Vegas was great. I spent a ton of money unnecessarily but realized at some point that I have an irrational disregard for money. I justify this by the fact that I am 23 and single and am not going to let money get in the way of living life the way I want.

Friday night, Jordan and I played golf and came back to drink 4Locos and whip cream vodka. Needless to say, I didn\'t last long that night. We went to the Mirage to have dinner with Raiderduck_ (my Australian friend from UB) where I proceeded to spill a very large beer all over myself. Nobody was surprised.

The next day we woke up and went straight to Bali Hai GC. This place is sick. I was playing pretty avg on the front but decided to start drinking on the turn. I shot -1 on the back despite not making any putts. It is incredible how much better I play with a couple beers in me than without. When I play golf sober, my heart rate tends to be much higher, and it slows down when I have alcohol. It\'s not rocket science.


Anyway, after G we came back, went to the pool while we prefunked then met up with my buddy Adam for dinner. 6 of us went to Naked Fish, which really is the goods. Knowing we were gonna CCR, we ordered a ton of unnecessary dishes and bottles of sake and wine. Down to 3 cards in CCR, I had 2 of them, and Jordan had 1. I went win, win and he was forced to pay the $260 tab. SHIP!

The night was a blast. Jordan went to the room to pass out early, and Adam and I went over to Caesars to meet up with our Swedish friend Eric, who is legitimately the funniest person I know. Here are some of his quotes (visualize with a Swedish accent):

\"you wanna know why beavers can\'t swim with their head underwater? Cause they\'d drown\"

\"come on...shitface\"

\"Adam, if you wouldn\'t have been a human being you would have been a dead cactus\"

\"don\'t you realize I\'m full as a beaver??\"

\"come on you macaroni maker!\"

Anyways, after that we went and obligatorily played beer pong at O\'Shea\'s til 6:30am. Good times.

On my way down to Vegas I was flying by myself and had some good quality life reflection. I made a list of 17 things I wished to accomplish in the next 17 years before I turn 40. I have listed them in order from those I think will be easiest to those that will be the hardest.

1. Get a masters degree

2. Learn how to build websites

3. Get married

4. Road trip across the US

5. Take a culinary class

6. Become proficient at trading

7. Attend the Masters

8. Go on at least a month-long mission trip

9. Live in a foreign country for at least 3 months

10. Get to a 0 handicap

11. Play in the Main Event of the WSOP

12. Run a marathon

13. Go to Pebble Beach with brothers + Dad

14. Get in the best shape of my life

15. Write a book

16. Start my own company

17. Run for elected office

I have a lot of thoughts that I'm going to try and express in this blog. I haven't blogged since Black Friday somewhat intentionally. I tend to be the kind of person that internalizes thoughts and feelings, and I really didn't feel like telling people I had money on UB and getting flamed for it. BF sucked for everyone, and it made me truly angry when people would laugh at us UB players and say, "I told you so." The whole situation negatively impacted every poker player, and it tilted me to death that people took the opportunity to lash out at those of us making a living playing on a "second-tier" site.

I'm currently sitting in the Bellingham International Airport in Washington on my way to Las Vegas. I was on extreme tilt because I had to buy a last minute $540 ticket as my friend told me he could get a $25 standby flight for me. Surprise surprise, flight's sold out. He gets on the flight cause he was on the waiting list (and he's a sketchy weasel), and I'm stuck 4 hours behind him.

A lot has happened in my life in the past 2.5 months. After the dust settled in April, I began seriously mulling over the direction I wanted my life to go. Because I saw poker as a temporary means to make money, I was resigned to the fact that I would have to grow up and get a real job. The problem was that I really had no idea what that looked like. I was halfway through my public policy internship at the Washington Policy Center. I enjoyed the issues I was working on but didn't see myself working for non-profits for the rest of my life.

Then, one day in early May, the president of our organization called me and said that a local county councilman was looking to bring someone onto his staff. Being recommended for the position really helped, the interview went very well, and I began working 2 days later. When my internship was up at the beginning of June, I started working full time on the council. I'm fortunate in that the guy I'm working for thinks highly of me and has worked out a situation with another councilman where I am going to split time between the two of them. One position will be working on policy and constituent issues, and the other will be more campaign work. Long story short, things are sorting themselves out just like I knew they would.

June has been eventful to say the least. My internship ended, I put together a bachelor party for my brother Peter (oh, there was a wedding too), and I took a trip to Atlanta for an economics conference. On the day I got back from Atlanta, I took the GMATs and did much better than I expected. Unless I am blown away by a job offer/career path in the next year, my plan is to get an MBA starting in the Fall of 2012. I'm not really sure what I want to do with an MBA and have decided that I will not apply to any schools until I have a solid understanding of my reasons for doing it. I echo the sentiment of a lot of people who believe the MBA is becoming a bit of a bubble, similar to law school. If I'm going to do it, I want to know how it will affect my professional development.

I had a bit of an awakening in Atlanta where I realized I shouldn't be in a relationship with the girl I had been dating for 2.5 years. I decided to end things, and, while extremely difficult, I feel refreshed for the first time in a while. I need to figure out who I am and who I want to be - not how I should act in order to apease my girlfriend. It's selfish thinking, but I couldn't continue bringing her along for a ride that I knew would end badly.

This is all to say that I am optimistic about the future. I want to become a better person. I want to become a better friend, brother, son, and worker. I need to go out and learn from mistakes in order to do this. Part of the reason I decided to break it off was that I felt I was missing out on something. Now it could be that I am just falling into the trap of "grass is always greener" thinking. But that is something I will have to learn by myself. No one really knows the ins and outs of someone else's relationship. Many close to me seem to be questioning my decision to end things with someone as great as Rachel. I want to make it clear that I think she is an awesome person whom I admire. She always pushed me to never settle for mediocrity. She has been a great friend to me, and I need time apart from her to fully see the good qualities in her. Too often people get trapped in relationships and forget the person they first started dating.

Now I'm in full on rambling mode, so I'll just keep it going. Going to Atlanta made me realize that I want to travel and experience life outside of my comfort zone. While I think I have the best friends and family in the world, I am realizing more and more that now is the time to go off and move to South America, Europe, or Australia. I am young and could not live with myself if I get so absorbed in what I'm comfortable with that I miss out on soaking up life. I don't know when this will be, but I plan on moving somewhere within the next couple of years. I don't know where I will be next Fall. Hell I don't even know what my work schedule will be like next week. But I love that. Such is the beauty of life.

I would like to end this lengthy blog by saying thank you for reading. Knowing that someone out there has actually taken the time to read this makes me feel great. I don't know why people want to know my thoughts. What I do know is that blogging gives me an outlet to exert my thoughts. I want to do it more.

Time to go check in and enjoy my $540 flight in first class. Thanks again for reading.

JDG

It's been a while since I've blogged, and I've been getting nagged from all angles, so I finally caved in and am writing. The month of March was pretty uneventful as far as poker goes. After having my biggest month ever in February, I started off March with a fun little $2,500 downswing. I managed to rally and turn a very small winner, but I really didn't put in nearly enough volume to show graphs or anything like that.

The highlight of March was easily the weekend spent in Vegas for my brother Pete's bachelor party. We somehow convinced ~12 guys to make the trip, and it was one helluva time. It was my sixth trip, and each time it gets harder and harder to come up with specific highlights. We got in on Thursday morning and promptly snagged some In n Out burger where I faded the 6-person CCR (This would be a theme of the weekend). We then went to check in at the hotel, and I decided to give the ol' $100 bill try a work with the lady that checked us in. I asked her if there were any upgrades available after I set my wad of cash on the counter. She looked at the cash, looked at me, and then said, yes we do. She claimed to upgrade both the rooms we got to deluxe rooms twice as big and with a better view. Still not convinced we actually got an upgrade, as the rooms were less than baller.

That night I played in a $120 MTT at Caesars. There were ~100 players, and I grinded my ass off but finally busted in 19th after shoving TT utg for 10bb's and getting called by AK and losing. Pokerwise, the trip really sucked. I had 0 winning sessions, and all I played was 1-2NL. I couldn't even sniff a big pot. It wasn't like I ran super bad; it was just the same shit every session where I would just bleed and bleed then rebuy an add'l $100 then repeat.

The only thing that caused me from not spewing my roll while there was the opening weekend of March Madness. After going 2/4 the first day, I didn't lose another bet on Friday or Saturday. I also made the biggest sports bet of my life when I saw BYU was GETTING 1.5 points against the Zags. I'm a big Gonzaga fan, but I knew they were not in the same league as BYU with or without Brandon Davies.

On Saturday night, our group of guys went to Fix at Bellagio for dinner, which was great. Several people gave sloppy speeches and we all got pretty smashed. I ordered the scallops, and they turned out to be wrapped in bacon and also really big. Here's a pic:

This is going to be a really fun blog to write. As I write this, Odessa99 is about $400k richer after hitting the milion dollar BBJ on UB. Makes me sick to my stomach.

http://www.pokertableratings.com/absolute-player-search/odessa99">http://www.pokertableratings.com/absolute-player-search/odessa99">http://www.pokertableratings.com/absolute-player-search/odessa99

The past 28 days have been magical. I put in the most amount of hands in a single month that I ever have (by a decent margin) and won the most I ever have consequently. Before I get to the numbers, I want to recap something that happened the day of the Super Bowl.

I texted a buddy of mine who also plays 200NL FR on UB and who I have been occasionally backing in MTT's. I asked him if he was playing any tourneys because I wanted some action while I was drinking beers and watching the game. He said he was gonna take the day off. I guess he decided to play the 200k as there was a 14k overlay. I got a text from him at like 7pm, and he was down to 17. He ended up shipping the thing for 40k. I was sweating him the entire FT and, while I was obv rooting for him, I still felt a little bitter about not having a piece of him. I wished him congrats a couple times and decided that it would be silly for me to be jealous I didn't get a piece of him. I made the conscious decision to be happy for him and support him cause he's a helluva player, and he def deserves it. Anyways, that's really all I have to say about that. Poker is a real funny thing, and everything happens for a reason.

I didn't let any of that bog me down though. I ended up putting in like 55k hands (in the graph you'll see below I didn't include a couple sessions on my laptop). Here's what it looked like. This is at 98% 1-2NL (couple stabs at 2-4)

I crushed my level according ot PTR's Top Winners. I also shipped a smaller tourney for $1400. So, when all is said and done, it will be about a $16k month, which is pretty huge for me. My previous biggest month was ~$12k. I finally understand the value of putting in heaps of hands. Since moving back down to Seattle at the beginning of August, my results have been pretty great:



I'm really happy where things are at in my life. I'm working out on a regular basis. I have been interning at the Washington Policy Center two days a week, which has been great just for mind stimulation and getting out of the house. I recently applied to several similar but more intensive internships this summer at a few places around the country. Waiting to hear back about that.

I also significantly upgraded my setup with the addition of a new tower and a second monitor, which has allowed me to 20 table and pile on the volume. I also snap bought a couple Bose speakers when I saw them on sale at Target. Here's a pic of me 18 tabling:


In other but related news, I'm going to Vegas for my brother's bach party on March 17th. Words can't describe my excitement. There will be a group of 15-20 of us down there, so things will surely get out of hand. I'm considering playing the Wynn 1k on March 17th. I've heard it's generally a pretty tough field but it would be a fun experience. If anyone has played it in the past, please let me know your thoughts on the structure/field, etc.

Finally, I reached Icon on UB (the highest level of their Raise loyalty program) which had been a goal of mine for a while. The perks aren't that great. But it's kinda a cool accomplishment.

I hope everyone had a great month. I'm looking forward to keeping the train rolling in March!

-JG

First a little comic relief c/o Blufftacular, the whiniest bitch you will ever come across in poker. He's a winning reg, which makes his blow ups even more baffling. Anyway, getcha popcorn ready. Here's the chat:

LITTLE PUNISH wins ($197.50) with (Straight, ten to ace).
You've been awarded 8 Ultimate Points + 1 RAI$E Status Point.
BLUFFTACULAR: please punish kindly **** yourself
BLUFFTACULAR: why are u calling the flop
BLUFFTACULAR: float?
BLUFFTACULAR: if u are floating why did u not bet the turn
BLUFFTACULAR: seriously hang yourself man
BLUFFTACULAR: do u eve know what u are doing there
BLUFFTACULAR: jhave a plan at all?
BLUFFTACULAR: or u just blindly hit ****ons
<< Result for Hand C369711332 >>
DARBUD13 wins ($28.00 chips).
BLUFFTACULAR: i mean u are total **** there
BLUFFTACULAR: k10 no hand no draw
BLUFFTACULAR: u smooth flop
BLUFFTACULAR: u pick up qutterball
BLUFFTACULAR: seriously
BLUFFTACULAR: ****** say something answer to your ******ity
LITTLE PUNISH: :D
TAFFY_JONES: lol
SHTOOPIDHEAD: loool
<< Result for Hand C369711817 >>
BBLUFFONN wins ($9.00 chips).
BLUFFTACULAR: stick to weed man
BLUFFTACULAR: lay off the hard drugs
SHTOOPIDHEAD: good advice imo
<< Result for Hand C369712534 >>
THEDRY wins ($5.00 chips).
BLUFFTACULAR: i mean jesus
BLUFFTACULAR: how can u justify that play at all
BLUFFTACULAR: and u play everyday
BLUFFTACULAR: u just given up?
BLUFFTACULAR: just flip a 3 way dice
BLUFFTACULAR: call raise fold
<< Result for Hand C369712792 >>
SHTOOPIDHEAD wins ($23.00 chips).
BLUFFTACULAR: i could see that catchin on actually
BLUFFTACULAR: be truly unreadable
BLUFFTACULAR: thats what your doing right little?
BLUFFTACULAR: just totally fgiven up on trying
BLUFFTACULAR: i mean jesus k10
BLUFFTACULAR: u callin open from mid k10
BLUFFTACULAR: then u floating flop no hand no draw
BLUFFTACULAR: then your checking turn wit 4 outs?
BLUFFTACULAR: where is the value there
BLUFFTACULAR: please tell me
BLUFFTACULAR: am i missing something?
BLUFFTACULAR: are u 16 drinks in?
BBLUFFONN: theres some reads you can get on punish
<< Result for Hand C369713301 >>
SHTOOPIDHEAD wins ($17.55) with (Two Pair, nines and sixes).
You've been awarded 8 Ultimate Points + 1 RAI$E Status Point.
BBLUFFONN: like when he 3 bets, he has AA
BLUFFTACULAR: what that he likes **** in his ass
SHTOOPIDHEAD: $80 in value imo
BLUFFTACULAR: so 4 outer to win 80
BLUFFTACULAR: or he loses 25 other buillion times he misses
BLUFFTACULAR: sounds like a good strat
SHTOOPIDHEAD: agreed
<< Result for Hand C369714068 >>
LITTLE PUNISH wins ($19.45 chips).
You've been awarded 8 Ultimate Points + 1 RAI$E Status Point.
BLUFFTACULAR: i mean now im suicidal
BLUFFTACULAR: so that worked
ZIGHOST: so who we talking about?
BLUFFTACULAR: added bonus to the pot
BLUFFTACULAR: your mom
ZIGHOST: oh
ZIGHOST: shes a nice lady huh
BLUFFTACULAR: she plays cards like total ****
BLUFFTACULAR: lovely lady though

Here's the hand he's referring to:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5971596

We have a ton of history together. He hates my guts and I've def gotten the best of him. I flat him a bunch IP and do goofy things to mess with him. Here I flat KTs and float the Qxx flop with bdfd. I didn't really have a turn plan. I would prob have bet really good bd draws like any diamond or a J or any K, but I opted to check back the A turn. I thought I could then more credibly rep KQ or a floated A by checking it back. I think he expects me to float that flop a bunch and I rly didn't wanna get c/bluff r'd on the turn. I thought this route was more believable. I obv spike gin on the end, and he goes running 2 pr and it worked out for me. I knew the blow up was bouta happen as soon as he snap called my river raise.

Anyway, to this month thus far. Everything that I have touched has turned to gold. I literally can't do anything wrong. I'm playing very well but am also walking on water a bunch. I have yet to record a losing session and just won 7 bi's after 2k hands. I know Ima jinx myself but here's a graph of my month thus far:


I also just recorded a 4 tabling video (more for my own analysis) but am considering posting it if anyone is interested. Comment below and I may send it to you.

GLGLGL to everyone and happy valentines day!

Well, November was another good month. I haven't blogged in a month or so, but, since moving back home at the beginning of August I have posted 4 very solid months playing poker. I put in a little over 30k hands, which, while being kinda on the short side, I'm still happy with. Overall, I ended up +$5k in cash and had the largest tourney score of my life ($3700 lol) so with rb and everything I'll be close to another 10k month.

Two weekends ago, I went to visit my buddy Ross in Louisiana, and we had a helluva time. The highlights of the trip were going to the LSU/Ole Miss game on Saturday followed by the Seahawks/Saints in the Superdome (poor Seahawks). It was a really great time but struggled making the transition from 75 degree weather to the blizzard that destroyed Western Washington for a few days.

I have had 2 job offers since moving back home but have turned both down. I'm def looking for work (although I'm not in a place financially where I NEED to work to sustain myself) but am enjoying the luxury of waiting for the right job before deciding to make that commitment instead of settling. I just applied to a local company called Oki Golf for their Marketing Program Administrator which I think would be a really cool job. For those of you in the Seattle area, if you know of anybody looking to hire an Econ graduate, please PM me. Enough with the boring stuff.

Tomorrow my buddy Derek, my brother Pete and me will be heading to Las Vegas for my 5th trip. I'm excited to check out the Five Diamond as well as see what all this Aria talk is all about. It should be a booze filled weekend, and it's a really good weekend to go from a sports betting perspective.

Goals for December:
- Play 50k hands
- Work out 4 days a week
- Sesh reviews after each session

Good luck to all you out there. Give me a holler if you're gonna be in Vegas this weekend!

Been forever since my last blog entry. Since then, a lot has changed in my life. My lease ended in Bellingham, and I moved back in with my parents. Consequently, I quit the job that I loved at the golf course, which was good and bad. It was something I felt that I had to do if I wanted to move on/up in life and achieve bigger things. I did enjoy Bellingham though, as I felt like I was living the college lifestyle even though I had already graduated.

Since moving back home, things have been bittersweet. I have been endlessly pumping out job applications, shipping off my resume to what seems like black holes and have yet to find something that appeals to me. I interviewed with Microsoft, and, although it went well, they went with somebody else. I have def enjoyed my time not working. I have been working out 4-5 days a week, hanging out with friends and the gf, and playing a ton of poker.

Speaking of poker, I posted this thread on 2p2 about a month ago. Feel free to respond to what you think:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/174/poker-goals-challenges/itt-you-decide-whether-not-i-turn-professional-877222/

Everyone poker player I have talked to has told me it's a no brainer that I should take some time to play professionally and see how I enjoy it. Well, while I have essentially been doing that for the past 2.5 months, I don't see myself playing professionally long term. It will always be something that I do on the side to pad the income, but I want to find some sort of job that fulfills me a little bit more than what poker does for me. I watched Nick Schulman's appearance on The World of Jenks, and it was pretty cool to see everything he has gone through since turning 21, winning a WPT event then losing it all within a year. I don't want to be 27 thinking I have wasted the past 4 years of my life playing poker.

That said, this year has gone extremely well for me. These are not all the hands I've played as I've played a ton on my laptop as well. I'm running like 6k above EV which is always a fun brag.

I can't understand how to optimally upload photos in this blog format, so here's the link to my graph for this year:

http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae8/joeldgraves/2010Graph2-2.jpg

If you can't see it too well, I'm up slightly over $30k for the year through bout 136k hands, mostly at 200NL.

In addition to this, the Seahawks are 3-2 and sitting atop the NFC West with the Arizona Cardinals. This Sunday's game v the Cards is going to be huge and I expect Qwest Field to be rockin. I am also heading down to Louisiana next month to visit my friend Ross who goes to LSU. The weekend I am visiting, Ole Miss is in town to play LSU which is the big rivalry game. By that point, LSU should be vying for a national championship, so that will be fun. Then the following day we will be driving up to New Orleans to see the Hawks get destroyed by the defending super bowl champion New Orleans Saints. It is going to be an amazing weekend.

That's all I have for you guys. Will try to blog more in the next few weeks.

GLGL to all!
-JG

Won the 15r on UB today for ~$1400. I had literally gone between 20-30 MTT's without even a cash, so it felt good to finally get out of the red (or close to it) for tournies this year. I had today and yesterday off and vowed to grind my ass off. Saturday, I played about $250 worth of tournies and bricked all of them and lost about $700 in the cash games, which stung quite a bit.

I had to tilt withdraw some money and got about $500 back yesterday playing cash. Then, today, I slept in til 11:30 which was amazing, ran some errands, went for a run and came back ready to crush. I watched some MTT vids to try and figure out if there was some major leak in my approach, and some things clicked, and I ended up doing the run good ftw!

Side note: a couple of days ago, I received a call from my buddy Derek, and he said that he came home that day, and the cops were there. Now we both live in WA where playing poker online is a class-C felony. It's a complete joke of a law, but that's another issue for another day. Anyways, I guess they had a check that he had cashed from UB and were asking him where he got it from. After beating around the bush for a little while, he finally told them that he got it from playing online poker. They then asked him a series of questions trying to figure out the company that authorized the check or w/e.

After he shit bricks for half hour, they finally told them that they are not necessarily going after the players but are going after the banks and 3rd party companies that are authorizing these checks from online poker sites. He asked them what he should do with the ~$2k that he has on there still, and they didn't really give him a direct answer.

I use the eCheck withdrawl method and haven't had any issues. It basically just puts the money straight into my bank account.

Any other CardRunners members live in WA? Any ideas, suggestions, input would be greatly appreciated on this matter.

That's all for now. Back to the grind tomorrow with 7 straight days of work. Then 3 days off, 2 days on, then I'm done!

God Bless,

JG

http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae8/joeldgraves/June%20Graph/JuneGraph-1.jpg

I'm sick to my stomach that I wasn't able to put in more hands during June, but it still turned out to be a pretty profitable month for me. I wanted to work a little bit harder at 3-betting more and playing 3-bet pots vs the regs. It's something that may not be +EV short term but will def expand my arsenal for the future.

I've been working a ton and playing loads of golf. I had a "big" match vs my boss two weeks ago which we had hyped up for a month and a half. The stakes were laughable ($2 per stroke, when I was getting 13 strokes), but I found myself really nervous the night before and the day of. I showed up like 2 hours early to the course to warm up and everything. I really stepped up to the plate though and shot 81 with only two really bad swings (OB's). He shot a 77, and I took $27 which felt pretty good.

This will be my last month in Bellingham before moving back in with the parents in Seattle for a (brief) period of time. I'm kind of looking forward to it and have been intentionally lazy about trying to find a job down there. The thing that erks me is that anything I would be doing wouldn't be that fulfilling to me, and I would be making just a fraction of the money I'm making online doing something that I probably wouldn't like very much. That is why the situation at the golf course is so tough to leave. I actually like going to work every day. Yes, I could sit at home and put in 80k hands a month with no job, but I'm not certain I would be happier doing that. I might be more wealthy, but getting up and going to work every day is something that I really don't mind. I love the free golf, and, when I want to play poker, I can. I don't HAVE to in order to pay rent, bills, etc. That's something I enjoy, and it will be interesting to see what happens when I move back home

I know that I eventually want to go to grad school and am leaning towards doing in the Fall of 2011. So any job I would take would likely not be more than a year, which doesn't really motivate me to try and find something right now, esp given the current state of the economy.

Anyway, July is off to a good start, up slightly over $800 through 2k hands. I feel like I'm crushing the FR games, and my results show it. One of the regs in the UB 200NL games (Raider Duck_) started chatting with me today and asked me for my MSN info. I gave it to him, and we started chatting for a bit. Turns out he's a really cool guy, and he said I was a very tough player, which made me feel pretty good. He agreed that it would be good to go over hands with each other given that we are both familiar with the player pool at our limit. I guess he's in LV right now with a group of 6 other Aussies including his best friend who plays as robsainter on FTP:

http://www.pokertableratings.com/fulltilt-player-search/robsainter

So....ya, it will be nice to get some insight from these two guys.

Anyways, Happy 4th of July to everyone! I have to leave you with one of the greatest movie speeches of all time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgaPSAGDd0k

God Bless,

JG

I now know why I went through so many highs and lows with poker for the first few years that I took it semi-seriously (when I was grinding MTT's on a nightly basis). I am about 0fer my last 20 or something like that, and they just seem silly to me. Whereas I would like to ship just one 5+ figure score, all the heartbreak just doesn't seem worth it to me. Maybe I'm not making the right adjustments coming from FR Cash to MTT's, but it's not working. I would love to be in LV right now, but so many poker players head down there with hope and optimism and come back more depressed than ever.

That being said, I am still crushing 200NL FR. I didn't put in too many hands in May, but profitted ~$2.5k with RB. Today, I put in 1600 over 2 sessions (With 9 holes of golf in between) and made slightly over $1k. Subtract ~$250 in tournament BI's, and I made about $750. A TON of the regs haven't been playing lately, and it's made for some pretty juicy games. Here are the big ones from today's sessions:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5479465 - This guy is a slight winner in these games, and we have a decent amount of history. I know that he thinks I'm bluffy, so no other option than to bet/3b turn to get the money in esp with the 2nd FD. Unlucky.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5479468 - I will admit this might be bad given his 4b sizing and how tight he had been playing, but I don't think it's terrible

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5479474 - This guy was playing 47/12, and I was lucky enough to turn the nut card against him. His CRAI is unbelievably bad.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?5479478 - This guy folded and showed KK on the turn here. I was really unhappy about it, as I had already 3b this guy from the button with 87o, and he flatted AK and c/called T32K, and I checked back river. The reason I bet this small on the flop is that, on the turn in that pot I also bet about 1/3 pot, and he c/called AK. I think his 4b flatting range is AKs, AA, KK, and QQ. Maaaybe AKo but doubt it. Oh well, chalk it up to a good ld.

I had an awesome May that included going to NY for the first time, running into Eli Manning at a bar, going to two concerts, going to my GF's roommate's cabin on the water, and going to Portland. I am now back in Bellingham and will be working the next 7 days. FML.

My lease is up at the end of July, and I will be moving down to Seattle at that time. I am getting serious about trying to find a job down there right now but it's tough because I am content working at the golf course right now and playing tons of golf and poker. Oh well, time to move on I guess.

That's all I got. I will end with a bet that my buddy Derek and I have going. Instead of just doing a plain WSOP snake/auction draft or w/e, we decided to randomly draw 5 alphabetical letters, and we had to choose a player whose last name starts with that letter. In addition, the letter X was a wildcard, and Derek obv drew that one. So here are the teams:

Derek's letters:

E - Peter Eastgate

x - Daniel Negreanu

I - Phil Ivey

I - Ivan Demidov

W - David Williams

Young Player: Andrew Lichtenberg

Joel's letters: (MY TEAM)

F - Chris Feruson

D - Freddy Deeb

A - JC Alvarado

M - Mike Matusow

I - Isaac Haxton

Young Player:

1 player 25 or younger with 1 or fewer bracelets
- Jason Mercier


$25 - Most Money
$25 - Most # of cashes
$25 - Most FT's
$10 - Every FT
$50 - Per win

I'm sick because I don't even think JC Alvarado is in LV for the series!!! And I'm up against Ivey/Negreanu. I'd say I'm about a 4/1 to win money on these bets.

God Bless!