As usual, I have quite a bit to talk about after 2 weeks of no blogs. Without further ado:

-Not even sure what to say about the cruise. It was the most debauchery I've seen packed into a week. There are several great stories from the trip but I don't really think they're suitable for a public blog, if you're friends with me and want to hear some stuff just ask me. I can talk about the ship itself though, so let's do that. I definitely fattened myself up some as there was all-inclusive food available 24/7, including a structured and delicious dinner every night (our group's time window was 6-8pm each night). Since all the food was free, decision-making generally went like this: "Hmm that salmon sounds good, but so does the prime rib. Guess I'll just get both!" The food was really good overall on the ship, if I spent the whole year on there I'd probably look like NVG's image of me.

The drinks were not all-inclusive unfortunately, and this resulted in most servers on board knowing my name by day 3 or so. The fifth floor of the ship included shops, a sports bar, a casino, a comedy club, a piano bar, and a nightclub. We spent most of our time on board here and on the ninth floor, which was the pool deck and also featured most of the food and an awesome water slide. The casino had one poker table which used automated betting machines rather than a live dealer and cards. I was skeptical at first but the machines actually worked pretty well, and it sped up the game a bit for sure. It still did feel like there was something missing though, I like being able to hold the cards and chips when playing live. The waitress referring to me as 'Brian my favorite customer' made it feel like a more normal live setting though (ha ha).

The ship stopped in Cozumel, Belize, Honduras, and Grand Cayman. I only left the boat on the first and last of these, and if I was doing a cruise again, I'd get off every stop and do some research of what I wanted to do at the destinations. Cozumel was my favorite stop aside from losing my cell phone, we had lunch (and conga line shots) at Carlos n Charlie's, walked around shops some, then hit the beach. At Grand Cayman the beach we went to was pretty small (here's where planning would have come in handy) but we still had fun. Like I said I didn't go to the other stops but two girls from Cornell that we met up with onboard went to some zoo thing in Honduras and their pics made me kind of jealous. Next time I'm totally doing that stuff, even if it means waking up at 8am.

Overall I enjoyed the cruise a lot. It did kind of suck being disconnected so much, especially after losing my phone on day 3, but since I was with a bunch of friends it wasn't so bad. I think for me I'd probably prefer other kinds of vacations a bit but I would like to try out another cruise sometime and do more of the excursions at the destination spots as mentioned.

-My NCAA tourney bracket fell to pieces pretty fast. After the first 2 rounds I was 1st in 2 of my 3 pools and 3/89 in the 3rd, but the Sweet 16 round just KILLED my bracket (had Ohio St as champs, Syracuse in final 4, etc.). The semifinal games were pretty ugly, I can't remember a worse close game to watch than Butler/Mich St and West Virginia wasn't able to keep it close vs Duke. I'll be pulling hard for Butler tonight as I'm firmly entrenched on the anti-Duke bandwagon. Also I want to give a shoutout to the Cornell basketball team, who backed up the insane level of hype they had for a 12 seed by winning their first 2 NCAA tourney games in school history before falling short against Kentucky, who just had way too much athleticism. As DeMarcus Cousins of Kentucky eloquently put it, "This ain't no spelling bee." It was a fun ride, great job Red!

-I went home yesterday to be with family on Easter. My parents, grandma, and several aunts, uncles, cousins, and my cousin's 1 year old son all came to my aunt's house in PA for Easter dinner and festivities, including an Easter egg hunt. I won (well Yankee swapped for) a cheese grater and 2 books - one on business relations at the dinner table and the other on business relations on the golf course, ship it! In all seriousness it was great getting to see everyone and lots of fun playing with the 1 year old, who is ADORABLE.

-Today is opening day for baseball. Well actually last night was, although my Yankees really choked it up, but whatever it's 1 game. Unfortunately I can't watch a ton today because I have 3 exams this week and I really have to do a bunch of studying, I'll definitely be sneaking some peeks though. I always get really excited for baseball at the beginning of the season only to be bored to death by it by June, so hopefully that doesn't happen this year. One thing that should help is my participation in the Cardrunners fantasy baseball league. CR is sponsoring a league this year that was organized by my friend Eric Kesselman and pits myself, him, CR's Andrew Wiggins, and Eric's good friend Bill Phipps against fantasy baseball experts. To read more about the competitors click on the link above. I will most definitely be the fish in this league as I don't devote nearly the amount of time into the game as any of these guys, but I'm a big sports fan and played a league with the same AL-only auction format last year (and finished 3rd/10 in my first season playing), so I think I'm by no means dead money and it's gonna be a fun time playing. The website linked will feature regular blog entries from Eric and Bill and the experts will be blogging on their respective sites as well. I'll post about it on my blog periodically too, and I'll start by bragging about my 3 hitters who played last night (Granderson, Gardner, Youkilis) going 6-12, combining to hit for the cycle with 4 RBI, 5 runs, and a SB (sick double steal where Gardner stole home easily on a double steal). Joba's pitching hurt me some but all-in-all still a nice start. I'll be checking updates compulsively today while studying for sure.

-Between the cruise, impending tests, and time with the gf I've just hardly had any time to play poker lately. After my exams this week I should be able to get back into the swing of things more. I did play a fun 100/200 NL session on my front porch the other day when it was 75 degrees and sunny out (minor miracle in Ithaca), it's nice to see high stakes NL games running some again, and although they're not easy I'd like to play them some more, it's a nice challenge for me after hardly playing any NL cash games over the past year or so.

Brian

It's that time of year again - March Madness time! Honestly I'm much more of an NBA fan than a college basketball fan, but the "Big Dance" still holds a special place in my heart. I'm in 3 bracket pools this year (one with family, one with college friends, one with poker players) and I got off to a hot start yesterday winning all 8 of the early games (including #11 Old Dominion and #13 Murray St.) before going 4-4 in the late games. Nothing wrong with 12-4 though and I'm pretty sure Georgetown was my only loser than I had winning more than one game. I'm very excited for the Cornell game vs Temple today, our team has been getting lots of hype, and it's well deserved as they've won 3 straight Ivy league titles and feature two guys who have been named Ivy League Player of the Year (Ryan Wittman and Louis Dale) and a two-time Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year (Jeff Foote). Wittman is also the conference's career leader in made 3 pointers by more than 80, a pretty stunning stat. We do have a tough matchup with Temple today, as I thought they'd be a 3 or 4 seed rather than a 5, but I still have confidence. Go Red!

Tomorrow I'm leaving for spring break. I am flying to Ft. Lauderdale with my roommate, Justin, and staying overnight there, before heading to Miami Sunday and departing on a cruise! We have a group of 12 guys going on the cruise. I've never been on one so I can't wait to see what it's like. It's a 7 day cruise stopping in Belize, Cozumel, Grand Cayman, and maybe somewhere I'm forgetting. Really looking forward to it as well as just being able to relax for a week, although I'm contemplating bringing some for-class reading material to catch up a bit. Judging from past experience I'll probably bring it but never open it, heh.

On the poker front, I had a very nice session vs Isildur1 this week, winning a shade over $1.5m at 500/1k PLO. I had some tough sessions against him in the previous month, so it felt great avenging those losses. Playing against him is always a lot of fun as he gives a lot of action, and hopefully he'll be back in the games soon. Otherwise, I haven't played much at all recently, as I had friends visiting from PA this past weekend, a good chunk of pre-break schoolwork to complete, basketball games to watch, an online fantasy baseball auction on Wednesday (more on that in a future blog), and time spent with the girlfriend. I won't be playing any on the cruise as well, but hopefully when I get back there will be some good games to play and I'll be able to put in some play time. One good thing about playing poker so infrequently is that I'm really motivated and even excited to play when I do play, and as a result I think I play some really focused poker and have a lot of fun doing so. I realize this is a bit of a luxury that I have, but it's something to keep in mind for anyone when trying to grind out a high volume of hands and feeling like poker is getting stale.

That's all for now, good luck at the tables everyone and GO BIG RED!!

Brian

Hey everyone. I looked at the date and realized it's time for my monthly blog. Just kidding, just been busy with various things. Going to write a bit about all of them, in whatever order I feel like.

-I went to Miami for a few days last week for Camp Cardrunners. It was great getting out of the wintry northeast weather for a few days, despite a little bit of rain in Miami the weather was mostly great, it was in the 70s and sunny for our golf outing and nice enough for me to wear a polo to the rooftop lounge we went to that night. There are a couple videos of me from the trip, you can find them on Alex's blog . Aside from the weather, the trip was just a lot of fun. It was nice both seeing a bunch of the CR Pros whom I hadn't seen in a while and meeting the members who won the trips. My flight was a bit late arriving on Monday so I was a bit late meeting up with everyone for dinner, but it was no big deal. Afterwards we just got drinks at the restaurant bar. Tuesday I woke up and read by the pool for an hour and a half before golf, since I had an exam to take on Thursday, the day after my return. Golf itself was fun, despite the fact that I outplayed Taylor quite soundly but got beat in prop bets. Lucky fish. The most notable prop was that after shooting 61 on the front 9 but playing fairly well by the turn, I bogeyed 10 and then offered a bet where I would get laid 3-1 odds if I scored under 50 on the back 9. After 8 holes I was at 43 with just the par-5 18th remaining, I needed a bogey. Unfortunately my next 2 drives were launched about 50 yards in the the woods, and I lost. I felt good about how I played overall though considering I hadn't touched a club for several months. That night we got dinner and drinks again. The highlight of the night was getting Alex drunk, since according to him despite being 24 years old this had never happened before (!). I helped make it happen by telling our waitress, who was very pretty and fun, to get some shots for her and for him and to flirt with him and do them. Within an hour or 2 the mission was accomplished :) Love you Alex! Wednesday we woke up and had brunch, then I did a leakfinder video with Greg (shipitducy) and Taylor. Greg played 4 tables of midstakes (2/4 and 3/6) PLO, he's normally mostly a cap PLO player. I leakfinded and Taylor generated some good discussion as well. I think it should make a pretty good video, look for it in the coming weeks/months/whenever CR puts it up.

-Unfortunately the trip back from Miami wasn't so easy. My flight from Miami to Newark was delayed almost 2 hours for no apparent reason, and as a result I missed my connection back to Ithaca. To compound the matter, all flights to Ithaca for the following 2 days were cancelled due to the impending snowstorm (which had yet to start), and I had an exam at 1:25 the following afternoon. I ended up getting a private car to drive me back to Ithaca, unfortunately without my luggage, which I did not receive until Sunday. I actually bought underwear and socks so I didn't run out of clothes because I didn't want to do laundry. I slept through most of the car ride, but woke up with an hour left and the snow was coming down hard at this point. Fortunately, despite some sliding we made it back to my house safely. I wished the driver a safe trip back and got to bed at 4:30am. Fortunately, I had spent the whole day in airports and airplanes studying for the exam, and I actually did pretty well I think. I also want to mention that I was kind of impressed by Continental Airlines even through all this hassle. Prior to this trip I had them in the USAir/Delta group of very unimpressive albeit large airlines. However, I was impressed by two things. First, the planes had an in-flight entertainment system, and although I was studying so I didn't really get to use it, the selection of movies/TV/music seemed pretty damn good (Dark Side of the Moon!). Second, I thought they handled the luggage situation pretty well overall. I did wait around in Newark for an hour thinking they could retrieve my bags in about that long, but I guess there were lots of similar requests and the wait time was much longer as a result, can't blame the counter lady too much for that. After getting back to Ithaca they called me several times with status updates and offered to deliver the bags to my house, although it ended up being more convienient me to pick them up. Although I'm not a big fan of the Newark Airport, I think I'll be flying Continental over US and Delta from now on, at least (yes the airline selection flying out of Ithaca sucks).

-I now have a girlfriend as of this past weekend, although we've been dating for a little while now. Her name is Julianna (pronounced hu-), she's a junior architecture major at Cornell, and a very pretty, smart, sweet, hardworking, fun-loving girl, and I'm very excited to be starting a relationship with her. I've never been in a serious relationship before, but I have no complaints about how this one is going and I'm very happy with it so far. This past weekend, my parents came up to visit for my dad's 50th birthday weekend and I had a nice dinner with them on Saturday night, then we picked up Julianna and went to the Cornell basketball game. Cornell won to clinch a share of the Ivy league title, and we clinch an NCAA tourney birth by winning either of our 2 games this coming weekend vs Yale and Brown, I'm confident we won't lose both heh. On Sunday the four of us went to brunch and it was awesome, the place we went to was the Carriage House Cafe, if you're ever in Ithaca for some reason, go there. It's that good.

-I've been pretty busy with school lately, with 3 exams in the past week and a half. I had to take on early on the Friday before the Miami trip so I could go, the rest of the class took it on Tuesday while I was on the golf course. I also had exams last Thursday and this Monday. I actually think I did well on all 3 of them. I really enjoy my classes this semester, I'm taking Economic Development, Experiments and Games, Social Psychology, and History of Rock Music. I think Social Psychology in particular is fascinating, I've learned lots of really cool stuff that is very real world applicable regardless of my career choice. I'm more pleased with my decision to stay in school and get a degree now than I ever have been really, and I'm not in any rush to leave.

-As a result of how busy I've been with schoolwork and the Miami trip, I haven't played a ton of poker lately. I got some good sessions in this past Thursday and Friday because I was basically snowed in and didn't feel like braving a foot of snow to go out to the bars. I had a few rough sessions vs Isildur and Ziigmund earlier this month, but since then I've done a good amount of work away from the tables and played some focused poker, and I'm happy with where my PLO game is at right now. I still have a ways to go with the mixed games and haven't really gotten as much work in on those as I'd like, but I think I still play pretty well in them when I focus on one or two tables, but less well when I multitable or play PLO at the same time. We'll see if my beliefs hold.

-One topic that we discussed in my Social Psychology class is situationism. A central belief to situationism is the fundamental attribution error, which basically states that the outcomes in one's life are a result of both personal characteristics and the situations that one is put in, but that most people overestimate how big of a role personal characteristics play and underestimate the role that situations play. This really hit home to me as I've been more successful than I've ever dreamed of and situations have played an instrumental role. Consider that I grew up in a very average middle class suburban neighborhood. I was raised in a good, loving household and my parents were very supportive (a situational advantage in itself), but many of my childhood friends did not have the same positive household experiences that I did. As a result, many of them showed indifference in school and weren't all that motivated, and it would have been easy for me to be sucked into this trap by peer pressure. A mitigating factor is that down the street lived my 3 cousins who were 1, 5, and 7 years older than me. These cousins went to the same schools as me, dealt with the same peer apathy as me, and were nonetheless very motivated and successful. They were really great role models for me while I was growing up, and having them around was a major situational benefit to me. Then, when I was in 11th grade, one of my teachers happened to play and succeed at online poker at a time when hardly anyone was playing, I happened to be very friendly with him, and I started playing because of that. Furthermore, this happened right during the golden age of online poker, when the games were soft and good players were basically printing money. Arguably my timing was perfect. Now, I'm friends with some guys who are some of the best players I know, and are very hard workers and always willing to provide support when needed. I know I got a lot of flack for my "Oscar Speech" blog after my big win, but this kind of stuff is where I was going with this. I have a good amount of innate talent, to be sure, but without great parents who were always there for me, cousins who served as role models, a teacher who happened to play online poker, and great friends in the poker world, things could have turned out quite a bit different for me. So count me as a bigtime believer in the fundamental attribution error.

GL at the tables everyone,

Brian H

Not that I really care. Although I would like to know if the groundhog saw his shadow or not. I dunno if I can take 6 more weeks of winter.

School started up last week and I've been a really good student so far despite the frigid weather. Walking to class in 5 degree weather isn't the most fun thing in the world, but I've been really motivated for some reason. I think it's because I really like my classes and professors this semester. I'm basically done with required courses and now have the freedom to choose between lots of things, so that helps. Also, my professors are for the most part all good lecturers who are really passionate about their subject material, which is nice and refreshing and certainly hasn't always been the case in my classes, some are just in it for the research. I'm taking Economic Development, Experiments and Games (econ course that deals with game theory), History of Rock and Roll, and Intro to Social Psychology. Honestly, the only class I haven't really gotten into yet has been Rock and Roll, and only because we're still at the roots stage listening to stuff from the 1930s and '40s, although I've even liked a few of these songs. I'm really pumped to be learning about stuff that I actually want to learn about and I think it's going to be a good semester academically.

Fitness-wise I've been doing pretty well. I've been lifting 3x every week, doing a solid amount of cardio, and (mostly) eating well. I've cooked dinner 3 times so far this semester and 2 have turned out great, for the other I tried cooking steaks for the first time on a skillet on top of the stove and they came out rare when I was going for medium rare-medium, fine by me but not for the others whom I cooked for. I blame the damn meat thermometer for taking too long to warm up. I'll get 'em next time. Also, I played my first intramural basketball game last night. We were supposed to have 8 players or so on our team but a few couldn't make it and we wound up with just 5. This meant I had to play two full 20 minute halves (continuous clock, but still) with just one 30 second timeout allowed per half. Also, the team we played was made up of all varsity baseball players, ran 10 deep, and decided to full court press us and make us tired. Well it certainly worked, I can't remember the last time I was so exhausted. I thought I was going to throw up when I tried to drink water after I got home. Fortunately that didn't happen. Hopefully we get more players next week and I learn how to shoot on the weirdo rims they have.

I've watched pretty much every game of the NFL playoffs but have been doing a poor job picking games. I did think NO and Indy would be playing in the big game, but I picked NO and NYJ to cover last week and neither happened. Oh well, fun sweats. Plus I'm gonna make up for it this Sunday. Go Colts! (and 7,7!)

I've been playing less poker since school started, but still a fair amount. Results have been up and down, I had a nice PLO session the other day winning about 370k at 200/400 but I've had a few losing sessions as well. Won 26 big bets at Stud 8 playing 1k/2k OE the other day, that made me happy. Nosebleed PLO has started to run a bit lately, if that continues I hope to play and beat these games. We'll see.

The final part of my new PLO series comes out tomorrow. I know there were some audio issues with the first 2, but I made some adjustments this time and it should be better. The series is at 1/2 6max and I think it's a good watch for low-midstakes PLO players who are looking for ways to exploit regulars and just define their edge.

Hey everyone,

I'm sure most of you have heard about the tragic earthquake that struck Haiti this week. The projected death toll is in the hundreds of thousands and the country is in shambles. It's a really terrible thing, and Full Tilt Poker is offering several options to players in order to help. The below instructions are copied and pasted from an email from FTP:

1. Aid For Haiti tournaments: Starting tonight and running through Sunday, there will be a number of "Aid For Haitia€� tournaments at a range of buyins for players to participate in. The first one is at 2PM ET (under an hour) and it's a $5 + $5 ($5 from every entry will be donated).

2. Aid For Haiti "no-playa€� tournaments: These are "fakea€� tournaments that won't run. For anyone that wants to make a direct donation, they can enter one of the 10 different tournaments (all "scheduleda€� for Sunday at 6pm ET, 3pm PT) and not worry about playing a tournament.

3. An "Aid For Haitia€� user has been set up for direct P2P transfers. Anyone can transfer any amount greater than $5 to that player ID.

All money raised will be matched by Full Tilt Poker and sent to various charities, so for every dollar you donate, an additional dollar from FTP will be directed toward helping the cause. Personally I will be making a direct donation, as well as possibly playing in some of the tournaments. I urge anyone who can help, even a little, to do so as well.

Poker in the new year has been going pretty well for me. After not playing much the first few days due to New Year's hangovers and friends spending their last few days around before going back to school, I've been logging a solid amount of playtime the past few days, mostly at mixed games. Aside from a cap PLO session the other day where I ran 85k below AIEV (hate hate hate cap PLO lol), it's been going pretty well. I'm very pleased with how my mixed game is coming along. I even won 42k in a rotation of 1.5k/3k HEROS (no NLH or PLO) yesterday. I definitely have some room for improvement, particularly in Omaha hi-lo, which is clearly my worst game and which I'm stuck over 150k for the year so far in, but I'm on the right track and improving every day. I feel like I'm a winner in most mixed game lineups at even the highest stakes right now, but then again who doesn't, haha. Here are some of the biggest pots I've played so far in 2010:

1. weaktight.com/1892754
tough river call vs durrrr in PLO that worked out well

2. weaktight.com/1892755
this river call worked out less good

3. weaktight.com/1892757
absolute monster pot for 100/200 PLO, I'm 58.3% on the flop here 3 ways

4. weaktight.com/1892763
river of dreams for me that allows me to get 3 more bets in here in LHE

5. weaktight.com/1892767
tough runout here in O8, unfortunately I suck at this game so not many fun winning hands to post :(

6. weaktight.com/1892768

biggest NLH pot so far in 2010, I 'hold' with 37.2% equity because that's how I roll

7. weaktight.com/1892774
tough calldown with 1 pair to scoop a big Stud Hi pot....don't bluff me :)

8. weaktight.com/1892777

thin value vs Gus in Razz

9. weaktight.com/1892783
more thin value, this time in Stud 8

Hope you guys enjoyed the hands. As for life stuff, I'm heading back to school tomorrow, but only for rush week, I still don't start class for almost 2 more weeks. Break has been fun but I'm about ready to go back. I know I promised some party bus pics, there are some good ones but I think this blog is long enough already, I'll post some next time. Good luck at the tables everyone, and remember that any donation helps, Haiti certainly can use it.

Brian

edit - not sure what happened with the links, I'll get 'em fixed asap.

double edit - I know it's annoying but for now if you just copy/paste the "weaktight.com/1509850" (or w/e the number is) into your browser, you can still see the hands

triple edit - further details from FTP at http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/aid-for-haiti">http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/aid-for-haiti">http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/aid-for-haiti

The three charities selected to receive the donations are: Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, and UNICEF.

Money should be on its way to these charities on Monday, perhaps a day or 2 later but no more than that.

final edit - links are fixed, thanks support

Happy new year everyone! I had an amazing time last night, I rented out a party bus and a bunch of my friends and me went out to a few different bars in the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area. I cannot stress enough how much fun this was. I will post pictures when I get some, some of the girls who came took lots of them thankfully. I hope everyone else had a fun New Year's Eve as well!

Since my big win earlier this month I've been taking it pretty easy pokerwise for a few reasons. Mainly, I've been really busy, I had finals then came home for one day before flying out to Chicago to go to a Bulls game and the CR Christmas Party with Taylor, Wiggins, and some other good friends. Unlike the last time I went to Chicago in the winter, the weather held up really well (actually 10 degrees warmer there than in the northeast when I was there). I had a great time and I'm really becoming fond of Chicago. One big reason is that the people just seem friendlier, small sample size but I've heard others say this as well. Also, another quick story that shows why I like it - I was leaving my hotel one day around noon to catch a cab and head to the CR office, but I decided I wanted a quick bite to eat first because I was hungry. I asked the doorman at the hotel and he told me there was a great deli a block away. I went to said deli, which was a small, family-owned Italian deli, and had one of the best subs I've ever had in my life. I just think being able to do stuff like this is awesome, I realize it's not exclusive to Chicago but having never lived in a big city before I just think it's so cool. Chicago is definitely an option for living after I graduate this coming December.

Since returning from Chicago I've been spending lots of time with friends and family. I'm only in PA for a few months a year anymore so I'm trying to make the most of this time. It's not that I haven't wanted to play poker, it just hasn't been a priority. Similarly, I planned on catching up on Mad Men this break and have watched a grand total of zero episodes so far (I've previously seen S1). I did watch the Hangover for the 4th time though, such a great movie. I'd imagine I'll spend most of the remainder of my break spending time with friends and family as well since everyone is home and looking to hang out as much as possible. I've also been hitting the gym pretty hard over break and I expect to keep that up as well.

Now to resolutions. I did this last year and thought it would be a good idea to check up on my progress. I'm going to do that first then make some new ones for 2010. Without further ado....

2009 Resolutions

1. Make more productive use of my time.

I think I've seen some improvement here. I still waste a bit more time on 2+2 than I'd like but I've kicked the bad habit of lying in bed on my computer for an hour or 2 after waking up. I certainly waste less time than most of my college friends lol

2. Get in better shape.

Making progress here as well, at least in the past few months. I was pretty good in the spring but Vegas really killed it as it's pretty impossible to live a healthy lifestyle while living in a big house in Vegas with 8 friends + friends of friends visiting constantly. I want to try harder this coming summer though. After Vegas I also slacked for a bit but since October I've been pretty consistent with my workouts and I've eaten reasonably healthy as well, especially over this break. I've definitely seen some nice strength gains but I'd like to drop 15-20 pounds.

3. Perform well in school.

Nailed this one. I got a 3.55 this fall and I think a 3.3 in the spring. Couldn't be happier with my schoolwork.

4. Improve my social life a bit.

Aced this as well. I've definitely improved the amount of meaningful relationships I have with friends over the past year, and I think the main reason is that I've really opened up. I was pretty shy in high school but now I feel like a completely different person when I go out. Sometimes I used to force it just to fit in, now I still don't always feel like going out and stay in sometimes, but when I do go out I genuinely have lots of fun almost always. I am extremely happy with all of this.

5. Become a bit more of a bankroll nit.

Believe it or not I think I did a great job of this. For the first half of 2009 I pretty much grinded a bunch of 25/50, played a little bit of 500/1k pretty heavily pieced out, and put up pretty subpar results compared to what I would have liked. Regardless, I stuck to my gameplan. I was fortunate to have some nice scores staking in the WSOP and as a result had some money to play with, and at the same time there were some really good nosebleed games running on FTP, so I decided to put more money online and share action in these games. I'm happy to say that it really couldn't have worked out any better and I'm very fortunate for that.

2010 Resolutions

1. Get in better shape.

Still plenty of room for improvement here. I've been getting very serious about this all around so far over break. The local gym is super nice and has a basketball court that I've been shooting around on to warm up and cool down and on off-days from lifting. I'm definitely going to start going to a gym back at school, I had been working out in my house but it's just so much easier to motivate myself to work out when I leave the house to go to a gym. As stated above I'd like to lose 15-20 pounds.

2. Learn how to cook well.

This ties in with #1 a bit as cooking myself means I can make my own meals and know what I'm putting in my food. Also, in my limited experience I've made some meals that taste pretty damn good, although the credit really belongs to getting good ingredients. I have a nice grill at my house and don't even know how to use it, my roommate does so it's not going to waste, but this is pretty stupid and I'm going to figure it out asap. I also got a cookbook for Christmas that really starts from the ground up and I've already read a bunch of it. I think cooking will be fun and rewarding and I'm looking forward to getting into it more.

3. Continue to maintain/expand relationships with friends and family.

I've really become closer with some friends and family members in the past year and this really comes back to opening up more and becoming more outgoing as I discussed earlier. Same goes with girls too. I hope to maintain the close relationships I have, especially with good friends who are graduating and who I won't see as much. Life's just better when experiences are shared with others, imo.

4. Remain hungry at the poker tables and continue to put up good results.

This might be a bit tough as quite frankly I'm more concerned with other aspects of my life right now. That said, I'm very much looking forward to the WSOP this summer as it will be my first full Series since turning 21. I plan on playing the 50k 8-game event, the main event, 10k HU, 10k PLO, and perhaps a few more, as well as playing some big cash games. I want to spend the first half of 2010 sharpening up my mixed games online so I can play them live this summer if good ones are running. Money is nice too but my primary goal is just to get the mixed game as sharp as possible. I plan on still playing a decent amount of PLO too but it's a secondary goal as I'm quite content with my PLO game. I also look forward to playing HU if there are good spots, although I think my days of waiting around for 8 hours for action on HU tables are pretty much done, I rarely spend more than 3 hours at a time playing/looking for games anymore.

5. Have fun!

I doubt I'll have a problem with this, but just putting it here to remind myself that this is what it's all about. 2009 was arguably the best, most enjoyable year of my life to date and I can only hope that 2010 is even better.

Wish me luck with these resolutions and happy new year again to all!

Brian

Hey everyone, I just want to pass down word about the tournament Sunday. I copied and pasted all of the relevant information below from our release, although the time seems to be missing, the tourney starts at 8pm EST (20:00 on FTP). Note that you do not need to be a Cardrunners member to play. David/LP was one of the initial CR members, a respected member of the community for years, and most importantly a great father, husband, and man. He is sorely missed. Despite having a final the following day I will be playing as well as donating to the fund. Hope to see many of you on Sunday!


CardRunners is proud to announce the Lou Pinella Memorial Poker Tournament.

David "Lou Pinellaa€� Doerr was a charter member at CardRunners. His history with the site goes back to launch week in September of 2005. Over the years he was a vibrant member of the community and was known especially for his wit and willingness to help others. It was not at all uncommon for him to message another member to offer assistance with their HU game, impart some sage advice, or just to welcome them to CardRunners.

On Wednesday, November 18, at the age of 43, David was taken from us as a result of an auto accident in the greater Seattle area. He is survived by his wife Patrice and 11-year-old son Davis. To read more about David and his life at CardRunners, please http://www.cardrunners.com/members/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=589123&page=1">click here .

The Lou Pinella Memorial Poker Tournament, to be held Sunday, December 13, will carry a $15+$15 entry, with 100% of the rake going to a college fund for Davis (information below). We anticipate having several CardRunners pros and guest pros play, a full list will be announced before the 13th. Each pro will have a bounty for those who are fortunate enough to eliminate one of them.

To register for the tournament, please head to Full Tilt Poker and go to the private tournament tab. You can sort by date, look for the name (Lou Pinella Memorial) or the ID (122018681). You will need the password "DRD#1a€� to register.

We look forward to seeing you all help support David's family in this most trying of times.

If you'd like to donate directly to the fund, here is the information you will need:

College Savings Plan of Nebraska
P.O. Box 82644
Lincoln, NE 68501-9542
(888) 993-3746
Account number: 975-757-841 and the beneficiary is Davis R. Doerr

-Brian

Wow. I just had the biggest winning day in online poker history. Did this really happen? I'm still having a tough time believing it did (although not quite as tough a time as I'm having trying to study for finals right now). When everyone starts playing poker, the dream is that one day they will hit it big and make obscene amounts of money that one couldn't fathom working a 9-5 (well most 9-5s). But for most, this is just a pipe dream. For it to happen, one needs a combination of very large amounts of both skill and luck (well maybe not always the skill part for a few certain WSOP main event winners/high finishers, but they need an astronomical amount of luck). And here I am, winning a record $4.18 million in one day (well not exactly - no I didn't have 100% of my own action, and no I am not going into any further detail about this) playing online poker.

How did I get here? Well, Taylor provided a lot of the background info in his blog, but I want to rehash some parts of the story. I started out as a 16 year old high school junior in the spring of 2005. To this point, I had played some live poker homegames with friends, basically $5 buyin tourneys since none of us had any money nor knew what we were doing. I grew up in Hanover Township, PA and lived a pretty average middle class lifestyle, working part-time jobs including one at Little Caesar's Pizza where I sometimes dressed up as the mascot, kind of like this. Anyway, my math teacher at the time was playing online poker on Ultimate Bet, playing up to 5/10 NL. I was a very natural math student and got my work done much faster than most students, so when I finished we'd chat some about poker. I created an account on UB and started playing play money. After a couple weeks of tearing up the play money tables, I decided I was ready to play for real money, and I deposited $50 that I had made from my job by means of giving it to a friend who had created an account in his mom's name who then transferred the money to me. My career as an online poker player had begun. Although my teacher (who I'm not sure would want to be named) taught me that 10 buyins was sufficient bankroll management, he also taught me a lot about the basic concepts of poker. He played a very tight style playing full ring games but emphasized the importance of hand reading, which was revolutionary to me at the time since I was a complete donk who just played the strength of my hand. If not for him I would not be here today, so I thank him very much.

When I first started playing for money online I was a breakeven to slightly winning player immediately. Frankly the .05/.10 NL games on UB were very soft back in 2005, and anyone with a touch of patience and smarts could beat the games pretty soundly. For the first few months I treaded water for the most part, depositing $50 twice more and continuing to play low stakes NL cash, SNGs, and tourneys. That summer, after school let out, I really started dedicating myself to improving my game. Here's a hilarious Pocketfives post that I made in July that year:

My First Post
Stinger885 (United States)
07-06-2005 10:25 PM
Hello all. My name is Brian and I've been going on this site for several weeks now looking at some of the great stuff. Today I tripled my bankroll by winning the UB 1:00 $2500 guaranteed tourney and cashing for $912.60. I just want to say thanks to all whose posts I have read to improve my game and good luck at the tables!

When Cardrunners started up I was one of the original members of the site. I probably used a parent's credit card because I was too young to have one. At this point I was playing and beating midstakes NL and already well on the way, but CR definitely had a large impact on my game as well. I also have to say the same about the 2+2 forums as once I joined there (not sure when exactly) I spent hours upon hours reading and discussing strategy posts there. I kept progressing through the stakes pretty swiftly, hitting snags each time I'd move up but then adjusting and learning how to beat each new limit faster than most. For me, the exciting part of poker has always been the learning process. I think this is true for the majority of successful players, Phil Ivey possibly excluded. I am a very competitive person and for me, the thrill in poker has always been learning to master a new level, a new form of poker, or a new opponent. Moving up from $.25/.50 to $.50/1 excited me just about as much as moving up from $25/50 to $50/100.

When I felt like I had little more to learn in NLH, I started to learn PLO. I still played a lot of NLH for income purposes, but the challenge of learning a new game excited me much more. In retrospect I should have learned PLO at much lower stakes, but throwing myself into the fire vs tough players at 25/50 and above definitely accelerated my development. I had a lot of months that went like this: win 100k playing NLH, lose 60k playing PLO. This certainly did not maximize my immediate profit, but in the long run perhaps it wasn't such a bad idea. Not sure I'd recommend doing the same, though. Anyway, I did run pretty hot at pretty high stakes for a few months soon after learning PLO and I think gained some false confidence that hurt me for a while. In January 2008 I realized that I wasn't nearly as good as I thought and started really dedicating myself to the learning process again. By summer 2008 I think I went from a very mediocre/probably losing player at 25/50+ to in my opinion one of the top 5 regulars in the games. I beat up the 25/50 games especially bad to the tune of 8ptbb/100 or so that summer.

After I felt satisfied with my PLO game, I started learning the mixed games. I had dabbled in some high stakes mixed games in the past despite not really knowing how to play the stud games or O8, which was far and away the worst decision of my poker career, so I had extra motivation to win back some of the losses I had stupidly incurred. This year I have put tons of effort into learning how to play mixed games, both at and away from the table. I couldn't have done it alone though. This year Brian T., Cole, and myself have spent tons of time reviewing our own and each other's play, discussing hands, and analyzing our opponents. They are really an invaluable resource, without them I would probably still suck at mixed games, be less good at PLO, and I wouldn't have great friends who can console me after a tough loss and give good, constructive feedback that gives me the drive to come back strong the next day. Instead I think I am now a winning player against most lineups at the highest stakes mixed games as well as the PLO games. Thanks so much Cole and Brian, I wouldn't be here without you guys.

Aside from mixed games, the current exciting challenge in poker that I face is heads up matches against given players. With the recent splash onto the scene by Isildur1, who to my knowledge is a 20 year old Swede who has previously had lots of success on Euro sites, I saw a new challenge on the horizon. This guy was lighting up some damn good poker players, and I don't think this was a fluke - he's an excellent player in his own right. Brian, Cole, and I each played against him some, reviewed our play extensively, and studied his game as well. No, we didn't ghost each other, it was one player per hand, but we were always there to offer each other encouragement and provide good constructive criticism. It could just as easily be one of them sitting here writing this, but unfortunately for Brian he played a bunch the last 2 days and ran 2m under EV, while I ran 2.8m over EV. Amazingly Brian still only lost around 700k (I think) during these sessions. I was extremely impressed with his ability to avoid tilting and hang in there with a positive mindset.

Which brings me to my next point - I think preparation and emotional control are two of the most underrated skills in poker. Brian recently wrote a great blog regarding the former. I cannot stress enough how important preparation has been to my results this year. I feel like many players just try to log as much volume as possible and try to grind out a small winrate. While there's nothing wrong with this, in order to take your game to the next level it is important to spend a lot of time away from the table analyzing your play, as well as thinking while playing rather than autopiloting on 12 tables. Again, it depends on what you're trying to accomplish, but as far as being the best player you can be and giving yourself the biggest long term earning potential, this is the way to go. With regards to emotional control, all I need to say is to look at what happened yesterday. If Brian T. and Isildur's cards were reversed yesterday, I'm very confident that Isildur goes on raging tilt and Brian wins 3-4m off him. Brian's ability to keep his composure, take short breaks when necessary, and keep his head up and play song was THE difference between a -700k session and a -3m session. On the flip side, when I had a hot run of cards, Isildur quickly lost control, started playing far too aggressively to get unstuck, and the loss just snowballed and snowballed until I was up over 4m. I think emotional control is a very common hinderance to poker players, it really amazes me how often otherwise great players allow themselves to lose far more than they should because they have a desire to keep playing to get unstuck. I guess amazes isn't the right word, because I definitely was guilty of this some in my younger, less mature days, but it's just a really big deal and something that I feel isn't talked about or worked on nearly enough.

Although we are adults gambling with our money and know the risks, I do feel bad for Isildur to a point. Last year I had a 1.4m downswing at 500/1k taking 100% of my action (unbelievably stupid), so I've been there. He's a talented player and I hope he rebounds and I think he will. Maybe this blog entry will even help him. I hope it helps someone, because it's taken an awful long time to write and I'm supposed to be studying for finals right now...

I want to give a few additional thank yous. Thanks to Taylor Caby, who's been a role model of sorts in multiple ways. First by watching him crush the high stakes games on UB, he helped to inspire me to want to be good at poker. Then, after we became good friends, he inspired me to stick it out in college even though I was making boatloads of money at poker. Very few people would be qualified to give the advice that Taylor did, and I'm very grateful for it. I could not be happier with my decision to stay in school, and although motivation issues occur from time to time as it becomes decreasingly likely that I will put my impending degree to use, I'm finding that I enjoy the learning process here just as I do in poker. I've also had the great fortune of having the 'college experience' and making some great friends that will last a lifetime. Thanks to them too for always being there and making my time in college what it is.

Thanks to Bill Callahan, my would-be high school basketball coach who cut me from the team. I sucked at hoops anyway and I used the free time I gained to develop my poker game. Had I made the team maybe I wouldn't be here today. My sister just reminded me of this and I thought it was funny but true. So thanks Mr. Callahan, seriously.

Thanks to my wonderful family, with whom I wouldn't be where I am today in any facet of life. I'm very fortunate to have some great parents who, although initially a bit skeptical, have been very supportive of my poker career because they believe in me. Same goes for my sister, who has a very promising future in her own right. Thank you so much!

Ok I really have to study now. I have a few interviews coming up in the next few days, I'll post more on them when they become available. Good luck in the coming days everyone!

Brian

I'm going to keep this short and sweet. I've been playing a lot of 7 game mix lately on FTP. I recently downloaded Pokertracker Stud, which seemed to be working mostly ok until today until I realized that it didn't import any of my hand histories from yesterday. I think the reason is that I was running Holdem Manager yesterday and it processed the stud files by accident, but it could be something else. As for HEM, I don't think it has this problem, but it hasn't been importing any of my hand histories from PokerStars, only FTP (not a huge deal because I do mostly play on FTP, but still a pain).

Anyway, I'm looking to get this all cleaned up asap, and I don't want to have to import on PT Stud before HEM every time, although that would probably fix half the problem. The first person who posts a comment below who helps me square this all away gets $50 from me on FTP or Stars. If someone helps me partially but doesn't completely solve it, they may get money as well. This could very well be super easy but I'm too lazy/busy to figure it out. Thanks in advance for your help.

I am currently consuming a chunky strawberry topper from Jamba Juice in the airport (awesomeee) in NYC while waiting to make my connecting flight to Los Angeles. I'm going there for a long weekend (Thurs-Sun) to meet up with Taylor, Wiggins, Scott (iRock), and the rest of the gang. It will be great to see everyone as it will be the first time since Vegas (well except Scott whom I met up with at Lollapalooza in August). Only 3 months but it feels like so long! The main reason for the trip is a Halloween Party on Saturday at the Playboy Mansion, which I am super excited about. It is costumes mandatory and I am going as Buzz Lightyear, a solid, humorous, and now relevant (Toy Story 3 next summer!) choice imo. I'm excited to see everyone else's costumes, both my friends and the bunnies. I have a feeling I will like many of them. I'm also very excited that I get to do Halloween twice this year since this party is on the 24th and I'll be back at Cornell for the real Halloween weekend. Not sure if I'm going to use the same costume twice or go with a second one for next weekend. Hopefully I will have a choice as last year my chicken costume did not make it through Halloween night unscathed...

I'm excited for the rest of the weekend in LA too. Taylor already booked us a reservation for Katsuya tonight. Last year when we went to LA I went there with him and Wiggins and the food was excellent. I haven't had top notch sushi since the summer so I am very much looking forward to it. I'm not sure what we're doing on Friday but I'm sure that will be fun too.

In other news, this week's WSOP coverage on ESPN featured lots of both of my friends who made it deep in the tourney, Jon Tamayo and Joe Ward. I fired up my DVR last night and watched the 2 episodes, and I think both of the guys came off decently. Unfortunately, most of Joe's televised hands were either him getting owned by Phil Ivey or his cruel bustout hand where he gets 3 outed, but he played a great tournament. Jon played great as well, minus the hand where he ATMs it up with AK vs Billy Kopp's trips. Just kidding, Jon (maybe)! As a side benefit of watching Jon I got to see Leo Margets sitting next to him. That woman is legit hot, not even just poker hot. There was a thread on 2p2 about her and some posters said she was a real world 4, which is just totally ridiculous. If there is a place on earth where she's a 4, take me there ASAP. She's an 8 imo.

It's currently 7:50am EST. I woke up at 11am yesterday and haven't slept a minute since. Somehow, I'm still not really tired at all. This is weird. Hopefully I sleep some on the cross country flight, but if not at least I get to enjoy 6 hours or so of JetBlue TV/XM/movies. JetBlue really is the nuts in the airline industry, but you probably already knew that. Anyway, it's time to board soon, I'll try to remember to write up a trip report early next week after I get back. Good luck everyone and enjoy your weekends!