Hey guys,

It's been a few days since I've done a blog, so I'm going to try to do a longer one right now. It will probably take a day or two to complete, but I'm going to try to cover my life in the last while and coming year, my live poker 'adventures' here in Vegas and stuff like my job and what I do in my spare time. If any funny stories come to me while I write, I'll throw them in.

No Life Tilt

So I actually wrote a long blog in May of this year, but it was left incomplete and as things have worked out I don't feel like publishing it. It pretty much summarised how good I have run in life since this time last year, how much my mindset has improved and how generally easy my life has been in the last year. It is only of interest to me since, if in September someone had told me I would be happier and more confident in May 2012 than I had been in May 2011 I would have completely ruled it out. I went through a tough break up right then, as well as Full Tilt collapsing and me losing my main source of income. Life certainly changed a lot.

While I'm not 'enjoying being single' in the traditional sense of the phrase, I'm happy to have more free time and less hassle and drama in my life. And while I do miss making good money on Full Tilt, I'm glad that things have happened they way they have as I'm now 100% sure that I don't want to play poker for the rest of my life - I had never fully considered it, but it would be hard to justify taking a job where I would be making less money than playing RUSH online. Relationships and poker have lost a lot of their lustre, and with this realisation new doors have opened - not new doors actually, but different avenues, and the motivation to explore them. Just like 3 years ago when I had a burn to study poker and climb that ladder, I have plenty of new interests now that take up my energy.

I'm starting an MSc in finance in Trinity in the new semester. Think it's gonna be pretty tough but sick that my friends Colin and Alan are doing it too, I didn't know they were so it should be a bunch better for that. It's something that really interests me, as opposed to some of the things Ive studied in the last four years, so I'd say I'm gonna do decent in it and generally enjoy being more involved in the Finance side of things. Gonna take another year of run good but here's to hoping this time next year I'll be a little more qualified than I am right now.

Yeah It's The Pokers

While in life I run like a Kenyan, in poker I'm not running so good. Had some tough sessions recently where nothing worked out like I wanted, and where I made some elementary mistakes that I would usually be more careful about. One example if a hand I played in the Mirage with fellow CardRunner Lefty. I raised pre with TT and got a call from Lefty and the BB. The BB had just said ten seconds previously that he was going to the bathroom and had stood up from the table, but kept one knee on his chair. I was sitting right next to him and didn't see him in the hand at all (lol) The flop came Q8x and I check back after lefty (and this other guy) checked. On a turn T it was checked to me again and I bet fifteen. Lefty folded and just as the other player was calling I showed Lefty my cards and mucked my hand. It was a complete disaster. The guy sat back down and offered to chop the pot with me, since he knew it was a genuine mistake and that I couldn't see that he was in the hand. Super nice (drunk) guy. He was without doubt the fish in the game, very drunk and doing stuff like making it 265$ pre flop.

In one hand he flipped over 23o and told Lefty if Lefty showed him less than a pair then he would put in 2-300 pre flop and flip with Lefty (with lefty getting 60% with two overs). Lefty thought for a long time and folded Q high I think, not wanted to gamble (pussy).

Another interesting hand I played was in the Mirage early one afternoon. A scandanavian guy opened UTG and I flatted UTG+2 w Ako. Flop came K64hh. I called a C-bet. Turn was a fairly blank card like an J or something. I called a big bet again. River he shoved all in on a 7. I didn't really think his range had improved much and since Hearts and backdoor spades missed and since he had already barrelled off (and got a fold) vs some gentleman a few minutes earlier, I made the call. He mucked his hand instantly and left the table after 2 more minutes saying 'fuck this game, im going to play PLO in Aria' haha. Guess I had my read decent, crazy euros.

I've dropped a hundred in a few sessions now where I've just not played that well and not really had any gifts. Have to up my game and remember that you have to concentrate at the table, live players are bad, but they're not so bad that they literally hand you money (except maybe 1/10 of them, who literally do). I'm down 550 total but will probably play tomorrow night again and try to right that a little bit.

Defo gonna play a Rio DeepStack some time soon too, they're $235 in and the winner usually gets between 40-50k, which is great. They're just silly soft. Hopefully I can place without knowing much about tournament strategy haha. Buy a piece anyone? L

Prop Bet With Lefty

Anyway, I mentioned Lefty not taking the 23o bet earlier on, well Gareth mentioned something about bluffing the guy if you only got one card, say the nine of hearts. So I said that there's no way 9h is a dog vs 23o. Kevin, Lefty and Gareth sided with the 23o and we made a prop bet where we deal 20 boards a day @1.25 a board for 38 days, and see who wins the most money. I'm pretty confident that 9h is ahead pre flop since 23o has to improve, and since I have 3 outs to a 9 which is tough for him to overcome. Gareth has some of Lefty's action and BK has 10% of mine. BK and Gareth have an over/under bet too that 70$ will change hands, where BK has the under. I stand to lose at most a few hundred, and I think I'm a filthy huge favorite to win big given that I'm irish, that 9h is a perceived small favorite and since Lefty is just a self confessed prop bet fish. I'm 10 bills up after two days, holla. This is the great hussle referenced in the title. Hopefully there'll be some more blood in the next few flops.

Red Rock And Other Stories

Hit up Red Rock canyon the other afternoon for a hike with GC, Deadmoney and KenAces (a very good nl coach here on cr). We scrambled around rocks for about two hours, got some sun and some exercise, saw a tarantula, other standard stuff. It was pretty cool and not unbearably hot. If anyone else is in this part of the world, then I recommend they do that. I will try upload a pic of something when I get one.

I also went for a BBQ in Jeff218's house the other day. He has a really sweet house way in the west side of Vegas. Got to see my boy Epdog again, an all round good lad who I had some beers with last summer in Chicago. Also met up with Asufan for the first time, and tasted some of Jeff's wife's high qualiteeee meat. Went for lunch then with the lads from the house, jeff, KenAces, cr coach Nikolak, the worst cabbie ever Augie and Jake 'AK116' who's a really cool guy and a big cash game player who was down for the week. Nice to meet all you guys, I hope we get to do this again one day.

Hitting the 51s baseball game tomorrow in North Vegas. No clue what baseball is but guess I'm gonna get the baptism of fire pretty soon. Few beers, be grand.

I'm sure I've tons of other stuff to talk about, people I've met, stuff I've done, poker hands and dumb bets etc. But it will have to wait for my next blog as this one is already stupidly big.

I really need some pictures to go up here don't I? I will work on that for next time, maybe take some at the baseball tomorrow in the space between when I get out of my car and when I drop dead of heat stroke.

Hope everyone's running good, at the tables and in life,