This pic is taken around 715am in my apartment as I'm leaving to go to work in the morning. Brian and Taylor stayed over at my place and slept on the pull-out sofa, I assume because they couldn't afford a hotel room (j/k). It was cool to have Brian and Taylor over, it's always a real pleasure to talk about various business things with Taylor, he really likes to think about various ways to make money, and I like to think along the same lines. Brian also had a lot of fun gossip about the poker world, and it was interesting to hear his perspective on the poker and the poker world in general. He is a very serious minded individual and it's no surprise that someone with his personality would be very good at poker. He is dedicated, analytical, and forward thinking. Ezra, Brian, Taylor and I went to dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse near my apartment, and talked about poker, finance, business, and other random topics. Unfortunately, we did not see Leelee Sobieski like we did last time we went to that particular restaurant. I felt bad for Brian, since he obviously doesn't enjoy traveling/being out of his comfort zone (which is understandable given he lives in beautiful Santa Barbara) but hopefully he enjoyed himself somewhat and it was cool to hear his perspective on things.

While Taylor was in town we also got a chance to go (along with Ezra and Emil a.k.a. whitelime) to one of my favorite massage places (if not my favorite). As anyone who knows me knows, I love massages. However, I am also very particular about the kind of massage I like to get. I love massages that are very strong and incorporate stretching (thai and shiatsu come to mind). Madison Towers Spa has a very discrete, old-school shiatsu massage spa where you can sauna/steam room beforehand and then get treated to an amazing massage where they walk on your back, stretch you out, and overall leave you feeling completely relaxed. After the massage is over, you can lie down on a heated floor for the final aspect of the massage. It's certainly an experience and I would highly recommend it to anyone if they like a strong, vigorous massage.

The next day we went to Tamarind (Indian food), which was Emil's recommendation, and it was really great. I had my office mate Greg come along and since he has played a lot of poker and actually built a successful poker bot, he had a lot in common with the people at dinner. Of course, I lost credit card roulette (I run SOOO bad at cc roulette), but it was funny, because I started to complain about losing, and Taylor said: "Yeah, but you run good at life." I have to agree with Taylor, and felt grateful for being able for being able to pay for dinner for my friends without a worry. It made me think back to the first time I paid for an expensive dinner myself (see old blog entry "trying to get that bread..."), and I realize how lucky I am. As Jay-Z said: "I've seen the worst of the worst, I deserve every blessing I receive I'm from the dirt..."

Anyways, was great having Taylor in town, but I was sad to see him go. We were supposed to head down to the Borgata in AC for the 5k tournament this past Friday, but the person we were going down with could not make it, so Taylor decided not to come. I still went with some other colleagues, and had a great time. Unfortunately, after playing great the entire day (it was a 2-day tournament) I bubbled. That's right, 27 places paid, and I got 28th.

Here were the two fateful hands (comments/thoughts appreciated).

Hand 1: Blinds are 2k-4k (500 ante), I have around 140k in chips with the average around 85k and I'm cruising. I went from having one of the toughest tables I've ever been at (with Lee Markholt, Brock Parker, Gavin Smith, John Racener, Bill Elder and a few others) to being at a table where the only really dangerous players were T-May (very nice guy, by the way, shout out if you read my blog) Steve Sung, and, briefly, Bill Elder. There was an older gentleman at the table and he was talking about his gambling website, "Blackjack for Winners," where apparently he teaches you how to beat the casino. A guy at the table remarked, "go to my website, it's called baccarat for losers...I bet I get more members than your site." The table had a laugh at that. Anyways, he has been playing very strangely, making odd-sized bets and over-raises, calling tons preflop, and donking out at flops seemingly indiscriminately. I am just waiting to find a spot against him. I make it 10.5k (yes, this was on the smaller side but I had seen a lot of the good online tourney players make this size raise so I tried it out) from MP with A4dd. This is a relatively weak opening hand but at this point I had a strong image. It folds to the BJ for Winners guy who thinks for a long time (he starts the hand with around 107kish). I see the wheels turning in his head, realizing that it's only 6.5k more to him. He decides to call. Flop comes KK3 one diamond. I have no pair, but a backdoor flush draw. He leads strongly at the pot for 17k. Previously, I had seen him donk a number of flops with a wide variety of holdings, but I did not read his donk out as strength. I felt relatively certain he did not have a king here. I thought about raising, and I actually went into the tank for a long time (over a minute), and I didn't want to raise to 45k or something then get shoved off my hand (which might even be best). So I floated. Turn came Qs. Board read, KK3Q. He donked out "fatty" (in the words of T-May) on the turn for 35k. I looked at his stack, he had 44k left, and I shoved him in. I wanted to convince him I had a king, obviously, and I would have played a King the same way. He went into the tank for about 5-10 minutes, and he was visibly close to folding. I was debating whether or not to talk to him during the hand, but I decided to just be quiet. He finally called, and he had the ole Q3o for three pair. No ace on the river and I was almost out of the tournament. I really don't know how I feel about this hand, on the one hand I can convince myself I made a +EV play, and had I won that pot I would have been chipleader of the tournament with under 40 players to go, but unfortunately, he made a great call and I was devastated chip-wise.

In other notes from that table, I got the chance to meet Bill Elder, and T-May was asking me about my job and I told him and whether or not I went to school for it, and I told him no, but that I was an economics major in college and went to law school. Bill Elder (who I had also played with at my first table) chimes in "I hate economics majors who went to law school." Apparently, Bill went to Boalt Hall (Berkeley, a very good school) and was an economics major in college. He seemed like a smart guy, and was a total gentlemen and really nice. It's no wonder why pretty much everyone says great things about him. He really was a class act and it's people like that in poker who I look up to for their great table demeanor and attitude.

Hand 2: After some nice double ups, I was back up to 110k. I was so disappointed that my table broke, it was the best table I have ever been at that later in the tournament. I was moved to a new table with Lou Esposito (who I know from NYC) and durrr (who wound up getting 2nd). Immediately after I sit down, the tightest player ever raises utg to 18k, durr shoves him in, not sure how much but it was over 180k preflop I'm fairly certain, and the guy mumbles, gives a speech (durr later said: "speeches tilt me") about how he can't fold the hand, and calls with AKo. Durr has AQ and the flop pops out QQx. That's why durr is the best. Anyways, a few hands later I am sitting on around 110 and I raise 88 utg+1 to 18k (blinds are 3k-6k). "Fat Lou" immediately raises to 80k, like instantly, putting out the chips very fast. Folds back to me. We are on the bubble. Lou clearly has a good hand. I ask him if he will show if I fold and he says: "Dave, I'll do whatever you want, I'll tell you the hand, I'll show, whatever you want." People start crowding around the table because it's the bubble and it's also 2a.m. and people want to get to bed, and Lou says, "Dave is my cousin from NY." At this point I think there is a chance he has AK or AQ, and I can't really put him on 99-JJ because I feel he would have had to at least think of what to do preflop, so I stuck it in and got shown KK. I don't know what to think of this hand but I probably should have folded. A friend commented later how in moments of stress certain things can take on unnatural weight in your decision making process. In this case I over-weighted his speech and determined that he could have AK/AQ, when I should have just paid attention to all the other signals (I raised utg+1, he insta-reraised utg+2, he knows I'm a solid player, etc.). It really sucked to play all day and have nothing to show for it, but that's tournaments, I guess.

I went down with some people from the finance world, and since I haven't played much poker lately, I really treated the tournament as a break and had a really fun time. I know long term that's the place I want poker to have in my life. Eventually I want to play against strong competition strictly for the fun of it, where the money I win/lose doesn't really matter and affect me at all. So many tournament pros have such horrendous attitudes when they take bad beats, and I think a large part of that is because poker is such a grind and they know they only get but a few chances a year for a big score. I also think that in comparison to the online players, they have a less sophisticated understanding of variance and thus treat every bad beat as a colossal missed opportunity rather than just part of the game (Erik Cajelais and Gavin Smith were at my table and both took beats really badly). Erik's hand was losing J10 v. QKdd on a J10Q2dd board where Eric bet the turn, the guy just called, and the river paired the 2, the river went chk chk, and the Erik's two pair got counterfeited. He was visibly shaking and frustrated after that hand, and proceeded to tilt the rest of his chips off very quickly. Gavin gets it in v. a relatively short-stacked player with AA v. her QQ, and she spkes a queen, and is grumpy and upset for a long time after the hand.

I would never want my life to be like that. I just want to enjoy poker for the great game it is, compete at a high level, and have fun with it. After all, it's just a game. A very competitive game, but a game nonetheless.