In Deutscheland

I've been in Germany for the past few days, hanging out with my brother Cliff. He made it home early from wherever he was and it's been really great having him around. No offense to the other best friends out there but there's really no one else in this world I'd rather spend time with. We got extremely plastered on Tuesday night and the past few days have been pretty slow and laid back. Tonight I'm heading to Mannheim for a Schnekenhof, which is a German college party, and I'm fired up.

I left Italy on Monday and I was really sad to go. Everything about the experience was awesome: the people I met, the food I ate, the things I saw, and of course the friends I got to see. Kristi and Davide, the couple we stayed with, are two of the nicest people you'll ever meet. They cooked for us, showed us around Florence, drove us to the beach, laughed, played and drank with us. They really could not have been better hosts.

On Saturday, we drove out to the beach town of Tonfano and partied it up. The beaches in Tuscany are pretty wack...the entire beach is divided into 20-foot sections, each owned by a different guy, and you have to pay some insane fee to rent space under one of the umbrellas that he has on his stretch of beach. There is no public beach and it creates kind of a lame atmosphere: rich old people lying around getting tan. If you want to see something sad, look up Tonfano, Italy on maps.google.com and put the map on the "satellite" setting. Look at the millions of umbrellas covering the beach and shed a tear for humanity.

Regardless, I had fun playing beach volleyball with Davide and his friends. One of his friends is a member at one of the clubs so it was cheap for us to get in. Afterwards we went to his beach house and started to prefunk for that night out. The high class beach clubs become high class night clubs at night time. We ordered a ton of pizza and bought a bunch of beer and vodka. When the pizza arrived, there were 16 of us and one table that could seat 6-8 people comfortably. I got my pizza and was going to look for somewhere to sit in the living room or wherever but Davide grabbed me a chair and told me to sit at the table. Everyone ended up crowding around this table, eating pizza, drinking beer and chatting about nonsense. The moment really struck me because I know that back home, the scene would never happen. People would break up into small groups all around the house, watch TV, etc. Basically, the whole moment of 16 people crowding around a small table showed the importance of family and dinner time in Italy. I really liked it and the next time I have a pizza and beer party at my house, I'm going to make everyone crowd around my small dining room table and we're going to have real conversations. Word.

Anyway, that just symbolizes the feeling I had during my entire trip. I loved how much the Italians valued their friends and family and they were all kind enough to make me feel like I belonged in that circle. I will be back in Florence soon, that's for sure.

On Saturday, I'm heading to London for one small poker tournament and one big concert featuring Coldplay and Jay Z. I've never seen either act in concert before and I'm really pumped to see them together. I leave London on Wednesday then 4 of my best friends fly into Frankfurt on Friday and we'll embark on the greatest Western European road trip of all time. I can't wait. I'm really missing home but having them around will help with that a lot.

Here are some final pics from Italy. Holler.

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Mi dispiace!

That means "I'm sorry" in Italian. Sorry it's been a few days since the last post. We decided to stay in Florence for longer than anticipated because we're having so much fun with Kristi and Davide. I'm going to miss out on Ljubljana and Croatia and just fly to Germany on Monday. Today we're driving out to a beach town called Viareggio for one night and then, on Sunday, I'm hoping to attend the Fiorentina-Cagliari soccer game. I will have tons of pictures to unload on Sunday night but I just wanted to throw up a quick update before heading to the beach. Go Dawgs!

Buena Notte

This is gonna be a quickie. I just finished watching the US National Team beat Trinidad and Tobago in World Cup qualifying and it's time for bed. Today was an awesome day. Siena was beautiful as always and after a long day that featured a lot of walking, we were treated to a huge home made Sicilian-style dinner. I will let the pics do the talking, life is good. Ciao.

Italian Happy Hour

My first night in Florence was awesome. We went to a bar named Zoe and they have a pretty sweet deal where if you purchase a drink, you get all-you-can-eat from a buffet of different Italian foods. So for 5 Euro I ate 6 plates of pasta and cous cous and bruschetta and salad. Brilliant! The company was really cool too, Davide and Kristi's friends are all really friendly and I enjoyed talking to them about soccer and Italian life and whatnot.

After Happy Hour, where I ended up having 4 or 5 drinks(that's how they get you!), we went to a sweet bar that opens up into a church square. There were people break dancing in the square and the bar crowd was gathered around them, drinking beers and chatting. For most of the night I drank something called a Kir Royale which is Strawberry Cassis mixed with Champagne and is really delicious. I probably had 10 or so on the night and surprisingly, I don't feel awful this morning. Usually that much Champagne really hurts.

Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera last night but hopefully I can steal some pics from Brooke or Stacy and post them later. Today we are going to Siena for the day. I've been there once before but it's a really amazing medieval town and I don't mind visiting again. I'm going to remember my camera so stay tuned for pictures. Holler.

Adios Barca, Buongiorno Firenze!!!

Just a quick post before I head to the airport and try to buy my ticket to Florence. I'm not usually so last-minute about things but there's a non-stop flight that leaves at 3:30 PM and arrives at 5 PM and I've been unable to purchase the ticket over the phone or online. The website seems unable to take credit cards but I talked to someone at the Barcelona airport and they said I can come in today and buy the ticket in person. Wish me luck.

Yesterday was pretty uneventful. I woke up pretty late after being up until 6 AM for a Fantasy Football draft and wandered the city for a while. I hung out with my buddy Tim, who is here getting his MBA, from 6-8 and we talked about cool travels we've done. He's done a ton of great stuff and just came back from Cuba which is a place I want to see really badly. I realllllly want to go before the embargo is lifted and it turns into the Bahamas or whatever. After that, I went out with a bunch of poker media and we drank until 4 AM. Those guys are amazing, I have no idea how they do that every night and then work the next day. Very impressive.

I'm fired up to get back to Florence. It'll be fun staying with locals and having them take us to the best restaurants and whatnot. I'm not sure what the Internet situation will be but I'll try my best to update when I can. Here are some random Barcelona pics I took yesterday, hope you enjoy them. Peace.

Busto in Barca

Today was one of the more painful poker days in recent memory. I lost a huge pot early with AA against AK and then just blinded out the rest of the day, folding hand after hand for 6 hours. My table was extremely loose and aggressive and I just couldn't find a single decent hand. I ended up finishing around 90th place with 72 getting paid. Blah.

Sometimes when I'm card dead, I try to change the music that I'm listening to in hopes that it'll change the card karma that I'm receiving. Today I listened to:

Kings of Leon - Aha Shake Heartbreak
Thursday - Full Collapse
Taking Back Sunday - Tell All Your Friends
Hot Hot Heat - Make Up the Breakdown
Taylor Swift - Fearless
Jimmy Eat World - Futures
Rise Against - Siren Song of the Counter Culture
Weezer - Blue Album

I lost the AA hand while listening to the KoL CD so that's never getting played again. Hot Hot Heat is my go-to CD when I need a good rush of cards but even that failed. I was really calm while listening to Taylor and JEW and that felt nice. Rise Against came out once I got under 20 BBs and I ultimately busted to Weezer. I think I need to listen to more Rap while I play poker, maybe that'll help. On day 1, my iPod was dead so I just wore my headphones for the noise-canceling feature since it was so loud in the Casino. Maybe I'll give that another shot.

After busting, I came back to my room to shower and I noticed that a big $215 WCOOP Tournament was starting on PokerStars so I logged in and started playing. That was a huge mistake because I'm tired and tilted and I am playing terribly. I really just want to go out on the town but I think I'm going to stay in tonight and hit it hard tomorrow. My buddy Tim is going to Business School here in Barcelona and he flies back from summer break tomorrow. Hopefully he knows where to go on Monday nights and I'll have some good stories and pics for the next blog.

On Tuesday, I'm flying to Florence to hang out with my friends from school, Stacy and Brooke. We're all staying with our friend Kristi who came to Italy 4 years ago as an exchange student and never left. She lives with her boyfriend, Davide, who is one of the nicest people I've ever met. I'm really stoked for the 3 days we're going to spend there. Male readers, stay tuned for pics as these are some of the prettiest gals I know.

After Florence, things are up in the air. We might go to Ljubljana, Slovenia but there is also talk of visiting some of Stacy's cousins in Austria. If they end up doing that, I might just head to Germany to chill for a week before heading to London for more poker. I'd really like to see Slovenia and head into Croatia but it's their trip and I'm just tagging along for a while. Anyway, that's the latest. The next post should have pretty pictures and entertaining anecdotes. Holler.

Loving Life in Barcelona

I gotta say, it's been a good couple of days. In the tournament today I ran hot and feel like I played pretty well, ending up with 135,000 chips, good for about 20th out of the remaining 250 or so players. Nearly 500 started and there's a long way to go but I'm feeling pretty good.


Purple Euros are so gangster.

My buddy Howard did a little write-up about me in the Pokerstars Blog and a beautiful woman named Rebecca, who I just met today, interviewed me for Card Player during the second break. It's good to have friends in the media!

Yesterday ended up being a pretty epic day. Around 7 PM I met my buddy Matt at his hotel and we went to my favorite tapas place, called Txapela.



The food, location, and sangria are all primo at Txapela. The octopus and squid dishes were amazing and the Prawn, Bacon and Mushroom tapas might be my favorite thing of all time.












Matt and I ate a ton of these tapas, drank 3 pitches of sangria, and the bill ended up being 42 Euro. Matt lost the credit card roulette and the only thing better than tapas and sangria is FREE tapas and sangria. Thanks, Matt!

From Txapela we took a cab back to my hotel and drank some wine while trying figure out how I could get money to buy into the tournament. I talked to my buddy Jason Mercier and he had some extras so we went over to his hotel to pick them up. He was grinding with a friend and much to my delight, they were bumping Taylor Swift in the room. If you haven't heard the Fearless CD, you're really missing out. Brilliant stuff.

Anyway, after finishing the bottle of wine, we somehow ended up in Jon "Fatal Error" Aguiar's room where I acted like an ass for a while and ultimately passed out on the floor. He woke me up at about 1:30 AM and told me he was going to the club to meet some girls from his hometown of Boston. I was in the mood to party so I decided to shake the sleep out of my eyes and join him. We went to an awesome club called Razzmatazz which is a giant warehouse with 6 or 7 different rooms all playing different types of music. The cover ended up being 15 Euro because there was a live band and the girls were pretty upset about that. Luckily the 15 Euro also got you a free Red Bull and Vodka and once I bought a round of tequila, we were all best friends. The girls ended up being really cool and we had a blast. We stayed in the main room for most of the night where the live band was playing and I did my usual dance around and go crazy act. Finally, around 4:30 it was time for bed. Here are some pics.



Spanish Girls <3





Boston Girls <3





I woke up at 11 AM this morning fresh as a daisy and went to the Casino to register for the tourney. I feel like the key to conquering jet lag is to get a good 6 or 7 hours of drunk sleep on the night you arrive and you'll be golden from there on out. Holler!

The tournament starts again at 12:30 PM tomorrow, check the PokerStars Blog and Cardplayer pages for updates and please send good vibes. I'm going to end with a random picture from last night where God only knows what I was thinking. 3 Kilos of Nestle Quik!

Brandon está muy cansado

Well I made it to Barcelona safely and without major incident. I am, however, extremely tired and would love to crash hard. Instead, I'm going to head out for dinner and drinks and try to stay up until 11 or 12 tonight. That's the best way to avoid jet lag, crashing at 6 PM would do me no good.

I forgot to mention that part of the reason I passed on the $600 Business Class upgrade is the fact that I got a sweet Exit Row seat in economy. I had my legs fully extended the whole plane ride and it was glorious!





I think you get the point. My neighbor looked at me funnily as I took pictures of my stretched out legs but I don't really care. The Barcelona Airport was really dead when I got there, surprising for a Friday afternoon.



My hotel room is really sweet. I booked it on Hotwire and at 80 Euros it's a freaking steal. It's called the H10 Marina and it's about 10 minutes walking from the Casino. I'm going to post a few images and then get out of here. Tapas and Sangria are calling my name.







Next time, I'll have something more exciting. Holla!

Barcelona Bound

I'm sitting at Gate S11 in the beautiful Seattle-Tacoma airport and I'm feeling a giddiness that I haven't felt in a while. Maybe it's because I haven't been abroad since May, which is a really long stretch for me. At any rate, I have a feeling that this is gonna be a great trip.

The trip will look loosely like this:

9/4-9/8: Barcelona
9/8-9/10: Florence
9/10-9/11: Ljubljana
9/11-9/13: Zagreb
9/13-9/15: Budapest
9/15-9/17: Frankfurt
9/17-9/24: London
9/25: Four friends arrive in Frankfurt
9/26: Cannstatter Volksfest in Stuttgart
9/27-9/28: Munich for Oktoberfest
9/29-9/30: Prague
10/1: Wiesbaden
10/2: Rhein River Cruise
10/3-10/10: Road Trip through Cologne, Amsterdam, Belgium, Paris, Luxembourg, and Kaiserslautern.

I will try really hard to keep this updated and keep it fresh with pics and whatnot. If you want to keep tabs on me, check back often! The more comments I receive, the more likely I am to keep blogging...I'm kind of attention whorish like that.

Anyway, I'm boarding the mighty Lufthansa 491 from Seattle to Frankfurt in 20 minutes. I've flown this flight a million times and it's a relatively painless 10 hours. They offered me an upgrade to Business Class for $600 and even though Business Class is heavenly, times are tough. Using the "a penny saved is a penny earned" mantra, I will be earning $60/hour while roughing it out in economy class. Not a bad wage in this day and age.

I'll holler back once I'm in Barcelona and will have a few pics. For now, I'll leave you with the song I've been listening to all day.

Sometimes I feel like I'm in Barcelona...see anytime I hear this tune I just start drifting awayyyyy...and all I wanna do is go back.

Phoenix

Phoenix has been a blast. I'm staying with my friends, Josh and Emily, and they're great people to hang out with. They're both really kind people at heart but they aren't afraid to speak their minds about any topic and I really respect that about people. I've lost the only 2 credit card roulettes of the trip, including a 9-person meal at Benihanas but even that can't dampen my spirits. It's been 70 degrees with clear skies and I'm understanding why so many people flock here. 38 degrees and rainy in Seattle or 70 and sunny in Scottsdale? I was even motivated to take a quick jog around the neighborhood today since it seemed criminal to be sitting inside with weather like this. I'm coming back in late February for Spring Training and I'm really looking forward to it.

Tomorrow we're flying to San Diego for New Years Eve. I'm not sure what we have planned but I'm sure it'll be great just because of the crew that will be there. I'm going to try to take a lot of pictures but I'm really the worst ever at taking pictures. I just get lost in my experiences and never think to pull out my camera. A big effort will be made tomorrow and maybe the next post will have pictures. Happy New Year, everyone.

Yo!

This post is dedicated to Nancy Martin. Most people gave up on me a long time ago but she sent me an email yesterday urging me to revive the blog as a New Years resolution. She's on my case every single time that I see her and the persistence is finally going to pay off. Thanks, Nancy.

I also have to apologize to my friends in the Blogger community. I don't know why but ever since the death of my blog, I felt like I couldn't be a part of your community anymore. I deleted my Bloglines bookmark and haven't read about your amazing lives in years. I've missed Al's last two birthday bashes and have been a huge ass about it. I didn't RSPV with a No or anything, I just acted like that world didn't exist. I don't know why I reacted like that but I am truly sorry. The part that makes it even more brutal is that every time I see guys like Otis or Pauly or talk to someone like Spaceman or The Rooster, they have nothing but love for me. It's unreal that I could act like such a D-Bag and have these guys still be so great. I saw Al in Vegas on day 1 of the WSOP this year, after nearly a year of failed contact with the man, and he was all smiles, happy to see me and genuinely wished me the best of luck. I don't know how I would have acted in Al's spot but I know I wouldn't have been such a big man. Thanks to all you guys and I'm really going to try to be a better friend in the future.

Since my last post, about 15 months ago, not a whole lot has changed. I'm still traveling as much as I can, still drinking too much, still "living" in Seattle for 3 months a year and still trying to make a living with this poker stuff. Games are tougher but I have minimal bills and have still been able to earn my travel/drinking money with poker funds. I am currently working on purchasing my childhood home from my Dad and I will get that completed in January once I get home from my next trip. Let's talk about the trip!

For those of you who don't like to read, here's a Cliff's Notes breakdown of my trip:

12/29-31: Phoenix
12/31 - 1/1: San Diego
1/1-4: LA and Orange Counties
1/4-1/10: PCA
1/10-1/16: Philly
1/16-1/19: NYC
1/19-1/21: Washington DC

Tomorrow morning I'm flying to Phoenix to hang out with some poker friends. I'm staying with Josh and Emily for 2 nights before flying to San Diego on the 31st. I'm going to spend NYE in San Diego before heading up the coast to LA to see some college friends. I'm going to try to get up there early on the 1st and see if I can get tickets to the Penn State-USC Rose Bowl. I went to the Rose Bowl in 2001 when my beloved UW Huskies beat up on Purdue and it's still one of my favorite memories. I think it would be fun to watch USC get pummeled and I will try my best to make it to the game. I'll be in SoCal until January 4th when I fly to the Bahamas for the PokerStars Carribean Adventure. I always end up hating the Atlantis by the time I leave but, for now, I'm really stoked for the trip and the tournament. On January 10th, I'm flying to Newark and will be in Philadelphia for almost a week, hanging out with my friend Mike and his mom Nancy, the driving force behind this blog post. On the 16th, I'm heading up to New York to visit with some friends who are flying East for President Obama's Inaguration. We're going to spend the weekend in the city and then head to DC on January 19th and party during the Inaguration on the 20th. On the 21st, we are flying back to Seattle out of Newark. So, if anyone out there is still reading this and will be in any of those cities at any of those times, let me know and we'll get a drink or five. Holla!

I'm hoping that the blog from now on will consist of trip reports of debauchery and everyone will be entertained with my shenanigans. I'd love nothing more than to get this puppy rolling again so please wish me luck. Hope to see you again tomorrow.

Yo

Hey y'all. If you're still reading this, you're really dedicated. Bless you, child.

I'm in London for the European World Series of Poker, or E-WSOP for short. This is the biggest buy-in that I've ever played and might be the toughest field that I've ever played against. I start tomorrow and at my table are two tough Scandinavian pros, a very good 2+2er that I spent all day with today, and 4 other players that look pretty good. One of the Scandinavians is Patrik Antonius, arguably the best player in the world. The other is Lars Bonding, a successful tourney pro that is known for being very aggressive. Sadly, he's in seat 8 and I'm in seat 7 so I might be playing pretty tight for a while. Anyway, the best updates can be found at these two websites:

http://www.pokernews.com/live-reporting/2007-wsop-europe/wsope-main-event/
http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/

They might actually be running the same updates but if not, definitely go with PokerNews. They employ Pauly and Change100, two of the best tournament reporters out there and they'll definitely be on top of everything. Wish me luck!

In sports news, the Mariners have imploded. There's still time to turn things around but it looks really bleak. However, IT'S FOOTBALL SEASON!!! There won't be many Mondays where I can post after TWO big wins from my teams in Seattle so I have to take advantage of it this week. Boise State 14-game win streak? OVER. GO DAWGS!!! Obviously the Seahawks won and it's nice to get a good game out of Shaun. I love Mr. Hasselbeck and I know he'll be good so if the run game holds up its end, I think we're going to be good this year. Go. Hawks.

Soon, I'll put up a better post about traveling and whatnot but I'm going to bed for now. Holla.

Deep

I made it pretty far in the $5K NL on Wednesday, busting a little before midnight. It was my second straight long say and I woke up on Thursday morning feeling like crap. I decided to skip the $5K Bellagio event and hang out at the house, recharging my batteries. Evidently it worked since I made Day 2 of the $2K NL. I'm 5th in chips out of the remaining 130 players and we restart today at 3 PM. I have 151,200 chips and the blinds are at 1K/2K with a 300 ante. Pokernews.com is the best place for updates. Pauly is doing the love updates and he'll definitely be on the ball. Here's an article about the tournament thus far: http://tinyurl.com/2hnze8

As you can see, the jafro is making a comeback. If I make a final table I think I'm going to have to pull out the weedwacker and get it trimmed down a bit. Anyway, send your good vibes and I'm confident that I can make this final table. Holla.

HOLLA!!!!

Step 1: Post a blog entry bitching about running bad.
Step 2: Run good in the next tournament you enter.
Step 3: Profit!

I won my first table today in the 1500 NL Shootout. The 90 winners come back at 9 PM for the second round and the 9 winners of those tables advance to the final table tomorrow. 90th through 10th places all get $6,757, 9th gets $9,828 and the eventual winner gets $264,107. Tournaments are so ridiculous.

Anyway, it feels good to cash but I'm obviously not totally satisfied with the result. The best place to check for updates on round two is PokerNews.com and we'll be starting at 9 PM. Wish me luck!

Blech

29,000 chips at the dinner break. We'll have about 30 minutes left in the 300/600 level when we come back at 9 PM. My table is easily the toughest that I've ever been at in my life. Let's try to pick up some hands, eh?

Runnin' Good

35,650 at the second break. Had a nice suckout for a 24K pot. My table is pretty tough...good loose players on my left with a lot of chips. I'm playing pretty tight and hopefully I'll find a hand to win a big pot off these mofos. David Benyamine is the only name at the table but everyone seems pretty good. Peace.

5,000 NL

right around 20K at the first break. last hand I defended my SB to a LP 325 raise with 77 and check-called his 450 flop bet on a 422 flop. the turn was a 7, a decent card for my hand. I led for 1100, he raised, and we got the rest of his 9K in there. AA no good, sir. Let's hope I keep turning sets against overpairs. Holla.

break time

I have 57,000 at the break. There are 7 left so the average is around 43,000. I don't think I'm playing very well and I think I could be at 80K if I were playing perfectly. I'm going to come back more focused and hopefully take this one down. Erick Lindgren and Nam Le's brother seem to be the only tough spots at the table. wish me luck.

Running Good

I have 13,775 at the first break. 7 left and everyone else has between 1000 and 3500. blinds are going up to 100/200 so I think I'm a decent favorite to win this table. Wish me luck.

WSOP

Yes, I know. It seems like half of my bog entries start with some sort of apology for not blogging very much.

Poker has gone pretty poorly so far and I haven't had much to write home about. I've entered 7 tournaments and have cashed zero times. I've made exactly one dinner break and failed to ever get above my starting stack in a whopping five out of seven tourneys. It's been pretty gross. I think I'm playing well and I'm getting better every day so I'm not panicking yet. The weird thing about tournaments is that I can go deep in just 1 of 25 and still make a lot of money. Anyway, I took the weekend off and came in to today planning on playing really good and breaking the slump. It wasn't to be but I'm planning on typing up reports of my tourneys from now on to make sure that I'm not leaking too badly. Here's my write-up for today:

First hand of the tournament. MP limps, I limp on the button with J9o, SB completes and BB checks. Flop is KQT with 2 spades, MP bets 100, I raise to 350 and he calls pretty quickly. Turn is an offsuit 6 and he check-calls a 775 bet into the 900 chip pot. The river is the 2s and he leads for 1000. I call pretty fast, deciding that I'm never ever finding a fold and he obviously has A2ss for the nuts. One hand and I'm down to 2825 chips.

I splash around for a bit and chip back up to almost 5000 chips. Memorable hands include:

I raise QJs to 150 in EP. Annie Duke calls, as do the button and BB. KJJ flop and I bet 400. Annie calls very quickly and the others fold. The turn is a brick and I bet 1000, leaving myself with about 1600 behind. She thinks for a few seconds then folds. I feel like 800 may have been a better amount but I don't really like checking.

I raise to 150 with 55 in EP and both blinds call. The flop is Q86, I bet 350 and only the BB calls. The turn is a 3, the BB checks and I bet 1000 chips. He asks how much I have left, about 2200, dwells for a bit, then folds.

Blinds up to 50/100. UTG+1 limps, I raise to 400 in MP with AJo, guy directly to my left coldcalls the raise and the SB makes it 1150 total. UTG+1 thinks for a while then calls 1050 more. I fold and the guy behind me calls. Flop KJJ again, SB check-calls 1K from UTG+1, turn goes check-check, then UTG+1 calls a 1K river bet. AA for BB, QQ for UTG+1. Why can't I just play bad here?

Same QQ guy limps, Bushman limps on my right, I raise to 600 with 99, 3500 behind or so. UTG calls immediately and Bushman folds. Flop is 863r, and QQ guy check-folds to my 1100 chip bet. Bush informs me that he folded 88, lol.

Now comes the second big pot of the tourney. I open in MP to 300 with red Queens. Guy to my left calls and the Laggy donk in the BB calls. The flop is JJ7 with 2 hearts, I bet 650 and the BB asks how big the bet is then calls pretty quickly. The turn is an offsuit 9, he checks and I decide to check behind. This guy is cabaple of c/ring with a heart draw or some sort of T9/89 hand and I figure I'll still get money out of his 7s on the river. The river is another J for a final board of JJ79J. He fires 1500 and I think for about 30 seconds whether or not he'd call a shove with a 7. I have 2450 behind. I decide that it's a bad spot since his most likely hands are a Jack or a missed heart draw. I call and he obviously has Jc3c.

The table breaks and I'm moved to a tight table. I fold every hand until the break and I'm down to 2200 chips. First hand back from break, loosish dude limps in MP. This is never any sort of good hand. Jeff Madsen limps on the button and I look down at A9cc in the SB. I think it's a pretty easy shove and I stick in my final 2100. Now the BB tanks for a bit and calls the 2000 more. Limper and Madsen quickly fold and I can't beat AQ. GG.

Despite the poor start, I'm actually really enjoying living in my house and having the opportunity to talk to my roommates about poker. They're all really great players and are excellent at explaining hands. Steve Billirakis won the first event of the WSOP for $538K and became the youngest bracelet winner ever at 21 years and 10 days. That'll definitely be a tough record to beat. Another roommate, Justin Bonomo, finished 4th in one of the tournaments and cashed for over $150K. There are only 4 of us playing at the WSOP so Chris Bush and I definitely hope that our turn for a 6-figure cash is coming up. The sick part about the house is that the two 19 year-olds, Ozzy and Roman, are both amazing players in their own rights and have helped me as much as anyone. I'm so ready to go deep in one of these bad boys.

I tried to figure out a schedule for every day coming up and here's what it looks like:

6/12: Event 21, 1500 NL Shootout
6/13: Event 22, 5000 NL
6/14: Bellagio Cup Event 4, 5000+180 NL
6/15: Event 25, 2000 NL
6/16: Event 27, 1500 NL
6/17: Event 28, 3000 NL
6/18: Event 30, 2500 NL/6-handed
6/19: Bellagio Cup Event 9, 2500+120 NL
6/20: Bellagio Cup Event 10, 5000+180 NL
6/21: Event 35, 1500 NL
6/22: Event 37, 2000 PL
6/23: Event 38, 1500 NL
6/24: Event 40, 1500 Mixed HE
6/25: Bellagio Cup Event 15, 1500+90 NL
6/26: Bellagio Cup Event 16, 2500+120 NL
6/27: Bellagio Cup Event 17, 5000+180 NL
6/28: Event 45, 5000 NL 6-handed
6/29: Event 47, 2000 NL
6/30: Event 49, 1500 NL
7/1: Bellagio Cup Event 21, 2500+120 NL
7/2: Event 52, 1000 NL with rebuys
7/3: Bellagio Cup Event 23, 2500+120 NL
7/4: Bellagio Cup Event 24, 5000+180 NL
7/5: Bellagio Cup Event 25, 5000+180 NL
7/6: Event 55, 10000 NL, MAIN EVENT!!!

I'm already $18K in the red and there are over $70K worth of tournaments left on this schedule. I'll probably(hopefully) make a few Day 2s and will probably(definitely) take a few days off for my sanity. Anyway, I'm going to try to blog daily from now on and I'll even post updates from my cellphone if good things are happening throughout the day. Obviously my next post will really be in a month but I feel like making outrageous promises.

Anyway, if you don't really care about poker, rest assured that I'm doing fine. I love the guys in my house and we're getting along really well. Hiring a cook was one of the best ideas that we've ever had. If you're reading this, please come and visit me soon. I usually only play from noon until 1 or 2 PM and then have the rest of the afternoon off so we'll definitely be able to kick it if you make it down here. Check out Chris' blog if you want proof of the awesomeness of what's going on down here. I was planning on writing more and possibly posting some pictures of my own but it's getting late and I'm tired. Peace.