Landed in LA yesterday morning and got to Commerce by 10am, and since I couldn't get into my room till around noon, played a couple hours of 100/200 to kill the time. Lost $1000 while killing time, then went to up to the room to sleep since my flight was at 7am and I stayed up all night. The sleeping didn't last long, since by 2:15 I got a call from the floor saying they were going to start a 300/600 game, which I happily got out of bed to play. A few hours later, we were playuing 6 handed and 400/800, and by the time I quit right as my Twins beat the Angels 2-1 in extra innings, I ended the session up $56,000. :)

I wish I could claim it was genius play that let me win so much, but really it was more like me having lots of overpairs versus other overpairs that were a notch smaller, hitting some flush draws, and hitting some straight draws. Or maybe, it's just because "you should become a live pro schneids, they can never beat you live anymore," as several people have jokingly told me. It is kinda funny though that the past few months I can't lose live, and don't win often online.

I think most of you will be super happy with my next LHE video that I uploaded a few days ago. Without giving too much away, it's the first of its kind. :)

Anyway, that's all for now. I'm going to be going to at least one of the Twins-Angels games at Anaheim, maybe more, and then Sunday or Monday cruising back to San Diego for a few days with BK, Dave (JSchnett's older brother), Jay, and Billy. It'll be my first time ever visiting those guys in San Diego, I can't wait! Hopefully I can have some of them teach me a few things about NL since they all crush it.

One of the IM's I returned to after my Madeline Island trip was from CR guest pro JSchnett, "when you win a live tournament you are supposed to update your blog i think." He's probably right...

Last Sunday on the 10th, I played in Canterbury's $1500 "Twin Cities Poker Open." It had a 10:30am start time, lord knows how I was able to make it -- especially after factoring in when my alarm went off at 9:30am there were still 8 other people sleeping in my house after a night of drinking at my place and at Williams' Peanut Bar.

The tourney, like every Canterbury tournament, has a super fast structure. I know there are lots of people who like to whine and moan about fast structures, but I really think that any structure has an optimal strategy, and a fast structure tourney like Canterbury's can be super profitable for someone who understands it, since most the players there do not and end up playing way too tight in all stages of it while the looser, aggressive players widdle away at everyone's stacks with constant blind steals.

My starting table was actually pretty tough compared to the rest of the field, and when we were finally broken with 7 tables to go (173 entries) we had only had two bust outs the entire time. For the second straight $1500 tourney at CB, I was seated with position on my buddy Dave P, who unfortunately funded my large stack via a tough cooler. In the hand, 1k/2k blinds, the CO opened to 5k, Dave made it 15k from the button, and I pushed all in for 50k in the BB with KK. Dave called with QQ and lost, pushing me up over 100k and into the chip lead of the entire tournament, and him down to 8k or so. From that point on I was on cruise control and got to the final table as chip leader at around 450k chips (about 2.6M chips in play). Once again, I can't emphasize enough how in these structures, if you can accumulate a decent chip stack within the first couple of hours, it is really tough to not make a deep run because most people end up playing way way way too tight when the blinds and antes are super large in relation to the average stack size.

So yeah, at the final table I played a few pots where I got lucky and/or look bad. That happens though. I ran hot at the final table, which is what it takes to win a tournament. One debatable hand, it was 4k/8k 1k ante, folded to me in the SB, 6 handed, with about 420k chips, and I made it 20k with 74 of spades. Mike Carlson, another super good Minnesota kid who is probably one of the most consistently successful players ever in these canterbury tournaments, called with his 290k stack. The flop came K64 with two hearts and one spade. I bet 20k, he raised to 90k, and I called after much thought about all three options. I figured there was some chance that he could be making this raise with any flopped pair, any flopped draw, or even once in a blue moon with a total airball such as T9. I suspected once I called his flop bet, my call would be scary enough to shut him down on the turn with a lot of those hands and I may very well get a free showdown, since Mike knows I am not someone who makes big folds. I know most people hate my flop call, but oh well. I was there, it was my read and instincts, I went with it. The turn brought an 8 of spades, giving me a gutshot and a flush draw along with the pair. This specific card changed my whole entire plan for the rest of the hand, as I decided to bet 100k (more or less pot committing Mike if he chooses to continue) and use my bet as a semi-bluff of sorts since if he has a 6 or 4 he may decide to lay his hand down, yet if I'm behind then I still got a plethora of outs to hit and end up being a huge huge chip lead. Anyway, he pushed all in, and I called the remaining 80-90k and missed against his 75o that turned the nuts.

Later when I had 230k chips and was the small stack with 5 people left, I pushed all in UTG+1 with 64 suited. My stack was 7-8BBs. The SB woke up with QQ, what a fool he was thinking he could knock me out.... I flopped two pair and returned to being an almost average chip stack.

The only other thing worth mentioning in my tourney summary was before the tourney started, myself, John Hoppmann and David Webb each made a last longer bet with eachother, and all 3 of us ended up making it to the final table. Talk about a tough last longer (David finished 2nd, John 8th)! First was supposed to pay $81,800, but since David and I are friends we ended up changing the payouts from 82-41 to 68-55, so I ended up with ~$68,000 for my first place finish.

Other than the tournament, I spent Thursday-Saturday night at Madeline Island. If you happen to be a midwesterner, it's a must-visit destination. I'd go as far as calling it the "paradise of the midwest" thanks to it having the nicest beach you can find in this region. It is located a couple miles off Bayfield, Wisconsin, on Lake Superior, and you take a ferry out to it. This Madeline Island trip was the 6th summer that my old high school buds and I have done it (every year we've camped at the town park), and is our yearly summer tradition.

The weather was perfect on Friday -- 85 and not a cloud in the sky, and we played half a dozen games of beach volleyball, then spent the night at the local hotspot: "Tom's Burned Down Cafe." The owner is quite the character, in his 60s and 100% a product of the hippie movement which is evidenced by the liberally/free-spirited quotes, slogans, pictures, and sayings splattered all across every wall. The bar itself looks much like the name of the place, since it has burned down 3 times. There is no roof, instead a large canopy that is held up by a few large pieces of lumber. While there, we even witnessed a domestic dispute -- apparently a fiancee was angry that her husband-to-be had his hand on another woman's leg, so, she slapped him up in a style that's usually only seen in hollywood movies (two days later, we learned she ended up being put in jail for it though got out right away when her parents posted her $750 bail).

Saturday we got up early and took the ferry back to Bayfield to catch our 9:30am-12:30pm guided sailboat tour. Again, another perfect day since there was plenty of wind to make the sail enjoyable. It was my first time on a sail boat -- definitely a neat experience. We spent the rest of the afternoon laying around on the beach, and decided to pack up that night and return home instead of early Sunday morning like originally planned. As my friends and I get older, every summer it's getting tougher and tougher to coordinate everyone's schedules to make this trip work. This year we were down to 5 of us (our first trip we had 8). I guess that's another perk of being a poker pro, since it is pretty easy for me to take part in this tradition every year as long as we keep doing it.

Pretty excited for the last 1.5 months of Twins baseball. I really think this might be our year. Hopefully there's no let down since I now finally believe we've assembled all the pieces to make a deep run. Which speaking of, I might be going to a game or two of the Twins-Angels series at Anaheim later this week... just need to finally decide in the next day or two if I'm going to make a California trip this week or not. BK, John, and Dave all might be going out to California at some point, we just need to talk and coordinate and line up our plans.

That's it for today, hope y'all are enjoying your summers and getting out and doing things. I know I have been, and poker has been an after-thought for the most part of the last several weeks. Once fall comes, like last year, I'm going to be putting in a few more sessions and focusing. I know I should be playing more than I am, though I also know this happens every summer after the WSOP where I don't play much -- and I'm ok with that.

The weather was perfect on Saturday for volleyball, and we played several games (though not enough in my opinion). After that we hung out at my place for awhile and cooled off, then ventured back outside and walked around the art fair that's been going on around Uptown. After that, we made a liquor store run, and played a lot of beer pong and flip cup. I went 3-1 on the night in BP, though unfortunately my loss was in my only 1v1 match of the night, against Goodson who was back in town from Arizona. However, it was my fourth game of the night and his first, so I'd like to think some of it was due to unequal sobriety levels. Also, he sank two balls in the same cup twice (my rules are if you sink the first cup, the ball and cup must remain there and you have the chance to sink the 2nd ball in the same cup, to make it worth 3 cups), which is pretty tough to do and requires some good luck. I lost to him by two cups.

Sunday has been a pretty relaxed day. My parents came down and I went out with them to walk around the art fair some more. Today I did see a few things that were tempting to get, but I held off since I really am running low on wall space to put things. I spent most of the evening playing 3 different tourneys online. I came close to moneying in two of them, though unfortunately I don't win the hands I should win. I can't recall em all offhand, but I lost a KK vs QQ for a lot of chips, a JJ vs A6o for a ton of chips pretty close to the money (win that one and I'm top 10 in chips and great shape for a deep run), and another JJ vs AK and AT all in, and then finally ousted in one as a smallish stack (due to the JJ vs A6 loss) with QJs all in vs TT and the flop coming KQx, only to turn 9 river jack and send me to the rail. Hopefully next time I get the urge to play tournaments, I'll remember my anger from today and hold off.

Anyway, the real reason I'm blogging now is to share this:

"This Modern Love" by Bloc Party is one of my favorite songs ever, so I thought it was pretty funny to find that someone actually tried to compose it in Mario Paint's composer. The job they did from about 2:25 to the end is super impressive.

And if you don't know what they were trying to recreate, here is the actual "This Modern Love":

I think for this blog I am going to do a bunch of random lines about life lately, as well as catch up on a few wsop things I didn't get to in my previous entry...

-- The CR party that happened during the WSOP was a blast. I ended up playing a lot of Beer Pong; two games with Dahlig763 as we shared our Minnesota bond (went 1-1), and six undefeated games with RyanRizza. Us two were really the ultimate teammates. Whenever one of us struggled, the other immediately picked it up, and then half the time we were both on and smoked through all the cups quickly (three of the games we won by 5 or 6 cups). Perhaps at next year's WSOP Ryan and I can make a Beer Pong instructional video ;).

-- Weirdest WSOP story I heard: allegedly, a hooker was busted at the Rio for trying to cash in tournament chips at the main cage. So, basically, a poker player smuggled tourney chips out of an event (or more likely a satelite), then proceeded to get a hooker and pay her with tourney chips, which she apparently had no clue weren't really Rio chips.

-- Second weirdest WSOP story I heard: While playing in a cash game, Yakov turns and points towards a guy. "Have you played with him before?" "Yeah, we've been put at the same tourney table before." "One time in a cash game, that guy announced he was all in, shoved all his chips forward... Then reached up to his face and pulled his eye out, placed that on top of the chip stack too, then declared that now he was actually all the way in." I've never noticed one of his eyes is a glass eye... dunno how I would've reacted had that happened in front of me.

-- Online poker between May-July has been brutal for me. In fact, my worst run ever online (BB-wise, and getting pretty close $-wise too). At its peak, about 550BBs. Near the end of July I was even going to take 3 months off from LHE. In fact, kinda funny story: while playing, I send Ian J an IM of "I think I'm finally gonna take a long break from LHE." Less than a minute later, I get two aces and raise, someone cold calls, SB calls, Ian 3 bets from the BB, I cap, all call. Flop comes J52 rainbow. I bet, SB calls, Ian calls. Turn 4. I bet and both call. River 7. I bet, SB checkraises, I know I'm beat but don't care and want to see how, and SB has the 86. Ian sends me a, "and that seals it..." Kind of tough to ignore 'signs' like that. Anyway, my actual "break" from LHE lasted just under a week. It's been going better since then. (EDIT: I played a quick little session after typing this blog... obv the poker gods mock me for thinking things are better. I won 1 of 16 showdowns. Yeah, that's 48/6 showdown stats average 3.6 handed... It was kinda like I sit with $20k, I blink, thanks for playing you have $0 in front of you. Seriously so life tilting how for over 3+ months straight online you can just not make a winning hand, not get paid off, draw dead and hit, draw to the world and miss, get out flopped, out turned, out rivered, over and over and over)

-- I've been playing a decent amount of PLO and mixed games too. So far on full tilt I'm up about 5 buy ins in $2/4 blind PLO in what I would guesstimate is maybe 1500-2000 hands (haven't gotten PT Omaha fully set up yet). I know I'm making some mistakes but also think I've been doing a lot of things really well in it. I like the challenge of something new, though at the same time it kind of sucks knowing that to truly get good at the game it's going to take a lot of hard studying and meticulous reflecting and thinking for weeks or even months on end. Not that I'm not still constantly trying to improve at LHE, it's just two totally different types of commitment. I graduated from college already and want to be done with "studying," which makes it not easy to get myself back to that academic, scholarly studying-type approach with poker.

-- As for the mixed games, me BK, John, Dave P and a few others have been going to Running Aces (the new card room that opened in the northern suburbs of MN in July) once or twice a week the last several weeks and been playing 30/60 HOE (and SOE one night). So far I'm up a few thousand in that and feel like I'm now actually somewhat competent at OE. Stud Hi I still feel pretty lost in, but hopefully with time that'll change. A night or two ago I played a couple hours of 50/100 horse on full tilt and won $1100. I think if I keep up this type of dedication, I'll be to the point where come my next live poker trip, if there's a super duper good mixed game going, I would have the confidence to try sitting in it. We think we want to make a "regular" HOE (or perhaps HOSE or HORSE) game one night a week at Running Aces... So if you're a Minnesota player who'd want to play 30/60 mixed games with us at Running Aces, let me know since we could always use another player or two for the game. So far our mixed game has varied between 4-7 handed.

-- Running Aces is pretty nice. I like how accomodating they are towards us, the spaciousness of the room, and the much more comfortable chairs. Plus they've been super relaxed on the rake we've been paying in our mixed games. Playing 4 handed and only getting charged $1 for rake is super cool. So far a thumbs up to them for sure.

-- Earlier today I had to help my sister move. She lived in Rochester, and is moving back up to the cities. The drive to/from there always cracks me up because there are a few funny signs. One of them about how you're entering "zero death corridor" or something like that, and another that simply says, "concentrate on driving." Which, speaking of, I'm angry the state made it a law that you can no longer text while driving. I think it's an impossible law to enforce personally, since u can still dial a phone number, hold your phone, talk on your phone, and do any countless other number of things with your phone -- so how are they to say whether you're texting or doing one of those other things? Plus, even though there are stupid people who do stupid things, I in general like to side towards letting people decide their own capabilities. I feel, for example, I am perfectly able to text while driving. I make good choices about when I am in safe enough surroundings to be able to do so, and when I should put my phone down and focus 100% on driving. Anyway, after today it's now 100% certain in my mind that whenever I next move, I'm paying someone to do it for me. My body isn't built for carrying huge couches and desks and dressers and lord knows what else down flights of stairs and around corners.

-- Also, kinda shocked that for 20 cents, you can get an hour's worth of time with a parking meter in Rochester. Man, 25 cents gets you either 7.5 minutes or 15 minutes in Minneapolis.

-- Taking up some of my weekday time lately has been looking at duplexes. I think last week I looked at 8 different duplexes-fourplexes around the cities. Got one or two I really like and may purchase in the coming months. Like poker was 6 years ago, I'm treating real estate as a new challenge to conquer. There are definitely some amazing deals out there for people who have the diligence to find them, the patience to not settle, and the expendable income to invest, especially in the Twin Cities market.

-- Tomorrow I've got a bunch of friends coming over at noon to play volleyball all afternoon and have some food. Man alive it's been a long time coming for some volleyball games. Volleyball games are probably one of the reasons I'll eventually make my WSOP a short one, it really stinks not being in Minnesota almost all of June and part of July. Back in the day we all used to play vball several nights a week. Now with everyone "grown up" and with jobs and (in a few cases) wives, it's tougher for us all to find time everyone can make it. Anyway, I'm pretty stoked for a good 6 hours of vball.

-- Uptown Art Festival is this weekend. Last year (blog here: http://www.cardrunners.com/members/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1597&Itemid=44) it did a nice little dent to my bank account. In a few days I'll let ya know if I make any purcahases there this year. I think I probably won't make it out there till Sunday, even though it's more or less in my backyard.

-- I went to all four Twins-White Sox games. Awesome time. Holy cow the Twins are so resilient. Two of the four games they were down 4-0 halfway through and came back to win. The fourth game was one of the most fun Twins games of the season, notably due to Gardy's ejection and subsequent hat-kick... It's pretty common for him to get thrown out; however, of the 50+ times I've seen it, never have I seen him that furious. I think this Twins team can make it deep, especially with Liriano coming back up. It's going to be an exciting last 2 months of the season, I'm so glad BK and I got sweet season tickets. If the Twins somehow pull off a post season run, I'd have to give a nod to Alexi Casilla as an unsung team-MVP. His promotion from AAA was right around the time we started making a big turn around, and he's for sure been a nice spark plug in the #2 slot.

-- Last thing I think that I didn't mention in any older blog... During the WSOP when I took a break from Vegas and went back to MN, one of the things I did was go to "Rock the Garden" (a concert outside at the Walker Art Center). The four music acts were Bon Iver, Cloud Cult, the New Pornographers, and Andrew Bird. Cloud Cult is from Minnesota, and have a pretty unique sound. I think y'all should at least check em out a little if you haven't heard of them:

So concludes the 2008 WSOP, after another two weeks out in Vegas after I last returned home for a quick break. I played Day one of the main event on the 4th of July, which turned out to be a good decision since I thought the field seemed amazingly weak and a majority of the pros who are in Vegas the whole series opted to not play on the 4th for obvious reasons.

I'll keep my main event summary pretty brief: I was at good tables, and my stack's peak was 37,000. I managed to lose 30,000 chips to John Duthie in one pot where I've talked with several NL and tourney players and they've had conflicting views on what the right move would've been. It was 150/300 level with 25 ante, and I was the SB. The BB was walking so his hand got automucked. Duthie opened from the CO to 1100. From the SB with AsQs, I reraised to 3300 (now would've made it about 3600 if I replay it and decide to reraise). He then reraised to 9300. So, yeah, kind of a large reraise. I thought he was pretty capable of being aware of the circumstances and what I'd think of them, so, I figured he was more than capable of making a pretty light 4 bet here. Part of me wanted to push all in (he's got about 20k left), part of me wanted to fold simply because I still had a decent amount of chips and the table was good, and part of me wanted to call and see what happened on the flop (while basically being willing to probably commit all my chips if I hit something). I ended up calling, perhaps the worst of the options but oh well, I didn't really want to jam and be wrong about his hand strength and be crippled that way. The flop came Q74 with two diamonds, I checked, he went all in, and I called. He had 74o and I didn't improve. I busted awhile after that, rather uneventfully.

Cash games, on the other hand, have continued to treat me amazingly well. Here is how the rest of my cash game play has went live since my last blog:

I landed in Vegas for part 2 of my WSOP on June 25th, and between the 25th to 29th I did a lot of drinking and activities with friends. It was a nice little mini vacation to help get my prepared for the remainder of my playing. After the 300/600 broke on the 6th of July, I decided that I'd give Vegas another day or two to see if any more black chip games got going. None did, so, here I am typing up this blog while waiting for my flight in the airport.

I have a few hands to talk about from the cash games, but I'll save a few of them for the next blog. Anyway, here is one now that most of my LHE playing friends think I played badly, but my NL friends think I played well: 300/600 full table, CMO raised UTG, one cold caller in mid-late position, and I called in the BB with 7s5s. Flop Q75 with two diamonds. I check, CMO bet, the cold caller called, and I called. Most everyone would probably checkraise this flop in my spot, and I think most everyone would be wrong to (albeit not by much). A few specific variables in place make me think calling is better:

1) The preflop raiser is CMO, and he is under the gun, and this is 300/600. Now he might have a cheeseball occasionally, but most of the time, his UTG opening standards in this game are going to be pretty strong. Therefore, it is more likely than normal that he will in fact c-bet the turn too.

2) I don't think the cold caller is just peeling the flp with a KT or KJ or something. Now, he might be, but I really didn't think it was too likely, he wasn't that type of guy. That means he has something, and he will likely call with that something on the turn too. If I think he might have KJ or something like that, checkraising the flop then obviously becomes preferable because he'll for sure put in one more SB closing the action.

3) Given one and two, my bottom two pair really isn't that huge of an equity edge vs both the other player's hand ranges. There are tons of cards that can come off on the turn that I might hate, and I may as well wait till I see a safe turn card where I'll have a much better equity edge and can still probably get two BBs from two players.

4) Since CMO is UTG I probably wouldn't even be checkraising this flop with a flush draw unless it was 9d8d. So, I may as well not be checkraising with this hand either. Plus, he will not be expecting me to show up with a hand as strong as this if I check/call this particularly semi-drawish flop.

So I did call. The turn paired the 5, and I did get to checkraise both players. The river brought a 9d, I bet, CMO raised, I 3-bet, he thought for a long time while thinking outloud, "I can't think of one hand you could have except maybe 95 [and then he was looking at the board to see that of the 95 suiteds, there were either one or zero of them I could possibly have... don't remember which]." He ended up folding what was either an overpair, AQ, or a flush.

I honestly still believe my line is the best way to play the hand, even if occasionally I miss out on the times I checkraise the flop and CMO 3-bets, and then I get to checkraise a safe turn again.

Flight time... I can't wait to get back to Minnesota and my "normal" life, even if it isn't particularly normal...

For the third straight WSOP I've managed to get sick during the middle of it. What's sad though is that this year I've been taking extra precautions because after the past two years I've come to expect it's a decent chance that I'll catch something due to the combo of touching/handling disgusting poker chips hours and hours a day every day, getting on an irratic sleep schedule, and not eating as healthy as ideal. This year I even did a little more than normal, like mostly ordering bottled water instead of sodas from the drink girls, having fruit parfaits and "healthier" stuff instead of the standard beef every meal, and taking airborne several mornings. Anyway, I'm now fighting off a sore throat, congestion, headaches, and a general fatigued feeling.

The last two nights of my cash game playing went like this:

For the first half of the trip, I successfully won over $100,000 in the LHE cash games. I'm pretty close to 100% sure that nobody has won more in the wsop LHE cash games going in Vegas than me, which I'm basing in part on the fact I've played in a majority of the black chip games that have started and I've done better than anyone in them and I'm doubting anyone has ran up a $100k win playing 100/200.

The $10,000 LHE "world championship," however, didn't go so hot. I know it was a generally tough field, but I'm pretty sure I had one of the toughest, if not the toughest table draw of any tables. Here is how it looked:

Seat 1: DonkofHoldem on AP / Woodrow on most other sites
Seat 2: Hoss_TBF
Seat 3: me
Seat 4: Asian guy who played fairly decent other than cold calling about two times
Seat 5: Pat (winning black chip live player who also plays hold em fairly well)
Seat 6: KPR16
Seat 7: Unknown white guy who played pretty well from what I saw
Seat 8: Terrence Chan (Unassigned on Stars)
Seat 9: Marcel Luske (only soft spot)

Basically in this lineup, including myself, 6 guys who for sure beat 100/200+ LHE games, and two others who I don't know much about.

So yeah, along with the crappy table draw, my luck was equally woeful. I lost twice with KK, twice with QQ, had a few bricks when I opened with solid hands, and missed with 6s5s on a Tx 4s 3s flop. All combined, I was one of the first 5 or 10 people to bust from the event. Just brutal.

One hand from this event is one that I'm questioning myself a little about. I know I would've played it differently had it occured online. Live though, I went with my gut and my feel. In it, Hoss opened UTG and I 3 bet next in with QQ, he called. Flop K94 with two hearts. He checkraised me and I called (I have no heart). Turn Ace. He checked, I checked (online I for sure bet). River Ace of hearts. He bets, I folded (online, if I check the turn by chance, I call his river bet). What I know about Hoss is that there are no hands he'll 4-bet with PF in this spot, and if he has QJ or hearts I think it's a pretty good chance he still bets when the ace hits on the turn. So I really feel like his turn check is quite often with KQ or KJ (which KJ I think he often check/calls with on the flop) or else JJ, or AK or AA. Of all those hands, I only beat JJ. What irks me a little now though is that he would probably bet JJ on the river if he checked the turn, and also because of it being a tournament and not a cash game the likelihood that he in fact did check the turn with QJ or 88 or something like that does go up a tiny little bit. Oh well, guess I'll never know unless Matt decides to tell me someday.

Another kind of interesting hand occured in a 100/200 cash game. David Baker raised UTG, one guy called in EP, and I called on the button with 22, as did one of the blinds. Flop K98r. Checked to me and I bet, Baker called and the EP guy called. Turn 5, same action. River 4, and they both again checked to me. Interesting river decision... Do I bet for value? Do I bet as a bluff? Do I just check it behind? I opted to check it behind, but betting might be correct. David had an A7 and the EP player couldn't beat his ace high, so I won the pot. At the time I felt pretty confident I had the best hand, because I really thought if the EP player had flopped any pair he'd bet the flop himself (so I strongly weighted his hand towards a straight draw), and likewise I figured Baker to have some type of ace high hand. Given those assumptions, I should bet just in case I can get Baker to make a hero call tryin to snap off my JT/QJ/QT hands that I might have. Likewise, I should bet because Baker or the EP guy may have a hand like 77 or 66 (which peeled on the flop, and turned a gutshot, but then may fold if I still bet the river). So, betting the river turns into a dual valuebluff kind of thing since depending on my opposition's moods they may call with worse or fold with better. With these kind of variables in place, I don't think betting can ever be wrong.

I'm not sure what day I'm going to return to Vegas yet, but I kind of hope it's soon enough to maybe take a crack at an NL event or two. Like many of the other CR pros, I'm getting bracelet-envy -- this year specifically I know pretty well many guys who've won a bracelet or came very close to getting one. I also hope that my live reads can stay as "on" when I return. I feel like the past two weeks I had a pretty awesome grip on when my opponents were calling to peel, or calling to showdown, and that helped me make a lot of good decisions about when to check or bet.

So far this WSOP has been super good. I've only played 2 tournaments ($1500 LHE and $2000 LHE), and moneyed in the $2000 for like $5,200. In that event, I finished 34th and feel like I really should've advanced much further than that if I didn't get unlucky and run reallly bad. When we reached the money with 45 people left, I was around 5th or 6th in chips, and basically from that point on I didn't win a hand and did the standard run JJ into QQ, run AQ into AK, etc type stuff and slowly but steadily lose my stack. Oh well. Tomorrow is the $10,000 LHE event and I'm really looking forward to it. This is the first $10,000 LHE event since my Party Poker Million win in March 2006, so I kind of feel like this is the quasi "title defending" event for me.

Since I haven't talked about poker a ton in my recent blogs, here are two hands I'm proud of since I don't think most people win the pot:

Hand 1 -- 100/200 game at the Rio. Teddy "Iceman" limps UTG, BK limps next in, another guy limps, and I limp in on the button with Jd5d. Flop of K64 with two diamonds. Checked to BK who bets, 1 fold, I raise, and BK calls. Turn 3. BK checks, I bet, BK raises, and I call. River pairs the King and BK bet, and I called and beat his 87 high.

Hand 2 -- 200/400 or 300/600 game at the Bellagio -- Folded to me in the SB and I raised with K8o. Max called in the BB. Flop 974. I bet, he raised, I called. Turn Ten and I check called. River ace and I again check called, to which he announced "pair good" and then I sat and waited for him to flip his cards or muck his hand. Then when it became apparent I wasn't going to show my hand he showed me an 8, so I flipped my K8 and then he mucked.

I am planning on returning back to Minnesota once my friends and I are all done with the $10k LHE event. And since I haven't gotten to brag about poker in my blog for awhile, here is what my 2008 WSOP cash game spreadsheet looks like thus far:

Good luck to everyone who's participating in WSOP tourneys or cash games. More later.

Hey all, I know I've sucked at updating my blog the past month or two. Anyway, I'm going to get back on the schedule of a couple updates a week.

I land in Vegas tomorrow morning, looking forward to it and a nice change of pace from my current life (not that my current life hasn't been awesome, cuz it has).

May officially ended up being one of my worst poker months in a long time, but I'm not fretting it too much because Jan-April of this year were all awesome. I've been taking it easy with poker in May because I plan on putting in a ton of hours in June, and it's good to sometimes take some breaks and enjoy life (especially with the Minnesota weather finally starting to get nice in May...)

Monday and Tuesday this week was a fishing trip up to Mille Lacs Lake in central Minnesota. This lake is famous for being one of the best walleye hot spots in America, and it's a lake my dad and I routinely make it up to usually at least once a year. Unfortunately for us, we only managed to be out on the lake a couple of hours. Both days it was about 50 degrees and rainy and fairly windy, so it wasn't too much fun sitting on the boat shivering (though in our 2ish hours on the lake, my dad caught a 17.5" walleye that we kept and I caught an 18" bass that we threw back). Hopefully later this summer we can get another trip out there on a little more pleasant day.

More later, I gotta finish packing.

Since I started blogging on CR, this is the longest stretch I've ever went without making a new blog. I've been pretty busy the last 3+ weeks, and when I'm not, I've been too tired to want to concentrate on typing out an entry.

In anycase, since my last blog, I went to Denver for the Wild hockey road-playoff games. We won the first game 3-2, and after two of the three goals got calls from friends back in Minnesota who said they showed us on TV. I'm not too surprised by that, since there weren't too many people decked out in Wild gear and of the ones who were, we were the only group I ever saw that was six large. After that win it was so much fun leaving and doing a "lets go Wild!" chant around the opposition's home. The second game we got blown out and we left about 10 minutes before the game was actually over. Avalanche fans were overall pretty tame. Nobody threw anything at us, and nobody ever got too vulgar or angry at our presence.

In my last blog there was a comment of, "Do you think there are specific reasons that you've played so well? Any minor adjustments to your game that have been helpful, or just generally making timely reads, calls, bluffs, etc.? "

This is a really tough Q to answer, especially because I feel like in my last week or two of play, I haven't been playing as well. But around the time of the last blog, I think it was that I was simply playing within myself and making good hand reading decisions, getting maximum value when winning, actually laying down a few hands when beat, and being super tenacious in the right moments and locking down into check/call mode at the right time as well. The last week or two, I can feel my focus isn't quite 100% there. I know that happens for me sometimes when I get busy with other things in life, and the easiest way to get the focus back is by playing and trying to refine my rhythm.

Lastly, a quick shout-out to my Twins for an impressive 5-0 stretch against the White Sox and Tigers. Hopefully they can keep this up and somehow overachieve their way into a playoff birth. Having our season tickets for some playoff games would be unreal.

Wow the past few weeks of time have felt like some of the quickest of my life. So far the Twins are 0-3 in games I've went to and 3-2 in games I haven't went to. I'm debating how far to push the trial before considering these results statistically significant.

Some of you may have already seen this but many of you probably haven't... My past 29k'ish hands in LHE (ending Apr 2), mostly all 6-max games. Pretty smokin' hot, though I also feel like I'm playing really fricken good.

My other main poker goal for the short term is to try to get better at HU LHE. My current thoughts on my HU game are I feel like I am pretty good at it, but I think there are many HU specialists who probably have somewhere between a slight edge to fairly big edge against me. I've started taking on some of the guys at full tilt who just sit there all day waiting for opponents, and thus far have fared decently and even had a few of them quit me. That's reassuring anyway :) Small sample size so far, but I hope it can continue like this.

Finally, I really like the local Minnesota group Quietdrive. They are slowly starting to get more national exposure. Here is my favorite song by them and probably one of my fav songs I've heard in the past year or so (the video that goes along with this is irrelevent to the song, there is no actual music video for it... this is all I could find):