The month of Jaugust (Auly doesn't sound so good) has been treating me quite nicely. If you didn't know, Jaugust runs from the middle of July through the middle of August. For my purposes we will call it July 14 (or so) - present.

First, after I had already busted out of the main event (was pretty uneventful I just didn't really make any hands and just lost a few medium sized pots in a row), I still had a few horses left in the tourney to sweat, so despite my initial bustout reaction of wanting to get as far away from Vegas as possible, I decided to stay and sweat. And what a sweat it was! As Taylor posted in his blog, our friend Joe Ward (LatestLines2 aka TFW) got 28th for about 250k. Sweating Joe was one of the best experiences of my life. We had quite a rail on our side with me, Taylor, and several other friends plus some of Joe's friends from Boston. Refer to Taylor's blog about the hilarious pocketfives update about security threatening to remove Taylor from the area, good times! I felt sick to my stomach as well after Joe's bustout hand, but all in all he had gotten lucky a few times to be alive at that point and it was a great run.

I also had a second horse/friend get deep, Jon Tamayo (driverseati). Jon did even better than Joe, finishing in 21st.
Jon also had his share of fortunate moments throughout the tourney (AK vs KK aipf on day 2, K7 vs AK on Kxx flop in a 3bet pot, just smash that 7ball buddy!) and some unfortunate hands later on (JJ vs AThh aipf for over 6m pot with about 35 left, other guy flops a flush), that's just how tourneys go. Obviously at the end of the day both of us were very happy with 21st. Sweating others deep in the main event is really one of the more fun experiences I have ever had. I realize that I was very fortunate to have 2 sweats so deep this year, but hopefully someday I will get a chance to do it again.

The staking wins made my Vegas trip quite lucrative after previously being down a little for the trip. I had been playing 25/50 PLO during the trip mainly, breaking evenish with tons of swings, realizing that the games had gotten significantly tougher over the past year, and not really sure of my plan after returning home to PA. Then, around the time I got home (mid-July sometime), Gus Hansen started playing a bunch of 200/400 PLO and the games there suddenly started looking good after being dead for quite a while. I decided to take some of my staking profit and take some shots at those games, and fortunately it couldn't be going any better. I've taken a good chunk of money out of the games in the past 30 days or so, and although I haven't had all of my action, I've had pretty big pieces. Also, it's a great feeling winning my friends money. Anyway, I'm not going to go into numbers but highstakesdb paints a pretty good picture. I will continue to play in these games for the foreseeable future as long as they seem good. I'll post some hands at the end of the entry too, there have been some fun ones.

Lastly, I had played 0 tournaments all FTOPS and was lounging around my house this past Saturday when I was chatting with Taylor on Gchat and he happened to mention that the FTOPS 2500 today had a good structure and was 6max, and that he'd play but couldn't because he had plans with his friends. I, on the other hand, had no real plans, as I had just gotten back to Ithaca the day before and most of my friends still weren't back yet, and the ones that were I had seen at the bars the previous night. So, after asking Taylor what time the tourney was (lol), I decided to play and registered. It started about 50 minutes after this conversation I think. As it turned out, the tournament did have a great structure, as I spent the majority of the tourney with 60bb or more, and I was able to run pretty hot and play well too and take 2nd for 297k. This is my largest tournament score to date, and although I would have liked to win (I had a 3-1 lead at one point HU), I'm obviously pumped about the result. I have requested the hand history file from FTP and there's a good chance I'll be making a replayer video, so look out for that in the near future.

So, in sum, Julaugust has been my biggest winning month ever. I have had the urge to impulse buy stuff, but so far all I've done is cash out and invest a bunch and buy some new pillows and an air conditioner. Suggestions welcome!

As for life stuff, I went to Lollapalooza in Chicago last weekend. I had a blast there and saw some great music. If you don't completely hate rap and ever get a chance to see Snoop Dogg, do it. He was my favorite act of the festival, he's just such a great performer and gets the crowd going wild. I enjoyed seeing the Killers a lot too, although it was my second time seeing them this year. Such a perfect fit for the venue though. Aside from Lollapalooza, I spent a couple weeks in PA. The most noteworthy thing that happened there was me taking a trip to the local Mohegan Sun Casino, which doesn't have table games, but does have video blackjack, which is basically set up like a regular blackjack table except the dealers are on a video screen and all hot and female. I was visiting some old high school friends and a few of us played video blackjack for about 4 hours. I started with $100 (had more back to reload, but never needed it, and ended up cashing out for $2400! Yes, I am running that good.

Ok that's about all I have to say for now. I'll close with some big PLO hands:

1. http://www.pokerhand.org/?4598394

Big "hold" vs Gus. He's actually a slight favorite.

2. http://www.pokerhand.org/?4598403

Tough hand here, not much I can do if I decide to take the aggro route preflop (which I like deep with position vs Gus). This was the biggest losing pot I played all month, somewhat surprisingly.

3. http://www.pokerhand.org/?4598412

Max value on the turn with 1 pair! Gus's bluffcall doesn't get there.

4. http://www.pokerhand.org/?4598418

71% on the flop for an 1100bb pot. This is what dreams are made of!

Brian