I decided recently that I am going back to school, well actually I decided this about 8 months ago but finally am going to put the effort into taking the steps to going back. Right now, I have two options, apply to Santa Clara and stay living at my house, or go to junior college for a half year or year and transfer to a UC (UCSB or UCLA). Right now I'm leaning towards Santa Clara both because I like living at my house and because I don't really want to go back to a junior college.

It seems that a lot of kids my age who have had a lot of success in poker are going back to school. I think that the reason this is happening is because poker for these people (myself included) starts out as a hobby, usually in college, and it is the best thing ever, you are making tons of money and still living the college life with basically no responsibilites. Then all the sudden you realize, "wow, I can make a living off this, what am I doing in school," then all the sudden fast forward a few years and you have mortgages, investments, accountants, and all these meetings to go to and responsibilities, and it hits you one day... "I'm not a kid anymore, how the hell did that happen?" At least for me that is the reason I want to go back to school, to live more of a normal adolescent/young adulthood and get some of the awesome experiences that my friends are getting. This is not to say that the past three years has been a waste, I have gotten to travel and meet interesting, successful people and see the world and have some amazing stories/experiences to go along with it. It's just come to the point where I want to meet new people my age who don't gamble for a living and do different stuff than I have been doing for the past few years.

This doesn't mean I am going to stop playing poker, I will still play about as much as I do now (which recently has been very little) and travel to tournaments close to my house like LA and Vegas. As for poker right now, like I said I have been playing very little, I've tried experimenting some in the lower mixed games to try to learn the limit games, but the combination of the stakes being too small and me not really enjoying playing limit poker has put a damper on my learning process. My goal is to be able to be comfortable enough playing all the games that I can play in the 400/800 7-game in 3 months, a lofty goal considering right now I'm not sure if I could beat a 10/20 stud h/l game, but I think if I set my mind to it and really put in some hands at the smaller limit games I can do it.

Thats all I got for now,
Isaac

Ever since about 2 weeks into my Vegas trip I have not been able to sleep at all, I don't really know why, but I just can not fall asleep until like 5 in the morning and wake up at like 10 every day. It's really starting to bug me and tomorrow I am going to see a doctor to see if she can tell me why I can't sleep, and hopefully do something about it.

Since I've been home I haven't done a whole lot, played a little bit of golf, shot some hoops a couple times and have been catching up on some Tivo that I missed while I was in Vegas (the new season of Entourage is really good, way better than the last couple). I've played a couple sessions of online poker that have not gone too great... at the beginning of the summer I went on a pretty nice heater mostly playing the 25/50/10 plo game and a bit of HU NL, in the past couple weeks I have lost almost all of the profits from that heater back playing the plo game. Plo is such a frusterating game sometimes... meh. I tilted pretty hard one session towards the end and played a few hands really bad, but besides that I think I have been playing pretty well and not running too great. I haven't played NL cash online in what feels like forever, I want to play some but it just seems so hard to get a game, I just don't have the patience to sit around and wait all day like the rest of these grinders do and therefore they get all the games. It's probably good for me to not play NL for a while anyways, because it will help me towards my goal of getting good at mixed games. The 7 and 8 game seem to run a lot at pretty good-sized stakes and from what I have heard from some friends who play in the game they are usually really good games.

Besides learning how to play mixed games I have no plans for the immediate future, I probably will be playing more golf than poker for a while and just basically taking it easy. I think the next place I am going to will be Barcelona. When I turned 21 I told myself that I was going to stay in the states for the most part because I had been travelling around Europe for almost 3 years and I'm not a big fan of long plane rides or extended travel, but I love Barcelona so much and always have so much fun there that I think I am going to break my rule and go.

Good luck guys,
Isaac

On day 1a I had a player all in for a 65k pot with my 79 vs his 1010 on a j108 board, he rivered a jack and I was down to 8k, I grinded all the way back to a peak of 330k on day 3, playing really well, without too many good cards and without many showdowns. Today on day 4, I busted 8 or 9 people from the money with my AK aipf vs a crazy euro's a6. Pretty tilting to grind that hard and come that far to bubble, but I guess that is the nature of tournament poker, sigh. I'm not really that upset about it to be honest, I played great in that tournament and in most of the tournaments I played this year, came out with a profit on the series and really that's all I can ask for. I'm not sure if I made a mistake the last hand or not, this probably comes across as super results-oriented but I think there can be a good argument made for just shoving the hand, because I knew my opponent was going to 4-bet super light and I don't know if it's worth the variance in a tournament like the main event to get all in preflop there, I am going to talk to some good tournament players and get their thoughts on it. I am going home tomorrow and frankly, I think that is part of the reason I'm not too upset about busting, I am ready to get out of here and not play poker for a while.

I probably won't play poker again till the WCOOP. Gl to all my friends still in the main.

-Isaac

So as most of you probably know I final tabled the 5k nl event at the WSOP. Needless to say I am much happier about this than my immediate bustouts in the previous tournaments I had played at the WSOP. I finished 7th and am pretty disapointed about the result but at the same time, feel like I played pretty well.

WARNING: The following may contain some excuses and even some complaining, so if you think I'm a luckbox clown who runs way too good just stop reading.

Today went like this I started off the day by picking off a bluff and getting up to about 1.45 million from my 1.1 million starting stack. After that I never had any big pots but built my stack by restealing and stealing blinds. When we got to the final 10 the blinds were at 8k 16k, unfortunately it stayed 10 handed for virtually forever as the short stacks were playing extremely tight and none of the big stacks were clashing. Finally at 15k 30k David Pham shoved 155k and I woke up on the button with two tens. Both blinds had 20 bb stacks so I shoved, the sb, a tight player, insta-called and I hated my life. Luckily for me he had AK and David had KQ, I held and was up to 2.3 million. After that it was all down hill from thee. I sustained my stack by rasing and stealing some pots, but the blinds went up to 20k 40k and it really handcuffed the play at the final table, it went from being a really deep stacked tournament to one where everyone but mysef and the chipleader had 8-30 big blinds. I raised to 100k with QJ and Liya (sorry if spelling is wrong) in the big blind shoved 405k. Normally this is an instacall for me, but she had been very tight and I felt that she had a big hand, I tanked for a while and couldn't resist the 2-1 odds I was getting and called. The other internet players at the table wondered why I took so long and thought it was an instacall, I really thought she was shoving a very tight range, even though she is capable of shoving somewhat light (by light I mean pairs and broadway hands and good aces) I felt that she was very strong both because she was playing very tight and because Thomas Keller only had about 200k and I didn't think she wanted to bust before him. Anyways, she had KK, and flopped top set. After that I was down to about 1.8 million. A few hands later I raised Q9 of clubs in the cutoff and Thomas Keller who had been nitting up hardcore shoved another 175k over my open, this one there was no way I could fold, he had AK and flopped top two pair. A few rounds later was the hand that crippled me, I really dont know how I feel about it, and may post the hand for advice later. I raised to 100k from the hijack with AJ and Brian called in the cutoff with about 1.2 million to start the hand. All I know about Brian is that he is good friends with Dipthrong (a very aggressive online player, who loves pushing preflop edges) the flop came A82 rainbow and I bet 145k, he raised to 425k. I really did not know what to put him on, I really thought it was pretty unlikely that he was bluffing, but at the same time could not think of too many hands that beat me, I was almost sure he would be happy to get all in preflop with AQ or AK, and I did not think he would call my preflop raise with A8. I thought 88 was possible but also thought that it was likely he would slowplay a set on the flop. I thought for a long time and ended up putting him in for his last 575k or so and he called with AQ. I still do not know how I feel about this hand, it seems so close to me and I am still very surprised that he did not reraise his AQ preflop. I considered all options including calling the flop, but he had nearly half his stack in the pot and I felt that calling flop and folding turn would be a mistake (I may be wrong about this). Anyways, I'm happy overall with how I played, unfortunately I used up all my run good on day 1 and 2 of the tourney and did not save any for today. Hopefully I'll get another chance at a bracelet this year.

-Isaac

So, the WSOP still isn't going to plan, I've played 3 more tournies since my last update, the 1500 nl 6 max, the 2500 HA tourney, and the 2k nl today. I am still 0 for and have not even really had a sweat yet.. I'm still optomistic though, because I really haven't been playing bad, part of this is probably because all my bustouts have been so early that I haven't really been given too many chances to make mistakes, they have all been really standard flips or cooler situations that I could not avoid.

Besides that I have been playing some golf, and contrary to my live tourney results my golf game has really been on the upswing. I have improved so much and it is such a good feeling. I can see why so many poker players love golf and vice versa, both because of the similarites in the mindset you must have to be successful (being able to not tilt on the golf course is as important if not more important than in poker) and because golf lends itself so well to gambling. The other day I shot a 91 at Wolf Creek which is a pretty tough course, a month ago I would have been happy breaking 120 on that course.

Tomorrow I'm playing the 2500nl and if that doesn't go well I'll be playing the 5k nl on Saturday, hopefully I can get something going.

-Isaac

I've been in Vegas for about a week and I'm enjoying myself a lot. So far, I've played 2 tournaments the 40k nl and the 1k nl. The 40k was pretty uneventful I lost a huge pot early to Mark Seif where I flopped a set of sixes on a KJ6 two diamond flop and got all in vs his q10 of diamonds. After that I was crippled and ran AJ into AK. The 1k was also pretty uneventful, couldn't get anything going and was out pretty early. I have to say though that I was very amused by the players at my table in the 1k. This is my first WSOP and it really does seem like they are a different breed out here, it seems like all of the players at my table have basically learned everything from watching poker on television. This is very good, in that none of them really no how to play poker, but it was also very aggravating because it seemed like they all thought that they were on TV, hollywooding every hand and trying to act like TV pros, I assume because they think that's how you are supposed to act at a poker table. It was hillarious, at my table I had a Daniel Negreanu wannabe: talking out every hand, trying to call out people's hands and basically trying to be Daniel. Then I had the Gus Hansen wannabe: making weird faces anytime he was faced with a bet, taking 5 minutes on every hand while making said faces. Then there was the obvious Phil Hellmuth wannabe: berating players for calling preflop 100bb+ deep with suited connectors, telling everyone how to play every hand. It really was quite a sight to see.

I haven't gotten a chance yet to play any live cash, I plan on playing a bunch, but I have been continuing to win online so motivating myself to go and wait to get in a game has been on the back burner. Also, I really want to win a bracelet so most of my focus in terms of live play is going to be on tournaments, at least to start out. There are a bunch of NL tournies this week and I plan on playing them all (unless I make day 2 of one of them). Tomorrow is the 1500, hopefully I can get something going. I am going to try to update my blog more often with tournament hands and results and stuff like that.

-Isaac

So as most of you probably know by now I won one of the first SCOOP events on pokerstars for about 100k, it was very nice to ship it, not only because the money was nice especially since I was in a downswing and it was tax season, but I feel like it really helped me regain confidence. It's weird, you never really think that you are lacking confidence when you are in a downswing, but you pretty much always are, and it takes coming out of the downswing to realize the confidence you were lacking. Since then I have been on a pretty nice heater in online cash games playing 2550-100200 NL and a little bit of PLO at the same stakes. I've won a pretty nice chunk and helped boost my online bankroll big time, which a few months ago was hurting quite a bit.

I just got home from Vegas where I played the WPT championship and as you can probably tell from the title, it didn't go nearly as well as it has been going online. I played the 5k prelim and built up a pretty nice stack with about 30 left. The blinds were 800/1600 and I had about 120k, which was most likely good enough for a top 5 stack in the tourney (I don't know for sure, because theres no leaderboard or anything, but if not top 5 very close), anyways my friend Marco Johnson (Crazy Marco) ended up playing a huge pot where he had a naked flush draw and I had AA, I lost that pot and was out. Then the main event came around and day 1 was very boring, they started us off with 100k chips and the blinds at 50100. I hate to gang up on the Bellagio because it seems tha they are receiving a lot of hate these days, but seriously get a clue, we don't care if we start off with a thousand big blinds if the rest of the tournament has a crap structure. Anyways nothing really happened the first day and I ended with 80k in chips. To start the second day things were going very well, I was playing well and hitting some hands and built my stack up to about 140k without one showdown. However, later in the day I had a massive brain fart and made a very uncharacteristic huge bluff that did not work out. Honestly I don't think that I made is that bad, but I gave the player I was trying to bluff a little too much credit in terms of being able to fold a hand (he is actually a friend of mine and a good player, I just felt that since he knew a decent amount about my game he would know that it is very very unlikely that I was bluffing in this spot), either way while I don't think it's that bad I still regret it and think it was very uneccesary. After that I ran JJ into AA in a spot where maybe I could have folded but was probably a little too steamed up from my failed bluff to do so. Overall I was pretty disapointed in the way I played in this tourney and expected a much better result. Oh well, sometimes you just don't have it I guess.

After I had cooled down for a few hours after my bustout I decided I was going to go play a cash game for a few hours and try to make a little money before my flight left the next morning. To my delight there was an amazingly juicy looking 25-50-100 game with not one person that I recognzied, which is very rare these days (not to say I'm a veteran of the live poker scene or anything, but I've been travelling around for a good 3 years now and if there isn't one single person I can recognize in a game, I like it's potential). It turns out my suspicions were confirmed and the game was amazing, everybody in the game was drinking and everybody besides me and one other guy were stuck. I started off running very hot, I flopped a set and stacked a guy, then a few hands later stacked another guy when I flopped top two. After playing for about 2 hours I was up about 35k. Shortly after that, the people at the table were getting even more drunk and for the most part even more stuck, so a lot of them were putting on multiple straddles, one pot was even 25-50-100-200-400-800. Anyways, after starting off extremely hot, I picked up KK in a pot straddled to 400, raised one limper to 2100, the big blind who was really really stuck and steaming bad, shoved in 11k, and the limper took some time and shoved in about 35k, I took a second to consider the fact that he may have aces, but then I realized that he was on about his 9th jack and coke and was probably stuck about 20k. So I called, and low and behold he had AA, sigh, pretty rigged. Anyways after that I played for a little while longer but couldn't get much going and the game stopped being straddled and got way less crazy (it was almost like everyone saw that pot and was like "wow, I can really play a 100k pot with this straddle, probably should stop doing this") I grinded out a small win of about 5k, but I have to say with how good the game was and how much I was up early, it feels more like a loss than a win.

Besides the poker part of things Vegas was a lot of fun, I ate at some really good restaurants, including this new one that I hadn't been to called Lotus of Siam, it is a really small, cheap Thai place off the strip and it is absolutely amazing, probably the best Thai food I have ever had. We also got a sick table at Tao and got pretty drunk and had a good time there. Most importantly though, I picked out a place to live for the summer and I couldn't be any happier with it, me and Zach Clark (Crazy Zachary) and Ben Palmer (ShankingYou) are staying in a penthouse apartment at Panorama Towers, we went and checked it out and we all instantly fell in love, it is truly an amazing place in a perfect location and I think it is going to make for a legendary summer both on and off the felt.

That's all I got for today, Gl everyone,
Isaac

I went into the 10k tournament at Bay 101 feeling really good, I feel like my live game has been solid lately and I felt really focussed, also I had the added bonus of getting to sleep in my own bed at a poker tournament (I live about 15 minutes from Bay 101)! A very nice change-up from living out of a suitcase in a hotel room. Also the structure was awesome and the added bonus of 5k bounties on 50 "shooting stars" and 10k bonus for the chip leader of day 1A and day 1b. Unfortunately for me I showed up to the tournament 15 minutes late and got put at a table full of people who had also showed up late, for anyone who hasn't played many live tournaments this is generally always professionals, and this time was no different. My table was probably the toughest in the room with me, Yefgeniy Timoshenko (Jovial Gent online), Marco Johnson (Crazy Marco), Bryn Kenney, Michael Mizrachi, JJ Liu, Farzad Bonyadi, and two younger kids who I didn't know but were in all likelihood online pros. Nevertheless the day went really smooth for me, I pulled off a few big bluffs all of which worked, and made a big all in call down against Bryn Kenney. Later in the day many of the tough players busted and were replaced by weaker players and I was able to chip up without much showdown until the last hand of the day:

Matt Savage was walking around announcing big chip stacks because of the 10k bounty for chip leader, he said Vivek Rajkumar had 180k and a few others had about 160. I was sitting at 130k so the chip lead wasn't really in my sights (or so I thought). Anyways the last hand, I raised in middle position to 2200, Chris Ferguson who was recently moved to the table shoved for 16k and it came to me... Normally I think this is a somewhat close spot as Chris is not shoving as wide as most online players would be in this spot but I felt with the added 5k bounty on his head and the fact that he was short-stacked and may want to double up or bust rather than come back on day 2 with a short stack. So I called and he had A10 and was drawing dead on the turn, so I picked up the 5k bounty on Chris, but little did I know Matt had misannounced many people's stacks and with that pot off Chris I had actually taken the chip lead, so it turned out to be a 15k pot for me. Needless to say I was feeling pretty good, freeroling plus a little profit on the tournament, but with my 155k stack I had my sights set on the million dollar first prize.

On day 2 it seemed that my good luck would continue as I came to my table and didn't recognize one face besides Howard Lederer, who is a good player, but a tight one so not someone I hate having at my table. All of the guys at the table were older gentlemen who more than likely sattelited into the tournament, so I was loving my chances. Unfortunately, I could not win a pot at the table, no matter what. I would raise get called by some tight player, c-bet the flop when I airballed and get check-raised, fake tank a little bit fold and then they would show me the nuts. It felt like this happened every pot I played. The table broke and rather than chipping up as I expected to I had chipped down to about 115k.

The next table I was moved to was nothing like my first table, two very tough live cash players were to my immediate left and three to my left was the insane Brandon Cantu. Also a couple players who I had played with on day 1 who were both very aggressive but not that strong of players were also at the table, so my plan was to play a lot tighter at this table than I had been at my previous one. After folding for the first round and a half I was at the table I got dealt Q10 of hearts UTG, 8 handed. I decided to open to 3300 and was called by the player one to my left and one of the players I mentioned that I played with on day 1 on the button. The flop was Qs10c8s and I bet 6600, the player to my left folded and the button called quickly, immediately I put him on a weakish draw because he is a very deliberate player and I felt that with a pair or combo draw type hand he would take some time on the flop to make his decision. The turn was a blank deuce and I bet 15k, once again he called quickly. The river came the 3 of spades, obviously not my favorite card, I decided that my best course of action was to check and evaluate if/when he bet. He bet 27.5k and I took a little time before making the call and was shown the A5 of spades. I still think that the river play is optimal against this opponent, I am very sure that he is betting his missed straight draws (KJ/AJ) and I felt that he was the type of player to bet much bigger on the river if he was value betting and more likely to "value-bet bluff" his missed draws. Also, I was getting about 3 to 1 on the call so he doesn't even have to be bluffing that often for my call to be right. Both of the good cash players at the table told me that they would have called also, which made me feel a little better about my play.

Anyways, after that I lost a flip for 40k (my AQ suited vs JJ) a few hands later and was quickly down to 40k. After folding for a couple rounds and the blinds going up I shoved 32k on an agressive players open with AQo only to have the small blind wake up with KK, the flop was K77 and I was out, just like that. I was pretty disapointed after, but looking back I really don't think much could have been done to prevent the meltdown, just the way it goes in tournaments some times.


Since then I have just been chilling, watching March Madness, I have to say that there is not a better weekend to veg out on the couch than the first weekend of March Madness, there is just constantly awesome games to watch and you always have a rooting interest beacuse of your bracket. Over the years I have become less and less a fan of college Bball, but I still LOVE March Madness, who doesn't!? My final four is:Louisville, UConn, Duke, and my champions: Oklahoma. Not exactly the most adventerous final four but so far it is still in tact so we'll see how it goes...

Also I did an interview on pokerroad radio, usually I don't really like interviews and I don't think I'm very good at them, but I think this one went well and I had a good time doing it, so check it out. That's all I got for now, more March Madness to sweat...

Isaac

It's been a while since I updated my blog so I figure I'll let you guys know what I've been up to lately. I just got back from the LAPC and had a blast, I did a lot of really fun stuff non-poker wise and had a lot of fun playing in some big and juicy live games. The live games are such a nice change up from what I've become used to online, it's so amazing to have complete and utter fish in the game rather than the fish just being a bad regular who has a couple small leaks. I didn't cash in either the 5k or the main event but I really can't fault how I played in either tournament, both times I didn't have too many favorable situations and busted in very standard ways. I was up pretty decent in the cash games on the trip, but unfortunately the last night I was there I saw a very good 100200 nl game with a seat open and despite not completely being in the mood to play I couldn't resist with the lineup that was playing. To be honest I think if I played in the game 20 times, I would win small probably 10 of the 20, win big 5 of the 20, lose small 4 times, and lose big once in 20 times. Unfortunately, I flopped middle set against top set against Clonie Gowen who was one of the only people that covered me at the table, there is a chance I could have folded my hand, and right after it happened I thought that I had made a mistake, but looking back on the hand I think that folding is out of the question and it was just one of those coolers that happens now and then. So I ended up losing about 10k in the cash games overall at the LAPC, I'm not too upset with that result, obviously it would have been nice to win some money, but the cookie didn't crumble my way this time.

Before the LAPC I had pretty much just been laying low, playing the occasional 25/50 game when I felt like it and playing the FTOPS events, and also had a couple of friends in town so I was showing them around. I had a coule close calls in the FTOPS, and think that I made a couple questionable plays towards the end of a few events, you guys can tell me what you think beacuse I filmed pretty much every event I played and am in the process of finishing the audio for them.

I really haven't had the motivation to play much online these days, the only cash games that run are 25/50 and 500/1k, and in both games it's pretty much all regulars. I've thought about taking the occasional shot at the 500/1k HA game, but I don't feel all that comfortable in my Omaha game to be playing that high and also my online bankroll isn't big enough for those stakes since I had to cashout a bunch to pay taxes, and went on a downswing after that.

Besides all that stuff, I have gotten really into The Wire and finished the whole series in about 2 weeks, I have to say that I was originally a Wire hater after having seen a few sporadic episodes, but after watching the whole series in order I think that it more than lived up to the hype and is probably the greatest TV show ever. Oh, I almost forgot, I went to a couple Laker games while in LA and had really sick seats right behind the away bench... I was literally like 4 feet away from Jack Nicholson and Shaq, you may have seen me on TV if you watched the game against the Suns (a bunch of my friends texted me telling me they saw me). I took some pictures on my phone, so I am going to try to figure out how to upload those to show you guys. That's all I got for today...

Good Luck,
Isaac

I don't know why but for the past 3 years everytime I have gone to the Bahamas for the PCA I have come home and felt really sick. I don't know if its the air, the food, the water, a coincidence or some combination of all but it really sucks. I feel like I have a pretty good immune system and don't get sick very often and my annual sick week is the week right after the Bahamas. This is also the reason why I always plan on going to the Aussie Millions right after PCA but never end up making it. Oh well.

As for the trip, it was an absolute blast, funnest year ever by far, poker sucked as I ran terrible in the 3 tournaments I played the 10k main, the 25k and the 5k, just to give you a little taste and also to get a little whining out of my system I'll tell you guys about the biggest pot I played in the main event. A crazy spaniard who was a maniac to begin with and had just lost a huge pot so I suspected he was tilting raised MP to 600 at 100/200 with about 15k to start the hand, I called with 89dd and we were heads up to the flop the flop was K88 with two spades he bet 800 and I called the turn was the 2 of spades, he checked to me and I bet 1500 he shipped it all in and I insta-called and was shown red 77, the river was a 7 and I was stuck grinding a short stack for the next few levels and ended up busting when I shoved 66 on an aggressive young player and ran into his KK. I had planned on playing some cash while I was there but the games sucked and were tough to get into so instead I spent most of my time getting drunk and riding the lazy river and hanging out by the beach and the pool (which as it turns out was probably for the best as I had an awesome time).

I haven't been playing that much poker because I don't really feel up to it, but when I have it has gone pretty well. Mostly playing some 25/50 nl and a bit of 100/200. Anyways, I don't have many plans for the next month until I go to the LAPC to play the 10k heads up and 10k main event. Also, I plan on doing a well in the new well section pretty soon so look out for that.

Good Luck,
Isaac