A Profitable Day,

I decided to make a blog entry because my slump really seems to be over. Last Sunday, I ended my non-cash streak, but it was still a losing day for me. Yesterday, on March 29, 2007, I cashed in two of five tournaments, which is a very good in the money rate (40%!!!!!!!!!!!). The only bad news was that my cashes came in two of the smaller buy in events that I played. I lost the UB $129 bounty tournament and the nightly $100k Pokerstars tournament (bluffed off all my chips into the nuts lol), as well as a $27.5 Pokerstars freezeout which I basically bubbled. I did manage to go pretty deep in the other two tournaments that I played, which were the $20r and $3r on Pokerstars. In the $3r, I got 24th for around $72 and in the $20r I got 14th for $439. So I only made like $75, but it was just another good confidence boost for me. I just bought some videos from nextsteppoker.com, and in my personal opinion, they have really helped. The instructor, whose name is Nick, goes by the online name of Madagenda, and is very knowledgable. He really stresses reading hands and playing tight, agressive. I decided I would try his methods and they have been working great. I realize that I'm not as good as these online pros (yet!) who all play the loose, aggressive style, so rather than trying to be egotistical and pretending I can compete with these guys, I have been playing smaller buy-in/larger sized tournaments where the field is less skilled. So until I feel my game is where it needs to be, I am going to continue trying to grind out some of these sub $100 buy in tournaments and rebuy tournaments until I feel I am ready and adequately bankrolled for the larger buy-ins. I will still continue to play the Sunady majors, as I do feel there is enough dead money in those tournaments to be profitable. Hopefully my next post is one of my describing even more success to go with the recent turn around!

Sunday Poker 3/25/07

Well, this was my first Sunday poker showing in the last three or four weeks, and there were some positives and negatives to point out. The biggest positive of the day was that I broke my non-cash slump (not sure how many consecutive tournaments) and was able to cash in two tournaments! Unfortunately, this was more or less a double edged sword as I played improperly to make these cashes. Rather than using proper stack size poker, I allowed myself to be whittled down in the process of making the money, and essentially making it much harder (much greater amount of luck necessary) to win the tournament. Overall though, I feel these cashes are a good confidence boost and will hopefully be a catalyst to further success. Here are my results:

1) Poker Stars Warm Up

Investment: -$215

Winnings: $0
Net: -$215
Cumulative: -$215

2) UB 200k Guaranteed
Investment: -$215
Winnings: $0
Net: -$215
Cumulative: -$430

3) FTP $400k Guaranteed
Investment: -$216
Winnings: $393

Net: +177

Cumulative: -$253

4) Pokerstars $100 Freeze out
Investment: -$109
Winnings: $146
Net: +$37
Cumulative: -$216

5) Pokerstars Satellite
Investment: -$80

Winnings: $0
Net: -$80
Cumulative: -$296

6) Pokerstars $22 Freeze out
Investment: -$22
Winnings: $0
Net: -$22
Cumulative: -$318

7) Pokerstars Sng
Investment: -$55

Winnings: $0
Net: -$55

Cumulative: -$373

8) Pokerstars $27 Freeze out
Investment: -$27

Winnings: $0
Net: -$27
Cumulative: -$400

9) Pokerstars $55
Investment: -$55

Winnings: $0
Net: -$55
Cumulative: -$455

10) UB $100 Freeze out
Investment: -$100

Winnings: $0
Net: -$100
Cumulative: -$555

Total Tournaments: 10

Cashes: 2

ITM Rate: 20%
Total Investment: -$1094
Total Winnings: $539
Net: -$555

As a side note, I did manage to make another $400 yesterday. My younger brother made it deep into the Stars Warm-up but had to leave for more important things. I took over for him with agreement that I got 40% of any extra money I made him. I managed to take his 10BB stack at the time and was able to work with it, making him an extra two money levels and $1000 with a 17^th place finish. This tournament was very fun and intense for me, as I got to experience the feeling of being deep in a major tourney, which is something I have not felt in a while. After saying that, I can’t even imagine how good it would feel if that were MY tournament, so let’s hope we can make that possible next Sunday.

European Excursion

Well it has been a long time since I’ve posted, and that isn’t the way I wanted to start off my blog, but hopefully I will be able to keep up with it better in the future. I do have a small excuse though, and it is that I have been traveling non-stop for about a month, most of which has been in Europe with limited internet access. Now let’s summarize my month of March so far.

Believe it or not, I was not out of the country playing an EPT event or anything, but I was doing something much better: visiting my lovely girlfriend in Seville, Spain (where she is studying abroad for the semester) and going on mini vacations with her to the Canary Islands and Ireland! For those of you who have never been to Europe, I highly recommend it. My Spanish is a lot weaker than my prime high school days, but Lauren knows quite a bit and was able to handle any conversations that were above my head (like all of them). Europe’s history is so much deeper than that of the United States and it was very interesting to witness that, but one of my favorite things was the food. In Spain, they have a style of cuisine known as tapas. These are essentially smaller portions of the main meals, which means you can order like three or four of them and basically experience three or four meals the restaurant has to offer! They also have paella, which is a rice based meal, and then you can add seafood, meat, or vegetables (we added all three) and it is extremely tasty. As for our side excursions, the Canary Islands was our first trip, but the one full day we had there was cloudy, so we didn’t get much sun, but Seville has been in the mid – 70’s and sunny all week so it has more than made up for it. Probably the highlight of my trip, besides spending time with my girlfriend, was going to Ireland during St. Patrick’s Day! Ireland may be my favorite place on Earth right now, even though the weather sucks. It was absolutely nuts on St. Patrick’s day with a huge parade that left the streets packed and turned the pubs into a large people sandwich. It would literally take ten or fifteen minutes to exit a pub because there was so little room to move. Also, for anyone that knows me, I love trying new beers, especially non-american ones, and Europe was perfect for that. European beer is so much smoother and full of taste when compared to the best American beers. If anyone else shares these views, I recommend having a Murphy’s Irish Red – just don’t be thrown off by it reddish tint!

All in all, this trip was great for expanding my view of the world. It’s just very interesting to compare the way other people live and do things to those in America. Even though I have been dying to play some poker, I feel it is a good thing to get away from it now and then to clear the head and hopefully get rid of some bad habits, so what better way to get away then to go to Europe. But I will be back in the States for 5 weeks so look for a big end of March and April from me, as I will be trying to play some high volume poker to try and get ready for the World Series!