...for being lazy about blogging lately. I'm not really sure why because I've had plenty of free time, just haven't gotten around to it for whatever reason.

Anyway, July ended up to be a very good month for me, I finished in the green about $400k I think. August has been very swingy to date as I've been playing the big PLO games a lot but I think I'm up a little bit. If I could run like I've been running at 25/50 in the 200/400 games, I'd be a very rich man, but I'm doing fine anyway so hold the sympathy.

As I blogged about a little recently, I purchased a house in Ithaca, NY, home of Cornell University where I'm going to be a junior. It's not going to be as baller as cts's condo, but I'll post some pics once I move in. First, I have to furnish it though. I'm going to make a trip up early this coming week where I plan on purchasing most of the furniture - couches/chairs for living room, dining room table and chairs, pool table, bed frame (ordered a mattress already), dresser, and some outdoor stuff like a grill and seating and a table of some sort, and maaaaybe a hot tub. I'm pretty set on electronics although everything isn't installed yet. I'm assuming the best route is to just browse around local furniture stores, but if anyone has recommendations, let me know. All I know is I can't wait til everything's set up and I think the next 2 years living there is going to be a blast.

Also, I'm making the HSNL video for this coming Friday. I recently did a 2 part 10/20 video, so I'm not really sure what to do. Suggestions are welcome!

-Brian

....is my new favorite show! For those who haven't heard, it's a new MTV reality show produced by Jamie Foxx in which a bunch of "G's" fresh off the streets come intending to become gentlemen. I almost spit out my drink laughing at multiple comments during the first episode, which I watched today. My favorite was when an interviewer was asking one of the G's "why do you want to become a gentleman?" His reply: "Cuz I wanna have a million dollars when I'm 30, and a billion dollars when I'm 40!" No, I'm not making this up. I can't wait for next week's episode already, it's just too good.

I'm going to NYC this weekend to visit my sister, who's taking a summer program at NYU. I should arrive at around 2-3pm Saturday, then we're going to shop a bit before heading to Morimoto's, the Japanese restaurant owned by the Iron Chef, which is pretty cool since I used to watch the show. I'm really looking forward to it as I'm a huge fan of good Japanese food. Afterwards we're going to a comedy club to watch some stand-up, and on Sunday we're going to see the Yankees game vs the A's. I'm excited for that as always and we have great seats, should be fun! It's the 3rd trip I'm making to Yankee Stadium this year and hopefully not my last.

-Brian

On Thursday I had one of my biggest winning days ever, winning $295k. I mostly played 200/400 PLO as the games were good all day. I had been running kinda bad when taking shots at that game so it was nice to book this win. I actually started the day +180k, lost back to even, then took a quick break to clear my head and went on a huge run after. I think it's very important to take breaks when things aren't going your way. Here are some of the big hands I won:

1 I flop a combo draw and luckily run good. I'm a 54% favorite or so here.

2 Running pretty good again. I like my line here though, I think he's generally pretty strong on the flop as his reraising range vs a UTG raise 5 handed OOP isn't super wide. I was going to fold to an A, K, J, or club on the turn and call off on any other card, I think that's better than just jamming flop. I was a slight dog on the flop but 57.5% on the turn.

3 Pretty cool hand, I bet smallish on the river (6400 into 10800) to make it look like I'm valuetowning QT or something and induce a checkraise bluff.

4 Biggest pot I won, made a thread on it in PLO forum and will discuss there. Sorry for spoiling results.

All of my housemates are now out of the WSOP Main Event. Congrats to Joe, Bruce, and Drama for cashing! It would have been nice to see them get deep but making it to day 4 is no small feat. Also David Benefield is 3rd in chips last time I checked updates, take it down!!! Now that my housemates are all out I think I'm heading home Monday. Vegas is fun but draining, I think it's great in small doses but it wears on you. I'm about ready to head home after one last weekend of fun.

-Stinger

Hey guys. First, I want to say I'm sorry to all the FIFA players out there who have been asking for games. I'm in Vegas and don't have a PS3 here but I should be back within the next week sometime and then we'll play some games.

Vegas has been lots of fun. I'm staying with Taylor, Andrew, Berra (johnnydrama/thefinisher), Joe (LL2), Brian (rich n smooth etc), Bruce (cornellxc), and Berra and Brian's gf's. They're all super fun people to hang out with and I'm really enjoying myself. The house isn't the greatest as it's hot and hard to sleep well here, but the living room is good for hanging out so it's fine. I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed though. Yesterday we went to a BBQ at the Deuces Cracked house. The crowd was basically an online superstar roll call. It was a fun time, we played some volleyball, wiffleball, and Chinese poker. I took Mikey, Phil Galfond, and Hac Dang (huge Chinese fish!) for $65 playing $10 a point I think plus bonuses (score system was unique...), ship it!

Later on we went to Tao and got a huge skybox table thingy. There were about 20 people with us as some of the DC guys joined us. I was amazed at how huge the club was. I had a good time although I lost credit card roulette, which really sucked considering that we had 9 bottles or something. Oh well.

I wasn't playing too much online the first few days of the trip, but I've been playing more the last few. I decided to start playing the 200/400 PLO games some again. It started when we were making videos the other day and raptor took a lucky 1/4 of me shortstacking the game. I won 30k or something and he gave me some tips and it seemed like easy money so I decided to do it more and ran up a few nice stacks. I then fullstacked some in some good games and ran well for a little til dropping some back yesterday, but overall I'm doing well. I intend to keep playing but probably short or 50bb deep mostly to reduce the crazy variance.

Lastly, you guys have to check this video out. I stumbled upon it and Taylor and I watched this and several other videos and can't stop laughing. I couldn't figure out if he was serious at first, but I guess so. It's not quite the Phil Hellmuth green belt video, but still quite hilarious.

-Brian

Hey guys. This past week has gone pretty well for me in poker. I've been playing almost all PLO, although in the middle of the week some 50/100 NLH games ran so I decided to try my hand at those. My NLH game is a bit rusty right now since I've been focused on PLO, and I think I lost 30k or something the first day I played, including one pretty stupid bluff 200bb deep. The next day I watched a couple videos because I felt I was playing poorly (cts 10/20 and Raptor 5/10 2nd part). More games ran that night and I felt I played (and ran) much better, booking an 80k win. I felt just watching these 2 videos and thinking about the game some helped sharpen me up pretty good, although I'm still not as sharp as the guys who play NLH every day. Thanks Cole, and I already thanked Dave on AIM but it was after he had a bad poker day I think so I think he was kinda mad...

Also I played Ziigmund in a session of 50/100 deep HA (half PLH half PLO). I think Ziig is a pretty tough player but I've played with him a lot and know his game very well and think I match up very well with him. Also he has preflop and tilt leaks that hurt him. He certainly has talent though. This also went very well for me as I booked a 65k win. Here are some big pots/interesting hands:

1 Here I play a combo draw aggressively deep and miss. I think a more passive line might be better on a paired board, but I also end up getting bluffed on a bunch of turns. Perhaps call flop shove turn?

2 The flip side, except with no board pair. Luckily I fade as well despite the turn improving him.

3 Pretty tough hand. Not sure if I like my play this deep, but Ziig has a massive range for 3betting/calling 4bets so it's not easy to say what the best line is.

4 A bit smaller hand that I thought was cool. I think he fires turn with his whole range pretty much but gives up with bluffs on the river a lot. So I call the turn intending to fold to a river bet unless I boat up. Note: if you're a reg who plays lots of PLO with me and read this, I will call the river too. For reals.

5 I think raising looks pretty bluffy on this flop and induces dumb stuff from lots of Axxx hands or even pure bluffs. I got a little nervous when he SNAP repotted but decided to stick it in and had the best hand and held.

6 Biggest pot of the session. I showed this to a friend and he asked why I raised flop. Honestly, I think it's the best play and not close. I had 61% equity here against the nuts, and if I flatcall and hit one of my cards, there's a good chance I don't get paid (or if a spade hits he's probably barreling with the As and I'm playing guessing games. The only downside is that I only have about 35% equity against AJ with the nut flush draw, but more often than not he won't have that, and I think raising and getting it in here is clearly +EV.

I've also been doing well at 25/50 and 50/100 6max PLO this month, although this week was a bit up and down. I'll post a graph of that at the end of the month, should like kinda like a rollercoaster that goes up a bit more than down.

I'm planning on heading to Las Vegas this coming week. Last year I stayed with Taylor, Andrew, Berra (thefinisher), BrianW, and Joe (LL2) for a week and had a great time. This year I plan on staying for 2 weeks. Hopefully I'll have an even better time than last year. I'll be at the CR booth at the Rio and also around the town a bunch, so hopefully I get to meet a bunch of CR members and see some who I've already met again. I'm really looking forward to going as there hasn't been all that much to do at home lately, and there's lots to do in Vegas. Also I hope to check out Naked Fish as my curiousity is peaked from reading about it every other day in Dave's blog.

I've been playing a lot of FIFA 08 lately for PS3. For a while now I have played games against Dean (deanrover6 etc) betting $600/gm. At first he kicked my ass but I've gotten much better and have mostly kicked his ass lately. Also I got my friend Brandon hooked on the game now so I've been playing a ton. I'm issuing an open challenge to CR members to play online games. We can play for money or not, but I'll play anyone for any stakes, within reason (no Genius28 I'm not playing for 10k/gm). Also I do have an Xbox 360 but no game for it, but if I get a good offer to play for money I'd be willing to pick up the game for that as well. Bring it on!

That's all I got for now. GL to all at the tables and in life.

-Brian

Hey guys. It's been a while since I talked about poker in my blog aside from the HU tourney so I figured I'd give an update on that. As some of you know, March was my best month ever and I had a great run playing a lot of big PLO. Unfortunately that didn't continue in April and May. For the details, check highstakes DB. It's pretty disappointing because I really feel like I'm a winning player in the game, but standard variance in 200/400 PLO is huge and I guess everyone who frequents those games has had similar downswings at some point.

I hope to return to the 200/400 games at some point, but for now I've been grinding a lot of 25/50 and 50/100 PLO. These games have been pretty good lately and I've been doing very well in them. I was going to try to post a screenshot of my PT Stats but have no idea to do so (if someone can help plz do so), but anyway in 31,277 hands of 25/50 and 50/100 uncapped PLO on this computer, which I got in mid-February I think, I'm up $403k and running at 9.5bb/100. I've probably played 1/3 of these hands in the last week since I've really started focusing on playing these games. I think my PLO game has come a long way from 6months ago, when I wasn't really confident at all in my game. I feel like I'm one of the best players at these limits, and hopefully that translates into being one of the best in the 200/400 game down the road. That said, I'm perfectly content playing these games for now as there's still good money to be made with much less variance than 200/400.

Here are some of the biggest pots I've won in these games over the past few months:

1 Oh the swings of PLO. I'm a favorite over top set here, albeit very slight. Flipping for 700BB pots is fun when you win!

2 Getting my opponent to stack off very lightly. I really don't like his push because I can't imagine myself bluffing on that turn card.

3 Really proud of this call. My logic is that he'd check raise with the nut flush draw on the flop, rather than check calling, so I put him on a hand exactly like the one he had.

4 The benefits of an aggressive image. Applsgirl is a good reg but I 3bet a lot and cbet lots of flops, so my image allows me to get played back at light. Can't get it in much better than this.

5 On the other hand, 3betting a ton puts me in spots like this very often. In PLO I'm never going to be a huge underdog preflop though, so I can just call the 4bets and try to run good like this.

6 Here I check back on the flop for pot control as bottom 2 pair is not a very good hand. I turn the best card in the deck, then induce a river bluff by making a nice little 2/3 pot bet that looks like a marginal hand betting for value.

I have a lot of confidence in my PLO game right now, and I intend to keep grinding out lots of hands and hope to keep running good. Also, I've been trying to learn how to play limit O8 recently for something to play when PLO games don't run. I struggled at first but lately have been doing pretty well. There are some pretty bad loose players in the 100/200 games that I've been playing so I think I can make some decent money there too.

On the non-poker front, I went to see the Yankees game on Sunday against the Royals with my parents and grandfather. It was a great day and game, the Yanks won 6-3, and it was a nice unofficial father's day for both my dad and grandpa. For all you Yankee haters, my dad and grandpa took me to my first game when I was 7, so blame them for leading me to the dark side. My only regret was not seeing Berra (johnnydrama), who was at the game with his gf, but we'll cuddle soon enough in Vegas.

Also, I'm going to a Dave Matthews Band concert tonight. I'm really looking forward to it as I've heard Dave puts on great shows. Also I'm going with a pretty big group of friends so that should be crazy. Hopefully the weather holds up as it's outdoors.

That's all I got for now. Take care everyone.

-Brian

...did not go according to plan. I faced David Singer in the semifinals. I planned on playing a Raptor-esque strategy involving lots of button limping, since I had watched some of Singer's previous matches and he was very aggressive with 3 betting. This worked pretty well overall I think but I found myself down to 25k chips from my 80k starting stack just losing a few medium sized pots. I then doubled to 50k when I limped on the button with AT and called a raise, flop came T42, he bet 3k, I made it 7800, and he shoved with AK. I then chipped up to 70k when the following hand happened: I raised to 2500 on the button (500/1k blinds) with 99, David makes it 8500 in the BB. I weighed my options and decided taking a flop with 99 could be tricky and I couldn't reraise smaller than allin with 70xbb stacks, so I shoved. He called fairly quickly and tabled 55, and I was excited as a win would give me a 140k-20k lead. But it was not to be, as the flop came J52 and the turn and river bricked. I was out in 3rd place.

At first, I was very disappointed with how things went, especially since I got a full night sleep knowing I was guaranteed 165k. Looking back today though, I feel nothing but positivity form the tourney. I was lucky to pick up a fortunate draw which helped me get to the semifinals with relative ease, and then unlucky to lose the hand, but it really balances out. And luck is a part of poker, especially tournament poker. So overall I'm very happy with how the tournament went. I should be able to make some good videos out of some of the matches, too.

I also played some good golf today, shooting 97 on my first time out in about a month (good for me anyway!). The weather was amazing, mid 70s and sunny. It was a nice end to a good Memorial Day weekend. I hope everyone else's was good too.

-Brian

Hey guys. Sorry for being a lazy blogger. I'm going to continue the trend by saying that Taylor wrote up an excellent trip report of the Mansion and I really have nothing to add since I was with him the whole time. I had an awesome time though. The one thing I do have to add is pics, which finally made it onto my computer. Here are some of my favorites from the weekend:

(edit- if you want to see the pics click on comments, they're not showing up otherwise for some reason)

Me, Taylor, and bunnies!

me with some of the guys

crazy Asian girl in the Grotto

Wiggins at the club the night before....

Also, this weekend Full Tilt Poker hosted the biggest buyin tournament in online poker history, a $25,000 buyin heads up NL tournament. I was looking forward to this for weeks as I love heads up poker and rarely get action. Plus, the field was pretty soft for an event with such a big buyin. I'm happy to say that I advanced through to the final 4, which will be played tomorrow at 4pm EST. I'm playing against David Singer in the semifinals and then would face the winner of whitelime vs Andy Bloch in the finals should I advance. I was fortunate to pick up a pretty good draw today and avoid all of the tough nosebleed regulars, but I also feel like I played some great poker. The only time I was in danger of losing was in the 2nd round against Max Pescatori, who had me outchipped 16k-4k, but then I doubled up with 92cc vs Ax7c on a 7x6c5cJc board, so I had no chance of losing the hand. Then I won an 18k chip pot with 55 vs A4 on a J54 flop in a 3bet pot and won fairly easily from there. In my other 3 matches I basically never trailed and dominated my opponents.

I also recorded my final 3 matches of the day (vs Max Pescatori, Howard Lederer, and mischiefofmagic, a satellite qualifier). I will probably make the Pescatori and mischief matches into videos as I feel I played some very good poker against 2 very different opponents, and won in 2 very different ways. The Lederer match was pretty standard and boring imo, but I'd be willing to put it up on the site as well with no commentary. It would be mainly for entertainment value as I don't think the match really had much educational value, I just picked up some hands in the right spots. The other 2 matches should make for some good educational content though. I'll probably record my match(es) tomorrow also, we'll see how it goes.

-Brian

Hey guys. Today I'm going to do something different and actually blog about poker. I didn't play all that much last week as I had a test and other schoolwork to do, plus we had a party on Saturday (lots of fun btw). Today there were a bunch of NLH games running. I 6 tabled, 5 tables of 25/50 on FTP and Stars and a 50/100 table on Prima, and won about 50k, which was very nice and good for my confidence since I haven't played much 6 handed NLH lately. Here are some hands from the session:

www.pokerhand.org/

In this first hand I flop top pair on a drawy board against Cole. I think he's 3betting TT+ almost every time 4 handed CO vs BTN, so my hand is basically the same as AA except for the added equity he has with a T8 or JT type hand. Against his actual hand I was in better shape than I would be with AA. I think my play is marginally thin, might have to ask Cole himself what he thinks.

www.pokerhand.org/

In this hand I think Sam's range for check/calling the flop is mostly marginal made hands like KK-TT and weak Ax hands. I hadn't been getting out of line postflop much (believe it or not) and decided it was a good spot to barrel. I think he folds the turn unimproved almost every time with his hand, so I like my line. Fortunately for me I hit a perfect river card and ended up stacking him. My plan was to shove almost any river so I really lucked out.

www.pokerhand.org/

I'm not sure what I think of my play on this one. The turn call is a little thin but I have decent equity against top pair plus thought I could represent some cards that didn't improve my hand. On the river I think samh is capable of both bluffing and value betting fairly thinly, with stuff like sets, 2 pair, and maybe even a naked ace. I am giving him great odds on the call but my line here is really believable as I would play any pair with a 5 the same way on the flop and turn.

Those were the most interesting hands. I tried to find a losing hand for good measure but I only got stacked twice and they were very standard, as were the rest of the wins. I might even play some more today as it's kind of crummy outside and I don't have much else to do. Plus Grand Theft Auto IV comes out tomorrow and my poker career is probably over then because it looks SICK. I don't even play video games much but I can see lots of time being put into that.

That's all I got for now. Take it easy.

-Brian

Just had to share this quick. Yesterday I got this Facebook message from a complete stranger who friend requested me and I accepted:

Hey Brian !

How are you ? I know you're a pro in poker so I thought I could try messaging you be cause you know a lot of people in the poker field. I went bust and i'm looking someone to stak me up. If you know anyone interested just let me know. I play the 2-4 limit so i'm roughly looking for a 30k bankroll. I'm ready to give 20 % of the winnings to the staker.

Thanx
Joe

Unfortunately I wasn't thinking and only replied with a "you're joking right?" To which he responded, "nah I'm serious." I'm not sure if he really is or not but what's my play here. I think I can still salvage this and make it funnier.

-Brian