One month update

Hey, lots of people asked for an update about a month after my last blog post describing things. I would say right now I'm more set on retiring from poker than I was a month ago but at the same time less than the poker media suggested. I'll still play occasionally, but my focus won't be on poker and its tough for me to really enjoy something if I'm not focussing on it.

Over the 6 weeks I've played online once and since I booked tickets to Monte Carlo were already booked I played San Remo/Monte Carlo. I definitely enjoy playing live tournaments quite a bit and although I'm looking forward to the break, I know if there were 10k's this soft running every day in Waterloo it would be much tougher to take a break. In San Remo I played the main event, a 2200 and a 330 turbo. In the main event I ran KK into AA in level 8 or 9, and in the 2200 out of 490 players got 51st or 52nd when 48 paid after running AK into 77. I got 4th in the 330 turbo for 5k... although these don't have just buyins, I highly recommend the nightly turbos to anyone at EPT events.

After San Remo we went to Cinque Terre for a couple days and I highly recommend going there between San Remo and Monte Carlo in the future. Its 5 seaside villages in an incredibly scenic area. There are tons of paths/hills to climb and whichever direction you look the view is beautiful. The food was amazing too. The highlight of the trip was probably the meal I ate in one of the villages. I'm a pretty picky eater but easily influenced by advertising. The one restaurant everything was 10-15 euros but there was something for multiple people called "very best fish" for 45 euros... I figured with how good italian food is, I'd regret not trying it.

My friend Eric and I ordered it and while everyone else at the table was getting their meals, we each got a huge bowl, and they brought over a side table with 2 other pretty big bowls, various eating instruments and a GIANT bowl. About 15 minutes later they bring over this like concrete urn and put it on the table, and take the lid off as steam pours out. They begin pouring from the urn into the GIANT bowl and I realize I probably should have asked before ordering. There was a whole octopus, lobster, there was squid, mussels, prawns, some strange type of fish and other things in there. I can't really do the meal justice without pictures, but it was quite impressive, and ended up being delicious. I understand there will be people out there who think I'm an awful person for eating meat, but I definitely find it enjoyable to "conquer" a new animal and here I had like 4 new ones.

After that we CCR'ed for the bill and Eric and I CCR'ed for our 1/2, the other 3 CCR'ed for their 1/2, and I lost as did Andrew Chen. Our bills came out to so similar that we decided to flip for that as well. Rather than just flipping a coin, we saw 2 10-11 year olds playing soccer nearby and said we'd flip a coin for who gets which kid and first one to score wins. I got the heavier kid, he got the thinner kid. We walk closer and it turns out that the skinnier kid is just taking shots on the heavier kid and I realize I'm pretty much done for. The heavier kid stopped like 30 shots in a row, and 2 of them ricocheted within 1 foot of going in the other kids net(which was completely unguarded since he didn't care at all about whether the ball went in). No idea who was the favourite(probably Skinnier kid) but it was much more entertaining to sweat than just an ordinary soccer match.

Anyways, after 3-4 days in Cinque Terre we headed to Monte Carlo. I played the main event yesterday and had a really tough table, and ended the day with 18.3k(avg. is like 60k). Hopefully I run better at table draws/poker tomorrow.

Regarding my retirement, I've applied to school for the fall(just Wilfrid Laurier in my hometown which has quite a good business program with lots of room for electives so I can take a wider variety of courses) and if that doesn't work out I'll return to the University of Waterloo. I'm quite excited about trying something new since the more I think about poker the better I feel about my decision(maybe this is circular logic, who knows). I'm currently talking with Eric about booking a bet to minimize our time wasted and see if that helps(I say I'm overly addicted to 2+2, he says the same about video games and we're thinking of something along the lines of having to pay the other one for each amount of time spent doing that activity). After reading a book I always feel much better than I do after surfing 2+2 for a bunch but when presented with the opportunity to do one of the other I choose 2+2 like 90-95% of the time. I'm sure no matter what I'll always spend some time there, but at this point I am reading strategy like 10% of the time and when I am reading strategy its usually not even the good strategy threads. Anyways, hopefully I bink either Monte Carlo or the Monte Carlo high roller and end my poker career with a bang. When I say end it with a bang I don't mean "have my last hand of poker be winning a tournament", I mostly just mean this is probably the end of me playing super seriously. I'm sure I'll still play online some and especially if there are some NAPT's in Canada I'll still play live occasionally too.

Thats it for now, still pretty impressed about getting 10k views for my last blog entry.. not sure I've ever even had 3k before.