There are no off days: Days 24-25
Wednesday March 30th-Thursday March 31st: Strangely, for once in my life I keep falling asleep and waking up earlier and earlier instead of the opposite, which is the norm for poker players. I woke up a little past 9am on Wednesday and with time free before a session with Shon, I took the racket to the courts to warm my body up. I showed up to the gym half an hour early so I could get some additional work in. When noon rolled around I was already sweating and by the end Shon had me hunched over and depleted.
I wasn't sure if my Stars account had been compromised, so I informed them of everything happening and they've shut down contact with my old email. They asked me to verify my identity so I've sent what I hope will be necessary to confirm myself. Until they finish their investigation I won't be able to play on Stars, which I don't mind because I'm happy for them to be as thorough as they like when dealing with matters of security. Besides, with all the multi-entry business going on at Full Tilt it was easy to keep a full screen of tournaments throughout the day.
I have mixed feelings on the whole multi-entry business. The conclusion I've come to is I think they're great for rare events or for a few events on any given Sunday, but that as a regular addition to the schedule they're a potential disaster. Although the fields naturally swell up with so many people entering, they also become almost entirely full of regs. Near everyone seems to nit it up because there's nobody to abuse and few are going to make much in the way of a mistake preflop sub 30 big blinds. I'm pretty sure that at every higher stakes tournament I played all day the open preflop was for the minimum about 98% of hands once we reached something like 50-100 blinds, often earlier than that. I think plenty of the more recreational and fishy players know who the regs are and will avoid tournaments when they open the lobby and see every one of them repeatedly there. The multi-entry thing is great for two groups of people: owners and investors at Full Tilt, and exceptionally talented regs with very comfortable. I am neither exceptionally talented nor particularly well bankrolled (I'm certainly not poor, but I love to spend) so it wouldn't be long before I started to shy away from some of the higher stakes multi-entry stuff myself. I think instituting regular multi entry tournaments could potentially cause a cannibalization of Full Tilt's MTT player field, and both fish and realistic regs would start dropping out of the tournaments pretty quick. Not surprisingly, I mostly blanked out the session, and failed to make any final tables. Hours:
Session start: 1:35pm
Registration end: 6:00pm
Session end: 9:38pm
I'm still struggling with the idea of how to get better. Although this project has gone fairly well and I've had some results, despite accumulating some wins in this period I'm not up a ton when you factor in all the buy ins. I think that after this week is over, I should consider taking a couple days off to devote myself to study and review. I've done small amounts of study here and there during this period and have been saving all my trouble hands, perhaps 20% of which I've actually gone over at this point. I need to get some Pokersavvy videos created, which have become near impossible to do when playing live because there's usually numerous people in the room plus I'm often exhausted by the end of my session and wouldn't provide great content. I also need to review more hand histories from other players so I can see what they're doing differently than I am.
I woke up today and began things by driving Truck to the airport. Nearly the entire house has vacated off North until next week, save for Gabe who sleeps well into the afternoon and is so chill and quiet I'm often unaware of his presence if he's not in the office next to me. I took Heika to hit around on the tennis courts today but we didn't go long. Physically, Thursdays are always the worst because it's immediately following the three days of most intensive lifting I do. Especially problematic is the leg lifting, which leaves me limping around the house awkwardly and dreading the walk up the stairs to the office.
I took Thursday off as I always do, but still needed to do work on Raw Deal material as well as a few other small matters. Things have been good with the diet, but as I've said I'm pretty sure I'm still having a few more calories each day than I should. I've stayed clean, but every now and then I steal a bite or sip of something just so I can remember what things with taste are like.
There are no off days: Days 22-23
Monday March 28-Tuesday March 29: I woke up on Monday and went to the gym to do the normal back routine with Shon. We mixed in a bit more shoulder work and by the end everything was pretty shot.
I took the day off to run errands, do math about my backing with Sirwatts and Timex (when he used to be involved, such is the degree of our laziness), and get my computer looked at. I kept things clean with the diet and grilled in the evening. I feel like I'm still eating too many calories to get really lean, but as I've said before I'm so damn hungry all the time. Still, everything I'm eating has been within the boundaries so that's good.
Today I woke up and practiced my serve for a while then went to the gym to meet with Shon. We did a leg routine that has me limping since. Leg days are definitely the least pleasant. It's been a clean day for the diet.
I played a long session today starting right after my session. I even got my session with Shon moved up so I could register even longer with all the double guarantees and multi entries going on. I ran deep in a couple of the multi entry tournaments but failed to create any relevant results. Hours:
Session start: 12:34pm
Registration end: 6:00pm
Session end: 9:50pm
There are no off days: Days 19-21
Friday March 25th-Sunday March 27th: I woke up on Friday and began things with the most grueling of hour long sessions I've had with Shon thus far. We did two cycles of the Spartacus then another 20 minutes of real intense work on core. I feel like the third cycle is within reach, perhaps a couple weeks away.
I did an afternoon session on Friday as soon as I finished at the gym. I made it to the final table of the Tilt $129 35k with the chiplead and held it almost straight through to first for a bit over $10,000. I had some other deep runs in the day but feel like I punted them a bit. I was keen to get out of the house and went out with everyone to XS as the Wynn but spent another night as "that sober guy" when out. Hours:
Session start: 1:23pm
Registration end: 6:00pm
Session end: 9:41pm
Saturday morning I woke up and ran some errands then went straight to work. I wanted to finish on the earlier side so I could take Heika out for once instead of grinding so late into the night. I'm shifting things towards a lot more earlier afternoon starts during the week so I can do that regularly. I final tabled the Stars $50 rebuys but pretty much didn't win a hand at the final table and got something like 7th or 6th for enough to roughly break even on the day. Hours:
Session start: 11:39am
Registration end: 3:00pm
Session end: 6:52pm
Today I woke up and found that Full Tilt wouldn't allow me to log in. When I realized my gmail also had the password changed I immediately contact Full Tilt support from every avenue available to me to inform them that my account was compromised. Luckily, Chewy has pretty direct access to them so we were able to text a higher up and inform of them of the situation directly. Still, all support was great through the ordeal and becauase the guy who hacked the account did so from a location I'd never played at then tried to withdraw the money immediately they figured something was up and blocked the transfer. It's a reminder to both myself and everyone out there to be much more careful about this kind of thing, it's retarded that I put myself in a situation where this could happen and I'm fortunate they were caught in the act.
I was actually back on Full Tilt by the early afternoon but did so on a different computer in case anything was still on there that could gain the information I'd changed on the account. I ran deep in a few spots, final tabled the UB $100 rebuy again but finished something lame, and ran two accounts in the last few hundred of the Tilt $1.5 million but busted the last one around 160th. Oh well. Overall I think there were enough cashes on the day to make it near break even. I'll be taking tomorrow off from poker to get everything cleaned up on the computer and finish a few other details that need my attention.
Things have generally been good with the diet. I need to stop eating the brown rice in my dinner meal but god damn it I'm so hungry at that point it's hard not to. Now and then I have a couple bites of something I shouldn't, but overall I haven't had any major slips. Today marks the three week point and I'm pretty happy with the progress both physically and within the poker on the project thus far.
There are no off days: Days 15-18
Monday March 21st-Thursday March 24th: I woke up a little past 6am on Monday morning and found myself unable to return to sleep. I changed into my shorts, picked up my tennis racket, grabbed my Ipod, and trotted out in the cold to the tennis courts down the street. When I found them full of water I yelled "Fuck!" loud enough to be inappropriate for both the neighborhood and the hour, but then remembered that a can of tennis balls costs a mere three dollars, and I wanted to practice my serve much more than I wanted three dollars. The balls were soaked and ruined by the end so crushed them into the Nevada desert as far as my forearm would carry.
At 9:20am I left my house for the bank we use when we need money for a tournament. I had been assigned to get cash for myself, Truck, and some for Chewy so we needed $13,000, enough to create potential problems if perhaps that morning is an unfortunate one. When I arrived there was some confusion as to whether they had that quantity on the premises, and after some back and forth informed me that they simply didn't have enough money. This isn't the first time this has happened at our branch, but the other five minutes down the road has always been reliable. When a call was placed to that location we found out that their "systems are down" and I'd have to find my way to a branch that was essentially in Henderson.
By the time I made it to my supposed 10am session with Shon it was nearly half an hour past. He was real cool about it and I told him I wasn't sleeping well and felt low energy, so we took things down just slightly on the quantity of sets. I was entirely depleted by the end and hobbled off back home where I placed the money the boys had needed on the counter for them. I was in a foul mood so I smoked quite a bit and then set myself off to get cleaned up so I wouldn't reek of it.
After I took a shower and finished getting dressed I discovered Chewy and Truck had left, leaving Randal and I to get ourselves to the Wynn with Truck's car. I told him I was not in driving condition that day and asked him to ferry us to the strip while I navigated. The drive was uneventful until we came upon the turn-off from the Spring Mountain exit off the 15 highway. It's a rather sharp right turn, and I advised Randal slow down as he approached it.
"SHIT DUDE! THE BREAKS AREN'T WORKING!"
"What?" I asked him calmly yet suspiciously.
"I'm fucking serious the brea...hold up their responding."
We took the turn uncomfortably quick and merged into the wide lanes approaching Las Vegas boulevard. As we went downhill Randal again began yelling about the breaks failing and he couldn't stop the car as we raced downhill towards traffic. He steered it all the way into the right lane where there were no cars and kept slamming the break as hard as he could and our momentum managed to barely stop by the end of the hill, before we slipped into the stop light traffic. I told him to get off the street immediately, so we left the car in the back of some random Treasure Island parking garage and raced off towards the tournament. Randal had a better sense of how close we were to getting fucked up than I was, and seemed very panicked as we moved towards the Wynn. I was slightly less alarmed, if only because when someone says "The breaks aren't working" you think to yourself "What? Of course they are, that's what breaks are for, just press it harder or something" because you can't feel your foot getting the lack of response.
The two of us arrived perhaps 15 or 20 minutes late into play. We anticipated the event would draw about 200 guys for the $5,000 championship and it was an overall pretty tough field full of a lot of skillful Vegas local professionals and a few from out of state. Because it's at the Wynn there's definitely some random fish mixed in plus guys who are shot taking, but most tables were a mixed bag. That was the condition of my first table, which had a few pros I was on a first name basis with including the always friendly Joe Cheong on my immediate right, plus a few randoms who seemed a lot more weak than the others.
The event started us with 25,000 chips at 25/50 so I completely threw out the idea of trying to write all the more elaborate hands I played on the day because unless I busted very quickly, there were going to be a ton. And a ton there were. Despite being sleep deprived, distracted, and exhausted it appears sucking down a stream of black coffee and losing yourself in your work is enough to make things happen. Don't get me wrong, I ran real fucking good all day, but I also felt so comfortable just sitting and watching poker for hours, trying as hard as I could to pay attention to dynamic and detail. It's impossible to do it constantly, but I feel like I get better at it every time I try.
During the early levels I was in the fortunate position of having a couple of our more weak/loose players a few seats on my right followed by Joe Cheong on my immediate right. As a result, Joe would bully them, and then I'd get a chance to pounce on him with a third or fourth bet in position. Additionally, I began the day by opening 8Thh in early position and getting a call from the loose player in the blind. The flop came 9JQcch and I got quite a lot of chips out of him before he folded to my river bomb. Not long after that I called a raise from Jimmy Tran and another player with 87hh in position and when the flop came AT9ccx Jimmy bet small and weak looking. The other player folded and I called intending to bluff clubs. The turn was a the Kc and when Jimmy checked I fired. Jimmy thought for a bit and called. The river was another brick club and when he checked I bombed pretty hard for a third time. He tanked for quite a while and released his hand.
Things continued going steadily for hours. Every time I got out of line it seemed to work, almost every time I wanted to get called down it happened, and I was making hands in crucial spots. At 150/300 a pretty aggressive young player in late position raised to 700, one of the softer spots called on the button, and I overcalled in the BB with T7hh. The flop came Q86 rainbow and we checked to the button. I was pretty confident the aggressive guy didn't have many strong hands in his checking range at all given the texture and his image, and I thought the guy on the button would bet a flop he was checked to pretty wide so when he fired out 1100 I made it 3000 with the intention of continuing on cards that either completed my hand or gave me additional outs. The LP player folded and the button called. The turn was a 4 adding four more outs with it so I fired out 4500. The button called in such a quick, steady, and confident way that I was convinced I should abandon barreling unless I got there because he was reading very strong. The river came the absolute perfect offsuit 9 and I thought it over and bombed out 15,000, much of his remaining stack (and I'm wishing I wouldn't shoved given my read). Not surprisingly he called very quickly and everyone's eyes went a bit wide when I had to show down my hand. He was disgusted and mucked his hand while I collected the huge pot.
As we pressed on into the evening I just kept winning hand after hand. I floated a guy I'd met earlier who bet the flop on A73 rainbow with a club into two weaker players and my BB over-call holding JTcc. I knew not only would he fire there at a pretty high frequency because he was the preflop raiser, both overcallers were weak, and I could have anything in the BB, but I also thought that if I turned a club I could check-raise him and put him in a disgusting spot against what he'll perceive my flop check/calling range to be. Instead the turn was a brick and he checked behind after I checked. I fired out what I felt a value bet would look like on the river and he shrugged then folded.
Over the last hour I found myself in an almost continual amount of pots. One of the tighter players on the table attempted to bluff me in a spot where I felt that he was likely polarized and there were a number of missed draws out sol my third pair wound up being good against jack high. The very next hand Jimmy Tran raised in mid position and I called with 7s7c on the button. As a result of hitting hands, having position, and being in an aggressive mood I had been making Jimmy's life pretty hard all day and I had a feeling he was likely a bit tired of me and ready to do something more out of line. The flop came 246ssh and I called his continuation bet. The turn was a 5s and he checked. I bet on the small side and he checkraised me barely over the minimum of my bet. I called pretty quickly and when the river came an offsuit 2 he checked. I checked back and he turned over AQ looking pretty hopeless about it. When the evening came to a close I had 132,000 in chips and was in second place. I'd managed not to botch the diet during the course of the day outside a protein bar I got in the nearby store when I was feeling famished and couldn't find anything better.
I got my workout and lunch in before the tournament the following day at a much more comfortable and rested pace. Shon didn't have any sessions available at an earlier time so I did legs by myself at a lower quantity than normal. Chewy and I went to Whole Foods for lunch and arrived at the Wynn a couple hands late. Seated on my immediate right was long time online MTT grinder and friend BodogAri. I was less familiar with my table than in the previous day, but we were soon joined by Max Steinberg and Maria Ho and found ourselves with a pretty social table.
Day two was interesting. Max and Ari teased me about my being so active and causing so much trouble on their left for the first half of the day, but I didn't have a ton of hands that went to showdown because I was more often forced into a spot where something missed and I had to bet without it. Still, it wasn't that frequent and without many hands I was only able to sort of tread water from my start point. I got up to around 150,000 but then lost a flip for about 35,000 effective with AK against a late position raiser's TT. By the half way point in the day I was still floating around that barely above six-figure mark but I was entirely card dead and found myself now watching Ari and Max accumulate against the more recreational players on our left. Maria Ho busted with a just a few hours left in play and brought in to take her seat was the one and only Phil Hellmuth. Phil Spent the first hour quietly while I entered a number of hands against the weaker players on my left and got pounced by checkraises that were often followed by a flash of the goods. By the time we were playing 1000-2000 I had dipped all the way down to around the 50,000 mark. Phil had become a lot more chatty and was talking trash after seeing Max Steinberg win a pot with a Q5s he raised in late position. Phil had been fairly active and changes up his open raise size pretty often, but because he hadn't been around very long I didn't have much idea as to what they meant. With about 30 minutes left in the day Phil opened to 7000 in middle position with about 100,000 in his stack and I jammed my stack of 56,000 on the button with AQo. It folded back to Phil and after thinking for a while and mumbling about how I could have 88 or 99 he called and flipped up TT.
It has only recently been brought to my attention that Phil Hellmuth is aware of my existence. The day prior to the main event at Bay 101 the WPT held a charity tournament for the CEO and business crowd of Silicon Valley and Phil was the MC. At one point he ventured over to my table and sort of introduced me to the crowd, referencing my being brought on to do the Raw Deal with the WPT. In person I find Phil very amusing, and when he was exchanging rants and barbs with both Max and Ari I sat there laughing at their back and forth without really adding anything.
When the flop brought my necessary ace with no ten in accompaniment Phil was furious. The board ran out dry and he stood up then started cursing about these "Fucking idiots and their ace queen!" plus he added all the old classic Phil lines about "Do you know how bad that is?" and so forth. I sat there laughing harder and harder with each line, soaking in the serendipitous moment that is being berated by the man you were set up to roast in the very job interview that created the exposure necessary for his to be aware of your existence, so he could know the name of the man he was insulting.
After Phil settled into his chair and reduced his volume I said to him sweetly "Phil, I'm so sorry I've upset you. Let's speak of something more agreeable. How bout that Aaron Rodgers huh?"
He stared at me wordlessly.
"You know you love him."
Again he was blank.
"Yoooooou love him. I know I do."
For once, Phil was silent. No real man from Wisconsin can voice discontent in the name of Aaron Rodgers.
Right near the end of the day I played a pretty out of line hand against Max Steinberg and dropped back around the 80,000 mark. Before things finished I took the blinds down a couple times and finished with 91,000 in chips, enough to keep me very much in the hunt the next day. There were no diet issues throughout the day.
The next morning I let myself sleep in and didn't try to work out. I promised myself if I made it through the day I'd take care of it at the end. Truck drove me over to the Wynn and I found myself a minute or so late and walking in on a giant pot at my table. Apparantly, four players had gotten chips in the middle holding AA, AQ, AQ, and a KK belonging to Steve O'Dwyer who was now crippled.
Again I found myself card dead but this time I was running out of room. The blinds were soon at 1500-3000 and after losing a couple of small pots where I gave up my open raise and one where I double barreled in a spot where I don't like my turn bet, I was sitting with around 60,000 in chips. An older and more recreational player limped UTG seven handed and based on the way he was playing I didn't think he was limping his monsters there, as he he'd been pretty content to raise all day but he was on the weaker side post, so I thought he might change things up and limp something medium strength. I jammed around 18 BB in late position with A8o and when it folded back to him he called with JJ and I felt proper stupid. Lucky for me the board ran out with a four flush to my ace of hearts and I was back in the land of six figures.
Not long after an aggressive Asian player I wasn't familiar with opened UTG at our seven handed table to 6500. It folded to Max Steinberg in the SB and he called. I held AQs in the BB with about 110k and they both comfortably covered. The Asian player had called down my failed double barrel earlier and had 3-bet me several times, so I thought there was likely enough dynamic to 3-bet call here, especially since it would look like a squeeze and if the Asian guy folds Max Steinberg just might back-jam something crazy because he has a little crazy in him. I made it 22,000 and after a little thought UTG four bet me to a standard amount and I got it in with him. He turned over JJ which held up on a dry board so I shook hands with everyone and left. The time was only 2:20pm so I made the decision to race home and get everything done I could.
I was in the gym by 3:00pm and did a workout that involved stomach work plus a bicep/tricep/pec circuit like I normally do with Shon. I was very thorough and had one of my longer workouts in a while. When I arrived back at the house I found our water had been cut off while the plumber was working on something so I changed and had to start my session still feeling nasty from the gym. Wednesday is the second best day online and I figure it's not to be missed just because I busted a live tournament. I bubbled a $12,000 WSOP package but final tabled the Stars $50 rebuy turbo for 4th and enough to cover the expenses on the day. Hours:
Session start: 4:25pm
Registration end: 8:30pm
Session end: 11:34pm
I spent today with Heika. She never sees me.
There are no off days: Day 14
Sunday March 20th: I took a sleeping pill last night to make sure I'd be up in time to play a full schedule of majors. Instead I woke up even earlier, at 8:15am, and killed some time in the house before I began my session.
It was a huge day of tournaments and I registered all the way through the Stars nightly $150. I made one final table in the UB $100 rebuy and got 6th then took 10th in the Stars $200 in my last tournament of the night. I'm pretty sure despite the cashes I'd be a little bit down on the day but it couldn't be much after those pair of scores plus some other cashes. Hours:
Session start: 9:24am
Registration end: 6:00pm
Session end: 10:44pm
I took the day off from exercise as I always do on Sunday. I had some stuff going on away from poker that was rather bothering me so I was pretty distracted all day but also felt good about how I played despite that going on. Tomorrow I have the Wynn Classic $5,000 main event to look forward to and an early morning session with Shon to get right back on schedule.
There are no off days: Days 11-13
Thursday March 17th-Saturday March 19th: I spent Thursday helping Heika get acclimated to Las Vegas. We went out to pick up things we'd need for the room as after nearly a year of living at the Chewy manor I have yet to furnish my adobe. I told her a while ago that I realized I no longer had any interest in accumulating "things" as I assume they will just be left behind in storage boxes whose contents I cannot possibly keep count of. I imagine many people who live a lifestyle of near constant travel have adapted this mindset as well.
I did a 35 minute cardio work out in the morning on an empty stomach then practiced tennis by hitting around with Heika in the afternoon. No issues with the diet that day. In the evening I found that Mike Sexton was still in the Baby 101 Shooting Star event and if he final tabled I would be asked to fill in hosting for that episode alongside Vince. A little after 11pm I got the text that he'd made the final six after Ty Reiman busted to Mike Matusow and I would need to catch a 7:50am flight back to San Jose. The car would arrive at 6:30am. I set an alarm for 6:10, took a sleeping pill, and got my ass to bed.
I felt good enough for 6:30am Friday morning. The flight was on time and I was back in San Jose 90 minutes later. I'd made make up in what had previously been my hotel room at 9:00am and then reported to the set. I had to order a little food as I felt famished and depleted and the menu didn't have a lot of low carb options, so I ordered chicken pasta and picked around most of the pasta. Most anyway. Vince and Kimberly were there early as well and we began discussing what we'd be taping together that day before play began. Vince and I worked on our script together to make it more natural between us and he helped me get a sense of what kind of information they were looking to be presented. The three of us did some pre-game taping and then took pause for lunch.
The final table began a little past 4pm. It featured not only Mike Sexton Mike Matusow but also Vivek 'Psyduck' Rajkumar making his second WPT final table in a row after getting second in the LAPC. Despite coming in forth in chips he was my pick to take it down.
Vince and I developed a pretty natural flow together. He's a really easy guy to talk to and loves to joke around so it was pretty easy to just have fun with it all. As normal, I did what I could to be a combination of high content and strategy combined with a sarcastic and hopefully humorous approach to talking about poker. Even though Mike Sexton unfortunately busted in 6th in the second level of play it had been decided that I would be sitting in for the whole episode and so we talked on well into the night. Everyone on the set jams themselves full of coffee to push on into the night and there can be periods of hours where very little happens in live poker that doesn't leave you a ton to talk about. When it was all said and done it was 2:20am and Alan Sternberg had triumphed over Steven Kelly to win $1,039,000 plus a seat in the WPT Championship. My body felt shot but my brain was buzzing from all the caffeine and new experience. I didn't get to sleep until four.
Kristen at the WPT was nice enough to change my flight into the mid afternoon so I slept in well at the hotel. I got back home at 6pm this afternoon and immediately reached for the gym clothes. There had been no possible time to do it on Friday, the first that accidentally been off in the project. Shon had no times available on Saturday so I went in and did a toned down complete body workout that involved 15 varied large movement sets plus extensive ab work.
In the evening I watched UFC phenom Jon Jones absolutely shatter Shogun Rua with my roommates. I have never seen a more exciting and dynamic across any fighting sport in my whole life, that guy is absurd and finds a way to use every angle of every appendage on his body as a weapon then crushes people when he gets them on the ground. I can't remember the last time I was that enthralled watching a fight and there wasn't a scratch on him by the end of it.
Tomorrow is a very large Sunday, followed by the Wynn Classic $5000 main event on Monday, so plenty of chances to make something happen at work this week. Going to wake up nice and early tomorrow so I can play a huge session then hopefully I don't fucking botch it again over at the Wynn.
There are no off days: Days 8-10
Monday March 14th-Wednesday March 16th: I arrived on time for the 10am start of the Bay 101 main event. Vince made the shuffle up and deal announcement and we were underway. My table was mostly unfamiliar to me outside of bounty Hoyt Corkins on my direct right and an online player I'd seen around a few seats over. Hoyt really seems like one of the true gentleman of our game and was a pleasure to speak to for the short period I lasted in the tournament.
A few hours later I had become the first Shooting Star eliminated. I awkwardly made my way over to sign the bounty shirt that is awarded with the $5,000 in prize money. As to how this happened can be explained by copy/pasting the post I later made in HSMTT on 2+2:
Level 3 at the Bay 101 10k. I am one of the bounty players and they go to great lengths to make sure that everyone knows it, so if anyone busts me they get $5,000 (plus a T-shirt!)
I have been by far the most active player at the table, especially this level. I haven't really had to show any hands down because people keep folding to my barrels. I haven't been psycho or anything, but I've raised a lot of pots and fired multiple barrels in numerous of them. I have a moderate amount of history with villain for how early it is, and he's been one of the more active players but hasn't been crazy aggro or anything like that. Villain is a perhaps mid 30's Asian dude that I don't recognize. We have one main hand of history from the 50-100 level, and played some other smaller pots since then:
We both had about 30k to start the hand at 50-100. I had black Kings in EP, he was SB. Preflop I made it 300, he called in the SB, everyone else folded.
Flop: 9 8 6 (Pot 700)
He checked, I bet 500, he made it 1500, I called.
Turn: 6 (Pot 3700)
He checks, I bet 2700, he calls
River: Q (Pot 9100)
He thinks a bit and donks 3000, I folded (standard?)
On to the hand in question:
My stack: ~27,000
Button: ~45,000
I hold 8 7 UTG+1 at 100-200 blinds.
Preflop: UTG folds, I go to 500, folds to the button, button calls, SB folds, BB calls.
Flop: T T 9 (Pot 1600)
BB checks, I bet 1000, button calls, BB folds.
Turn: 6 (Pot 3600)
I bet 2700, button thinks for quite some time, counts down some chips, seems to consider raising, then decides on a call.
River: 2 (Pot 9000)
I bet 8200, button thinks a little bit then announces allin, I...
I had told myself on the river that if I bet that large, I thought the combination of my being a bounty, his well covering me and my image would cause him to shove AT some percent of the time, which was all I needed when getting nearly 2.7 to 1 on the river. However, it seems very few other people think that an unknown will shove AT there, and near all were in agreement that they would fold, so it seems I am a donk. I hate when I do that shit. Also interesting to point out is that many people said they would call the river in the first hand, so it's good to see I'm folding when I should call and calling when I should fold.
I spent the next day in San Francisco with Matt Affleck and Heika. She'd never been and I hadn't seen it in years, so we spent the afternoon and early afternoon walking the city getting occasionally drenched as the rain alternated between drizzle and downpour. It's a damned good looking city though.
I had no problems with getting to the gym during the period. On Monday I go in and did an ab routine then 18 sets on my back. Tuesday I got 15 sets in on my legs after having exhausted them walking the city all day. There were no problems maintaining the diet in San Jose and I haven't had any difficulties with cravings.
We flew back to Vegas this afternoon. It was a quick 90 minute direct flight from San Jose that arrived at 2:30, allowing me time to get to the gym for nearly an hour before starting a large Wednesday just on time. I accumulated stacks in a few of the larger tournaments of the day but took only one of those deep, the $100 rebuy six-max on Stars. Unfortunately, I became the final table bubble boy but the approximately $3000 score would have approximately covered the buy ins of the day. Hours:
Session start: 4:00pm
Registration end: 8:30pm
Session end: 11:04pm
There are no off days, Days 6-7
Saturday March 12th-Sunday March 13th: I began Saturday at the gym with Shon. He had me doing the Spartacus work out, which is a form of training that incorporates a number of full body exercises that is more about keeping your heart rate accelerated than reaching failure in any set. You do each exercise for a minute then take 15 seconds rest. There are 10 exercises in the circuit, and Shon made me go through it twice. Our goal is to get me up to being able to do a third, but by the end of the second by body was shot. We spent the last 15 minutes of the hour doing ab work.
I had a decent sized session on Saturday. I won the Stars $109 6 max tournament for $8,400 to continue my hot streak which now consists of three wins in six days, which is way above expectation. Hours:
Session start: 1:52pm
Registration end: 6:00pm
Session end: 9:57pm
I knew I had a flight the next morning so I made sure my session ended early. I came to the conclusion that most of Saturday's value is on the earlier side, so in future weeks I'm going to look to get my Saturday session in starting in the morning. My Spartacus workout will be on Friday in coming weeks, so Saturday will have some mobility. I think I'll aim to do a tennis match or lesson in the evening as a form of exercise for that day.
I woke up this morning at 8:10am, got showered, and ordered a taxi to the airport. I took a flight to San Jose for the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star event that's beginning tomorrow. My girlfriend Heika has flown up from Australia to visit for a few months, so I met her in San Jose and introduced her around during the charity event that I worked in the evening.
Lucky for me there is a 24 hour fitness directly next to our hotel and casino, and the hotel is comprised of suites so I have enough of a kitchen to prepare what I'll need in the coming days. Everything is going smooth thus far, now I just need to translate my online run-good on to the live felt tomorrow.
There are no off days, Day 5
Friday, March 11th: I know I'm doing the Spartacus work out with Shon tomorrow and I don't have any tennis matches set up, so I decide to take a more low key day. I go to the gym straight when I wake up on an empty stomach and sit on a bike for 30 minutes at medium pace, then grab breakfast and take my racket to the court to practice at a calm pace. I'm going to need my legs for tomorrow.
I spoke to our chef today. I increased my order to the point that every meal of every week will be accounted for ahead of time, that is, I need to put 0% thought into any meal for the rest of my time in Vegas until late May. It is all accounted for already.
Last night I felt a bit too hungry to fall asleep, despite numerous attempts to read myself unconscious. I went back to the kitchen and heated up a little chicken and whole wheat pasta to just hold me over until morning. I think especially after coming off a period in which I was eating such a huge amount of calories per day my body is starting to really notice the difference.
I played a pretty small session last night. I actually made plans to go out with some of the boys so I stopped registering early. I made a fairly deep run in the $100 rebuy six max on Stars but unfortunately busted 13th. I was going to go out and be the sober guy who goes home at 2am because he has a training session, but figured I could still try to tear it up a bit. Our venue changed as a result of last minute drop outs, and by the time we'd collected everyone in front of the club it was midnight and I was fading. Truck Dan gave me the keys to his car in full knowledge that there was no way he was driving home that night.
I went home and sat at my computer looking over my accumulated interesting spots from the week. I filtered out the more mundane ones, then set reads, history, and questions above each hand. Then I messaged a couple players I respected and asked if they'd look it over for me, and told Chewy he'd have to as well when he was done grinding. Neither of us are ever done grinding these days, we just waste away in the office listening to hip-hop on Pandora, occasionally flicking on the volcano, perennially obsessed with getting all the money. I take notes on people all day. I think within three weeks I'll have a huge amount of notes on the current batch of regs that populate the fields. Hours:
Session start: 4:00pm
Registration end: 6:00pm
Session end: 9:39pm
Once I get feedback from the guys on the hands I'll post some of them and include peoples thoughts.
There are no off days: Day 4
Thursday, March 10th: Thursday is my off day from lifting during the week, so it's my goal to set up a tennis match every week to provide the necessary work out. This week I had a noon match against Erik Fast of Cardplayer magazine. We're both about the 4.0 level and he's a bit more consistent than I am. I played some pretty poor tennis and could feel the lack of mobility and speed in my legs as a result of working with Shon. We played a three set match and he won fairly comfortably in the third.
I played another medium sized session last night. I didn't realize it up until tonight, but Thursday is by far the worst night of the week for tournaments. There's not a single special tournament of interest on any of the major American sites, no fun satellites, no large fields, and sometimes an event has so few pre-registered that it gets voided, as happened with the $100 rebuy-addon on Full Tilt last night, which was rather annoying. I've decided that in the future instead of taking Saturday off from poker I should take off Thursday. Saturday has numerous larger tournaments, particularly during the day, and it'd get me into the habit of waking up at 10am for a Sunday.
Results were mediocre and it was definitely a losing session, though not largely so due to the lack of tournaments. I made one final table on UB and immediately ran TT into JJ for 9th and some amount of money I didn't bother to check. Hours:
Start time: 3:08pm
Registration end: 8:30pm
Session end: 10:34pm
By the time poker finishes most nights I'm spent. My body is aching and my brain is shot. The idea of social activity is laughable. My evening activities consist of playing Xbox with the boys, sitting in the hot tub, watching a movie, or reading. Currently I'm enveloped in Andre Agassi's memoir, Open. It's a very candid account of the ups and downs of his career, personal life, and serves as his confession of not only using meth, but lying about it after it showed up in his urine in trace samples during a drug test. I only put it down when I can tell I'm about to pass out.