It is almost time for the 2010 World Series of Poker and yet again I am in Las Vegas for the summer. I got here on the 6th actually. The place I am staying at is very nice. I am renting a wing of a home that I would guess to be worth at least $750,000 if not a Million. The funny thing is that it still really doesn’t fit me. I setup my house in a Virginia to be efficient for me and while this place is functional, it just isn’t home.
Funny when video poker runs better than regular poker.
My poker so far this trip has been very odd. I normally like to play mixed games such as HORSE, but my run in HORSE tourneys has been horrible. Played in five and the best I have placed is 14th. However, I have made four NL Holdem final tables out of six tournaments played. Sadly two of those final tables were for naught as they paid only three or four spots. However, the other two went a lot better.
The Tuscany casino has a nice NL event. It is $35 with rebuys. I would like the starting chips to be more, but if you play the event on the weekend, you have a good shot to do well even with only $3,000 in chips. This past weekend, I picked my spots and gathered about 12k in chips in the first hour. I was third in chips at that point and actually hovered around that point until the final table. I almost blew it when I ran queens into kings early on in the final table, but I was able to battle back to a decent stack. Ultimately, we chopped 7 ways.
My video poker on the other hand has been going fantastic. Except for the Orleans, I have finished up in every casino for video poker. And as far as the Orleans, I recently hit a decent amount on this past Sunday to cut my losses down to probably just $40 or $60. So far, I have only hit one royal flush. I have hit about 3 or 4 straight flushes and four aces twice or three times on bonus or double double.
Starting Thursday, I will be tied up quite a bit with the World Series of Poker. I will try and do some updates during that time, but I cannot guarantee anything. If you want to follow my coverage, check out pokerjunkie.com.
I haven’t posted on here in nearly two months. That is entirely my fault. Every time I go to post on here, I decide to do something else. So, with that said, I’ll update a bit on some happenings.
I played several events at PokerStar’s Spring Championship of Online Poker. I was able to cash in the Stud 8 SCOOP event. I know, big shock eh? I came close in a couple of other events but towards the end I was not as focused as I could be. The FTOPS event over on Full Tilt Poker is coming up and I will be playing several of the Mini-FTOPS events. I feel good about the Stud 8 and HEROS events obviously. I’ll also play a PLO Knockout event, a PLO8 event, a Razz event, the PL HA event, and the Mixed Holdem event. Ill likely get deep in the Razz, Stud 8, HEROS, and Mixed Holdem. I hope to do well in all obviously, but my PLO and O8 results are a mixed bad.
The biggest news regarding my job is that I picked up a new gig. I am now writing for Pokerjunkie.com. I provide some articles and I have a blog under my pseudonym compncards. I’ve been there for about a month now and my “personal” blog there has been up about a week or so officially. The big difference between this and my gig for thewsopblog.com deals with the fact that most of my articles are preselected topics that I must write on. I am not responsible on the article topics, just on the blogs. That is helpful, and at times a little hairy when I get article requests on things I am not real knowledgeable about, such as Vegas nightlife. Fortunately I have some resources for those things.
The WSOP is just 3 weeks away now. I will be attending this year, but I will not be working in any official capacity. At least, that does not appear to be the case at present. Instead, I will be playing in numerous events around town. I am going to play Event #26 at the WSOP and maybe the Stimulus Event. Yes, that means I will play my first ever NL Event at the WSOP if I play it. However, I will only play it if I either satellite or if half of the buy-in is put up elsewhere.
That leads me to another area I have been dabbling in lately, and that is staking. I have been using ChipMeUp quite a bit lately. ChipMeUP is an online staking site where you buy shares of people for poker events. Right now I am up overall in my staking and all of my SCOOP events were 50% stakes. I am trying to get some of my live events and my WSOP events staked as well. I’m having some luck with the H.O.R.S.E. events, but not on the WSOP events.
I’m doing a lot better in my NL Holdem game lately. I have been really working on my aggression in certain spots and it is beginning to pay off a bit. The biggest difference has been in my Sit-N-Go’s on UltimateBet. I am still trying to win my Main Event seat, and am now up to Level 5. Yes, I know that is only half way, but I still have time. The ultra-turbo sit-n-go’s seem to closely resemble the WSOP satellites and as well as I am doing in those lately, I feel I might have a decent shot at satelliting into some WSOP events out in Vegas. We will see.
As far as when I am leaving, I have not made that decision as of yet. I have a couple of things to take care of around here first. I will likely head out around the 22nd to the 24th. If I play the Stimulus Event, I will definitely head out then. I will only be there until around June 22nd as I will be working 4-H Camp this year, and I will not miss that for anything.
Anyway, that’s what’s going on with me at present. I’ll try and give some updates during my FTOPS and into the WSOP. Check out my blog over at pokerjunkie.com and my work over at thewsopblog.com.
First, I realize that I have not updated this blog since November. I just haven’t taken the time to do so. So, with that being said, I thought I would take some time and give you an update on my trip out west and my life in general.
Overall, my trip out west turned out well. The first day was a little shaky due to my plane getting grounded due to engine problems. However, after arriving to Vegas 8 hours late, I got to my hotel. The rooms at the 4 Queens were much nicer than I expected for the amount I paid. Nice pillow top beds and big plasma TV’s. Room service was also reasonably prices. Other than Subway, I mostly ate room service. (Subway ended up being higher than room service was on some occasions. Go figure.)
The Grand convention area inside of the Golden Nugget was a nice place to hold an event. I enjoyed my time at the Nugget. I wound up finishing 9th in one H.O.R.S.E. event and finished 5th in the Mixed Event. Unfortunately, the 5th place finish did not garner me any money due to only 21 players registering for the event. The event paid 3 spots. The H.O.R.S.E. event paid 9. While it appeared I just squeaked in the money, that was far from the case. Two players were much shorter than I was when we got to the money, but as things turned out, the short stacks kept doubling and I stayed card dead. I could have made the final table if I folded the last hand I played, but thats how it goes.
The same week I cashed at the Nugget, I finished 4th in a H.O.R.S.E. event at Green Valley Ranch. Again, I had enough chips to make the top three but the guy in 4th place went on an amazing run of cards. I can’t complain too much. I played well, made the final table, and cashed.
After Vegas, I went to Los Angeles for a few days. I decided to play in two events at the Bike. The first was an Omaha 8 or Better event. That event I never could get anything going and went out on back to back hands when my kings full ran into aces full and then my flopped set of kings was outdrawn by a Royal Flush. I was all in on the flop in the Royal Flush hand. Hey, if I am going to lose, thats the way to lose. The next day, I played in an Omaha 8 weekly tourney at Hawaain Gardens and finished 12th in that one. Unfortunately it paid 10. That tournament had an insane structure where with 20 players left, the chip leader of the tournament had only 10 big bets. The big stack at my table had 4. I had 2 big bets and I had 4,500 chips.
The Limit Holdem tournament at the Bike was the last event I played in L.A. This event had its ups and downs, but I went on a big of a run about mid way of the event to build a nice stack. I was able to make the money in the event and eventually finish 12th place. If I would have won one more pot late in the event, I would have made the final table as we made the final table about 10 minutes after I busted. It was cool though. I played well in the event and got my 15th pro cash. I don’t know what it is about Vegas and Los Angeles that makes me perform so well, but I seem to step up my game out there.
My goal for the trip poker wise was to cash twice with 1 final table at the Nugget and to cash once in L.A. I wound up making 1 cash and 1 final table in Vegas. Of course, I ended up playing 3 fewer events than I had planned. I played 3 events as opposed to 6 events. The cash at Green Valley I don’t count since it does not count towards lifetime stats. Since I played fewer events in Vegas, I consider myself as hitting my goal. The L.A. trip, I met my goal.
After leaving L.A., I drove out to Reno to check it out. Reno is basically a smaller version of Vegas. It was ok, but I only played in one casino out there. I played at the Peppermill, where I played a couple hours at $3-$6 Omaha 8. It was a decent game, but after a couple of hours, I was bored. The Limit Holdem table had 15 names on it, so I left. The next day, I decided to head out to Virginia City, NV.
First, I stopped at the Fandango Casino in Carson City, NV. I had to pass a couple of hours before I could check into my hotel, so I decided to play in the Noon No Limit tourney. $35 with rebuys to the final table. I get into the room to play and the guy running the event is familiar. I ask him how I might know him and he tells me he used to run the tournaments at the Bike. RUBEN!!!! I then remember him and reminded him about how I was the guy that wanted to play stud satellites all the time. He then remembered me. We both asked each other, “What are you doing out here.” I told Ruben about my reasons, and I found out from him that he was retired and just took the job at the Fandango cause the area was so laid back. He was right. This was a 3 table poker room and we didn’t fill the tables. As far as the tournament, I was one of the chip leaders until a hand with 11 players left where a guy went all in against me with middle pair against my top pair. He got lucky and paired his kicker and I was crippled. I then managed a double up just shy of the final table. I did not rebuy since I didn’t want to waste any more money on a tourney that will pay only three spots. My final hand, I get 9-2 in the big blind and see a free flop. I flop top pair and push. Unfortunately, my opponent held Q-9 and busted me. This is the same guy that got lucky against me earlier. Anywho, while I wasn’t happy with how things turned out, I couldn’t complain too much. Just before the tournament, I hit two four of a kinds on a video poker machine. It paid for my buy-in to the event and then some.
After the game, I go on to Virginia City. If you want to experience how things used to be, go to Virginia City. When they say you are stepping back in time, they mean it. You will not find ANY franchises anywhere in this town. The gas station is probably 50 years old. It was a lot of fun to stay in this town. I played a lot at the local saloons. They had some video poker machines with great odds and some that still paid coins. I only had one losing day in Va City playing video poker and I won overall for the trip there. One day, I literally went around to every Saloon that was open and hit for a minimum of 30 bucks at each one. The Saloon owners were not happy with me that day. I also took some old western style pics while I was there. One of them is above.
After Virginia City, I went back to Vegas and spent a few more days before coming back home. I didn’t play anymore poker on the trip and mostly just played Video Poker. Anywho, the trip was a blast overall and I just mostly hit the highlights.
Now on to the new year. The theme for this year for myself will be health and music. On the 5th, I started working out with a personal trainer to help me lose weight. I have let my way get and stay out of control for much too long and I plan to take back the control. My goal is to get under 300 lbs eventually. I started at an insane weight of 425.6 pounds. My initial goal is to get under 400. So far, I am doing well as I am down to 417 as of today. That’s 8.6 pounds thus far. I am both dieting and exercising with the assistance of my personal trainer Tara. I truly feel that with the plan I am on, I will succeed this time. I will keep updates on this blog and let you know my progress.
The other part of this year’s theme is music. I have officially started taking piano lessons at the Mendez Academy of Music in Lynchburg, Va. Erin gave me some lessons at one point and I will now take them to another level and try to learn the piano properly. I have always wanted to play but thought it would be too difficult. Erin proved me wrong and so now I want to learn how to play.
I will continue with my poker writing. I have to fund my changes of course. As far as my poker playing, I don’t know when I will be playing in another event. I think focusing on my health will be my biggest concern. If I don’t have my health, poker becomes irrelevant. The next trip I will take will probably be the World Series of Poker in June. When I go, I will probably only go a couple of weeks as I will be working 4-H camp this year.
Anyway, I have a lot of busy and interesting times ahead of me. Keep reading as I will keep you updated about my journey.
September 13, 1975 is when it all started. From that day forth the world has been host to THE James. Today is the celebration of that day. And what am I doing for this grand day? My ass is getting up early, going to a bunkhouse kitchen and entering shooting scores into a computer. Ya, real exciting eh? Well, not all 4-H volunteer work is exciting, but it has to be done. I’ll be going a little early so I can go have a birthday dinner with my friend Summer.
Have you ever had one of your friends go off in such a rage of anger that you end up touched about how much they really care about you? That happened to me this week. I won’t go into the why my friend went off like she did, but by the time she was done I was really touched by what she said, even if she was hopping mad when she said it.
Tomorrow, I am going with my friend Erin to see Mamma Mia. She couldn’t get together with me today because of her working. Believe it or not, I picked this movie. For those of you that look at me cockeyed, realize I am a person who saw Sweeney Todd at the theatre 4 times. Besides, the only other movie I wanted to see I promised another female friend I would go see Wednesday.
Lately, I have been playing a lot of NL Single Draw 2-7 Lowball sit-n-gos on PokerStars. With the exception of one, I have at least cashed in every one. In these Sngs you must make it heads-up to make the money. Today I played 3. I won two and finished 2nd in the other one. I have been have somewhat poor results in triple draw limit lowball. I found out really quick in this game how wide of an array of hands you can consistently win with. One thing that I do like to still try and stick with is to try and only do 1 card draws while we are still 4 handed or more. Obviously that doesn’t always become the case, but I try.
My runs in Stud 8 or Better lately have been pretty bad. Some of it is frankly bad play on my part. I have been making a few plays and getting too fancy. In the last day or so, I have went back to playing with a little more sense and have at least finished ahead in every session. I think I need to go back and focus on playing some tournaments as opposed to the cash games I have been playing. I enjoy tournaments a lot more and I seem to focus harder on them.
Speaking of which, I have tried to pick up a couple of books to work on my Stud HI tournament game a little bit. I am a good stud player. I know this, but my tournament results live when I have played have been outright horrible. My feeling is my problem comes from playing a certain style that doesn’t work as well as it should in tournaments. I’m going to take a look at a couple of books and see if I can get some inspiration. I may just end up getting a friend of mine to sit me down and teach me some finer points like Bill Boston taught me regarding Stud 8.
I intended to go to Atlantic City sometime this coming week for the United States Poker Championships. That’s not happening now. I love the schedule, but I am holding onto my money and also focusing some on my writing. My gigs have really picked up lately, especially from one dude that has me writing a lot on poker. I talked to the guy at PokerNews about future gigs with them and it isn’t looking real promising. I got the “we may have work” line. I probably won’t hear from them until around WSOP time. That’s fine too. Actually, if things keep going the way they are with this one client writing, I may not want to take on any other gigs for a while. That wouldn’t upset me at all.
Anywho, have a great weekend all. Maybe Ill come back and tell you what Summer got me for my birthday.
Why do the trees wave at you in the morning time? Their branches wave back and forth as to say, “Hey! Look at me and how chipper I am at 9 am.” Don’t they know I am not a morning person? I mean c’mon, don’t you think they would have better things to do?
Do you ever stop and try and figure out what dogs are saying when they bark at you? I do. Sometimes, I will try and bark back at them in the same pitch and voice. Sometime they stop and look at me like I’m crazy. They just need to learn how to speak English and make things simpler. Yo no hablo woof woof.
Cards are in the air. One time, I would love to see a dealer go, “52 Card Pickup!” and toss the cards everywhere. Then the saying would actually fit.
I’m still waiting for my Egg McMuffin Jolyn.
Have you ever seen a pink and purple polka dotted elephant wearing an athletic V-neck top? I have. And I was sober.
I was talking to the floorwoman (see egg mcmuffin above) one day and she told me about the first time they held the Roshambo tournament at the World Series. At the time she was a dealer and the only Roshambo she ever heard of was SOUTH PARK ROSHAMBO. Suffice it to say she REALLY wanted to see how that was going to go down.
Gluing a phone to a camera does NOT make a camera phone.
We really had some fun with names this past World Series of Porno, I mean World Series of Poker. For your amusement, I am going to dramatize a hand between some players.
Zelong Dong Comes Up Short
Zelong Dong limped in from early position. Strong Wang then raised from middle position. Woody Deck sat upright directly after the raise and then made the call. Dong called as well. On a flop of A-5-6, Zelong Dong checked and Strong Wang splattered some chips in the amount of 2,000. Woody Deck made the call. Zelong Dong called. The turn fell the 4 of clubs and Zelong Dong checked to Strong Wang, who again bet out in the amount of 4,000. Deck folded and Dong called. The river fell the 2 of diamonds and Zelong Dong checked out Strong Wang for a moment before checking. Wang bet out 12,000 and Dong decided to look him up. Zelong Dong showed A-5 for two pair, while Wang showed A-3 for the wheel. Strong Wang yanked in the pot.
I was reading another blog just now and at the end, a well known poker player posted a link to a video. She mentioned that she was told that her and her friend looked drunk in the video. They talk about how its so cool and hilarious to go around drunk and acting an idiot. I just don’t get it.
This just reminded me of a lot of things that I saw at the WSOP and with poker in general that just makes me scratch my head. A lot of people fail to realize that one alchoholic drink, even beer, is enough to change you on a chemical level. This affects everything, whether its noticable or not. People drink at the poker tables while they are playing the game. Some just drink one or two drinks, but some drink to excess. Isabelle Mercier is one example of players who got trashed at the table. She got in such a state as to where she had to remove herself from the tournament and try to sober up. That was just one example of many of players that got trashed while playing. Some ended up doing fine, while others just drank themselves right out of the event. For someone like Mercier it doesn’t matter due to the fact that she has most, if not all, of her tournament buy-in’s covered. However, Mr. I am from Oklahoma and came out here for my vacation is risking $1,500 upwards and taking a huge risk by drinking at the table.
Another thing I saw a lot of was people drinking while on the job. Now I know that poker is a different lifestyle and that most jobs are pretty lax, but I have always been of the mindset that certain activities are to be done off the clock. Lunch hour is still “on the clock” in my never to be considered or confused to be a humble opinion. Now granted, a lot of people didn’t go overboard with their drinking on the clock, but there were some that always seemed to have a drink in their hand.
I personally will never get the appeal of drinking. Of course, I happen to be one of those people where alchohol totally flip flops my mood. That’s why I don’t drink. An incident occurred between two people I work with. One guy decided that he was going to talk shit about someone else and this person apparently read it. Some words were exchanged a couple of days later in regards to what was said. Later that night, the guy that had the stuff said about him got drunk and decided that the appropriate retaliation would be to punch the guy in the nuts. That’s drunk logic for you folks. First, I will say that the guy should have probably not been going around talking shit about someone while he was still working with the guy. With that being said, sucker punching someone in the nuts is uncalled for. Would this have happened if alchohol wasn’t involved. My guess would be no. I would be the ball punching guy if I was a regular drinker, and for less.
No, there really isn’t a big point to all this. I just felt like writing about it.
A lot of interesting and strange things happened at the WSOP this summer. Some good and some bad. Below are some things I discovered:
Harrahs truly does try and accommodate all players. We had deaf players, legally blind players, players in wheelchairs, players with no arms, and even a quadriplegic. (With that being said, the media is TOO SENSITIVE in trying not to offend handicapped players.)
Mike Matusow is just as insane off the camera as on. (Proven by him coming up to me and randomly ranting about his chip stack during a break. Why did he come and rant to me personally? I made eye contact I guess. I don’t know.)
David Singer complains a lot….
John Phan would get a ticket in Oklahoma for playing too slow.
People take $10,000 whims….
Blogs do indeed take on people’s personalities. (I wrote some blog entries during one event and for two days people came up and TOLD me that I wrote that. Didn’t ask me. They told me. And most didn’t even know my name.)
The phrase “One time” is probably the most overused phrase in history.
Followed by “bad beat.”
Followed directly by “ship it.”
Playing connect four is so much fun, but YOU play alone, cause you’re a virgin.
People have a hard time grasping the concept as to why a decent poker player would rather do something other than play poker. (You have no idea how many times I was asked why I didn’t play.)
Younger players need to learn more about the history of poker beyond Doyle Brunson, Stu Unger, and Johnny Chan.
Jean-Robert Bellande may appear to be a jerk but he does have an honorable side. In the Limit Shootout, he was heads up and his opponent did not return on time from break. He refused to take his seat and let the dealer pass the blinds around until his opponent arrived.
“If you don’t lose a hand heads up, you will eventually win a tournament.” – Words of wisdom from Tom Schneider referring to Daniel Negranu’s bracelet win.
This past Monday, I returned from my stint at the World Series of Poker as a blogger for PokerNews.com. It was a fantastic experience, one which I hope to get the chance to do again sometime. Playing in the World Series is a lot different from reporting the World Series. I actually enjoyed the later more this time. One reason is that I didn’t have the stress associated with playing. The last two years, I was burnt out by the time the World Series was over. This year, I could have continued on past the time my contract expired. I was glad to be done though. By the time 4-H Camp time arrived, I was sort of regretting my decision. I ended up figuring out later on that was just due to my missing camp. I talked with several people about camp, and things went well. Step will be taken to where I can attend next year. There is a small hole in me that is noticeably missing due to not attending camp. At the same time, we must make sacrifices in our lives at time to make our overall life better, or at least put ourselves in said position. (more…)
I covered Event #29, which was a $3,000 NL Holdem event. As most of you know, I hate NL Holdem, but I will play it and I will cover it because thats where the money is at. Tuesday night was the final table of the $3k NL event. John Phan and David Singer were two of the pro’s at the table. (more…)
