I'm lazy as hell so I'll just post this link:
www.pokerstarsblog.com/2008/11/vip-club-liu-snags-car-with-fpp.html

In other news, I'm on New York City right now! I came originally for my friend Andy's birthday party, but missed it in style as our great nation's airports screwed me over yet AGAIN by pushing my flight back a whole day. I ended up arriving a day later, and chilling with some other poker buddies that came (Clay-MezmerizePLZ and Bob-Bigbobm). I've also been visiting with a lot of friends from college and high school who live in the city and in NJ, and its been a great time catching up.

Today, I went to a Duke basketball game at Madison Square Garden. Things started out slow with us making a ton of mistakes over and over and over again, but somehow we were still ahead because the team we were playing, Southern Illinois, was playing even WORSE. In the second half though, we managed to pull ahead and ended up raping them, beating them by 35 points. w00t! We play UMich tomorrow, who pulled a surprising upset win over UCLA. I was with some friends from UCLA, so I feel sad for them (and also sad for myself because I can't bet on a Duke vs UCLA game now, which would've been REALLY exciting). It's 3oclock here in the AM, so I better get to bed so I have energy for tomorrow.

I'm so incredibly happy right now. Every time this man speaks, it warms my heart. I hope he does good for this country :).

I just got done playing two majors in Las Vegas--the $15k bellagio event and the $10k cesars palace classic. I didn't cash in either of these events despite making it deep, but I still profited! For the Bellagio event, I swapped 5% with Elky, who went on to win it, winning me $71k. For the Cesars event, I swapped 5% with Hevad Khan, who went on to win as well winning me $50k. Two conclusions can be made from this: my friends are good poker players, and my money runs really really good! It's also interesting that I swapped with these 2 guys for EPT London, so maybe its the combination of all 3 of us that actually run well, who knows!
I've also been doing pretty well online, taking some shots at the Railheaven/Gusheaven games and taking pieces of others who play it. It's a swinging stressful game, but hopefully I'll continue running okay in it.
Lately I've been eating very healthy and hitting the gym regularly. I'm pretty happy with the results, and hope to continue getting back in shape.
I think my next stop is either going to be Foxwoods or home back to San Francisco. I really want to spend more time at home, but Foxwoods is calling me...who knows ;). I'll go where the wind takes me.

I'm finally home again, after spending nearly a month in Londontown. The city was great, and the supposed "flaws" about it (weather and food) weren't flaws at all. I thought the Indian food was simply excellent, the weather was better than I expected, and everything positive--the tourist destinations, the pubs, the women, were definitely at par.

For the last week of my stay, I played on a TV show called "Pokerheaven European Cash Game", which was a 25/50 Euro, 10k buyin game. I expected the game to have a lot of straddling, but people truly were playing really wild: a few times the pot was triple straddled to 400! Anyways, there were a lot of really good players on the show, but I decided to not take any of their shit and run really really good, coming away with about 70k euros in profit. Having been the biggest winner, they awarded me with a trophy! The show airs in a few months (not sure when) on the Poker Channel in Europe and possibly SKY Sports and CNBC Europe.

So anyways, that was 2 days ago and now I'm home. I recently replaced the clutch for my car, and now the thing is way too tight. This means my car dies a lot when I try to start it, which is really bad news bears considering the number of really steep hills in the Bay area. Therefore, I'm considering buying a Range Rover, which will be my biggest and most spewy purchase (thats not an investment) up to date.

Finally, now that I'm home I get to put in some hours on my desktop, and most importantly, I get to start on my new video series. I hope you guys are looking forward to it :).

So, London is pretty cool city. First off, I had my birthday on the 29th of September, one of my friends here had a birthday on the 28th of September and yet ANOTHER one just had her birthday as well. Needless to say, there was a lot of going out at night. Unfortunally I'm such a fish at life that I could never fully adjust to the jetlag, so every time we went out to drink, I always ended the night way too tired and falling asleep everywhere. The typical night would be:

1) go out with friends to get dinner

2) go to a bar for a pint of cider w/ friends and start the night

3) finish the night 15 minutes and one pint later deathly tired and ready to go home

Anyways, since I'm such a fish at life I figure I should make up for it by being good at something, so I got 4th in EPT London! The tournament started off on a low note for me: having busted WSOPE before dinner break on Day 1 and going on a MAJOR $400k downswing at 25/50, I started Day 1 of the EPT without too many high hopes. My fears were quickly confirmed as my starting stack dwindled from 10k in chips to about 3k at the 50/100 level for 30bbs. However, I managed to hero it up and won a bunch of small pots and won a crucial 1010 vs AK allin preflop to finish the day with 52k in chips.

On Day 2 I chipped up in a similar manner, and won a very key hand from the big blind against small blind's AA. I won with K3 of diamonds on a Jd109d board, with the 6d falling on the turn and a blank card falling on the river. On Day 3 I was admittedly getting butterflies in my stomach as this is the first time in a very long time I felt like I could score big. I concentrated really hard and I think I played really well on Day 3, making no more than 2 mistakes (mistakes that my tournament stakee Steve and Evan lectured me on). The unfortunate thing was, I could never win an allin preflop as I lost A5 vs KQ, 88 vs KJ, and A9 vs Q10, but things turned around eventually as I won AJ vs JJ allin pre and KK vs A2 allin pre. The last hand of the day was when I knocked out my friend and fellow liquidpoker member Erik Sjodin when he shipped AJo and I woke up with KK on the button. GG buddy :(

Day 4, otherwise known as the Final Table day started off well but ended up pretty crappy. I started off chipping up well again, and had to dodge a sick bullet when i got allin preflop w/ AKo against AK of clubs. The flop came Jc3c3 leaving me absolutely crying. Good thing the turn and river blanked out O_O. The next allin preflop I got into was AQ vs 1010, which I lost. I then proceeded to see a few flops and took some pots that way including flopping 2 pair with 89 and felt very confident. The 2 hands that really broke me were as follows:

1) I raised A10hh on the button 4 handed and the flop came K78 rainbow after getting flatted in the big blind. I checked behind after he checked figuring I could take it on the turn if he checks again. the turn is a Qh bringing 2 hearts and giving me an overcard, gutshot straight draw and nutflush draw. He checked to me and I bet, and he instantly checkraised me allin. Thinking he probably has worse draws here some of the time and I have a ton of outs, I called. He had K10o and played it very well.

2) The blinds were so high at this point that I was second in chips w/ 20 big blinds effective stacks. I reraised allin with A6 of clubs against an open raise trying to win the massive amount of chips in the middle, only to run into the worst possible hand he can call with (AA! :(). Unfortunately I did not win, and a few hands later busted shoving J10o after Michael Martin woke up with A9o in the big blind and finished in 4th.

The winner of this tournament, Michael Martin, at one point was down to 1.2 bbs! In one of the sickest comebacks I've ever seen, he then proceeded to win the next 4 huge pots to instantly gain the chiplead and win the tournament. Definitely one of the best tournament players in the world, Michael has 2 EPT final tables under his belt with this being the 3rd. He definitely deserves the win, as he is a great player. 3rd time's the charm ;).

I just watched this film, and I strongly urge everyone to watch it as well:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-594683847743189197

I was aware of some of the claims made by this movie, but it certainly opened my eyes to many more possibilities. Presently I am not sure what to think, because I've always taken everything I watch or read with skepticism, but after looking through the official website and Q&A, the author appears to have a comprehensive response to most of the questions and fights doubt with a saturation of sources for each of his claims. Part II comes out in October, and I'm eagerly awaiting it. Admittedly my outlook on the world has been altered by this film but the thing I feel the most is selfish helplessness. If all of what is said is TRUE, what are we as normal citizens in the world to do? How do we as pawns escape the chessboard of life? This is something to ponder for sure...

edit: here's a pretty good news article to put things into perspective that really verbalizes my views quite well:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=309650

In other news, I arrived in london on the 21st. I'm staying with a group of friends, and because I've been running quite bad for the last month (-$150k below allin EV at 10/20, 25/50) I've been having spurts of playing a lot, and long periods of rest when I've had a bad day. Lately I've been resting, and I hope to do well in the WSOPE Main Event but I'm certainly not counting on it with the way I've been running. Oh well, life goes on, and there are certainly more important things to think about.

Hey all, I'm taking suggestions for what my next video series should be. I'm trying to choose, from order of most favored to least favored, between NL HU, NL 6max, PLO 6max, PLO HU, NL FR. Your suggestions and preferences are most important though--after all you are the viewers :). Please leave suggestions in the comments section. Thanks!

Lately I've been generally running on the bad side with a ton of people sucking out on me or coolering me. However, yesterday I played in a $50/100 game with a massive fish named artur69 playing about 90/1. With him in the game it was already juicy enough, but to add to it buck99 who's usually a good LAG player was tilting like a mofo. Added with running really good for that short while I was able to run up a $135k stack at one of the deep tables. The game truly was epic as well, with over 50 people on the waitlist when it finally broke. Some notable hands:

http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/522691-nice flop call by the fish

http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/522812-buck titling

http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/522825-more buck tilt

There were also a ton of hands where I just valuetowned the shit out of the fish after hitting the nuts hand after hand. EZ GAME WHEN YOU'RE RUNNING GOOD, AM I RIGHT?

I don't think I've seen much improvement in my game lately, as I've been mass tabling 6-9 handed tables, playing up to 12 tables at a time of both PLO and NLHE. I feel volume is really important to me as I'm looking to grind out a pretty good profit for the rest of the year. However, when/if I feel motivated I'm going to dedicate some days to 4tabling and experimenting with my game more for improvement.

I'm going to London on the 21st, which also happens to be the same day as the WCOOP ME--I'm good at planning like that. London should prove very exciting as I've never been there before, and not only do I look forward to enjoying all the sites and sicklife it has to offer, I really look forward to playing in the live games and improving my live game. In my opinion, my live game is far weaker than my online game, so I will really be looking to get in some live hours. I really can't wait! :)

I've been traveling SO MUCH in the past 2 weeks that I'm glad to finally settle down! Since I got back from China, I had to drive straight from Maryland to Durham to get my things in order for the move to San Francisco. While there, I was fortunate enough to have my best friend from college drive down from Pittsburgh (he goes to grad school at Carnegie Mellon). With my other 3 really close friends from college who are still in Durham, we had a really nice week hanging out grilling, eating Dim Sum, and playing Guitar Hero ;p.

After the week, I booked a flight on Sunday from Durham to San Francisco, and the cheapest flight I could find was form Airtran. Well, being the lifenit that I am I took the bait, and on Monday I went to the airport only to be told that my flight was delayed 4 hours because of a hurricane in Atlanta, so I would miss my connection. The next flight would be Tuesday morning at 6am. No problem! So after staying up all night, I got to the airport at 5:40 only to be told that I couldn't check in bags! "No problem," I said to myself, I'll just hop on the NEXT flight. Upon inquiring about my options, I was told "Our next available flight is at 9:45 you should arrive in San Francisco at 9:30." So apparently, the hurricane in Atlanta was sooooo bad that there were only 2 flights that day from Atlanta to San Francisco, and not only did I have to wait 3 more hours in Raleigh-Durham Airport, I'd also have to wait an additional 6 hours in Atlanta. Needless to say that day was a very very long day, but I've been settled here for 2 days so far and its going well. The city is very hilly and has a ton of narrow roads which I don't like, but its very culturally rich which I love. It should be fun living here :).

In poker, I've been doing pretty well. I made quite a bit playing $25/50 NLHE and PLO, and lately some $100/200, $200/400. I dropped $100k playing $100/200 HU at the airport, but I've since made most of it back playing $200/400 while running well and playing well. Here are some hands:

http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/509339--leveling smokey but catching some bad variance

http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/510589--getting set up by Benyamine but generally outplaying him

http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/512595--slowplaying PF and on the flop and getting paid off

http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/513724--making a good read

I plan I grinding a ton while I am here in San Francisco before I go to London, which will be in mid September. Look for more news about poker and less news about traveling for the next month :).

I'm back in Shanghai from a 3 day trip to Beijing. There were a lot of great experiences this trip, with the highlights being an Olympic men's volleyball match, a trip to Tianamen Square, and eating some tasty Peking Duck. First--the game. Before anything, I really really wanted to see the Olympic Village, but unfortunately the tickets that we had for the volleyball match were held at a University in another part of Beijing and because of the tight security we weren't able to get in. Therefore we were only able to circle around it and get a glimpse of the huge stadium and aquatics center known respectively as the "bird's nest" and "water cube". Afterwards, we went to Tianamen Square and climbed to the top of the gates to the Forbidden City, glimpsing the massssssssssssses of people below:

The next day was the volleyball match, and it was between the powerhouses of Germany and Russia! I really didn't know who to cheer for but I finally decided on Russia (partly because of the abnoxious German croud chanting Deutchland over and over) and it turned out to be the first and probably most exciting match of volleyball I have and will have ever seen. For those who don't know the rules, sets are played best of 5 to 25 points each, with the last set (if played) to 15 points. Well, these two teams flip flopped back in forth for the most amazing display of volleyball skill ever, eventually tying it up in the last set at 14-14. Fortunately Russia clutched it to win 16-14 WAHWAHWEEWAH!

I'm back in Shanghai and will be leaving in 2 days--I can't wait to get back to the States. For those of you I promised to meet up with...I'm sorry :(. There's just not enough time in a family vacation to meet up with people. Till next time!