http://www.leggopoker.com/blogs/sc000t/

I'm going to be moving my blog to leggo since I got picked up as a pro and I'll be coaching and producing videos through their site.

Been VERY busy the last few months. Got a new job thats taken most of my time. Been seeing a girl thats going pretty well and going to be moving into a new apartment tomorrow.

I'm going to be moving my blog. I got signed at LeggoPoker and I guess it makes sense to move my blog over there. I really love Cardrunners though and would like to thank everyone here, its a great company and I'm very impressed with it.

I dont know if I'm allowed to link a competitors website in a blog but if anyone is interested in watching me explain some PLO over a video format, come check it out and let me know what you think.

Two friends and I took a few days off and drove down to Knoxville, Tennessee two weekends ago to have some fun and catch a football game. The drive was horrible for the Ohio part but once we got into Kentucky and Tenn it was absolutely beautiful. The people in Knoxville were great, we met a ton of people and had a blast. The football game (Florida v Tenn) was actually the worst time because it was such a blowout and Tennessee lost. Even still, the people after the game were a riot. Everyone out at the bars was having fun and we went all over the place. Both nights we weren't in bed before 4am and both mornings we were up before 9am so needless to say we were exhuasted by Sunday. I'll post some pictures below:

This week I started a new job. I'm working for a local company in Kalamazoo that runs something like 25 subsidiarie. I'm organizing and managing their finances and will most likely be helping out a little bit with some accounting (blah) and some new investment into the markets (def good week for me to start) and helping them valuate some new business ventures as well.

As far as poker goes, I'm still not pluggin in a ton of hands. My winrate is still pretty rediculous but I need to get about twice as many hands in before I can honeslty start to see how well I'm doing in the games. I'm hopefully thinking that this new job will actually intise me to play more hands this month. Reason being that my job isn't paying me as much as I'm making an hour at PLO. The thing is, I usually don't play in the day anyway so I had a bunch of free time to do whatever. Now, I'm at work all day making some money and itching to get out and play poker since I sit at work and think about how much money I could be making playing poker. So thats the plan, we'll see if it works.

Also, heres a free pug to StephenNuts's new website: www.protradersedge.com Its a good site if you are interested in day trading, finance, short/long term investments, real estate investment or anything along those lines. Sort of like a free Cardrunners for Investing.

This was sweet picture I snapped right as we walked into the Stadium. This is what 106,000 people wearing orange looks like.

Heres the three of us at the game. I'm in the middle.

Few of us tailgating.

All in all it was a good trip. Everything went perfect. I'm looking forward to playing some PLO this week and buckling down and making some "fuck you money". I got that FU Money saying from Wall Street Warriors. I literally watched both seasons in one day, one after another after another. Real pissed there is only two seasons and I can't wait to see more. http://www.hulu.com/wall-street-warriors

The end.

-Me

Cheers

I've blogged about this before but nowadays the only thing that really seems to tilt me is when really awful play gets rewarded. I'm not one of the types to go balistic in chat or anything -EV like, I just get really frustrated and force myself to quit my session because I can feel myself start making cloudy decisions.

I haven't played the last few days. I've been getting ready to travel to Tennessee to see the Tenn/Florida football game then we're driving over to Charlotte, NC to look at some houses and I have a few interviews lined up as well.

Right now I'm sitting at my computer, in some slippers, boxers and a sweatshirt in my room that smells like ass because of the 5 straight days of rain in Michigan seemed to flood the new townhouse I'm in and fortunately for my opponents tonight, I live in the basement and I started my session already hating life. My carpets are soaking wet and my computer is up on my desk next to my monitors with cords everywhere and no room for me to use the mouse...its just really pathetic. I can't wait for my vacation.

So without further adu my session:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3200998

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3201001

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3201007

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3201010

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3201025

literally these two hands (above and below) were almost back to back vs this guy who played about 100% of his hands

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3201028

Thats all the hands I can find, I think there was a few more but I'm kinda sick of looking and I doubt the 7 loyal readers of my blog care all that much, Im just venting. Don't know if I'll play before I leave. I still have a lot of packing and other stuff to get in order before we head out. I still feel I'm playing well and I am making good reads and getting my money in good just about always, I just really need to play more hands to get me through the variance. This is such a brutal game though, it's like everytime you sit down to play you KNOW your going to get kicked in the balls and its just hard to overcome that and force yourself to get in there and grind. If anyone feels the same way and has ideas to combat this, I'm all ears (eyes?).

On a brighter note, I've been seeing a girl lately and that seems to be going well. I still don't know her all that well but she's peaked my interest :) and I have a really good time hanging out with her so hopefully that will lead somewhere.

-Cheers

me

Sessions have been going decent. I'm finally getting back into the grind and playing pretty well still. I think I got bluffed in one spot I wanted to call vs a 2p2er but it would of been a VERY thing call and I'd be only bluff catching. She also sized the bet very well I thought and I liked the hand wether she had a hand or it was a bluff.

Some hands. I guess I'll start with the last hand of the session.

Had i won this hand I would of been around $1,000 up on the day. Had I not had a decent session or this been earlier I might of been pretty beat down but I took this suprisingly well. Just glad he wasn't sitting deeper.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3182139

Won a allin preflop with just aces on a scary board. Was fortunate the shotie pushed and opened up the betting so I could isolate.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3182148

I didn't see what he folded until just now, I was uprised to have won this pot without hitting on the river.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3182156

And finally, my tricky little bluff vs the guy w/o many chips left.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3182167

So hopefully this continues and I keep plugging in the hands. And maybe...just maybe, PokerEV's new software will be out by the end of the year. (fingers crossed)

Cheers

Sorry its been awhile since I updated. There was a bug or something on the new CR site that wouldn't let me update my blog. I found out they have a AIM name for CR support and I just shot them an IM and they helped me with the problem over instand messanger. Was real easy and I'd reccommend that to anyone that has some tech problems with the site.

I haven't played a hand in a few days. I've been busy moving out of my apartment and looking for new places to live where I don't need to sign a lease for a full year. Its been more difficult than I thought as everyone who wants to sublease/lease out a room wants me to sign the lease through Aug 09' and I'm not sure I want to stay around Kzoo that long.

The last session I played was a few days ago in the middle of trying to figure all this stuff out and I was completely unfocused. I don't run a hud/tracker as I've been waiting (FOREVER) for PEV to come out and its been delayed just under 17,688 times so far and It's frustrating a lot of people. During my short unfocused session, I miss read 3 freaking hands. One worked out as I misclicked preflop (ok, two miss reads and a misclick) and floped 3 pair on a J47r flop and took it down. Then I had KKxx and flop comes like 554ss and I cbet and get flatted then a Q rolls off and I thought I turned a fullboat for QQxx full for some odd reason and just valuebet it on the turn and get called then an A rolls off and I vbet again and get like raised really small and I look at the hand and I'm pissed I bet the river. The turn bet is a little thin too given the player in question (he slowplayed top set vs me and was nitty) but I def should/could have saved money on the river by checking it.

So thats about it, I kind of put poker aside and have been focusing on other stuff. I can't stand playing so poory and not putting in that 100% effort. I've also been working on my rental property drywalling some walls, looking at a leaky bathroom that just needs re-caulking (thank god) and will get started on painting and doing some electrical stuff in a week or so.

I'm not sure what my output for poker will be for this month. It depends on how fast I can get set up with a new place to live and if I'll need to setup a good internet connection or not (hopefully their will already be one available).

Skip down to see poker content.

So this weekend I went up to Grand Haven with a few friends. GH is a beach town on Lake Michigan that my family use to vacation at in the summertime just about every year. We'd usually go up in August when they had their Coast Guard Festival which is two weeks long and just a really good time. The town literally swells with people from all over Michigan and a few from chicago as well. This year my buddy Nick and his friend were going up there and I decided to tag along. They picked me up in an 08 escalade with a freaking speed boat hitched up to it, so right then I knew the weekend was gonna be nice.

We got up later in the day friday and just parked the boat at the boat launch and head into town. Just walked around and people watched for a little bit. There were blankets all over the place that people had camped out days in advance for just to get good seats for the fireworks on Saturday night. I like fireworks and all but I can't imagine any that are worth scouting out spots for days ahead but, hey to each his own. We ended up going to Kirbys which is a bar right on the strip and reminded me a lot of Chelis Chili bar in downtown detroit...same setup basically. Well, we drank quite a bit and made a bunch of new friends. I spent too much money but it was worth it. I ended up talking to this small group of people,mainly this girl and we started doing shots and just shootin' the shit. Well, they were leaving around midnight and I was invited to tag along so I just rolled out basically and told the guys I'd find them tomorrow. We ended up driving down the strip to some camp site right on the beach (some state park or camp site I guess). I'll skip over some stuff but it ended up being about 1:30 and everyone in the other tents were passing out and this girl wanted to go to sleep too. I said good night and started walking back down the strip toward the bar to meet up wtih my buddies. I hopped in the back of these guys truck and hitched down the road and made it back to Kirbys to see a rediculously long line down the side of the building. Don't know how but I just walked up to the front and kinda blended in and got right back in. Found Nick and his friend and waited for them to get done dancing with their respective girls when I noticed some older ladies at the bar. Decided it would be fun to hit on them a bit . They knew I was joking around so it was all in good fun. I actually think they were both married, ha.

You can see all the blankets above that littered the waterway. It went down for probably a mile along the river.

Above is the two ladies. I'm on the right and nick is in the red shirt behind them trying to get a drink.

We ended up going to taco bell (blah) and then I slept in the back of the boat since we were too messed up to drive anywhere.

Heres me eating my TB on some guys trailer and theres my bed behind me.

Saturday we woke up at 5:30am...ya thats right 5:30am. Went and got breakfest and head first to walmart but they were closed then to meijers to grab some beer for some crazy boat party that day (I had no idea what I was in for). Well Meijers wouldn't sell booze till like 8 or 9 so we napped in the parking lot like the alcoholics we are until they'd let us buy beer. Loaded up the boat afterwords and headed out on the water. We literally beat everyone out and were still tired so we just cruised around and slept on the boat, was kinda nice. To make an already long story short, we ended going to this bay where there is some big ass boat party called hanky pank that happens every year. Well, it was awesome, a TON of boats just tie up and everyone parties. Everyone was having a good time, nobody was being assholes. The water was actually perfect and not freezing. People just walking from boat to boat meeting people and listening to music, dancing, drinking, swimming, water balloon fights, just a ton of fun and literally thousands of people.

Theres a few pictures here: http://www.hankypank.com/coast_guard_festival_2008.htm

In the vid we're on the outside of all the boats in the middle, this was as we were leaving.

This is basically what it was. This was last years, I guess this years was a little bigger. You see the lines of boats, we ended forming a cove with two lines of boats linking up.

Here is us slowly linking up our little cove:

Nick trying to have some water fight with the girls in a few boats down.

Actually, I found a vid I took. This is the bay toward the end of the day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXy-H3w271s

So we hung out all day. I didn't drink that much but still had an amazing time. As it got darker the boats slowly broke up and head back toward grand haven to link up and watch the fireworks. We pulled the boat out and headed back to the bar. I had one beer at the bar and just couldnt drink anymore, I was just too wore out and tired. Left the bar around 9ish I think and watched the fireworks. And wow, they were freaking amazing. The street was shoulder to shoulder as far as I could see both down the strip and back down the road heading into downtown. No cars, just thousands of people standing watching the fireworks. The grand finale was the best I'd ever seen and NOW I see why people scout out those places in advance. Once the fireworks were over it was like a mad rush to get outa down. We got caught up in the madness and didn't get home until like 4am. I slept all day sunday and played monday and tuesday.

Poker went really well for my first few sessions. The last session today was pretty meh. I played for awhile and basically broke even. I played a few 3bet pots and literally missed every single one of them which was the main reason I broke even. I won some nice pots then would slowly give it back absolutely missing flops. Just rundown after rundown completely missed, oh well can't hit every flop I guess. I played really well today, I only got the money in bad once and that was a 70/30 dog when some guy spiked bottom two and a FD vs my OP and gutter, I couldnt fold after the cbet though. Actually, I take that back, two hands I got it in bad, both 70/30ish. Both 3bet pots, they just smash it real hard and once they c/r I can't fold for the price with my hands.

I thought this was a pretty obvious bluff on his part. The way this guy played it, he really doesn't rep much. His bet sizing chances on the flop/turn to the river and if he did have a better hand than me, he wouldn't go from 2/3rd potting to full potting on the river as he'd want to keep me in for value.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3002897

This was a pretty sick hand and a ballsy bluff by me I think. Once the river gets checked to me I'm pretty sure that nobody has the nut flush and my line really reps it pretty well so why not?

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3002905

I debated betting this river for value but opted not to. I still wonder if I should try to squeee some value out of the other player just incase the allin guy outdrew me. Kinda sucks to get outdrawn twice, esp after I raise the flop and bet the turn when I'm ahead and get the money in good.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3002949

I think this guy has it out for me or something. Maybe he reads the forums or something but he was constantly coming after me hand after hand. At first I thought he was just some laggtard but everytime I opened a pot he would be there and anytime I checked he would insta pot it. Not sure what was going on but I started to play back at him, there will be another hand later with this same player. I def thought I could of been ahead on the turn but on the river I thought I could rep soem strong hands just incase. This is actually a really interesting hand if you were watching the game real time, there was def some dynamics you can't pick up from the naked HH that were present. Would be nice to here his side of this hand, I wonder what he had.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3002968

I'll post the hand next. This is against the same guy as the above hand. Here, he's been playing so aggro against me that the flop is sort of pot control even though I rate to have the best hand quite a bit. I noticed he'd always bet when I check to him so I allowed him to do it for me and let me close the action. The turn I thought he had a draw or bluffs because his bet sizing would be different on the flop and turn if he had a fullhouse, even still I wasn't 100% on that and didn't want to raise and blow him off the worse hands. Ok, on the river it gets interesting. I know it LOOKS like a blocking bet, which it was suppose to, but it was to induce bluffs. This gets a little tricky and metta game(y)? but the turn and river really cut down the odds of him having the case T. And given this players aggerssiveness and my line, I really thought I could get him to bluff raise some weak bets because he never puts me on a ten here and he should think he reps it pretty well. he should also think that I fear the T with my river bet. lastly, there is enough in the stakcs that he could get me to fold what I think he puts me on KK-JJ. I'm not sure if he'd 3 barrel with air, and he'd always bet the T obv, but I thought if I showed weakness that he might come out of his shell a bit more for one more bluff. He ended up thinking for awhile then mucked it. Even though it didn't work out, I'm extremely proud of the way I played it and I think it goes to show that a lot of these sort of hands get overlooked by many of the regulars that 10+ table or just play without really thinking through each decision.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3003007

I think I'll conclude this post with this hand I'm pretty proud of. I had a very aggro image in this hand. The previous 3 hands I opened and the 3 previous hands this same opponent called me and we never got to showdown as I won the pot on the flop or turn. He quickly checked the flop so I fired the turn for value and he min raised. I called it out ( I was being sweated so I have a witness) that he didn't have a hand. I checked the river fully intending on calling about any bet. He really has nuts or air here as I think he should fear the nut straight and I doubt he EVER has a set here so its not like he'd valuebet two pair. It didn't add up to me on the river so I hero called and I was way ahead on the turn. 100% to be exact :)

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3002991

Poker lately has been up and down. I haven't put in a ton of hands in the past week and when I have I've felt a little out of it or disinterested in the game and made myself quit since I wasn't focusing 100%. Sunday the games were really good and I just never got anything going. I thought I was playing well and just kept getting outdrawn or put in rediculous spots. I brushed it off for awhile and kept playing fine then just got outdrawn in 3 hands literally at the same time, some of which were awful and I just had to shut down. One thing that seems to tilt me that I have yet to get control of is when I lose to players that are awful. Nothing gets under my skin pokerwise when I just get beat time and time again by guys playing like idiots. I try to tell myself that those are the games I want to be in and the players I want to play with but It still bugs me to no end.

I'm gonna make two blogs today, one about poker and one about what I've been up to.

I took a break last weekend from poker to head up to Detroit (Troy) and hang out with a bunch of friends. I've become friends with a large group of people that come from Troy through my roomates over the past two years. I've only known them for a few years now but they have quickly became some of my best friends. It's strange but everyone in that group are just really good nice genuine people and I think its pretty rare to find one person like that, let alone 10+.

Anyways, I headed up on Thursday because my roomate Jeff moved back home over the summer and lured me out there with promises of drinking, country music, sushi and golf; and if you know me then you know that I could never turn that down. I got in mid day and we went out and grabbed a bite to eat and quickly got ready for the night. Jeff had reserved a table at http://www.coyotejoes.com/ . If you have never heard of this place before, its basically amazing. Its located in Shelbyville I think, which is just another suburb around Detroit.

We had to get there at 8pm to get the table and they also had some line dancing class where you could learn a few steps before the night got underway. We got there as the class was wrapping up and just focused on drinking and scoping the place out before it got real busy. They had a $3 special for drinks so we tried to pace ourselves and slowly our group of 15 or so started to show up. I also put out a call to my buddy Mike who lives in Ann Arbor. I told him to drive up and he said it was too far (like anhour) so I wrote him off as not coming, and he showed up randomly at 11pm.

I'm no expert on putting pics up here but I'll try. This is some of the group we had. I'm the second from the left with the long brown hair. My roomate Jeff is next to me in the blue shirt. The guy on the right is from the U.K. and was in town for his fathers birthday, who also is lead singer for Flogging Molly.

Anyways, the bar was awesome. I tried to line dance to some Kenny Chesney songs but gave up. I started tryign to follow what everyone else was doing and then started making up my own moves then just gave up. Later on in the night they had all the waitresses do some little dances on the bar which was a nice suprise and also had a live band play. I never heard of the band before but they were really good and apparently the bar gets big time country singers on a monthly basis, so I'll def be going back.

Heres a pic off their site of the waitresses doin' a little jig.

And this is the outside area. Our table was inside near the indoor bar and dance floor. Then outside of that was an open air part with like just a roof but no walls with another bar and some couches and pool tables then this patio is outside of that, pretty sweet place.

After we shut down the bar and I cashed out my $112 tab ($3 drinks, do the math). Mike and I tried to smooth talk our way onto a bachlorette party bus outside of the bar. Apparently I told Will, my other roomate, to come find us in the morning and pick us up and just walked up on the bus. Mike got stopped as he tried to follow and started getting yelled at. Who'd a thunk that two good looking guys would have such a problem getting on a party bus outside a bar at 2am with 12 drunk girls celebrating a bachlorette party? Well, a few of the older ladies gave us the boot and we gave up. Probably for the better but it woulda def been a more interesting story if we ended up going with them.

Our group made it back to a friends place near the bar and a couple of people went out on the lake and others kept drinking and everyone passed out around 3am. Was just a great night.

Friday, we all got up and hung out on the lake. Went fishing and swimming, got some breakfast and just chilled. Bunch of people had to work, Mike went back to AA and the rest of us headed back to Troy. I talked 4 of us into going golfing and we got a quick 9 in before we went to Kona. I'm not familiar with this place but its suppose to be a good sushi place. We got there and had a few drinks and I ordered 4 different rolls of sushi. I wasn't that impressed but I hadn't had sushi in a while so I wasn't complaining. I got a Las Vegas roll that was alright and just wanted to get it because of the name. I also really like philadephia rolls so had some of those and they were good, even though its pretty hard to mess them up.

We laid low Friday night as everyone had to be ready to drink Saturday at the wedding. (Irish lead singer of a band getting married...you know theres gonna be a ton of drinking). Saturday morning 3 of us got a tee time at a nice place in Troy.

Some pics of it. Can't remember the name for the life of me. It was really hilly and had no trees on the course. Reminded me of the courses they have in Europe.

Jeff tried taking the picture so that my finger was on the ball. I knocked it real cloes to the pin and since we all suck, we thought it was pretty sweet.

That was about it for my trip to Troy. After I won the golf round (brag obv) I packed up and headed back to Kalamazoo. Was still tired from Thursday and just laid low Saturday night. Sunday tried to get back into the swing of things on PokerStars and ended up getting kicked in the nuts, which I'll probably explain in the next blog.

This weekend I'll be up in Grand Haven for the Coast Guard Fest. Grand Haven is a few hours north of here and imo a nicer version of South Haven described in an early blog. The town has this festival every year and I use to go up there when I was younger with my family and we always had fun and caused trouble. Now that I'm older and can actually go out and party, it should be better, and we'll have a few boats up there as well. I'll be bringing my camera so hopefully I'll have some good stories and pics when I get back.

Cheers