I've been really getting after it on the virtual felt over the past few weeks. Julianna is in the middle of her semester now and has had plenty of work to do lately so I've had plenty of time to do my own "work". I quote the word work because I still enjoy playing poker very much, something that I am very fortunate about. To keep in the spirit of working a job, though, I've been doing an increased amount of work away from the tables as well, mainly in two games which I'm relatively inexperienced and unsure in, 2-7 triple draw and Omaha 8/b. I've been doing some math on 2-7, mainly to figure out predraw strategy as well as how to play in situations that had previously confused me. I am a long way from figuring out everything that I want to but I think my game is coming along nicely, at least for someone who is relatively new to the game. I've been playing a bunch of 50/100 and 100/200 HU limit 2-7 TD and after struggling at first I've felt much more comfortable and confident lately. That said, I still have plenty of work to do and plenty of leaks, I'm sure. Or maybe I'm just trying to entice you to play against me. Or both. For Omaha 8/b I've mainly been trying to get a feel for starting hand rankings, which is easier said than done in this game, as well as trying to determine what % of hands to play in each position and given each set of actions in front of me. This is still very rough as well and unfortunately it's been tougher to find O8 action than 2-7.

Also, I've still been playing PLO fairly regularly, although it's pretty tough to get action for me there and my online roll is a bit short at the moment so some of the 100/200 and even deeper 25/50 games that have been running have been a bit bigger than I've wanted to play at the moment. I did record a second part of my 25/50 PLO series that debuted in January, I'm not sure when it will be released but it should be soon. I still feel very confident in my PLO game, as you'll hopefully see when I appear on Poker After Dark PLO next month. My episodes debut on (I think) April 11 and I am on for two weeks. I personally haven't watched a ton of poker on TV over the past few years but I really think this will make for some great TV, with Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, Phil Galfond, Patrik Antonius, and myself playing both weeks as well as Brandon Adams for one and Jared Bleznick for the other. Back to online, I've also been playing some Stud 8/b and some mixed games, although the 10 game mix on FTP hasn't been running as much recently as it was in past months, at least during my typical playing hours, which are a bit abnormal as I'm still in Italy and often play in the morning.

Speaking of Italy, I've been here for about 2/3 of the past 2 months, and while I do miss some things about being back in the US (friends + family, sports, Buffalo wings, some other food, having a solid grasp of the native language), I am really enjoying it here. Julianna and I have been cooking some awesome dinners lately, typically pasta with chicken/beef/sausage (simple but delicious), as well as going out to eat at some cool places. We haven't gone out to bars/clubs a ton because Julianna has class at 9am most weekdays and has had field trips most weekends (she's in Tuscany right now), but this coming Thursday is St. Patrick's Day and there's a fun Irish pub down the street from her place so we'll definitely be hitting that up then. Friday, her spring break starts and we are doing some travelling, heading to Barcelona, Amsterdam, and Switzerland over the course of 8 days or so. Our plans for Barcelona and Amsterdam are up in the air, although they figure to involve a dance club in Barcelona and a bike tour in Amsterdam (I haven't ridden a bike in years but I hear Amsterdam is an awesome palce to do it). In Switzerland we are going to the Therme Vals, a resort/spa which I learned about in the architecture class that I took last fall at Cornell. I am super excited for this and for the trip there, since we fly into Zurich and then have to connect on 2 trains and a bus to get to Vals, which is a town with a population of <1k. It's a nice change of pace from the usual of just flying and taking cabs. In this spa, I'm leaning toward the hot stone massage with exfoliation, but I could be convinced otherwise. The one hot stone massage that I've gotten in the past was amazing though.

Keep an eye out for my video over the next week or 2. Also, for more frequent updates follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/brianchastings

This week I've been really getting my grind on, including a few extended heads up sessions than none other than Viktor Blom, aka Isildur1. I hadn't played a ton of HU PLO in the past few months, outside of a session or two against Viktor in December and the session vs bttech86 that I noted in my last blog. I'm pleased to say that the heads up sessions went very well. I hope to play against him some more in the near future. I am heading back to Rome on Thursday but my internet at my apartment there is fixed now so I will be grinding there as well. Here are some big hands from our matches:

http://weaktight.com/3213074

This is probably the worst hand I played in the matches. It's just too light and I'm never really getting it in good, I don't even have 2 backdoor flush draws. I think checking is the best play, I have enough strong hands in my preflop range that I don't need to bet marginal hands like this.

http://weaktight.com/3213257

I'm torn on this one. My equity is only 19% which is pretty awful, but against other hands in his range it looks much better, and it saves me from a bunch of tough turn decisions. However, I think it's best to just use my position and call.

http://weaktight.com/3213480

Much happier with my line on this one. Just raising the flop would be fine too, I think it's good to mix it up in this spot.

http://weaktight.com/3213489

Obligatory quads hand.

http://weaktight.com/3213491

Biggest pot, an aggressive flop dynamic in deep 3bet pots played a major role.

On a different note, I played 2-7 triple draw for a while today trying to get back into the swing of the game. I was taking shots at the juicier nosebleed games for a while but downswung a few hundred k and backed off. It is a high variance game and while I don't think my 2-7 game is terrible, it's certainly not on the level of the top players and not good enough for me to justify playing those games right now imo. Phil Galfond recently blogged about his experience playing in the games, and while playing against the toughest players in the world is certainly a very effective way to learn, it can also get pretty damn expensive. Today I grinded some 100/200 and played around a lot with the Troutulator software. I wish Troutulator had more allowance for inputting ranges, but it's still a helpful tool. 2-7 is a very mechanical game and I think having a complete knowledge of fundamentals, including the equities of various draws in given situations, how dead cards affect equity, and how the best line changes given # of players in the pot, position, pot odds, and hand reading, will go a long way toward refining my game. I might need a refresher course in high school statistics to help figure out some things, but I think 2-7 is a game in which hard work away from the table (along with playing experience) is the best route to improvement. I'm going to keep playing it here and there and working on my game, and sticking to 1 or maybe 2 tables while doing this, which I think provides a better learning environment in that game. At least for me, dividing my playing time between sessions in which monetary gain is my main objective and those in which learning is my main objective has always worked well for me. If you feel like you're in a bit of a rut with your game, I think it's definitely something that's worth trying.

Also, I put out a video on Friday of me playing 25/50 6max PLO games. The reviews have been good, although limited in number so far. I think the video came out great and will be happy to answer any questions about it. Parts 2-4 will be coming soon. Hope you guys enjoy it, good luck at the tables!

Brian

I'm currently back in the USA for a few weeks. I had a great 2 weeks in Rome (jetlag aside) and will post a few pics at the end of this blog. Julianna and I saw the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, and the outsides of St. Peter's Basilica and the Colosseum. I also really enjoyed Piazza Venezia, which is hyped much less but is quite a spectacle. As for the food, some was excellent, some was less so. The grocery store by my apartment didn't have much aside from Italian food (sauces, marinades, etc.) and I wasn't a huge fan of the beef I got. There was good chicken and we made that a few times. We ate out a bunch too and my favorite two places for that were Gino's, a small, hidden place near the Pantheon with a simple traditional Italian menu, and The Library, an even smaller place that was great to take a date to and had some awesome gnocchi and pork. No other restaurants really wowed me but there were some other really solid ones, including one right next door to Julianna's apartment. Also, the weather was surprisingly nice, highs hit the mid 50s (Fahrenheit) for most days I was there. It's been quite a downer coming back here and getting freezing cold temperatures and wintry weather.

Back in Pennsylvania, I've been focused on a few things. One is getting back into a good workout routine, as I had gotten away from it over the past few months and don't want to look like my FTP avatar does. To help pique my interest, I ordered the Starting Strength book and DVD. The 2+2 Health and Fitness forum people swear by it, and although they tend to annoy me sometimes, I do suspect that they know what they're talking about. I've been particularly focused on getting form down at the beginning, so far concentrating mostly on my squatting form, which is easier said than done. In one workout last week I actually just did 8-10 sets of 5 reps squatting the bar, which made me feel kind of awkward, especially when I thought I saw people watching me, but I think getting down the form first and worrying about adding weight later is the way to go. Yesterday I got up to 3 sets of 85 but I'm not sure my form was ideal; one problem is that my flexibility is weak. I'm gonna do some stretching and reading today.

As for something you guys actually care about, I've been focusing on poker over the past week too. I'm taking a bit of a hiatus from the nosebleeds, but there is no shortage of action in the 25/50/ante PLO games and the 150/300 and 250/500 10 game mix. I certainly haven't put in enough volume to be confused with an actual professional poker player, but I've played a few (relatively) long sessions this past week and plan on putting one in this afternoon as well. I've been booking some decent profit in the 5k or so hands I've played, but a bunch of it seems to be PLO rungood. I am also losing my shirt at O8, and I'll post a few of those hands to see if I'm making any glaring mistakes. I feel like it's hard to find much good shorthanded O8 advice, so I might have to go back to basics and just rigorously study my play, although I need a bigger sample size first. Also I may grind some straight O8 games at lower stakes too. Anyway, some hands:

http://weaktight.com/3196396

not sure about my line there, tough spot. with A2 instead of A3 I'd peel but I think I'm in really bad shape alot. that said, maybe I should fold to the first cold 2.

http://weaktight.com/3196399

I think I'm happy with my line on this one, although I could be convinced otherwise.

http://weaktight.com/3196402

Largest pot I played BB wise last month

http://weaktight.com/3196408

Fading a monster draw, I'm still a slight fav (52%) here.

And now I'll leave you with some Rome pics. GL at the tables!









-Brian

Buongiorno! I have been in Rome for about a week now. It is such a beautiful city; just walking down random streets and checking out the 16th century architecture is a treat. Of the major landmarks, Julianna and I have seen the Pantheon and St. Peter's Basilica only so far and been inside neither, but man are they spectacular from the outside. I can't wait to check out the insides of them and also to check out other landmarks that look stunning even in pictures, such as the Sistine Chapel, the Colosseum, and Trevi Fountain. Really just walking around anywhere here is exciting though and we will have plenty of time to explore it all, in addition to doing some travelling to other parts of Italy and other European countries.

We have been slowed down a bit so far, partially from Julianna being sick, but also from jetlag. As I write this it is 2:15 PM local time, and I just woke up at 1:30 after setting my alarm for 12:30 intending to get lunch and failing. I've been trying to wake up early (9 or so) every day but still just can't get tired at 12 or 1 local time, given that it is equivalent to 6-7 PM EST. I haven't gone to sleep as early as 7 PM EST since I was a toddler. I don't remember having such a tough time on my previous trip to Europe, but this is really annoying. Anyone have any suggestions for dealing with jetlag?

I'm gonna stop here and hope to start a trend of shorter but more frequent blogs. I'll get some pictures up soon and talk about poker when there is more to talk about on that front.

Brian H

As I'm lying in my bed writing this, it is 2 hours and change until the last final exam of my undergraduate college career. More than ever, my last year of college has made me realize how happy I am that I made the decision to stick it out and get my degree, despite all of the surprised reactions I have gotten over my time here. It's a decision that every one of us poker players has to make based on their own personal motives, goals, and characteristics, but for me I am 100% sure that I made the right decision. At heart, I am an intellectually curious person and someone who is motivated to be well rounded, and spending 4.5 years at Cornell University getting a liberal arts degree has helped greatly to push me in the right direction.

This last final exam I am taking is on International Economics, a class in which I have learned a great deal about how the global economy works. It has led me to start reading some books about the world economy and discussing economics/finance/business with friends on a regular basis. One of these friends is Taylor Caby, and his most recent (I think) blog was excellent and imo a must read for all professional poker players. When I was a college freshman and had several people around me asking why I was even bothering with college, Taylor always pushed me to stay in school. While I also got this advice from other sources such as my parents, it really hit home from Taylor since he had been in my shoes just a few years before, had made the decision to stay in school, and was confident and content with his decision. His blog entry touches on a lot of the reasons why - namely that the future of poker is wildly uncertain, and while the very best always stand to be able to be solidly profitable at poker, these same people also have skillsets and characteristics that would translate to great success in other industries which very well may interest them more than poker. Over the years, I have seen many poker players gradually tire of the game until it essentially feels like a chore. I, personally, have not reached this level yet, mainly thanks to the variety of games that have become popularized over the past few years. I transitioned to NLH to PLO and now most of my poker playing is at mixed games, in which there are 7 or more games to master. For sharp minds like top poker players, learning the intricacies of the games is the most rewarding part of the experience imo. Once one has a game mastered, interesting situations that come up can be stimulating, but after playing hundreds of thousands of hands, these situations become pretty damn repetitive.

The thing I like about economics is that the world is always changing. There are always new situations to tackle, and there are major problems that are unsolved. Poker is a great game, but it has its limits. I am starting to realize this, and although I still have much to learn in poker, I can see that one day this will not be the case and I will start to burn out. I don't really know what my future holds 5-10 years down the road, but I suspect that at some point it will start fading away from poker and toward other interests. Whether that is a Ph.D. program, starting my own business, trying to get into the finance industry, or something else unforeseen, I really don't know, but I'm excited for the road ahead. For the time being, after my graduation on Saturday, I will be a full-time professional poker player (and Cardrunners instructor). I'm not sure how much travelling to live events I plan on doing, but certainly more than I have in the past. I will definitely be playing online much more than I have been. And I plan on being active in the CR community more than ever.

I also want to briefly thank a few people who are very important to me. My parents have been wonderful parents to me, and while initially skeptical of my poker playing they are now very supportive. I am lucky to have parents who are so understanding and who fundamentally believe in me. They may not understand the nuances of poker, but they understand that their son has a good head on his shoulders and knows what he is doing, and I am more appreciative of that than I can express. My sister (who just landed a full-time job at Funny or Die - congrats!) is the best sister I could ask for and someone I can always talk to about anything, and she's also a lot funnier than me. She makes a brief cameo in this video at 1:22. My girlfriend, Julianna, has really helped to teach me how to be myself and how to be confident in myself. She is an amazing young woman and has been a great influence on me. She is studying abroad in Rome in the spring and I plan on spending quite a bit of time out there. I'll be flying out there with her on 1/6 for a short amount of time and plan on spending the bulk of March, April, and May there. If anyone has any tips on stuff to do in Rome besides the obvious, I'd love to hear it.

Ok I guess I should do a bit of last minute studying. Until next time...

Brian H

I am currently typing this from an airplane on a Delta flight from Detroit to Las Vegas (who knew Delta had wifi?), fresh off a $4300 win playing FTP's new 10-game mix (no, I have no idea how to play badugi or NL 2-7 SD) before the connection was a little too spotty to continue. The internet works fine for all practical purposes though, pretty cool.

The reason I am flying to Vegas is that I am going to be on Poker After Dark! This will be my first televised poker appearance and I am very excited. Lana (CR marketing director) worked very hard to get me on the show and called me Friday afternoon to let me know about it. It totally caught me off guard, especially since I have a big assignment due Tuesday for my architecture class, but I quickly decided that I was in, got an extension on the assignment, and now here I am flying cross country. The game will be 300/600 PLO (maybe with an ante?), 100k min buyin, and the lineup includes Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, Phil Galfond, and I think 2 of Patrik Antonius, Sam Farha, and Brandon Adams, although I am not 100% positive. We will be taping tomorrow, and although unfortunately I will not be able to disclose results before the show airs, I will fill you in with the details that I can provide when I know them. I do know that the episodes will air sometime in 2011, although I'm not sure when yet.

I haven't played a ton online lately as I've been doing a bunch of travelling and schoolwork and the games have been fairly dry. The addition of draw games onto FTP looks to be drumming up some action though, and I think I'll be playing more in the coming weeks. I played one 1.5k/3k mix session the other day 3 handed with David Oppenheim and Niki Jedlicka, and was up a bit before I hit a major cold streak and booked an overall loss of 55k (including a 27k win playing 200/400 cap PLO), a result of getting hammered in both PLO (-80k) and O8 (-89k). Despite not playing too much lately, I feel a lot of confidence in my play in the HORSE games, NLH, PLO, and 2-7 TD right now and want to focus much of my poker energy in coming weeks in learning NL 2-7 SD and badugi, since I am most likely a giant fish in both right now and look to be playing them more in the future. I am staying at the Aria tonight, where PAD is now being filmed, and might drop down to Ivey's Room to play some live mix games. I am still waiting on a wire though which I am going to send tomorrow, so unless I can find someone to trade online funds for chips with, I might be stuck trying to run up the 2k cash in my pocket in other games, which could be fun anyway. I also am going to shop for some clothes to wear on the show so I look fresh (aka NOT my FTP avatar shirt, which adds 50 lbs). Anyway, wish me luck and check out part 2 of my high stakes PLO series. GL everyone

Brian H

Hey guys. Long time no blog. I plan on bringing it back as I have done a lot of blogworthy stuff recently, but this entry will simply be a PSA about a company I recently used for a private car ride from NYC to Ithaca, NY (4 hours away), Carmel Car Service. Carmel is one of the first results that comes up when you Google "car service nyc" and I had called them from Newark Airport once before and had no problems with the service. This time, I wasn't so lucky. My girlfriend Julianna and I were on our way back from Colombia (a story I will tell soon) and had been travelling all day, so we were excited to be able to just get in the car and get some sleep on the ride back, as we had busy weeks ahead of us. As you will see, that didn't happen. Here is my email to them 2 days after the trip, copied and pasted verbatim (tldr but worth it IMO):

Hello,

My name is Brian Hastings, and I recently used your car service for the second time on a trip from Laguardia Airport to Ithaca, NY on Sunday, October 24. I also left a voicemail but decided I should email too. I am writing to express my displeasure with the service I received on this trip. I believe that the driver of the car that took my girlfriend and me back to Ithaca around 11pm on Sunday, Ms. Wen Zhang, was severely under-qualified to operate a motor vehicle period, let alone professionally. Her driving caused us to fear for our safety even on mainly uncrowded roads and made us unable to sleep, which is a big deal to me since the ability to sleep was the main reason I chose to use your service rather than renting a car and driving myself or just taking a morning flight. My complaints about Ms. Zhang's driving are as follows:

-Ms. Zhang's grasp of the English language was very poor. I could have overlooked this, and I actually did at the beginning of the trip when I asked her to stop for fast food and instead she pulled into a gas station and did not understand when I told her that was not what I wanted. However it became intolerable after my girlfriend and I were sleeping for about 45 minutes only to be awoken by flashing lights. We got pulled over by a Pennsylvania state trooper for speeding, and Ms. Zhang failed to pull the car all the way off the road, leaving the car stopped but still halfway in the right lane. Both the officer and myself told her to pull all the way off the road and she did not understand what to do. I literally had to lean forward and point at the steering wheel and make hand signals for her to finally pull all the way off the road. In the meantime we were at the mercy of other drivers on the roadway for a solid 20-30 seconds and were frightened by this. When the officer came up to talk to her, she didn't appear to understand a word he was saying and she didn't speak any coherent English herself. I had to talk to the officer myself and tell him what was happening, and he just let her go without a ticket, seemingly because he was frustrated about her inability to communicate and just didn't want to deal with it. Obviously all of this is completely unacceptable.

-As I stated in the opening paragraph, my girlfriend and I were too scared to sleep the rest of the way. These fears were confirmed by the fact that Ms. Zheng routinely drifted between lanes driving on Interstate 81 (a two-lane northbound highway) during the remainder of the trip. She seemed to be half-asleep and when I told her a few times to focus and stay on the road she showed no indication of understanding or adjusting her behavior. Even worse, we came very close to getting in an accident with an 18-wheeler. Ms. Zheng was driving in the right lane when the truck started approaching from behind in the left lane, originally intending to pass. Ms. Zheng, totally oblivious of this fact, started drifting toward the left lane. We came dangerously close to hitting the truck until, fortunately, its driver realized what was going on and backed away about 100 yards without us changing speed! Yes, Ms. Zheng's driving scared the driver of an 18-wheeler so much that he backed 100 yards away from our car. Simply stunning. Ms. Zheng continued to drift between lanes and come dangerously close to the few other cars that were actually on the roadway from 11pm-3:30am on a Sunday night.

-When we finally arrived at my house in Ithaca safely (a fact that I was very relieved of), Ms. Zheng said she needed to see my credit card on file, so I ran into my house to get it and came back out and gave it to her. She then gave me the bill, and I wrote 0 for the tip, wrote down the total (about $430), signed it, and handed it to her. She proceeded to complain and beg in only slightly coherent English about the fact that I did not give her a tip. I tried to explain myself a bit but she wasn't understanding anything I said and I decided I should just contact the company instead, although I was going to do that anyway. When I went inside the house her car remained outside for about 5 more minutes before she finally left.

I had used Carmel once in the past and had a good experience, but this was absolutely stunning to me. Both my girlfriend and I legitimately feared for our safety for the majority of the trip, and Ms. Zheng's attitude and lack of ability to communicate with either us or a police officer were completely unacceptable. I feel that I should be entitled to a full refund for the money that I paid for this trip, as the service was not only unprofessional but also a threat to the safety of both my girlfriend and myself. I would also strongly urge you to take a close look at your hiring policies, as in this case the driver was severely under-qualified and, quite frankly, a threat to every other motorist on the road as well as your customers. That's all I have to say for now. I will be expecting a response soon.

Sincerely,

Brian Hastings


It has been about 9 days since that. 7 days ago I got a call back and told a customer service rep the same story on the phone. They seemed horrified and said they would get back to me ASAP. As of now they still haven't. Today I filed a complaint with the BBB and will post updates on that. I was saddened although not surprised to see that they were not BBB accredited and they had an F rating (on a scale of A+ to F) due to numerous similar complaints. Bottom line is, don't ever use this company, they are totally incompetent and the driver doesn't belong on the roads let alone driving professionally.

I will provide some life updates too, since my last blog I spent a good chunk of my summer in Vegas, traveled to Chile and Colombia, and spent some weekends in NYC and Boston and caught some Yankee games and some great concerts. I'll post some well-written pic-laden trip reports when I have more time. For now I hear FTP's new draw and 10-game tables calling my name. Also, part 2 of my high stakes PLO video series comes out tomorrow. I think it is every bit as good as part 1 and includes a good discussion of HEM stats at the end, which I will add to in comments post-video. I hope you guys enjoy it. Good luck at the tables everyone.

Brian H

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