Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. It's nice to sit back once in a while and think about all the things that we have to be thankful for. Personally, I feel like I'm the luckiest person in the world and I'm most thankful for my family, friends and loved ones. I've been surrounded by the greatest people that a guy could ask for and I consider myself really fortunate. I hope everyone out there has something to be thankful for and if you can't think of anything, think harder.

I'm in Canada right now, playing in the BC Poker Championships. I cashed in the Pot Limit event, barely, and the main event starts tomorrow. The players were unbelievably bad in the PLHE event and I expect the field to be pretty soft for the main event. The structure is pretty good and I'd be surprised if none of my friends(Carl, Ozzy, Smokey, Bushman) make the final table with me and eventually chop it with me heads-up. First prize is estimated to be around $700K and that would definitely make the trip worthwhile. If you don't like poker, skip this next part...some hands from the PLHE event:

Blinds 50/100, I raise to 250 in the hijack with 22 and the SB calls. I have about 3400 chips behind and he covers. The flop is K72 rainbow and he leads for 200. I raise to 700 and he quickly calls. The turn is an 8 putting two spades on board. He asks for a count of my chips, about 2600, then checks. I bet 1100 into the 2000 chip pot and he folds pretty quickly. I think I should have repeated the 700 chip bet.

Same blinds, I open Qh8h in the CO to 250. I have about 4400 chips behind and they both have similar stacks. The button and BB, same dude in the hand before, call. Flop is 542 with two hearts and I bet 425 into the 800 chip pot, planning on 3-betting all in if I'm raised. The button folds but the BB calls. The turn is an offsuit Ten and the BB checks again. I think about checking behind but the structure was so terrible that I didn't want to lose the pot if I missed. I finally decided to pot it, betting 1650 and leaving myself with about 2300. This way I can just call if he raises me instead of betting 800 and folding. He calls pretty quickly. The river is an offsuit 7, he checks and I go all in almost immediately. He sighs and folds. Wheeeee!

Blinds 100/200. UTG limps, leaving himself with 800 chips. UTG+1, same guy from the previous two hands, raises to 800 leaving himself with 1525 behind. It folds to me in the BB and I look down at AKo. I re-raise to put them both all-in. UTG folds and my friend folds 99 fairly quickly. I can't begin to explain how terrible that fold is. Terrible for him = good for me!

Blinds 300/600. UTG min-raises to 1200, leaving himself about 10K behind. I have 12K in the CO and call the raise with 33. We might be a little too shallow to call here but the blinds were going up to 500/1K in under a minute and I didn't feel like I could sit around forever. I also knew that I would be in position so I didn't necessarily need to flop a set to win the hand. The BB, a tight-looking old guy with about 20K, reluctantly calls and we see the flop 3-ways with 3900 in the pot. The flop is AJ8 with two clubs. The BB stares at the board for a loooong time and checks. UTG checks immediately and I bet 1800. BB calls and UTG folds. The turn is some small brick and now the BB leads for 2000 chips into the 7500 chip pot. It really felt like he had some crappy ace and was testing the waters to see if it was good or not. I felt pretty positive that he would fold to a raise so I jam for about 9K total. He tanks for a pretty long time and studied me intently. I just looked at him and smiled. Finally he folded and I turned to the guy on my left to show him the bluff. Obviously, the old guy says, "I want to see that hand" so he got the bluff rubbed in his face. It felt really good to (a) make the right read and (b) have the cojones to pull the trigger.

I ran my chips up to almost 40K before it all came crashing down. The blinds were 1K/2K and I found Th8h in the hijack. Stealing blinds isn't as important in Pot Limit because of the absence of antes but it's still good to pick up chips when you can and the table was playing tight. I raised to 5K and the BB tanked for a while before moving all-in for 11K and I had to call. He had AdJd and I couldn't find a ten or eight. The next orbit, the CO pots it to 7K, leaving himself 2K behind and I find AdTd on the button and repot but run into JJ. There's 20K down the drain and I basically ground my way into the money on steals and resteals. Every time I'd build my stack into a respectable size I'd run into AA and go back to potting all-in with Q2o. I finally busted just inside the money with T9o on the button against the BB's Q8o. I guarantee that he folds if we're still on the bubble. I bet he would fold at any point in the tournament, other than directly inside the bubble. People seem to lose their minds once the bubble bursts and chips go flying. I ended up making $600 CAD profit which is better than a kick in the pants. It was nice to get some live play in and I'm uuuuuuuber stoked for the main event.

Next weekend, Davis, Kenny, Silky and I are invading Denver for the Seahawks-Broncos game. I knew the 49er game was going to be tough but we'll get back on track against Green Bay this Monday Night. The Hawks are 6-4 but I think they're going to go 11-5, losing to either Denver on the road or San Diego at home. I can't wait to hang out in Denver over the weekend. I went out on the town when I was on the baseball road trip and the downtown area has a lot of cool bars condensed in a 3 or 4-block radius. Tailgating before the game should be fun too and I hope we don't get our asses kicked, both in the parking lot and on the playing field. Jay Cutler is rumored to be starting and hopefully he lays an egg. Anyway, more on that as it draws nearer.

I really need to get to bed so I don't fall asleep at the table tomorrow. Everyone out there, root for me to play well and run good. Peace.

Canada

I've been going up to Canada quite a bit lately trying to get my poker game back in shape. I've been playing pretty poorly but I am figuring stuff out and I'm definitely starting to play better. The results are also coming around and I predict that I'll soon have a mid-high 4-figure cash to report.

There's a pretty nice group of tournaments in Richmond, BC over Thanksgiving weekend so that's where I'll be while the rest of you are celebrating our slaughter of the Indians. The main event is $2500 CDN and, while I almost made a joke about how the $10 USD tournies on Poker Stars are bigger than that, the Canadian dollar is now sitting at a robust 88% or so and the buy-in is almost $2200 USD. My friends Smokey, Ozzy and Roman are all flying in for the tourney and we'll be staying at Casa de Bushman. His house is pretty insane and I'll be sure to take lots of pictures while I'm up there. I can't wait.

I am also rather amped for my upcoming trip. That's Seattle-Delhi-Singapore-Melbourne-Hanoi-Bangkok-Seattle over 10 weeks if you've forgotten. I sent my passport to the Indian embassy on the 2nd and I hope I get it back soon. I think it was supposed to take about 2 weeks and I hope I filled everything out correctly. I still need to go get shots but I'm pretty lazy. It doesn't look like I'll get scuba certified because apparently there are jellyfish in Australia this time of year and there's no cure. If you get stung, you die. Kind of a buzz-kill.

The jogging has not happened over the past few days and a major storm has hit so I don't know when I'll be able to get out there again. I kinda need to stretch my legs after sitting on my rear playing poker for 10 hours a days. The drive up to Canada is pretty brutal as well...I might have to start riding my bike up there or something.

Last night I learned how to rip DVDs and put them on my new video iPod. The first DVD that I ripped was Chappelle's Show Season 1 and everything went swimmingly. I then tried to rip Reservoir Dogs but it wouldn't work. I just bought Reservoir Dogs so it's possible that they've developed better encryption and DVD Decrypter can't rip it. Does anyone know of a newer/better DVD ripper than DVD Decrypter? Hook a brotha up!

Lastly, if you've been trying to get a hold of me(and who in their right mind wouldn't be trying to get a hold of me) I haven't been answering because my phone was dead and I had no charger. Well, I have a charger now, thanks to Harlow, and you can now call me. I still might not answer because I'm me but I might and that should make you all happy.

I need to get started on my homework so I'm going to leave this post short and sweet. This Saturday should be a great one for College Football. Give me a call if you want to hang out and drink beer while watching the Huskies and Buckeyes kick ass.

Hello

Is there anyone still reading this? It's November 13th and my last post was on October 18th. Yikes.

I'm not sure why I stopped blogging but I can think of a few excuses. Firstly, I can't find my USB cord for my camera and therefore can't share my awesome pictures from Kansas City. Here's one that Jimmy posted on my MySpace page. Women everywhere are getting on their knees for me, even in hostile territory:


I Suck! 

A second reason for failing to blog has been the depressing performance of our beloved Huskies and Seahawks. The Huskies have lost 6 in a row, including a 20-3 debacle to one of the worst teams in the NCAA, the Stanford Cardinal. Good thing they wrapped up win number 4 early or I'd be out $100. P.S. I was once playing a Sports Trivia game with Dave, Renee and Matt and the question was "name a college mascot that isn't an animal" and I yelled "CARDINAL" before someone else came up with some lame answer and they said it didn't count because I didn't specify that I was talking about the tree. I very clearly said "CARDINAL" and not "CARDINALS" but we argued until they convinced me to just have a redo with another question. Frikkin cheaters. I still won. Dominated even.

And the Seahawks were mired in a 1-3 stretch where we lost our starting QB and RB and the defense was giving up 50-60 points every game. Sure, we beat the Raiders in an ugly MNF game but this week we had the Rams coming to town looking to avenge their home defeat last month. I felt like crap about the game until...

NATE BURLESON! That punt return was one of the most exciting plays that I've ever watched and I don't give a crap if he ever catches another pass. He's money well spent in my book and earned every dime of his salary on that one play. Throw in the fact that Scott Linehan is a moron(going for it on 4th and 5 from the 31 when Wilkins is money AND going for it on 4th and inches from the 12 instead of taking the auto-three AND instead of running Stephen Jackson on 4th and inches running a crappy play-action pass to the fullback (YEAH RIGHT!)) and you reach the conclusion that the Hawks OWN the Rams and OWN the division. I'd love to see the Rams try to take us on with their back-up RB and QB. Gus Ferotte + Stephen Davis = yum yum. Anyway, I can't stand the Rams and it feels real good to sweep the season from them.

It looks like next week's Niners game will be surprisingly important and I hope the Hawks are up to the task. The Niners are lurking, only 2 games back and had a nice road victory today. I don't think they'll pose too many problems but I thought we would take care of the Vikings easily too so who knows.

I was pleased with the results of the election but I remain cautiously optimistic. Al wrote on his blog something like, "all we did was replace politicians with politicians". I really hate politics but I hope the message that got across is that people want more honest leaders. Honest politician is kind of an oxymoron but I hope it won't always be like that.

I'm also happy with the results of the local referendums. One initiative that I was happy to see pass is the one that disallows public subsidies for professional sports teams. Basically, it states that the state needs to receive "fair value" for any money that the public puts into a new stadium. Here's an article from the New York Times. My favorite excerpt is: "To many Sonics fans, the rejection of sports financing proves that old, laid-back Seattle has been crushed by elitist Prius-driving do-gooders." Hahahahahaha.

Well, I hope this gets me back on the blogging horse. Over the past month I traveled to San Jose and Foster City to see my Aunt and Dad, went on a great weekend trip to Kansas City(a very underrated city, IMO), hung out with by boy Kento, saw 3 Seahawks games live, went to my Fraternity's annual alumni event AND started jogging. I don't know if the upcoming weeks will be as eventful but I'm going to try to become a better blogger. And I'll fail. And Homer's lesson will come to fruition: "You tried and you tried and you tried but you still failed. What's the lesson? Never try."