“And my motto is when you get inside the end zone, act like you been there before. Says something about your character to always brag, so if you never had, act like you always have, for real…” – Joe Budden – Goto Hell.

It seems like every time I get in the red zone I can’t ever get that touchdown. I know I haven’t blogged in a while. I sort of forgot about it. Not really forgot, I just never got around to updating it. Let me first give you guys a little poker tidbits then I will talk about what I have been up to.

It’s currently Sunday night entering Monday morning. I just got 7th in the 200r on Pokerstars and 11th in the $500 500k Guaranteed. I feel like I played pretty well in both and it just didn’t go my way. The last 4 times I have played the $500 NL on stars I have gotten 14th (11/09), 16th (11/30) and 11th tonight (12/7) WOW. Last Sunday I came in 16th and then this Sunday 11th. Jeez. It really is frustrating. Welcome to the life of poker. I lost 14th with 66 vs AQ, 16th AA vs AdJ on Q45ddd board (called pre with AA to trap) and tonight lost JJ vs AK in the end. The pot that hurt me the most tonight was this:

Aggressive/bad player from Paris raises to 73k at 15/30k he has about 800k. He raised the hijack 6 handed. This guy had been raising a lot and I think he had betting tells with this type of raise being weaker and his 3x being stronger. Anyway it folds to the sb who has about 700k and has been a tight player. The player has been tight but is also not scared to get it in. Earlier the small blind raised the cutoff with 88 and the bb reraised and he shoved it in with 88 and won vs the big blinds AK. So anyway I am the chip leader with about 1.3m. The small blind moves in for 700k and i have AQo in the Big blind. My instincts initially told me to fold. Considering how tight this guy had been the last 2 hours I have played with him and just everything about the hand initially my instincts were saying fold fold fold. And I almost folded pretty quickly. INSTEAD… I clicked timebank and thought about it. The blinds were not 15/30k and he only has about 20bbs. This other guy has been very aggressive and the blinds are going up he can’t stay so tight forever. I came to the conclusion in my head that he would shove AJ or weaker hands than AQ and I reshoved all in. The initial 73k raiser folded and the guy turned over AK and won. I went down to 600k.

I have been telling myself to listen to my first initial instinct lately but I keep forgetting that I tell myself this after the fact and never put it to use. I wish I would of here. I just didn’t feel right about the hand but after thinking over and over about it I think I have to reshove, but I just wish in this instance I would of folded because I would of been right (to listen to my instincts, etc.) The table I was at was pretty easy and I was playing pretty tight because I had Jovial Gent to my left reraising me. I didn’t want to get into any big pots like that without a dominating hand but I guess I couldn’t help it there. Any comments appreciated.

So yeah, the $500 NL and the $200r are my unicorns. I guess any major Sunday tournament is my unicorn because I haven’t won any of them lol. I have had some pretty close shots at the 200r lately too. I don’t want to make myself more depressed than I already am so I wont look those stats up.

I had a good month overall last month but still am not grinding like I said I would. I am not putting in the hours I keep talking about putting in and my friends are getting on my case about it. It’s hard to balance out your life if you’re playing poker 10-12 hours a day. So let me get into what I have been doing instead.

Last weekend I went down to Miami to visit Miamihans and cane3418 (Hans and Tim.) Hans has a condo right in the middle of the city of Miami and cane just got a place in the same condo building. The first night we went out to a party that had an open bar and all got pretty drunk. We got back to Hans’ condo at about 3am and went in his hot tub. It was me, Hans, Tim, Hans’ girlfriend, and our other friend John. We were playing some drinking games in the hot tub and then decided to play volleyball. John kept talking about how he is the best in the world at volleyball. John and Hans decide they will play volleyball vs me and Tim. Hans’ girlfriend ended up leaving and we went over to the beach volleyball court. (Now when Hans and John went to get the ball I told Tim that I have played volleyball since 7th grade and was first team all state, etc. Tim also told me he knew how to play so our chances looked good.)

John and Hans wanted to bet so we ended up betting $500 the first game. We did best of 3 series. Me and Tim killed John and Hans 15-3 15-2 or something like that. Easy $500. Then they said they wanted a rematch! Hahahaha. So we scooped another $500 again after we beat them another best of 3. Remember earlier when John said he was the best? Yeah, well he was the absolute worst. He was kicking the ball and absolutely clueless as to how to play volleyball. I guess it was just the liquor talking. We switched teams on the third game to me and John vs Tim and Hans to make it more even. Since I had money riding on the game I didn’t want to lose and I was trying to tell John what to do and how to play, but he wasn’t listening. John had a BIG bet on the last series as well to get even. He wasn’t taking it seriously or listening to what I had to say though. At one point I wanted to lose just because he was being such a moron. Kicking his serves and kicking the ball. All they would do is serve to him and he would just screw up every ball. I told him to just go up to the net and I would get every first ball but he wasn’t listening. We ended up going to the third game and then I shut it down serving. Started off 7-0 and I think we won 15-3. John is a complete idiot on the volleyball court and I will never be his partner again if we are playing for money, lol. So $1500 scoop at the volleyball courts down in Miami.

The next night I went out again and it was pretty uneventful. Miami/South Beach has a lot of stuck up clubs and places and I really don’t enjoy or appreciate that. One club tried to tell us it was $80 to get in and $1500 for a table and a bottle. LOL. Ridiculous. I did get to eat some arepas and I love them.

If you don’t know what it is, look it up, cause I’m not really sure lol. I guess they can be made different ways but the ones I had were with cheese and it was delicious. I wish I had some right now!

So down in Miami I had some close shots and almost final tabled the $500 NL when I got 16th and Hans almost won the FTP tourney getting 30th place. I ended up coming home Tuesday afternoon after bubbling the 1k on FTP Monday Night. It was fun down there but it’s a lazy environment and I don’t get to workout and get everything done.

My Birthday is coming up in a week (December 15th.) Send any presents to.. Just kidding lol. I am going to be 24. It is pretty crazy that I am turning 24. I definitely don’t feel that old and feel like I should be turning 18. I just don’t feel old. I guess that’s a good thing. Time flies honestly. I feel like I haven’t accomplished enough yet at my age but then people remind me of things I have done; like graduate college, etc. I feel like I have goals and visions of where I want to be and I am not there yet. I don’t worry about how old I am or what I have accomplished at so and so age (ex: I want to be a billionaire by 25.) I know some people do this and try to plan out their life in relation to their age but age is just a number and life is just a game. You can’t rush things or plan things. Aside from all of that it is amazing how it feels like just yesterday I turned 21. We’ll see what I decide to do for my birthday. I know some friends will be coming into town.

I guess that’s enough rambling for now. I have had complaints about blogging about my personal life and not strictly sticking to poker so I better shut up! Whoever said that should realize that poker is a part of my life and my life is much greater than poker (but I understand poker content is more entertaining =]) Goodnight guys.

P.S. I also played at a fun live cash game the other night and got involved in a sick cooler with a guy I had a tell on which is pretty interesting I will probably blog about the next time.