I know, I've been terrible at updating my blog. Excuses aside, here's a quick little picture update since I went on an Asian trip (Koh Samui, Thailand, and then Busan and Seoul, South Korea) near the end of September, then when I got back I went to Detroit for the last two games of the Twins-Tigers series. And now, in about 10 hours, I leave on a flight for South Africa where hopefully I'll come out with some photos as sweet as Cole's blog showcased awhile back. I didn't bring my SLR with to Asia, but plan on doing so for South Africa because I wasn't happy with the overall quality of my night pics.

Anyway, here's a few pictures of what I've been up to when I haven't been playing poker (which on the overall whole has went well when I've played the last few months):




Above, awesome beach and some of the quite expansive skyline of Busan, South Korea.







Very sweet bridge that changes lit up colors at night and is at the same beach as the first picture, in Busan. The bridge is gigantic as well.







Me enjoying an authentic Korean BBQ in South Korea. I need to do a nice Korean BBQ in America more often, man that stuff is good.








You stick your foot into this huge tub with thousands of minnows. They bite the dead skin off your foot. It tickles a lot at first but you get used to it and it feels really good....sort of like an accupuncture type of foot massage is how I'd describe it.






Some of Busan, from 120 meters up. Stupid glare from the flash...










A several hundred year old temple in Seoul, South Korea.









The reward for climbing up 500 meters worth of rock/mountain with only a rope and other trees to grab onto. So exhausting but so worth it! By the end of it, honestly one of the more challenging physical things I've done, simply because I did the climb without bringing any water with me so by the end I was quite thirsty. This is near Koh Samui, Thailand.






Sort of shows what a lot of the climb was like to get to the top...









The resort I stayed at that was right on the beach in Koh Samui. This is obv the pool that overlooks it.






Scenic lagoon at one of the islands near Koh Samui...












Jealous yet? It was a fun trip. :)







Dave P, myself, and Bicyclekick at the Twins-Tigers games in Detroit. It wasn't hard at all to get some killer seats, which was kind of surprising considering the magnitude of the games :) Even though the Twins didn't win it all, I' still proud of their effort and the awesome run into the playoffs... The end of the regular season was like a whole bunch of game 7s.





That should do it for now. I need some sleep before my 9hr flight to Amsterdam and 11 hour flight from there to South Africa.

I wish I could say that I have some kind of prop bet regarding hands played this month. Or rather, I wish I would've made a prop bet about it. In any case, I made it my resolution to treat August like I'm an actual online poker pro, and try to grind it out with whatever games are going. I also have this desire to remind the LHE community that I've still got it :) So yeah, you'll probably see me on the tables a lot in August.

So far other than one night with a several hour rough patch, things have been going great. Oh yeah, Tuesday was also slightly frustrating because I played 2500 hands, won over 100BBs, and was -$700 on the day thanks to being a $13,000 loser in my $100/200 and $200/400 hands, and a huge winner in the $50/100 and $30/60 hands. But I mean no complaints, swings happen in poker, and overall I'm still running pretty well and I feel like I'm playing super well too.

Here was one hand that I played while 5-tabling, that I'm super proud of being in tune with how the game was playing... i'm sure most people don't win as much here as I did even if they were on just this 1 table, let alone 5 total...:


stonecoldczy: posts small blind $50
PapaWarbucks: posts big blind $100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to PapaWarbucks [9d 9s]
bxpeter: folds
joedi20: folds
NicP: folds
Big_Nemo: raises $100 to $200
Lanceryosuke: raises $100 to $300
stonecoldczy: folds
PapaWarbucks: raises $100 to $400
Betting is capped
Big_Nemo: calls $200
Lanceryosuke: calls $100
*** FLOP *** [2d 8h 8d]
PapaWarbucks: bets $100
Big_Nemo: folds
Lanceryosuke: calls $100
*** TURN *** [2d 8h 8d] [5d]
PapaWarbucks: bets $200
Lanceryosuke: raises $200 to $400
PapaWarbucks: raises $200 to $600
Lanceryosuke: calls $200
*** RIVER *** [2d 8h 8d 5d] [2s]
PapaWarbucks: bets $200
Lanceryosuke: calls $200
*** SHOW DOWN ***
PapaWarbucks: shows [9d 9s] (two pair, Nines and Eights)
Lanceryosuke: mucks hand
PapaWarbucks collected $3047 from pot



So yeah, I like to boast when things are going well, and I hope I'm not about to jinx myself, but here's how the month has went so far...:





Also I find it amusing how several times now Doughnutz has commented to me at the tables, "wow, you really are serious about trying to play some hands this month." Yup, I am. See some of you at the tables!

I am one of the worst Bejeweled Blitz players you could ever imagine. Like, imagine a one legged frog on crack trying to jump from lilipad to lilipad without drowning. That's me playing Bejeweled blitz. My brain just isn't wired for the task. Yet I have a few friends I'm pretty competitive with who are fairly decent at it, so I can't stop till I'm good too. The game can feel like Chinese water torture at times though.

For as long as I can remember, I've always believed that listening to certain types of music produces different effects on my brain and its effectiveness/focus. I've found some songs result in more of a focused-trance type feeling and are good at drowning out all other thoughts from my mind other than whatever the task I'm focusing on -- kind of like how they always say to listen to classical music when studying.

Anyway, I've been testing out a lot of different songs with Bejeweled, and I think I've found a winner -- a song that actually gives me a chance at competing. It also happens to be one of my recent favs for poker since it's fairly hypnotic and repetitious -- great for clearing out my mind:

Here it is:





Poker has went well since my last blog a month ago. Don't got too much more to say about that really other than with a little bit of patient game selecting, I'm finding plenty of games to play in online, though it's not nearly as much $200/400 as in the past. Fine by me, I'll take a few tables of $100/200 and $50/100 any day if they're good games.


The Twins have had some amazing comebacks already this season. If the starters and relievers can pull it together, we can really do some damage in the playoffs I think.


I did actually create a video tour of my place, but wasn't happy with the quality of it because I shot it during the day light. I'll try another day sometime at night and hopefully there'll be a little less glare.


Finally, I really need to have a notebook and pen on me to jot down random thoughts. I always have these great moments of glory where something happens or I think of something and it makes me go, "that'd be a great thing to throw into a blog," then whenever I'm around a computer I've got no shot of remember whatever it was, meaning this blog sits here un-updated way too long. I'll really try to not let the next update be a month away.


One more song since one night I was playing and had more than one person say they wanted to see more music links/recommendations in my blog entries. Yup, these two songs in this blog are the types of music I'd generally pick to listen to while playing poker -- I think these styles best get my mind where I want it to be:

Here's a fun hand I played in a few nights ago on Full Tilt when for a stretch of time I was playing in three $200/400 and a $100/200 all at once on the site (and then also a $300/600 where I got lucky enough to run red hot and win back my losses and then some in the aforementioned games):

Mark Vos posts the small blind of $100
buck99 posts the big blind of $200
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Mike Schneider [Kh As]
stewtastic calls $200
Niki Jedlicka raises to $400
Nizot Skizared calls $400
Mike Schneider raises to $600
Mark Vos folds
buck99 folds
stewtastic calls $400
Niki Jedlicka calls $200
Nizot Skizared calls $200
*** FLOP *** [6d 8s 2d]
stewtastic checks
Niki Jedlicka checks
Nizot Skizared checks
Mike Schneider bets $200
stewtastic calls $200
Niki Jedlicka calls $200
Nizot Skizared calls $200
*** TURN *** [6d 8s 2d] [5d]
stewtastic checks
Niki Jedlicka checks
Nizot Skizared checks
Mike Schneider checks
*** RIVER *** [6d 8s 2d 5d] [6s]
stewtastic bets $400
Niki Jedlicka folds
Nizot Skizared has 15 seconds left to act
Nizot Skizared calls $400
Mike Schneider folds
*** SHOW DOWN ***
stewtastic shows [5c 6c] a full house, Sixes full of Fives
Nizot Skizared mucks
stewtastic wins the pot ($4,297) with a full house, Sixes full of Fives
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $4,300 | Rake $3
Board: [6d 8s 2d 5d 6s]
Seat 1: Nizot Skizared mucked [Qd 9d] - a flush, Queen high



A lot going on in it, and I think a whole lot of leveling back and forth between several of my opponents. I think if this hand was played on Earth, stewtastic would checkraise the flop, Joe Cassidy would check-3bet his Qd9d, and then the rest of the hand would become a crazy big old mess. I'm a little surprised Joe didn't checkraise the flop for value, but I guess it helps disguise his hand because nobody would probably put him on a flush draw in a million years when he didn't. Then on the turn I guess both stew and Joe figured I'd bet virtually all my range on the turn since nobody got active on the flop (that or they maybe think that a lot of my range is in fact over pairs there), so both of them decided to go for checkraises. And then based on how my table image was at the time I made the choice to check behind because I was too fearful someone was laying in the woods waiting to checkraise something. Then we get to the river and Joe makes an inhuman call with a queen high flush after nearly letting his timer run out (I am wondering if he did that to try to get me to overcall with AK, or if because he really weighted the possibility stew had 22 or 66 since why else would he merely call on the flop with 2 people to act behind him? If he had one pair he'd checkraise right?). Bizarre hand.


A few more movies I've watched lately that I've really liked:

Sex and Lucia -- Spanish film that is super confusing to follow (nice selling point heh?) but compelling nonetheless and one I really want to watch several more times until I've figured it out. I know that description makes it sound like it was a bad movie. It wasn't, I really liked it...just want to figure it out more and get my own interpretation of it. To make up for it here's some of someone's review of this film on imdb:

"Once again Julio Meden reminds us that doing movies is an art. Not just story telling, but Art. The very way of telling the story can be artful, and this flick is a nice example. Newspaper reviews in my city gave it two stars out of four, but this guys would never give good ranking to a movie without gay action or dark, 10-ton-of-sadness endings. Great movies, artistically speaking, can be done without leaving the feel-good mood, like this one. Good acting, superb job of photography, optimistic way of portraying the human being, an excellent movie!

Don´t be shocked with the sex scenes, there´s much more story around. The director was very courageous to jeopardize the movie reputation among puritan, hypocritical viewers. 10 out of 10. "

I've ordered another movie by the director of this one that a lot of people who liked this movie also have raved about, hopefully it gets here in a few days.


Speak -- A powerful story told piece-by-piece in a flashback style manner. Plus it helps that the main star of the movie is Kristen Stewart (Adventureland, Twilight), a girl who's quickly challenging Natalie Portman for #1 actress in my world.



I think I'm feeling like another live poker trip within the next few weeks. I've been playing a lot of online and doing relatively well (though some days have been extremely swingy!), but I'm feeling like a change would be nice.

Hello. Sorry, I know it's been awhile -- it's just been one of those stretches where I've never really felt like blogging. I know Taylor and some of the other CR guys have went through those stretches once in awhile. I've had it in my mind the past week or so and I thought that I'd maybe have this "return blog" include a video tour of my house or something, but I still haven't gotten my place cleaned up enough to do yet (but that should be soon... I'm hosting some of my family and extended family for Easter Sunday this year, so it'll be cleanish before then). Maybe soon I'll make that video and put it up...If I can figure out how the camcorder works on my camera.

The second half of my Commerce trip in February I was a loser on the trip. Nothing huge, but enough to make it so all in all my month of California poker was not nearly as profitable as I'd like.

In March I did a little 5 day Vegas trip with some old high school and college buds who are now scattered around the country (some of them who made it out to Vegas now live in Phoenix AZ, Columbus OH, and Eau Claire WI). I didn't play much poker on that trip, though the two times we found ourselves in the poker room it was sad to see how dead the Bellagio card room was.

Since about mid March, I've been trying to make an effort to "grind" more online. Even though the amount of hands I'm putting in is far short of some people I know, I'm pretty happy with my efforts thus far. I've also been playing some O8 and some razz. Although I know I'm still making plenty of mistakes in these games, I think I'm also making great strides and I feel like I am +EV in the games I've been playing in.

Here is my hold em play which is for a little more than the past two weeks (and since I made the decision I need to stop being lazy and put in some hands online):





About time for me to start upswinging a little bit online. Until this stretch, I never really got any momentum going online in 2009.


Also, go Twins, today was their season opener that you can probably predict I was at. This year I've made two longshot bets with a friend that I know I have the worst of it but I don't really care, they're just fun to do as a fan:
- 60:1 on Denard Span being AL MVP
- 15:1 on Scott Baker or Kevin Slowey being AL Cy Young.


In 2006 I had two bets relating to Justin Morneau being the AL MVP that I won with a friend and got me shipped $6500. So I just look at any of these futures bets as me being on a lifelong freeroll from that wager. :)


Lastly, since I talk about movies in a lot of my blogs, here's my latest movie recommendation:

Me and You and Everyone We Know -- It's a little vulgar and inappropriately odd at times, and kind of lacks a central plot, and is kind of stupid. But it's awesome nonetheless. All I'm going to reveal about it is it contains one of the funnier scenes I've ever seen in a movie. It's honestly one of my favorite movies I've seen in the last year or two.


I've also watched The Squid and the Whale and Machuca in the past week while playing poker, and would definitely recommend either of them. Machuca would've been even better if not for Slumdog Millionaires' presence; it has a type of feel similar to that movie, though is not executed quite as well (but that said, was still very good).

Sorry it's been awhile, I figured I'd blog right when I got back home from my first Commerce trip but then I got sick so I've been laying around a lot and not really feeling like doing much of anything.

Anyway my first Commerce trip was from February 2-10, and it went pretty well. I ended up being a $35,000-$40,000 winner on the trip (I know that is quite the range and I could figure it out for sure but I haven't added up the #'s in the spreadsheet yet), even with losing $37,000 the last night I was out there (yeah I had already booked a flight home before that session). Plus I played 3 tourneys, including a 16th place finish in a $530 6-max NL LAPC event which saw me losing a pot for chip lead with QQ vs JJ all in preflop (zzzz standard tournament stuff), and after those three I'm basically tourneyed out for awhile (though depending on how the next few days are in cash games I may play the LAPC $10,000 main event).

The biggest positive? I felt like I was playing really amazing poker almost the whole time I was out there.

Here was one sequence of hands within 20 minutes apart from eachother against Tommy Hang, who most (including myself) consider one of the best around at LHE.

Hand One:

$400/800, I open UTG 5-handed with As2s. Folded to Tommy who calls in the BB and hasn't been in the game long but is quickly buried $10,000.

Flop KT7 two hearts. He check calls. Turn red 2. He check calls. River Ace of hearts, putting the third heart on the board. He bets. I pause about 15 seconds and then raise. He thinks for 20 seconds or so, says, "got AK huh?" and then calls, which makes me think I'm beat and he must have A7 (most likely) or AT. I wait a second and he doesn't table anything so I table my A2 two pair. He flashes me AQ as he mucks.


Hand Two: Tommy opens on the button, I 3-bet A5o in the SB, he calls. He has 4-bet in this situation once or twice already before.

Flop: J42 two spades. I bet, he calls. Turn Ts. I have no spade I don't think or maybe the 5 was but whatever. I bet, he calls. River red 8. I check, he bets, I pause maybe 5 seconds and checkraise. He goes into the tank for a solid 20-30 seconds and then calls. I table my hand and he shows Ad2d for the win. Sick bet/call by him, but I'm totally fine with how this hand went down, especially 20 minutes after I made a fairly slim value raise versus him. I kind of like how I've set the tone to not be messed around with on the river, and hopefully that results in either me getting to pick up some more slim value raises versus him, or else he'll finally start to fear my river actions enough that he'll actually check behind a hand like A2 on this board. Fun meta-game, either way.


I've also played some fun hands versus Max, who is one of my favorite players to play against -- especially because of how our meta-game has transformed quite a bit over the years. It went from me thinking he was a huge donkey and always trying to get position on him, to me starting to respect his game while I simultaneously ran AWFUULLLLL for 1.5 years straight at Commerce so he likely thought I was a donkey even though it was just genuinely I was running baaadddd, to now we both know eachother plays a pretty tough game and both have mutual respect. He still likes to have position on me, but what I've noticed nowadays is he doesn't tend to three-bet me with BS much ever, which is nice and a sign that he takes position on me simply so he can try to keep himself from tangling in pots versus me, I think anyway. At least I'm going to assume it's because of that and not because he still thinks I"m a donkey, which I have no indication of that since as I said lately when he's had position on me he hasn't been playing many pots against me.

One hand he opened on the button, and I 3-bet from the SB with Ah8h, he called. J84 flop, I bet, he called. Turn 2s second spade, I checked, he bet, I called. River Ts, I bet, he called, I show my hand, he mucks. I like that he thinks I'm tricky enough (and maybe I am?) to still be showing up with a hand worse than whatever he called with on the river, being that the Ts hits T9/QT/97/any spade redraw I picked up on the turn so I really wasn't expecting too often to get a payoff by worse (yet I still bet it for value because I think he WILL check behind worse hands, and I'd like to at least give him the option of calling with worse). Or maybe he pegged me as having 65 suited there a chunk of the time because that'd also make sense on the turn after 65 picks up a double gutshot...?

I wish I could remember some of the hands Max played against me where he owned me, especially on the first night I got in, because there were several where he made me feel foolish. What's funny to me is that Max's presence still helps games get started, when really he's one of the stronger players in the game most of the time if he's off tilt and focused.


Good luck at the tables the rest of the month, I hope this next Commerce voyage that begins for me in a few hours ends up at least as profitable as the first one.

Hi there.

I still haven't actually tried to learn anything about photography or how to get the most out of my camera set up, but a few nights ago I was feeling inspired and since there are tons of cool snow sculptures practically in my backyard, I took a late night go at it (click on them for a little bigger look).
















These first two above are my favorite and probably turned out looking the coolest. I really like the lighting in the 2nd one and how my eye somehow gets drawn to the red stop sign on the right side.








I think this one was a cooler concept than execution, but I still kind of like it.









I had high hopes for this one but couldn't get it to turn out right. I even had a name all ready, "Heart of Darkness," since with the weird lit up tree branches it kind of looks like a ton of veins protruding from a larger artery.








Experimenting with the wide angle lens... Clearly a crappy pic, but neat how much more gets jammed into the pic.













These last two obviously aren't anything all that amazing, I just figured I'd throw in a few close ups of some of the sculptures. The first one was pretty cool in real life -- I think it was a piranha type thing (think Mario games) and that is a human foot sticking outta the mouth.





Let me know what you think and flame away! Regardless, it felt pretty exhilarating being outside at like 2:30am, pacing around trying to find good angles taking pictures -- I can't wait to do it again (though I won't be for a little while, since as I type this at 4am, I have a 7:30am flight to California finally...yup, another all nighter with some sleep on the plane).

I think I'm "growing up" a little with regards to my music tastes. By that, I mean I'm becoming like one of those old people who listens to the music of their growing up years way too much. Don't get me wrong, I'm still listening to plenty of modern music -- it's just, I'm slowly starting to "rediscover" tons of music from lets say anywhere from between middle school years through early-to-mid-college years (which I guess would only be a few years ago), and I fall into an almost instant hypnotization from it...Which I guess is a realization that saying you hate someone's taste in music is kind of dumb. I mean even I listen to some of the stuff I like and go, "Why do I like this? This is awful."

We aren't always enthralled by certain songs because of the musicality of them. Sometimes, the song takes us down memory lane -- be it to a specific experience, a specific time period when you first heard the song a lot, a specific person -- whatever. It's tough to hate on someone's taste in music if the main reason they like it is because of the trip it takes them on when they hear it (and maybe they aren't even aware that's why they like the song).

So I think if someone tells me to listen to a song they like and then they ask what I thought of it, if I don't particularly like the song, rather than saying so, a better response to their question is asking them, "where does this song take you?"


In other notes, since my last blog received zero comments, I'm gonna assume that y'all were bored by it and want more poker talk in my blogs. So, here you go, I present a hand played between me and Stoxpoker pro, doughnutz, in "poker-conversation" format:



doughnutz: posts small blind $25
DpRHoops: posts big blind $50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to PapaWarbucks [7d Td]
juuuiice: folds
u920147: folds
PapaWarbucks: raises $50 to $100
"I have the button and an alright hand, RAISE!"

doughnutz: raises $50 to $150
"Oh yeah? I'm sick of him raising every single button, THREE BETS!"

DpRHoops: folds
PapaWarbucks: raises $50 to $200
"He 3-bets me every single hand stop that, I REALLY have something this time. Please please please get fooled. CAP!"

Betting is capped
doughnutz: calls $50

*** FLOP *** [4c 2h 5c]
doughnutz: checks

PapaWarbucks: bets $50
"I have to continue to pretend like I have something. Shit I wish the board texture was a little different."

doughnutz: calls $50
"He's pretending like he has something I'm never, ever, ever folding the pot is a gajillion to one and I still have two cards of my own."

*** TURN *** [4c 2h 5c] [Ks]
doughnutz: checks

PapaWarbucks: checks
"OK I believe you I don't think you are going to fold the turn and this board sucks for continuing to try to get you to fold and you're crazy and will checkraise that turn a lot, even without a king."

*** RIVER *** [4c 2h 5c Ks] [Tc]
doughnutz: bets $100
"ahaha I got him now, he's got ace high and he never folds!"

PapaWarbucks: raises $100 to $200
"ahaha I got him now, he's got ace high and he never folds!"

doughnutz: calls $100
"Crap. He might just be stupid enough to try to bluff me, doesn't he know I never fold?"

*** SHOW DOWN ***
PapaWarbucks: shows [7d Td] (a pair of Tens)
"ahaha i got him good! Valuetown!"

doughnutz (small blind) mucked [7h 7s]
"stupid luckbox donkey..."

PapaWarbucks collected $948 from pot
"Limit hold em is fun!"



Another cheesy 90s song I like a lot:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGMii43ftzY&NR=1

The idea of tact comes in handy sometimes as a poker player. We might want to yell and scream at someone for their horrid play that won them a pot versus us, but most of the time doing so yields no positives and may possibly result in negative ramifications (such as the fish leaving the game). Conversely, against the right person, it may lead to them gunning for us and trying to bluff us constantly, or even a Heads-Up freeze out, so, there are positives as well to speaking what comes to our mind as it comes.


I wonder in life, if you had to choose between the two relative extremes of practicing tact and taking the high road almost always, maybe not always saying exactly what is on your mind but also never hurting someone over what you do say; versus being someone who always speaks without regard for the consequences and truly does say what's on their mind, exactly how they think it, which would you choose? Clearly, the ideal response is to fall somewhere in the middle, since there are situations where it's best to simply let it go and tactfully say nothing or sugar coat what you do say, but likewise, there are other situations in life where be it for yourself, or for others, speaking your mind exactly as it is will ultimately be the best even if it is sometimes going to be hurtful. If you can't fall somewhere in between, however, and had to choose more or less always being one or the other, which would it be?


I'm pretty sure in my life I've erred on the side of tact -- sometimes this helps me avoid drama and is a handy and convenient way around situations and keeping everyone happy, sometimes it leaves me sacrificing the bulk of my own feelings at he expense of sparing others' their feelings. I'm not sure of this is a better or worse alternative to being the person who always says it as it is -- which is at the least, less of a passive aggressive approach!


If you had to pick one of the extremes to be which is the better choice overall? I'm not yet sure which I'd choose if I was forced to pick one or the other.




Poker has been going so-so. I think the past week or so I've been a little bored by it, so I haven't been playing as much as I maybe should be. This'll change whenever I get out to LA, which by the way, is a funny/dumb little story:

By the end of Tuesday I thought I had maybe gotten enough real-estate related things done to where I could make a Wednesday-Sunday type trip to LA. So around 11pm Tues night, after talking to a friend to make sure they could come watch after Murray, I booked a flight to California at 8:00am Wednesday. Got myself ready to go, went to bed at 2:30am, set my alarm for 5:30am. So then 5:30 rolls around, the alarm goes off, and I wake up and just get this beyond terrible feeling inside of me like, "this is going to be a super terrible trip, awful idea, don't go, bad stuff is going to happen." Like, we're practically talking genuinely feeling like my plane is going to crash type bad feelings (I'm not at ALL scared of flying and never have been scared...especially after flying hundreds of flights). I laid in bed 5 more minutes debating if I should go or not, especially after having booked and paid for the flight, and then decide that ultimately it's a bad idea to head out there for 3-4 days of live high stakes poker if I'm going there expecting the worst. I'm already a generally intuition-based player when I play, I don't think my mind is going to be in the best place for relying on those intuitions if my intuition is already telling me to stay home. So I stayed in bed, and went back to sleep. I'll get out there soon enough and crush some clowns.