which one is the bigger tool? I'm ready to cast my vote.

Is it me of has anyone else noticed a disproportionate amount of brothers and females playing at Full Tilt than you would see at an actual poker table? How about this, can you name ten non-black, non-female bloggers who play at FT as either a brother or a woman? I can.

Did anyone see the highlight on Sports Center of that dude stealing the race car after the race while the winning driver and crew were posing for pictures? Fucking classic.

And before I forget cash is king.

It Must Be The Cards

Looks like a couple of my boys have been going through the ass end of variance lately too. I feel your pain. Hopefully it will change for the better soon enough. If we keep getting our money in with the best of it soon we'll win in the long run.

Well I've spent the better part of three weeks trying to work on my MTT game with mixed results. Lots of token races on FT, lots of nightly $20Ks, lots of near misses. I've played with a short stack, a medium stack, and a fairly large stack but when it comes down to it, its my opinion that you have to win races. Yes you have to steal and bluff and play poker but it eventually gets to the point, sooner or later, that you got to win the coin flips. SO far I haven't been able to get over the hump of winning the key races.

Iak was in town last week and we played in the Caesars noon Tournament. I actually went deep coming in 25th when I lost a race with 66 to AK. See those dreaded races. Earlier I was almost down to the felt when in the blinds the odds forced that I call two all-ins before me for my last T1375 with 7To. I was actually only against AK and AQ so when the flop came 892 and the turn was a 6 I tripled up. I was able to win another race when my TT held up over AJ but that was as far as I got.

Later that night I went down to the MGM and had an interesting time at the cash games. Within an hour I lost twice to quads, once with a full house and once with flush that was also open-ended to a straight flush. Down $500 I reached into my pocket and took out the last $200 I had on me. I told myself its either come back and win or lost this $200 and retire.

Well five hours later I cashed out for a $76 profit. How's that for fucking grinding? I was able to keep from tilting and again I just stayed focused and turned a big losing night into a small victory. Hopefully that will get me back on track again with the live poker.

Through all the stabs at tokens and MTTs I've been keeping a cash table open and man has that been profitable. I still love live poker but I've been amazed at the successes I've had single tabling cash online. I'm not ready to retire from the live games yet but I've definitely been grinding out the hours online now that I can see its worth the time.

That's about all, I'm back in the swing of things again so the posts will be more regular. Also football season is right around the corner so I'm looking forward to handicapping the games and sharing the info with all of you football nuts. Any good handicappers out there?

Remember Me

I've barely posted in the past couple weeks and while I can think of a million reasons why I'm going to go with; Man I was running bad.

Now don't get me wrong I live in Vegas and my live is beyond belief but I finally hit the wall and I hit it hard. To be honest I didn't think it was possible to go on any long bad runs playing $1/2 NL but I was getting my ass kicked. Card dead for weeks along with horrible beats when I did get money in with the best hand both of which led to some iffy decision making and some passive play.

I've always read about pros and bloggers going through bad stretches and how it effects their heads and game but I couldn't totally relate because I hadn't been there. Yes I sure that sucks I thought but how long can it really last and how can it really effect you? My bad run lasted only a month and it was really starting to fuck with my head.

Doubt started creeping in and I find myself playing reactive poker which we all know is losing poker. When I really broke it down though the bad run was mostly due to bad beats. Getting rivered to two, three, and four outers nine out of ten hands with my money all in and I'm thinking what the fuck. Getting thirty-two pocket pairs between sets then losing set over set. Getting priced into draws and missing twenty-five in a row. Seeing AA once every few days and getting it UTG and having everyone fold. Getting KK and losing to AA.

Again, I'm not whining here although maybe I should have but this shit was having an effect on my head. It was almost to the point of why get my money in I'm going to get sucked out anyway. July was just barely a positive month thanks to a couple huge wins in the beginning but I dumped a lot of cash on this bad run in the last few weeks.

So instead of whining and posting about my bad run I've mostly bitched a little to some of my good friends who of course were there for support. I will say this though, when it goes bad it can really go bad. I know I've only gotten a small taste of what running bad feels like and I couldn't imgagine it lasting month after month.

I've had some big winning sessions in the last few days, in of all things online cash games, so hopefully things will get turned around. I made money at the Red Rock on Sunday night so lets hope the live poker game comes back around too. I did win eleven sessions in a row before this slide and I was cautious to post about that too as I didn't want to gloat and now I'm glad I didn't. Losing sucks man.

Stay positive and stay profitable.