Well, the FTOPS has come and gone. The FTOPS itself was pretty terrible for me -- I think I had one cash for ~$1700, and probably over 5k in buyins. However, while the FTOPS itself didn't go well, I had a really fun week last week during the FTOPS. After moving in to my new place on Saturday and getting settled on Sunday (and grinding Sunday tournaments), I headed up on Monday to IWEARGOGGLES house to grind a few days of the FTOPS. Things went well. I've never before in my life won two MTTs in the same day (excluding MTT SNGs), and Tuesday of last week I won the $55 50k Guaranteed on Stars, the $129 KO 30k Guaranteed on FTP, and the $30r PLO on FTP. While these tournaments were all among the smaller buyin tournaments I will play, it just always feels great to win -- and to win three tournaments in the same day is a freaking blast.

Following that, on Wednesday I made the final table of the Stars $320 Nightly, but ended up busting 8th after losing a flip for the CL to Comandr_Cool (who is, in my opinion, one of the tougher tournament regulars around). After that, on Thursday, I final tabled the 30r PLO again, but ended up busting 8th after coming into the FT with the CL. Unfortunately, we came into the final table with very shallow stacks (I think the average stack by the FT was probably like 8-9BBs, it was bad), and it was just gambling, and I didn't run hot. I took Friday off to drive home and go to the Belgian Beer Festival in Baltimore (which was fun, but would have been a lot more fun if it took less than 30 minutes to get a beer everytime you went to the bar). Then I played on Saturday, something I very rarely do, and that went well also -- I took down the Stars afternoon $320 for 30k. Sunday went poorly, but all in all, it was still a very good week, and definitely was a great confidence booster going forward.

I was glad to hear a bunch of positive feedback on my last video, and I am hopeful that you guys will enjoy the next one as well -- it's a HH replayer video of the ante levels of a 100r 6max I played. It's fairly short -- somewhere around 50 minutes if I remember correctly -- but I really tried to condense it, so for the most part I only commented on hands that I found somewhat interesting.

Apart from all that, life is good in the new place. I'm enjoying living with other people again, and am slowly making my room home. It's kinda weird already, just in that my schedule is so much different than everyone else's in the house. So I'm up and wandering around at 3AM while everyone else is trying to sleep, and they are up and banging around while I'm trying to sleep. Fortunately I'm not a particularly light sleeper, but at times it kinda feels like I'm in high school and sneaking around my parent's place when I'm up at night. Oh well. One great upside is that I'm living much closer to my girlfriend, who came over yesterday and studied while I grinded Sundays, which was nice and kept me from getting too hung up on any beats or anything like that.

Anyway, I guess that's all that's new around here. Taking the night off tonight to recuperate from FTOPS, then tomorrow I'm back on the grind. For tonight, I just picked up Call of Duty World at War. I've never been into this type of game before, but I'm trying to pick it up, and I've heard good things. Although immediately when I mentioned it to a friend, he told me that I should have picked up Call of Duty 4 instead. So maybe if I like this one, I'll grab COD4. Anyway, I'm off to my PS3. Good luck at the tables everybody, hope life is treating you well.

Well, I'm moving out of my apartment. It's kind of a bittersweet feeling -- this has been my home and office for the last year, it's a really nice place, and it was the first place I ever had that was mine -- bought all new furniture, new TVs, new kitchen accessories, etc. I'd really made it home. Unfortunately I'm in a really weird spot where my lease is up, but I'm still waiting to hear from grad schools, so I have no idea where I'm going to be in a few months. So I've decided to move into my brother's house for now while I wait to figure out where I'm headed this fall.

This is happening tomorrow -- well, since it's 1AM now, I guess later today. I'm almost done packing and just have to finish up a few more things. I'm curious to see what things will be like at Chris's place, and I hope I don't step on any toes. I haven't lived with either of my brothers since I left high school 8 years ago, and while my brothers and I are friendly, I wouldn't say we are close. So I'm hoping that changes, and we develop a stronger relationship over the next few months.

It's very strange being a professional poker player living in a world of people with real jobs. It's often difficult to relate to friends and family -- or, perhaps a better way to say that is, I have difficulty imagining they can relate to me. I can't talk about results around them, because really no one wants to hear the bad stuff ("Oh I lost five thousand dollars yesterday, how the hell are you?"), and I'm not sure they want to hear the good stuff either ("I took second in a tournament for thirty thousand dollars last night, so yeah, things are ok. How's your job?"). And because, apart from results, there's not a lot you can say about poker that non-poker players understand, and because my profession has become such a central part of my life, I suppose I find myself a bit boring at times. It's one of the things I'm most excited about regarding my return to academia is having something to talk about that not only am I excited about, but that the people I spend time with are excited about as well. It's just tough to get your friends pumped up about the nuances of 22BB play.

Anyway, I've hired a professional mover to help me, and my best friend is headed over as well, and we're gonna spend the day loading up the truck, driving to a storage unit, unloading, driving to my brothers, unloading some more, dropping off the truck, etc. Should be a bundle of fun. Then I'm gonna get a little bit settled in my new place before shooting off to IWEARGOGGLES house, where I'm gonna grind a week of FTOPS. I don't always do this, but it's really nice to play online tournament series at a friend's place who is also going to be grinding -- your schedule during these series is so busy that you often just become a hermit playing 70 hours of poker a week, so if you're going to do that, it's nice to do it with someone else who is doing the same thing.

Oh, and on that note, FTOPS started out alright. I've only been able to play two days of it so far, and while I've blanked all the actual FTOPS tournament, I had a nice day on Thursday where I took 4th in the 3PM $150 on FTP, after grinding a short stack for ages at the final table. Was pretty fun -- I just kinda sat around with 10BBs, occasionally stealing the blinds, while everyone else busted out around me. Obviously I'm talking tomorrow off, but after that I'm back on my grind from Sunday-Friday, at which point I'll probably head back home to spend Valentine's Day with my girlfriend. Yeah, that means no 5K, and I'm not sure how I feel about that, but honestly I'm not sure how big of an edge I'd have in that tournament anyway, if I have any at all. I don't say that to fake modesty or anything, but the "high-roller" tournaments tend to get tough fields full of some very good cash game regs whose play I'm not familiar with, and while they often have pretty bad short stack leaks, I'd guess I'm a pretty significant dog in the first 4-5 levels at a tough 5k table. So yeah, I'm gonna pass. And then we've got the big FTOPS finale on Sunday! After it all wraps up I'll make another blog post and let you guys know how it all went.

Good luck to everybody this week, if you're grinding FTOPS, I hope you can bink a gold jersey, and if you're not, I hope you can bink something else that gives you the roll to grind the next FTOPS =) Later folks.

Hey guys,

Wanted to apologize for the delay on this next video. I'm going to take care of it shortly and put it up for you. Should be up by the end of the week. Last week just ended up being pretty crazy in my personal life, between spending a couple days in DC for the inauguration, spending time with friends and hosting a party here. It was a fun week, but I did let my commitments here slip a bit, so I'll get back on them ASAP.

Apart from that stuff though, the week ended up being a little brutal. It snowed here, and I got in my first "car accident," which was really the weakest car accident of all time. I was turning into a gas station, lost control of my car, and slid into a curb at like 10-15 mph. So of course I get it towed and there ends up being over 2k worth of damage. Nice. Then a couple days later I drop my iPhone on the ground and break it, so have to buy a new one for another $250. Then the day after that, I am using my brother's Jeep to get around, and get a flat tire. Argh.

So, the next couple of weeks should be busy. Moving out of my apartment soon because my lease runs out on February 9, and I don't want to renew my lease when I'm not sure where I'm headed in the near future (still waiting on responses from grad schools). So I'm gonna be moving a bit closer to DC to live in my brother's house, which should be fun. I don't spend too much time with my brother as of right now, and it will be good to strengthen that relationship. His place will also be closer to my GF, so that's a bonus too.

I'll get that video to you guys soon.

Today I was an example of extraordinarily consistent tournament play. Consistently losing. Today's results:

12:45 Stars Warmup (1475th, -$215)
13:00 Stars 109 FO (244th, -$109)
14:00 FTP Brawl (680th, -$256)
14:00 Stars 100r (256th, -$309)
15:00 FTP Mini Fuper (602nd, -$163)
15:00 Stars 50 FO (718th, -$55)
15:15 Stars 50r (158th, -$155)
16:00 FTP 150r (142nd, -$463)
16:30 Stars Sunday Million (6035th, -$215)
17:00 Stars 50 FO (875th, -$55)
17:15 Stars 50r (321st, -$155)
17:30 Stars 500 (703rd, -$530)
18:00 FTP Million (1329th, -$535)
18:30 Stars Second Chance (1199th, -$215)
19:00 Stars 100 FO (581st, -$109)
19:05 FTP Mulligan (324th, -$216)
19:30 FTP 100r- (265th, -$209)
19:30 Stars 100r++ (410th, -$509)
20:00 FTP Fuper (211th, -$163)
21:00 FTP Turbo 100r++ (199th, -$509)
21:00 Stars 200r (56th, -$615)

For a total of -$5760.

It's not often you get the pleasure of having a complete 0fer on Sunday, so I like to really take a second and revel in the runbad. Oh well. Apart from that, this past week was pretty uneventful -- one FT, a couple other deep runs, but no real big scores. Bah.

Still obviously optimistic for the year. No real firm plans to do much traveling/live events before the WSOP -- there are a couple online tournament series -- at least one FTOPS, and the SCOOP -- between now and then, which should keep me busy. And apart from playing poker, coaching and making videos from CR ends up taking up a bunch of time. I dunno -- I enjoy traveling, seeing poker friends, and playing 10ks -- it just sometimes feels like the combination of the opportunity cost (it's difficult to do any coaching while traveling) and the actual cost (flights, hotels, dining out, etc.) make it more of a luxury than a profitable enterprise. Something to think about anyway.

Also wanted to take a second and thank everyone for their feedback on my videos. I'm definitely learning as I go with making them (with the help of some guidance from the more experienced guys at CR), so all the feedback is appreciated. I had a semi-deep run in the 100r 6max on FTP on Wednesday, and I think I'm gonna stick a bunch of the hands from that in the replayer and go over them, as I thought there were a bunch of interesting hands (including a handful that I definitely could have played better). Hopefully it'll make for a good video. Also, I've had a couple requests for a real-time video playing lower limit MTTs, so I think I'll do that for the one after this 6max video.

Gonna be taking off at least Tuesday, and maybe tomorrow as well, to head into DC to hang out with my girlfriend for the inauguration. Should be a zoo, but I'm looking forward to being in the thick of it. I think it'll be a fun week.

Just wanted to make a short introductory blog post. My name is Matt LaGarde, I play as mlagoo on Pokerstars and Full Tilt. Over the past 4-5 months, I've been taking on MTT students as a sort of break from "the grind," and it occurred to me that a good way to reach a wider audience would be to start creating videos. So I'll be continuing to coach and create videos for CardRunners for the foreseeable future. I hope you guys enjoy the videos; I'll definitely be doing my best to be prolific in my video production, and will try to make myself as accessible as possible to CR members, both in my blog and on the forums.

Little bit of background on my personal life: I have been playing professionally for almost two years now, after playing recreationally while in college and law school. I hated law school, and withdrew in early 2007 to attempt to earn enough money playing poker to do some traveling. That summer, I won the Sunday Million, and that fall/winter I took about 5 months to travel through Asia before heading to Australia for the Aussie Millions (where I'd place a disappointing 26th in the ME). Headed back home after Australia, got my own place, and spent most of 2008 on the grind. In December I submitted applications to a handful of graduate programs to try to get a Masters in International Development, so we will see if anyone lets me in; with a very mediocre undergraduate GPA (2.9), a strong GRE, and a very weird resume, I honestly have no clue what my chances are. But I am pretty set on IDev as a career path, so if I fail to get accepted anywhere, I imagine you guys will be seeing updates from me about my applications to the Peace Corps, to try and bolster my resume for another crack at grad school apps.

Brief update on recent activity: after an extremely disappointing 2008 (many brushes with big scores, both live and online, with no real significant wins to speak of), 2009 has started off well -- I brought my girlfriend to the PCA, and in addition to having a really great vacation, I finished 20th in the 5k for 12.7k to book a small winner on the trip (I satted into the main). I then returned home and in my first online session of the year, came 2nd in the FTP nightly on Sunday for 15k. So it's definitely a nice way to start the year, and hopefully things continue going well and I can bring you guys many cool final table videos in the future. Thanks for reading.