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Brazil Trip Report/Back Home…
This post will be lengthy. A lot has happened over the past few weeks. I am going to start where I left off on the last blog post and talk about the other half of my trip to Brazil. The post date might say 11/20. That’s when I started writing this blog, but I am officially posting it 12/7 real early in the morning.
I went to the BSOP venue the day after I busted the main event to play the PLO event. Once I realized that there were a lot of FTOPS/great online tournaments going on, I decided to skip the PLO event. I borrowed a laptop at the venue and sat in the Full Tilt Poker lounge all afternoon grinding online. I made a couple deep runs but nothing spectacular. First place in the PLO event was only around 10k. It was a much better decision to play online that day.
The next day I played the BSOP $2k High Rollers event. It had 111 players with 12 being paid. I ended up busting in 23rd place. I played with a good Brazilian online player almost all day and thought I picked up a physical tell on him. In the hand before I busted, he 3bet with AQ and was priced into calling an all in vs. KK, which he lost. He didn’t give off the weak tell. The very next hand I opened the cutoff with 9To into two tight players and the good Brazilian player. He three bet me and did the same weakness tell I had picked up on multiple times throughout the day. I 4bet shoved and he snap called me with pocket Aces. I guess my tell was off. I had been going with my reads in the tournament and they hadn’t let me down yet. I know my play was unnecessary but I really thought I had a stone cold tell on the player. I’m glad I went with my read, but I still need to be aware of overall tournament situations. I had position on a very loose, aggressive player who would have given me a lot of chips. I didn’t need to get involved in a pot against a good player right after he lost a decent sized pot. Live and learn.
That was it for the poker I played in Sao Paulo. We went to a couple great restaurants. One was on the top floor of Tivoli, our hotel. It probably had the best steak I’ve ever had. Mike Matusow and I had to order seconds. It was a Kobe steak and it melted in my mouth. Another restaurant we went to was a Brazilian Steakhouse. I took some pictures of the place.
I didn’t get the best pictures of all the meats they brought around, but at least I took some. I tried a chicken heart for the first time. It was interesting, but not really my taste. It was a great dinner and I had a lot of awesome food. Next time I go to Brazil I need to enjoy more of their food and visit some more restaurants.
After all the poker was out of the way and the BSOP was finished, we decided to party. We went to a couple different places in Sao Paulo. One venue was a “country music” club with a live band. I only recognized one song they played. It wasn’t like American country music. It was more upbeat, fun, and dance worthy. I’d say it was like pop music. The place was packed and we showed up really late but still had fun. Another club we went to was a hip-hop club. This was more of my style. They played only American hip-hop music. It was weird being in another country, in a club, where I understood the music and most of the other people didn’t. That night was also a lot of fun though. It was my kind of atmosphere and almost everyone who was with us and showing us around Sao Paulo made it out that night.
Here’s a picture of Mike checking out the lights in the club.
I was a little sad leaving Sao Paulo. I met a bunch of awesome people and I really enjoyed the country. I want to thank everyone again. I won’t name everyone individually but you guys know who you are. All the people who showed me around, all the poker players I met, and everyone else I came in contact with when I was in Brazil… Thank you. You guys made me appreciate Brazil and I plan on coming back often. With that said, I was supposed to fly back to Las Vegas but changed my connection to fly right into Florida.
Thursday morning was when I arrived back to South Florida. I rushed back home because there was a $5k WPT taking place Friday in my backyard at the Hollywood Hard Rock Casino. I played Friday, Day 1A. The field had some really good players. I was card dead almost all day and only played a couple substantial pots. I won a few early, but towards the end of the night I lost some tough hands. I ended the day with only about 20 big blinds. I still felt good going into Day 2 on Sunday.
I had a decent table draw for Day 2 but I would have to double up to be able to make some moves. After about an hour of play the following hand took place. It folded around to third position and the player was turned around in his chair listening to commotion from the table behind us. The dealer told him action was on him, after a few seconds I told him also “Excuse me, sir the action is on you.” He looked at me and at the dealer and responded with “Jeez. The dealer is tapping the table telling me and now you’re telling me it’s my turn.” I told him I was short stacked and he wasn’t paying attention so we were trying to get the action moving. He said something else to me in a rude fashion like I was out of line and proceeded to stall before finally folding. The player next to him raised, it folded to me on the button and I looked down at KQo and moved all in. The blinds folded and the raiser called with TT. The board came T9xxK and I was eliminated. The jerk then told me “Good game buddy.” I told everyone at the table good luck and I told the jerk “Good game to you too” while I went to go shake his hand. I knew he was being sarcastic with his good game comment so I tried to shake his hand haha. He wouldn’t shake my hand, which proved my point and made him look bad. Anyways, I kept my cool of course and wished everyone good luck again and left the casino. I don’t understand how some adults who are much older than me can be so immature at times. I wasn’t out of line at all but I don’t like being disrespected. Anyways…
I also played in the Florida Million at the Palm Beach Kennel Club. It’s a tournament that goes on all around Florida. It is a $550 buyin and the top 10% of the field from each location meet up in the finals. I played well and ran well to build up a big stack late in the tournament. I was probably one of the chip leaders and then lost a bunch of brutal hands to bad luck. KK vs AJ and AA vs 45o on a 5522 board. After those hands I didn’t win another pot for an hour and became a shorter stack. We were down to 25 players left, with 15 making the money/finals. An older amateur player who was pretty solid and somewhat new to the table (He raised in late position and showed an ace to gain credibility) raised from the cutoff to 9500 at 1500/3000. I looked down at QTo. I had about 70k in chips and the raiser had ~90k. I figured his range for raising here was wide and it would take a real small range to call so close to the money. I moved all in on him and was SNAP CALLED. I thought for sure I ran into aces. I turned over my QTo and he showed QJo. Everyone at the table was shocked. I also was shocked as well lol. I never would have expected him to snap call me with QJo in that situation. I bricked and was eliminated. I don’t mind my play, but I never in a million years thought that player would beat me to the pot with QJ. He didn’t seem like that type of player but maybe I didn’t have enough information on him. I thought I would be able to move my chips around and pick up some pots nearing the bubble.
I’ve been trying to get back in the swing of things. Working out, getting on schedule, grinding online. It’s a busy month as far as holidays and other celebrations are concerned. I think I covered almost everything I wanted to in the blog. If I forgot anything I’ll be sure to write about it. It took me a while to get this blog up and I don’t even know why.
While I was in Brazil I did a fun interview with Super Poker. They asked me a lot of good and interesting questions. I wish I knew Portuguese but I translated the interview and got to understand most of it haha. You guys can check it out here: SuperPoker Interview with Tristan “Cre8ive” Wade. Goodnight!
Brazil Trip Report Part 1…
Mike Matusow and I left Vegas on the 10th to fly to Sao Paulo, Brazil. I have been to Aruba, Bahamas, and Canada. Other than that I’ve really never left America. I wouldn’t consider those trips “international” since they are all pretty close and somewhat Americanized. I look at this trip to Brazil as being different. Which it has been so far.
It started off flying first class from Vegas to Houston. The flight was only a couple hours, but it was definitely more comfortable. Typically for me, first class flying is sitting in an exit row lol. I’ve never flown overnight or been in an airplane an unbearable amount of time in which I thought I would have to fly first class. Once we got to Houston, Mike took me into the gold lounge of our airline. I always saw people go into those places and never thought much of it. I was wrong haha. It was a four story room. Complete with internet, desks, sofas, couches, showers, food, and a bar. I was impressed. This was a place I see in every airport and I’ve always looked past it, maybe even looked down upon it, but I see the luxury behind it now for people who are always traveling.
The flight from Houston to Sao Paulo was not bad at all. Mike and I sat next to each other. Our motorized seats reclined backwards far enough to actually lie down. The leg rest portion of our chair also moved up, providing a nice reclining chair to fall asleep in. Each person had their own personal television that came up through the middle console which played 15 different movies. We were also served breakfast and dinner. Both of which were delicious. It was an experience and we were treated in relation to how much was paid for the tickets.
I’ve met a lot of great people since arriving in Brazil. Leo Bello (FTP pro and has written the most popular poker books in Brazil) picked us up from the airport. The traffic in Sao Paulo is ridiculous. I believe it is the second most populous city in North and South America. We finally made our way to the middle of the city and into our hotel. It took a while, but I like seeing how different countries are and experiencing what they experience. We met some more Full Tilt people at the hotel, all of whom are awesome. These guys have taken complete care of us and I’m sure my Brazil experience wouldn’t be the same without them. For that I thank them.
That night I visited the H2 poker club. I was really impressed once again.
These are some pictures from the H2 poker club. It’s incredible what they are doing. I don’t want to talk too much about the poker. I have something else planned for all of that… So I will just leave you with the pictures of the club I took. There is way more to see then the few pictures I snapped.
After playing a little poker we went out for a couple hours and experienced some Brazilian night life. Like I talked about earlier, a lot of people have shown us a great time. After getting some sleep, we had a party to attend in Guarjura, which is about two hours away from Sao Paulo on the beach. I just found an article on the party here… From the Super Poker website.
The party was for Poker Villa. It is basically a house full of up and coming poker players. They are being taught how to play poker by some of the best. I met some great online and live Brazilian/South American poker players. I’ve either played with them for years or seen them around. There are too many to name right now but I will be sure to throw some names out in the last trip report. The house was gorgeous and right on the beach. Check out the link above.
Today I played in the $700 BSOP Main Event. The BSOP is the Brazilian Series of Poker. The tournament might have been the best run tournament I’ve ever been a part of. They did everything right. The venue was great, the service, the floor, everything! They don’t have casinos here so pulling off what they did is pretty amazing in my eyes. If it wasn’t so late I would rant and talk even more about it. Great job with the BSOP to everyone involved. I busted later in the night losing AJcc vs 88. I didn’t get much going throughout the tournament. I even had to fold bottom set and was shown middle set (although it was an easy spot.) Tomorrow is the PLO event and then there is a $2k high rollers I will play too.
If you can’t tell, I love Brazil. Part of it is because of the people I have met. They have embraced me and shown me around. Everyone has been really hospitable. I hope I can repay them one day when they visit Vegas or Florida. I have so much more to say but I am going to head to bed.. There’s a lot more I will talk about in the future. Goodnight.
Goto http://www.mebeliska.com If you want to watch live or read coverage.
Also this is part of an interview I did with pokernews.com on Wednesday during the Deepstacks360 online camp I did. DeepStacks Interview
Man there is so much going on… LIFE IS GOOD! Learn to appreciate everything.
Vamooooo…
Vamooooo. What an appropriate title. It’s a word that is used all the time by Brazilian poker players who root for other Brazilian poker players. That just so happens to be where I’m going tomorrow; Sao Paulo, Brazil. I am going with Mike Matusow for 8 days. There is a tournament series there so I am going to play some of the tournaments and discover Brazil. I’m pretty excited. I’ve never been to Brazil and I’ve heard a lot of great things about the country.
It should be an interesting trip with Mike. I’ve been staying at his house for the past week while I’ve been in Vegas, which has been an adventure in itself. He’s been a good host and is a really good guy. You just have to be able to handle random craziness every now and then haha. I will keep the details to myself, but there isn’t a dull day.
I watched the Main Event Final table on Saturday. I won’t give any spoilers on that because the coverage is tomorrow. Other than that, I’ve been getting some poker business done and trying to stay busy. I played basketball last night and had my first workout in a week. My body is dead but I had a good time. I’m pretty tired now and need to sleep so I will keep this blog short. The next update will be from Brazil. Goodnight.
Vegas In November…
This is what I’ve always dreamed of. Coming to Vegas in November for the main event final table. The only problem is, I busted the tournament months ago…
I’m back in Vegas. I had a long day of flying in middle row seats. Southwest airlines and their first come, first serve seating policy doesn’t fit me well. I had bad draws with the boarding positions. I’m not used to their system and always forget to check in early. The first flight from West Palm to Tampa was only about 45 minutes. That wasn’t bad. The second leg of the trip from Tampa to Vegas was about a 5 hour flight. I slowly made my way to the back of the plane, hoping to find an aisle or window seat. I passed the last window seat that I positively knew wasn’t occupied. The lady had her purse in the seat. I didn’t want to deal with that and I also thought I saw a couple seats in the back. Well, I was wrong. I realized the bad news and decided to sit in the back row, middle seat. Another mistake. The guy sitting at the window was well built and bulky with broad shoulders. I also have wide shoulders and we were fighting for arm rest space. There are far worse problems in life though and I managed to make it to Vegas unscathed. No big deal, lesson learned.
I got picked up by a couple people from Deepstacks and we ate dinner at a tapas place. I believe it was my first tapas experience. The food was pretty good and I always enjoy eating a wide variety of food in one sitting. I tried a lot of different things and will definitely go back. Personally, It’s fun to throw curve balls at your taste buds and try a lot of smaller dishes.
Tomorrow DeepStacks is having a Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi and Mike “The Mouth” Matusow 360 camp. They both will teach poker strategies using a 360 degree camera to broadcast live over the Internet. It should be pretty neat, so I am here helping them out with that. I should be pretty busy with whatever else is going on around here. Come Saturday The Grinder will play out the Main Event final table and I will be there watching with the crew. It’s pretty exciting to have someone I know at the final table, but I still am thinking about my deep run and wishing I could have done better. Realistically though, your chances of making the final table of the main event are slim to none. I’m ready to try again next year though.
I’ll blog more this week. Just wanted to keep this short and write a little something. I have a couple other things to talk about later on in the week. Goodnight.
Decent Week…
I’ve had a decent week at the virtual felt. On Tuesday I chopped the 100r on Stars when I was the chip leader. I always bust after I chop. I never get the PLBs or anything haha. Both players were solid and the chop was in my favor so I went with it.
I had a couple other final tables throughout the week as well. Today I played and got deep in a few tournaments. I was heads up in a PCA package satellite. First place won the 15k package and 2nd place walked away with $700. I played a tough opponent who didn’t fold much, ever, and he got the best of me. After that defeat I will still in the 50 cubed on FTP. I got heads up in that as well and lost an unfortunate pot with KJs vs K6o on a K23cc86 board. I check raised the flop, bet the turn, and shoved the river. I’m almost certain he would have called anyways with his king if he didn’t hit two pair so I played it fine, just unlucky.
I feel like I’m playing really well, and I’m sure I’ve been running alright too. It would have been nice to get the PCA package win out of the way in October, but I have a couple more months to try to win one. I might be missing a lot of live tournaments I wanted to play in which I’m not happy about, but I will live with it. The NAPT in La, and the 5k WPT in my backyard at the Hard Rock in Hollywood Florida. I have a few things I might be getting into in the next couple of weeks so we will see what pans out. If those things don’t work out then I’ll be able to play those events. Either way its a winning situation.
Other than the couple exciting things coming up in the next few weeks, there isn’t much going on. I am working out, playing poker, coaching poker, car shopping (STILL — although I think I’ve narrowed it down) and other random activities. I will be making that announcement shortly too. This blog never does well with announcements but I promise it is coming lol.
I feel like this particular blog doesn’t have much substance so I’m going to talk about mental toughness in poker for a second. It is probably one of the best characteristics you can have if you are a poker player. I was talking to my buddy Steve the other day and he was saying that because of our experience in poker, we would be able to make it doing whatever we decide to do. If we wanted to venture into another profession we would succeed. I agree with him in the aspect that making a living off of poker is tough. You can lose money, you are constantly defeated, it’s an emotional roller coaster, etc… If you don’t have a good understanding of how poker works, you can never make it in the field. I am a very competitive person. I’ve come to the realization that I will be a loser 99% of the time in tournament poker. Maybe it’s not actually that high, but the probability of winning a tournament is very low. That’s just what it is. The variance involved in tournaments is out of this world. Once you come to reality with all of this you will become a better poker player. There are times when I feel unlucky, or get frustrated with how a poker session went. If you are able to see poker for what it is and grab a hold of it, it will help elevate your game to another level. It’s not just about winning the hand, or winning the tournament. It is about decision making. What you do and why you do it. If you are constantly making the right decisions, everything else will fall into place.
Short Post…
I’m on my way to Calder casino in a minute to play the $225 Mike “The Grinder” Mizrachi tournament. We had a camp there yesterday and today is the tournament. Should be a good time. I have to wait a couple days before I make that announcement I talked about in the last blog pot, but it will definitely be happening this week. I have a couple awesome things to talk about…
Have a good weekend everyone!
Read This, Learn Something…
First, let me say that I have been really busy doing a bunch of miscellaneous things. I went up to Orlando, back to South Florida… I’ve been all over. I played poker tonight for the first time in a week and got 9th in the 100r and was also deep in the $163 on FTP. With about 20 players left FTP/Stars disconnected me (along with a lot of other players apparently) and when it came back up 25 minutes later, I had 2.5bbs and lost. Hopefully they compensate me and the other players. Some players were still playing, so I’m sure they were just eating up the blinds and antes until we came back. We will see.
Last blog post I posted a hand that took place in the 100r vs ISpewChips.
PokerStars Game #50850218637: Tournament #334010506, $100+$9 USD Hold’em No Limit – Level X (300/600) – 2010/10/09 16:34:01 ET
Table ‘334010506 10′ 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: danskemann (7802 in chips)
Seat 2: Cre8ive (28600 in chips)
Seat 3: babyshark33 (18322 in chips)
Seat 4: TMoney0209 (25597 in chips)
Seat 5: I Spew Chips (32594 in chips)
Seat 6: flpro157 (10181 in chips)
Seat 7: ocrowe (55207 in chips)
Seat 8: Schildy1984 (15432 in chips)
danskemann: posts the ante 50
Cre8ive: posts the ante 50
babyshark33: posts the ante 50
TMoney0209: posts the ante 50
I Spew Chips: posts the ante 50
flpro157: posts the ante 50
ocrowe: posts the ante 50
Schildy1984: posts the ante 50
TMoney0209: posts small blind 300
I Spew Chips: posts big blind 600
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [Qd Kd]
flpro157: folds
ocrowe: folds
Schildy1984: folds
danskemann: folds
Cre8ive: raises 600 to 1200
babyshark33: folds
TMoney0209: folds
I Spew Chips: raises 2085 to 3285
Cre8ive: calls 2085
*** FLOP *** [2h 6d Kc]
I Spew Chips: bets 3795
Cre8ive: raises 4070 to 7865
I Spew Chips: raises 21394 to 29259 and is all-in
Cre8ive: calls 17400 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (3994) returned to I Spew Chips
*** TURN *** [2h 6d Kc] [9h]
*** RIVER *** [2h 6d Kc 9h] [6c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
I Spew Chips: shows [3c 8d] (a pair of Sixes)
Cre8ive: shows [Qd Kd] (two pair, Kings and Sixes)
Cre8ive collected 57800 from pot
I posted this hand because I wanted people to actually think about the hand. I wanted to give a legitimate response in the blog, like it was an awful play. It looks ridiculous, but sometimes you are going to have to look stupid in poker. I know ISpewChips is a good player. So what do I do? I look at a hand like this and try to understand why he did what he did.
We both have around 50bb stacks. Those are big stacks at this point in the 100r. I’m sure he thinks my min-raise opening range there is pretty wide on the cutoff, so he decided to 3bet. Now he gets flatted. So my range is changing in his eyes because my flatting range is different than my 4betting range (assumption for the sake of discussion.) Now the flop comes K62 rainbow. He continuation bets, and I raise. What can I have here?
From ISpew’s perspective… AK would likely be in Cre8ive’s 4betting range preflop, so for this to be a value raise to get it in for 50bbs Cre8ive’s range is pretty small. Consisting of 22, 66, AA, maybe some other hands??? Would Cre8 set mine preflop with 22 or 66 here? Would he raise KK on the flop? Is his raise/get it in range AA/sets/bluffs?
Since ISpew felt like my range for raising the flop for value was really small, he decided to move all in on the flop thinking that I could only call him with a small range of hands. He is right in that line of logic. In a 3bet pot, my range is consolidated and hands can be eliminated. This train of thought is the same reason why I raised the flop with KQ. I’m representing a small range of hands that I want to get value with. Would I really raise the flop with 99/TT (assuming I didn’t 4bet those hands) and want to get all the chips in the middle? On the flip side, should I be raising a board of that texture with a hand like 99/TT to get someone to shove worse? This is the evolution of poker.
Although the hand looks really ugly, it is poker at it’s finest. Two minds battling it out. Who can solve the puzzle first? There isn’t always a right and wrong answer in poker. Sometimes you will look stupid, but if you have a reason as to why you looked stupid, it makes it acceptable lol. I have looked stupid plenty of times in my poker career, but I had logic behind my stupidity. In poker… stupidity with no logic is still stupidity; otherwise it is enlightenment.
I could talk more about the hand, but I will leave it at that. I wanted to show everyone that although something might look horrible, it really isn’t. Don’t look at it for what it is, look deeper, learn something.
This Friday I will be doing a DeepStacks Live camp in Miami with November Niner Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi and Matt Graham. It’s at the Calder casino at 1pm on October 22nd. If anyone is interested, they can contact me through my e-mail or sign up through DeepStacks.com by clicking DeepStacks Live in the top left corner. I’ll have another blog post up on Thursday night with an announcement I’ve been waiting to make. Goodnight.
Great Weekend…
I got back to Florida on Wednesday. In the last blog I talked about how I was going to Niagara Falls, NY for a Deepstacks camp. Let me say that this camp was overall one of the best I have been involved in. I had a lot of fun. I arrived at the Seneca Casino on Friday and played a cash game at night with Mike Matusow. After that, all of the DeepStacks crew went out to a great dinner with the staff that runs the poker room. Later that night I went to Canada to visit my friends I stayed with during the WSOP over the summer (Tim0thee, Smerks, Stainley 88.) It was nice having the Canadian border literally two minutes away from the hotel/casino. We had a couple drinks at Fallsview casino and caught up for a couple hours. I couldn’t stay out too late because I had to be up early for the camp in the morning.
The camp was a huge success. All of the students were great and it went by really fast. After the camp all of the DeepStacks pros played in their $550 tournament. It got 140 runners. I played very patiently but could never get momentum to build a nice stack. I managed to survive and do my best, losing a flip 55 vs AQ in around 30th place. I went back up to my room and met up with Mike. He convinced me to go out with him and some of other friends. We went to Fallsview again to one of their clubs. It was a pretty quiet night again because we had to wake up in the early morning to go to the Bills vs Jets game in Buffalo.
We were supposed to get to the Stadium around 11-12 so we could tailgate but there was a lot of traffic and a couple of us were hungover lol. I was amazed at the stadium and the crowd. The whole atmosphere was just unbelievable to me. The NFL games in Florida aren’t like that. It was raining and cold and the place was packed. It felt like I was in a Madden NFL game. The Bills fans are diehard fans! It was neat that they also played their in state rivals, the Jets. There was just something about being among tens of thousands of people in the cold and rain that made the experience that much better. The Jets ended blowing the Bills out, unfortunately. The energy in the stadium was great and I wish it would have been a close game.
Wow, I’m playing online right now and this hand just happened… in the 100r.
PokerStars Game #50850218637: Tournament #334010506, $100+$9 USD Hold’em No Limit – Level X (300/600) – 2010/10/09 16:34:01 ET
Table ‘334010506 10′ 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: danskemann (7802 in chips)
Seat 2: Cre8ive (28600 in chips)
Seat 3: babyshark33 (18322 in chips)
Seat 4: TMoney0209 (25597 in chips)
Seat 5: I Spew Chips (32594 in chips)
Seat 6: flpro157 (10181 in chips)
Seat 7: ocrowe (55207 in chips)
Seat 8: Schildy1984 (15432 in chips)
danskemann: posts the ante 50
Cre8ive: posts the ante 50
babyshark33: posts the ante 50
TMoney0209: posts the ante 50
I Spew Chips: posts the ante 50
flpro157: posts the ante 50
ocrowe: posts the ante 50
Schildy1984: posts the ante 50
TMoney0209: posts small blind 300
I Spew Chips: posts big blind 600
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Cre8ive [Qd Kd]
flpro157: folds
ocrowe: folds
Schildy1984: folds
danskemann: folds
Cre8ive: raises 600 to 1200
babyshark33: folds
TMoney0209: folds
I Spew Chips: raises 2085 to 3285
Cre8ive: calls 2085
*** FLOP *** [2h 6d Kc]
I Spew Chips: bets 3795
Cre8ive: raises 4070 to 7865
I Spew Chips: raises 21394 to 29259 and is all-in
Cre8ive: calls 17400 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (3994) returned to I Spew Chips
*** TURN *** [2h 6d Kc] [9h]
*** RIVER *** [2h 6d Kc 9h] [6c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
I Spew Chips: shows [3c 8d] (a pair of Sixes)
Cre8ive: shows [Qd Kd] (two pair, Kings and Sixes)
Cre8ive collected 57800 from pot
Pretty sick lol… I guess he was living up to his name. Just thought I would throw some poker in here since that hand just happened.
After the Bills game we went to the Big Tree Inn in Orchard Park, NY. It’s right near the Bills stadium. Since we were with THE MOUTH we got hooked up of course and got to watch football and eat/drink upstairs above the bar. It’s incredible how popular Mike is. Everyone loves him. Whether it be for his entertainment value or his poker skill, he has a lot of fans. So many people came up to him throughout the weekend. He handles his popularity really well.
The day after that, we were supposed to leave Buffalo but my flight was canceled. Me and Chris (DeepStacks CEO/Owner) were supposed to fly to Milwaukee for a meeting. While I was loading my luggage in the trunk, I gave myself a black eye lol. The rental car we used had a really low hanging trunk. I bent my head down as I lifted my luggage up and smacked myself right in the eye. It’s still healing. So we left the airport once we found our flight was canceled and realized we had to stay in Buffalo another day! Great! Haha. There isn’t much to do there as far as we could tell and the weather wasn’t that good. We watched the Dolphins play the Pats in a local bar which was just about empty. The next day we made it to Milwaukee.
I must say Milwaukee is a beautiful city. I was really impressed. It was a big city, clean, and not that busy. I only got to explore a little bit but I enjoyed the colder weather and walking around. I’ll talk more about the meeting and what I did in Milwaukee in couple days. Everything went well and it was a successful trip. We were there for only one day and now I’m back in Florida.
I did an interview over the phone a couple weeks ago for a website called PokerGob. If you want to listen to it check it out here.. PokerGob Interview. It’s an up and coming poker site. I haven’t explored the site too much but check it out and let me know what you guys think.
As far as the WSOP coverage goes, I haven’t seen all the episodes but I heard I made a couple more appearances. I don’t actually think I was involved in hands like the Day 1B coverage. I was probably just at the table or near the action. I didn’t make any featured tables on my way to 113th place, so that hurts my chances to have more coverage. No big deal to me though, I don’t mind, but a couple people hit me up saying they FINALLY saw me on TV lol. If I see the clips and it’s anything exciting I will post the videos on the blog.
Hmmm.. what else did I have to say? I also got to see a little of the Niagara falls and the Horseshoe falls. It was really neat. I’m still playing poker online. I’m currently deep in a PLO tournament (4/16), the 100r (14/46), and a couple others. If I remember anything else I’ll let you guys know. Hopefully I can win these tournaments. This blog is probably already long enough. Thanks for reading.
Deja Vu…
Once again I have somehow managed to not blog in about a month. I’ve been thinking about blogging on the low, but didn’t allow myself to get involved with it. Now that I’m staring at the template, I feel back at home… How I’ve missed my love, the blog!
Let me quit with all of that nonsense lol. Things have been pretty busy as of late. As most of you in the poker community know, the WCOOP just ended on Sunday. It was three weeks of hell. I had a couple cashes, couple deep runs, but nothing really substantial. I was having a good week last week in MTTs. I finished 1st in the 100 turbo on stars, and got three handed vs Thayer and DFish in the $163 on FTP. I finished third in that, which was disappointing to say the least.
You might have been wondering why I said “I was having a good week…” in the paragraph above. That is because even a couple decent scores last week were overshadowed by no success in WCOOP events. It is definitely frustrating. The WCOOPs are a whole different beast. The structures are absolutely insane. It can be tough to adjust to the long levels and 20+ hours of poker online. I think I played very well overall during the series, but that isn’t to say I can’t/couldn’t play better. That is how MTT poker is as well. If you don’t have immediate results or success, you apparently don’t know what you’re doing. Variance is either your best friend, or your worst enemy. Don’t let it get the best of you though.
Now that the WCOOP is over, I am taking a couple days off from playing online. I am heading to New York tomorrow to teach a DeepStacks Live course at the Seneca Casino in Niagara Falls (on the US side.) On Sunday I am going to go to the Bills vs. Jets NFL game with Chris (DeepStacks CEO) and Mike Matusow. Hopefully some of my buddies from Toronto can make it down. It would be cool if I could take a day trip to Toronto and see the city. I’ve heard great things but have never been.
Other than that, I have just been working out, playing basketball, playing poker, coaching poker, and… oh and I am looking to buy a car. I’m not sure what I will get yet. Nothing too fancy or anything. I am thinking about getting a nice, used car with low mileage. When I figure it out I will let you guys know. Any suggestions or advice, throw it at me!
I will have some other news to announce in the next couple of days/weeks so that should also be exciting! I will wait to see how things develop before I talk about it here, but expect a blog post about it soon. I will be back blogging more frequently again. Goodnight and good luck.
I also edited the WSOP video coverage I had in the last post. The video was removed on youtube.
Long Time No Talk…
Hey everyone! Glad to see some people actually still check my blog even though I haven’t updated in it a long time. It’s been about a month since my last entry. This blog will probably be real long and might include some ramblings. I will organize it so you can skip over parts you are not interested in lol.
LIFE:
Since I’ve been back from Vegas I’ve played SOME poker at the casinos and online. I haven’t played too much in either but I’m starting to get back into the grind. I spent a couple weeks resting and relaxing from the WSOP, then was busy for another week or so. I took a one day trip out to LA for a meeting and have been bouncing around Florida as well. I’ve spent a lot of time with friends and family. It just feels like I have a lot going on around me at the moment, but I need to manage my time better too. I have to get a couple things sorted out before the WCOOP comes. I probably feel busier than I actually am, I just have to get some things accomplished that I’ve been putting off, that’s all.
I played in a basketball tournament a couple weeks ago with a bunch of my buddies who play professionally. Stu (thedonator) and I put the team in the tournament. We had a couple tough games. We smacked the team who ended up winning it by 20 in the first game, then we lost a tough game on a buzzer beater that we shouldn’t have lost. One of our best players hurt himself and a couple other guys couldn’t make it to the next games. It was a disaster considering we should have won the tournament altogether and pocketed some money, but it was a good time regardless. There were a lot of professional players in the tournament. It was a tough tournament but we had a good team and would have done better had a couple things gone our way.
Other than that things have been pretty normal. Working out, hanging out, doing miscellaneous things.
POKER:
Like I said briefly above, I have been playing poker here and there. When I first got back to South Florida I played poker for like 5 days straight in the casinos. I played a couple tournaments and then a couple cash games sessions. I’m glad we finally have cash games here! It’s awesome but I only played a total of three times. The games aren’t as good as they could be, but it is still nice of having the option to play somewhere. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to play online/casino/etc.
I played a few FTOPS events last week and have come close to winning the 100r turbo on FTP the last 2/3 times I played it. I got 8th and 11th. I guess that really isn’t close to winning, but close enough to mention! I was 1/8 at the final table and donked my way to an 8th place finish. I made a couple questionable plays that I wish I could take back. I’m not completely back into grind mode though but I probably will be once the WCOOP rolls around.
WSOP Day 1B:
So I’ve been meaning to talk about the WSOP for a while now. I don’t remember all of my big hands but I remember most of them. I actually received some coverage from Day 1B in two pots I played against Phil Laak. I’m not sure if this will lead to more coverage from ESPN but it was cool finally making some TV time. People always ask me “Will you be on TV?” and I always respond with if I make a big final table or something. It’s pretty neat. I don’t really look at it like a big deal but I guess it is bigger than I realize. Either way it was cool to watch and maybe I will get more coverage down the road in the tournament.
At about 2:00 minutes in I win a small pot off Laak and then at 14:00 minutes was a big pot where I cooler Phil with top set vs bottom two. That hand is kind of interesting because I had picked up something on Phil and knew he was real strong on the flop, but there was a cannon behind us so I decided to flat.. It worked out when we got the money in on the turn but there was more to the hand than just a heads up pot with top set vs bottom two. I think it was 4-5 ways on the flop.
One of the craziest hands I played in all of the main event was on Day 1. What I’m about to type is going to sound absurd to some, but here it goes. At 100/200 no ante, a tight player opened from the hijack to 750. The button who was an aggressive player called and I called with KQo in the big blind. The flop came JJTcc and we checked to the button. He bet 1100 and I raised to 2900. The tight player folded and now the button reraised me to 4k. This wasn’t a legitimate raise. His min raise should have been to 4700. The dealer didn’t realize, and neither did I, because at the time the dealer had pulled in the bets and just my 1800 was out there, so it looked like it was a legit raise. I didn’t realize that this happened until I told someone the hand later that night. So now it is 4k to me (and I didn’t realize this wasn’t correct.) and I put in a fourth bet on the flop and make it 6700. He calls instantly. The turn is the 6h and I bet 7k with 12k behind. He calls once more. The river is the Qh. The board is JTTcc6hQh and I check to him. He puts me all in and I call. He says “Do you have a jack?” I told him he has to show his hand. He says “Two pair!” while I wait for him to show me his cards. He finally turns over 99 and I scoop the pot to double up to 58k early in the day.
There was a lot more than meets the eye to this hand. I didn’t play it the best way I could have but I had history (similar hand where I folded flop to 3rd bet) with this specific player and knew what he was capable of. I hadn’t been out of line or played any big pots previous to this one, but I guess he thought I had some spazz in me. I probably gave him a little too much credit in the way he looked at poker. He was definitely trying to run over the table and in my opinion he thought he was the best one there. His banter at the end of the hand asking me if I have a jack leads me to believe he wasn’t as good as I thought he was. Either way he said he thought I had nothing and I’m not sure why he bet the river if that was the case.
I didn’t enjoy calling all in a couple hours into the Main Event, and I know this spot was probably stupid to take, but I was fairly certain of his holdings and how he would play certain hands up to this point. He had played a lot of pots and I felt in touch with his style. That’s the reason I ended up playing this hand like I did. I don’t suggest it to others though lol. It was not the best hand of poker ever played. It might be one of the worst hands ever played in the WSOP Main Event haha.
I’ll talk more about the Main Event in the next blog. I have some other interesting hands to talk about. I have to get some sleep. It feels good to be blogging again! Goodnight.