Kevin Saul

Headin West....

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 06:12:29 -0800

So lots has happened in the last month for me. The biggest thing was the arrival of my new niece Rebbecca. I'm happy to report that she has had a very healthy and quiet (not alot of crying YAY!!) 1st month of her life. It's amazing how big she has gotten in only a month. I'm also happy to report that the almost 3-month old experiment of living with my sister and her 3 kids is also going well.

As for poker, well thats going pretty good too. In fact, tonight I made 3 final tables online getting 8th, 3rd and 2nd. I was pretty disapointed that I didn't win at least one, but the tournament I got heads up in I should have won and was robbed =/. I'm really happy with how I'm playing right now and can't wait to play live soon. Friday I leave for Vegas to play the 1st ever NAPT tournament @ the Venetian this weekend. From there I will be heading to L.A. to hopefully cause some damage at the LAPC before heading home to play a couple events in the Chicago Poker Classic in Hammond, Indiana. My hopes are high to make a very big splash live soon, as long as I can stay patient which is my biggest weakness live. I just need to slow everything down and let things come to me.

Last week I experienced something new... my first ever earthquake!! It was the weirdest 30 seconds I've ever experienced. It was 4 in the morning and my entire house just started shaking. Being a huge fan of 24, my initial reaction was that there was some kind of terrorist attack going on. It sounds funny, but I was legitimately scared. I can't even imagine what it would be like to be in a larger earthquake. Thankfully nothing in my house or around us was damaged.

Wish me luck on the road, I'll be tweeting updates...

Kevin Saul

Wow this thing still works??

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 03:08:45 -0800

I bet you all thought I forgot my log-in to communicate to the pokerroad peeps. Well, not so and I'm back. My new year's resolution is to blog more this year, and to blog more consistently. I'm just finishing up my stay in the bahamas, waiting for my flight in a few hours and figured what better time then now to start? Alot has gone on the last 6 months, but I guess I will start from the most recent and work backwards?

So I played the PCA main event, had heaps and heaps of chips ending day 1 (like top 5 overall) going into day 2. Day 2 was a disaster though. Nothing went right after the 1st 2 levels and if it wasn't for the stack I brought into the day I wouldnt have even made it to the last level of the day before busting out. After the main I played the 1k NL, the 5k NL and a 3k sattie to the 25k high rollers event. Nothing went well in any of those tournies!

Even though I didn't win my seat into the high rollers tourney, I felt the field was relatively soft and it had a good turn out of like 86 players so I decided to play it. Things started slow and I incresed my chips during the 1st 2 levels when I decided to bluff all of my chips off to some euro kid's AA....sorry but euros aren't supposed to get AA ever! That left me 8k from the 50k starting stack, and I proceeded to grind my ass off. Right before the last level of the day I found a key double up vs Benny Spindler to get all the way back to 70k. I then card racked my way to 125k right b4 plays was supposed to end, then proceeded to bluff off 45k to another euro and finished the day with 80k.

Day 2 didn't go so well. I hero'd off 1/2 my stack to Justin "BoostedJ" Smith on a AQ8Q3 board with a missed flush draw with AJ...he tabled QJ and I was back on the grind with my 35k. I grinded for a bit when I found a good spot to double with AK vs A1o all in before the flop, but a 10 flopped and I failed to improve and here I am waiting for my flight home.

And when I say home, I mean home...as in MY HOME!! Right before Thanksgiving I closed on my 1st ever house. Pretty exciting/stressful stuff being a home owner. I moved to the western suburbs of Chicago with in 5 minutes of both my Mom and Step-Dad and my oldest Sister. I then moved my other sister and her 2 kids in with me. It's only been about 7 weeks in the living situation but I love how its working out for the most part and can't tell you guys how great it is to see my niece and nephew every day when I'm in town. Oh ya, and when I get back tomorrow, well my sister is having a baby Thursday so I will have a brand new baby niece in the house too!! I will let you all how that works out too!!

Back in August I fracture my left radial bone, and have been doing therapy for 10 weeks trying to get my arm back in shape. Things haven't worked out so well and when I get home I will be getting a second opinion on whether I need to have surgery to clean out my elbow. Hopefully I won't need it but I think that will probably be the outcome since therapy hasn't helped much lately.

Hmmmm..what else is new?? Not much in poker, went on a lil heater online in November so that was nice. I haven't played much since I bought the house, but another resolution of mine is to start waking up and grinding tournies during the day online. I need to figure out a new schedule, and likely won't be playing alot of nights during the week since I have a new girlfriend (who is amaxing) and she works during the day so deserves my nights IMO. Not much else to say, leaving for the airport in about an hour...here's to a safe flight home for me with 2 nice naps ;)

Kevin Saul

Grey Skies turn Blue....onto WSOP day 2Wa

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:04:12 -0700

What a difference a day makes...and in general what a difference one tournament can make. Thats the life of a tournament grinder. So much disappointment can come from bricking off tournament after tournament. Yet all that disappointment turns to excitement and electricity with one deep run. I haven't done anything yet, but I'm off to a good start in this years WSOP main event.

I ended day 1 with just under 88,000 chips, where the average going into day 2 will be roughly 40,000. To make things better, the blinds are still really tiny, when we start back Wednesday we will be playing 250-500 50a, which means I have almost 200 big blinds!! The structure of this tournament is awesome, deep stacks the entire time and I plan on using the structure to my benefit. Going into day 1, I had 2 goals. Goal #1 was simple, make day 2. Goal #2 was to gain a modest chip stack of 50,000 going into day 2 up from our 30,000 chip start. I achieved both goals, blowing my chip goal out of the water and putting myself in good shape to try and make a run in the main event.

My table was pretty good, a mix of good players who know how to fold and bad players who didn't have much of a chance. My seat at the table was also pretty good, tho the guy on my immediate left played pretty well and I lost a lot of chips to him thru out the day with him basically card racking me when ever we played a pot together. I think we lost 5 players total all day, with 1 busting on the last hand of the night, so the fact that I was still able to triple my starting stack without alot of chips on the table is pretty good. I tried to play patient most of the day, I even folded queens pre-flop in a really awkward spot and I think I was right. Eventually I amped up the aggression and played a lot more hands once the antes kicked in. That lead to me getting all-in pre-flop with QQ vs David Singer's A5o for 100 BBs each lol. Only time I was all-in pre-flop all day and hopefully I won't be all in again in this poker tournament for a while.

Today was an off day and so is tomorrow before we come back to play on Wednesday. The plan is to just relax and take it easy and think about playing good online poker when we get backl to work. Thanks everyone for the GL's and well wishes, lets do this one time!!

bruised and battered

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:08:03 -0700

Ugly...thats one word that can describe my WSOP so far. Well thats pretty much the only word to describe it. Played the 3k triple chance today and as usual I got up to 16k from the 9k starting stack by the 1st break. Then I kinda got coolered when I raised 78ss and lost about 7k in chips on a 5677Q board to the small blind who flopped a straight with 89dd. I still had 9k which should have been plenty but then I just played poorly and got all the way down to 2800 before the blinds hit 100-200. I didnt give up tho and fought on the short stack for over 2 hours before finally busting out. This makes me officially 0-22 @ the WSOP this year (including 2 venetian events). I think I was like 1-23 @ the WSOP last year with my 1 cash coming in a H.O.R.S.E event. 3 years ago I was like 0-25 @ the WSOP. And I'm supposed to be a NLH specialist? I'm trying to stay positive but these results are making it hard for me. I think I'm gonna look into hiring a coach before next years WSOP...or just wait until the WSOP moves out of the RIO bc I just cant win a hand there. :(

Its not all over yet tho, I still have 2 more events to play. Tuesday is the 5k 6-max and of course the main event starts this weekend. I still haven't decided what day I'm gonna play. My goal is to make day 2 of the main event...never done that before. I wish I was more excited for it, since its the biggest tournament of the year, but unfortunately I'm not. There is no better feeling in poker like going deep in a big live poker tournament, and unfortunately no worse feeling in poker than consistent early bustouts. Unfortunately for me I've just been experiencing the latter.

Sorry for the depressing tone in my blog. But the truth is I don't know if there is a more depressing city in the world than vegas.... and it has me depressed. Hopefully a deep run in the 2 tournaments I have left may change my feelings.

Prepin for the WSOP

Sat, 23 May 2009 21:46:27 -0700

So I guess alot has been going the last month or so. A little poker, some big sports playoffs, and of course the usual time spent with my family. The last week or so I've just been taking a complete break from poker in preperation for the WSOP that starts next week. As far as my schedule this summer, I plan on playing pretty much all NLH, PLH and PLO tournies w/ a buy-in under 5k, and possibly playing the 10k heads up and 10k PLH depending how my series is going, and possibly a few caesers or venetian events when there isn't anything going on at the Rio. I'll be renting a house a few other internet players who plan on playing just as much as myself, so I'm sure there will be all sorts of sidebets with in the house on who will do better. I also won't be playing the 40k NL tourney that kicks off the series. I think the field overall is gonna be really tough, and I really don't like the idea of starting the summer off 40k in the whole if I don't cash. There's just so many more +EV spots this summer, plus I don't know if I'll be able to get up for playing the 1ks-2ks after busting from the 40k, so I think it's best to just skip it all together.

As far as poker news for me in the last month, well there's been the good, the bad and the ugly. As for the ugly...I went out to vegas to play a 5k pre-lim @ Bellagio and the 25k WPT championship. We started with 20k chips in the 5k and I think I my stack peaked somewhere around 115k during the 5th level and I spewed all the chips away and was butsted by the 400-800 level, not even sniffing the money. The 25k wasn't much better...we started with 100k chips and I couldn't even survive level 4 on day 1....oh well.

As for the bad...well it's not that bad. Before my break that started Monday we recently completed another FTOPS series that had me playing alot online poker. I had a few deep runs in some tournies and am happy with how I'm playing, tho I missed out on any good final table scores or wins. My best finish was 10th in the FTOPS 1k 6-max tourney, which doesnt sound so bad but was pretty disapointing since I'm pretty sure I held the chip lead with about 13 or 14 people left. From there nothing went well for me unfortunately :(

And then there was the good...right after the bellagio series I came home for a few days then headed over to Indiana to play a 5 tournament series there. There were 2 500's, a 1500, a 1k (which I decided to skip), and then the 3k main event. I ended up chopping the $1,500 with 6 people left, but it was one of those fun chops. I had about 500k in chips and the other 5 guys had about 250k combined, so they gave me 1st place and the trophy and chopped 2nd-6th place evenly. I also went deep in the main event, finishing 17th or 18th when they paid 14 spots. I lost a big race all in pre-flop with JJ vs AK, the flop came QJT and I failed to pair the board to scoop the pot. Instead I was left with about 5 BBs and hung around for a little while before eventually busting with AQ vs 66...Oh well was a fun overall trip.

The last week or so I've been doing everything but play poker. I just want my mind to rest before the 2 month long grind I have ahead of me at the WSOP. Monday night I went to dinner with my Dad and Step Mom, which is pretty rare for us to be able to get together given their ever changing work schedules. Tuesday night some friends and I went to the bar to watch the Hawks lose a heart breaker in OT to the Red Wings. Luckily we captured game 3 last night and still have a chance in the series.

Thursday night I got to see my nephew Tyler play t-ball. It sure was different from what I was used to growing up. They don't keep score, they don't track the outs, and they play 3 innings where each kid gets to hit one time. After every hit each kid only advances 1 base unless they make an out, and when the last batter hits they all run around the bases. It was quite fun to watch and I had a great time taking all sorts of pictures with my new phone. Unfortunately it's a new phone and I had no idea I wasn't even saving the pictures to my phone...GRRRRRR. After the game I grabbed a bite to eat with my Mom and Step-Dad then headed home.

Monday is my birthday, my last year in my 20's. Kinda scary to think I'll be 30 in 367 days! Were gonna have a cook out at my Mom's place to celebrate my b-day/memorial/ me going away to Vegas for 7 weeks. Hopefully the series goes better for me than it has the last 3 years. I'll be sending updates on twitter so you can follow me there. The updates will be coming thru to pokerroad to, and I have no idea what my actual twitter ID is but I think you can find me if you just search BeL0WaB0Ve (zero's for O's). I don't get it right now but hopefully I become an accomplished tweeter.

Kevin

Oh its only been a month...

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:00:33 -0700

Ya I know I suck at blogging consistently...what can I say? So last time I was here to check in I was headed to bay101. Well that tourney went awesome! I busted during the 150-300 50a level on day 1, but it really went awesome. I had a semi difficult table, but nothing to complicated and there were 2 or 3 soft spots to attack. Eli was our shooting star which was awesome because his chips are always in play. Last year my shooting star on day 1 was David Williams, and it was the same situation...but my 1st year at the tournament our shooting star was The Bear and as we all know his chips are so hard to get.

So I busted on day 1...so how could this have possibly have been an awesome trip? Well I felt at the time like I was playing great, and I really was and ended up showing it by pretty much running my table. I felt like I was always in control of any situation I put myself in at the table which is always a good sign. I got up to around 35k when the following hand happened. Blinds were 100-200 25a, and chronic limper/soft spot limps to my right. I make it 800 with K10o to try and isolate the limper but Eli calls on the button, SB called and limper called. Well the flop rolled off a beautiful Kx10d7d...pretty much gin for a "lagtard" like me. So I bet 1/2 pot 1800 and Eli raised to 5k with like 14k behind him. The others folded and I could taste that 5k bounty...I took my time and eventually moved all-in knowing Eli wouldn't fold AK given the bounty situation. Well he called with AdKd for top top and a flush draw...there was a slight pause for the announcement of a bounty being all-in, then he promptly got there twice on me hitting the diamond flush on the turn and ace on the river for good measure...SHRUG.

I never recovered after that and headed back home the next day. I've pretty much been on the grind online poker since. Going into April it was looking like it could be a sick sick month. Possible big fortunes with the Scoop tourneys on poker stars and the 25k WPT championship but also the sick possibility of getting buried in make up a month before the WSOP. Well good news and bad news. I had a couple nice cashes the last few weeks including 7th in the scoop M turbo 1 rebuy for 17k and yesterday taking 3rd in the full tilt 150 rebuy for 30k. I also managed to satellite my way into the 10k poker tournament yesterday for a total of $825 so even if I brick the 25k WPT championship I'll end up close to even on the month. For all the buy-ins for april thats really not too bad.

So I was supposed to head to Vegas today and play the 5k pre-lims tomorrow and Thursday. But I woke up today and just felt drained. I need a few days off to just sit around and bum it out. So tomorrow night I'll head to Mom's for dinner, which will be nice since my family was probably not too happy that I decided to take easter off this year, and then I'll head to Vegas on Wednesday to play the 5k Thursday and 25k main this weekend.

Last Sunday we had a fun little birthday party for my youngest nephew Kyle who turned 4. I had asked him what he wanted for his birthday and he gave me one response...vitamin water! Hahaha pretty funny coming from a 4 year old, but when he opened up his gifts he genuinely seemed most excited about that Vitamin Water.

Go Cubs!! Such a sick game last night...Reed johnson made one the sickest catches I've ever seen given the game situation and we were facing our 2nd biggest rivals in the Brewers. Mad props to Prince Fielder for tipping his cap to Johnson for making the catch...very classy. Sweet start for us, 5-2 and Lilly looked sick today taking a no-hitter into the 7th. We also won today w/o Ramirez, Bradley, or Soto in the lineup which is pretty cool.

Aight..back to veggin out on the couch. Hopefully there will be good things to report from Bellagio later this month...I have been known to run pretty good there.

BeL0W

Heading to bay101 feeling good...

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 11:13:41 -0700

If I can get past day 1, I like my chances out in San Jose for the Bay101 Shooting stars WPT. The structure for the tourney is great, but it's especially great for day 2 thru the final table. Day 1 the levels are only 1 hour long and you have to play 10 levels which makes for a somewhat long day. But the deeper you get into the tournament the longer the levels get, which is a great idea and unique to this tournament. Also unique to this tournament are the fans. The people here are nutts! Of course in a good way. The madness that occurs could only be rivaled by the WSOP main event, and thats just because of how many people are around. Poker news. Its great to see so many autograph seekers and fans that are so enthusiastic about the game. Altho it is a little creepy when some of them pul out photo albums with 8X10 glossys of all the pros, you kinda wonder where they got them from.

So anyways...I feel really good about my game right now. I'm playing great, getting deep in everything I play online poker pretty much. Yesterday I thought my head was going to explode. I was in like 14 games at once, and I just couldn't bust from anything. At one point the stars 2nd chance and 100 rebuy tournaments started at the same time, and in the 2nd chance it took me 3 minutes and 1 double up to realize it wasn't the rebuy. 1st hand of the tourney I open shoved 77 from UTG and got no calls, then 2 hands later Shaun Deeb opened from the button to 60, and knowing he will gamble a little bit in the rebuy hour I just jammed my QQ from the big blind. He called with 44 also thinking it was the rebuy! But it was the second chance and I doubled up =)

Anyhow.....I had a pretty decent Sunday... bubbled the final table of the huge 100r during the afternoon after losing a huge flip w/ AK but finished the day kind of OK taking 4th in the 50r on stars for about 12k. The final table was a crap shoot bc we weren't deep at all and I pretty much went card dead short hand and found A8 on the button w/ 10 BBs and it honestly looked like AK. Unfortunately I ran into AA in the BB =(

Oh well...time to run...gotta finish getting ready for the airport. Hopefully I'll have good news to report back to y'all from the bay101.

Until Then~

Kevin Saul

DETERMINED to call my own shot

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 05:52:59 -0800

Man...where do I start? So I went out to L.A. and played the 5k and the 10k. Neither went well tho I was happy with the 10k from one aspect...I played very patient and picked great spots, got a butt load of chips going into the last level on day 2. At that point I did something completely unneccessary and blew the fuck up. I don't want to rehash the hand but the bottom line is I went with my read and was 1/2 right, but it was completely uncalled for by me.

So I hopped on a plane and headed back to Chicago frustrated with my blow-up. I've played a few days online poker since I got back but nothing good had come of it. That brings us to Sunday. I layed in bed from like 2 A.M till probably 5:30 till I finally fell asleep, then woke up @ 11:30 to start my Sunday Funday. Well I played the warm-up and 3 more tournies @ 1P.M., took a few frustrating beats, ran bad in the 100 rebuy and decided to just call it a day and head back to bed. Probably not the smartest move given all the great tournies on Sunday but I was still tired and was having a hard time focusing so I just said screw it and layed down. If I'm not gonna be able to focus why just spew the buy-ins?

About 3 hours later I rolled out of bed feeling a little more refreshed then earlier. I pulled up to my computer just in time to make late registration for the pokerstars 2nd chance tourney around 5:30 P.M. I decided to play a full schedule of tournaments this evening, cashing in the Stars Sunday HORSE, FTP turbo 100 rebuy, and final tabling the second chance and stars 200 rebuy. Around 8:15 I was the chip leader of the second chance with 250 people left, and I decided to change my facebook status.

Kevin is going to win the stars 2nd chance today... 1/249 ATM. 8:18pm

I was completely focused on not making any really awful plays as I can be prone too, and playing the best poker I had to offer. Ya I got lucky in a few spots, but only one was for the majority of chips when I cold 4bet AQcc playing 6-handed vs Bakes who was the 3-better. He ended up having AK but I hit all the queens and vaulted myself to a huge chip lead with 2 tables left. So a little over 5 hours after making my preediction I shipped the tourney for like 55k...not a bad day =)

Oh....and I was still grinding along in the 200 rebuy. I ended up making the final table 6th in chips with 9 left but busted out 8th losing a flip with TT vs AK. Of course I would have liked to have won them both, but I'll take 1 win and about 60k in cashes on the day. This was actually my first major victory online. It feels good, even though it was one of the smaller ones online it's still a major. Next up for me live will be bay101, and I fully expect some redemption for this recent LAPC blow-up. I'm also doing the bluff challenge with devo on lock poker news so that should be fun too.

Saturday night I went to the Bulls game vs the Rockets. WOW...what a game! we kept it somewhat close most of the game then the Rockets started to pull away late in the 3rd quarter and into the 4th. With 6 minutes left we were down 17 when something us Bulls fans haven't been able to see the last few games happened. Derrick Rose told his teammates to hop on his back and he carried them back in an amazing comeback win to win the game by 3 points. Why haven't we been seeing this recently???? Because Vinny Del Negro is a fucking idiot and has been keeping our best player on the bench for the 4th quarter of games recently. Seriously...he needs to be fired. Hopefully this is just a sign of things to come for the Bulls. They obviously can't compete with the heavyweights of the NBA this year but hopefully they will in the very near future.

Gosh...I was doing so well...

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:29:03 -0800

With this whole blog thing. Brought you guys 4 blogs in 2 weeks, which of course was more than I had in November and December combined...but it's been almost a month since my last one. Sorry y'all...been a lil busy =/

So lets see where I left off...oh ya, PCA..let's not talk about that. I came home for a day and headed to Biloxi for the 10k WPT there. Busto 1st day followed by alot of drinkin for the next 4 days because there is nothing else to do in freakin Biloxi.

Came home from Biloxi on Saturday and headed out to Borgata on Tuesday. I decided to drive out there with 3 of my friends so we could all play the 3k donkfest deepstack tourney they had going on. We started with 50k chips @ 25-50 blinds and once again I was busto on day 1, level 4 at that. Nothing too exciting just had a bunch of stupid spots and eventually missed a flush draw, gutshot, and 2 overs for a 25k pot...shrug. That was followed by a week of solid drinking until at least 6A.M. every night at the BBAR. Fun times but I was really starting to feel like I was drinking too much so after we headed home I've made it a point to not spend so much time in the bars.

Thats been going well, having only spent 1 night out since I've been home. I've also tried to get back into the swing of grinding online since I've been home. I've been really unenthused about online poker and feel my attitude has sucked. My desktop crapped out in November and I've just been using my laptop since. I really don't play well on a laptop to be honest, so last week I headed out to best buy to buy a desktop.

I found a pretty cool HP w/ a 24" monitor, was already to buy the thing when the service guy tells me they are out of the monitor. I really didn't need a monitor but it was worth getting one to get the package savings involved. So we look around and I pick out this 28" monitor that he assures me they have, even showing me the boxes on the top shelf. So we go and write up the order, I'm about to hand over the cash when he decides we should pull the order 1st. So he grabs desktop, printer and ladder to get the Monitor. OOOPZZZZ, that would be the wrong moniter. Now I'm a lil upset :( So he calls another store close by, tells me they have stuff and that they will hold it for me, just go see Kathy...SIGH.

So I head over to the other store, ask for Kathy...and WOW. She was one of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen. We start BS'ing about the computer and what I was using it for, and when I mention poker news she basically seems in awe. Ok, I got my in...just ask the girl out...but no I just leave with my computer and head home...SHRUG.

Since then I've been grinding online with mixed rresults. I've been gettin buried for the most part and it's been taking a toll on me mentally but I have made a couple of final tables in the process. Unfortunately no top 3 finishes or big scores to get excited about, just a few flame outs. The weekend is coming tho and there will be plenty of oppurtunities to turn things around. Up next live for me is L.A. I leave next Wednesday and will be playing the 5k NL and 10k main.

Until Then~

BeL0W

Short of the goal...shrug

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 17:14:26 -0800

So I headed into day 4 of the PCA EPT with the chiplead and only 32 players left. I was hungry, I could taste victory, even though there was a ton of poker left to be played. Of the 32 left I would say all but maybe 3 or 4 of us had a shot at winning the event. That led to alot of great poker being played. My 1st table draw was ok, and my 2nd draw sucked where I ended up on the TV table with Adam Geyer on my immediate left. In my opinion he was playing the best poker of any of my opponents and is a true live poker sicko (his online poker results speak for themselves). Perhaps it was a good thing he was on my left, as it would keep me in line for the most part and prevent me from doing anything stupid on TV (rumor has it I have a tendency to do stupid things on TV).

So I came in with 2.6 million to start day 4, and during the 1st 2 levels I stayed right around that point. Then my dip came and I lost 2 big pots and found myself down to about 1.2 million. I recovered a bit after dinner and then won a key hand where I flopped a set of 6's vs AQ on an A64 board and ended up busting my opponent. That got me back to about 3 million with 16 left and primed to make the final table. Once again with the re-draw I found myself on the TV table with a real sicko on my immediate left, this German kid named Benny. We would end up playing a pot that everyone is still talking about.

With the blinds 20k-40k, I opened the button with 77 for my standard raise of 95k. Benny then re-popped me to 315k and I made the call. The flop came 10-10-2 rainbow, Benny checked and I decided to check too. Sometimes I bet this flop but I decided to check for pot control and because my hand couldn't stand a large check-raise from Benny who was capable of doing that with nothing. So the turn came a Ks, bringing a flush draw and Benny bet 450k. I took about 2 minutes before making the call. I really felt like the King was a great card for Benny to try represent a hand like QK or AK and I still wasn't sold that he had me beat. Then comes the river where things get tricky.

The river was an Ah and this time Benny bet 650k, really putting me to the test. I took like 5 minutes before finally putting all the pieces together. At this point of the tournament, the biggest chip denomination in play were 25k chips, then 10k, 5k and 1k chips. As you can imagine with the blinds so high the 25k chips were the easiest to maneuver when making bets. Both Benny's pre-flop raise and turn bet consisted of the maximum amount of 25k chips. Now on the river, Benny had about 800k in 25k chips, but when he made his bet on the river he moved the 25k chips out of the way and grabbed 3 stacks of 10k chips. As I contemplated my action on the river I sat and stared at the chips he bet and decided that he had to be bluffing and knew if I called he was going to lose the pot. This is why he didn't make the bet in 25k chips because he wanted them for future hands because they are easier to maneuver. He also appeared nervous and I eventually made the call and he threw his hand toward the muck.

Now I've taken a little shit for my next action, but before they killed the hand I insisted on seeing his hand. I could have just taken the pot and moved onto the next hand but I wanted to see what he was re-raising me with. And for meta-game purposes I also wanted him to see what I called him with. It's well with in my rights so I don't have any remorse about my actions. And it worked. Benny, who was probably the strongest of my 7 opponents at the table stayed out of my way for the next couple levels until we got down to 9 poker players and I was able to do whatever I wanted for the most part.

We re-drew for the final table with 9 players left, nedding to lose just 1 more player to have the TV final table set. I was the chip leader and had a great seat with the exception of having Dustin Dirksen on my immediate left with alot of chips, though I had him covered since I was the chip leader. The problem of Dustin was nearly cured when he got coolered with AK running into AA and being crippled down to 10 bbs. I now had the best seat at the table. Un fortunately I made a dumb mistake and even tho I made the final table I was short, in 6th place with 8 left and only had about 15 bbs.

The final table on Saturday didn't go very well. Two players were all-in early and both doubled, and I was card dead. I ended up picking up KJs and shoving my 12 Bs in and running into QQ, failed to improve and was out in 8th. Tho I was obv disappointed with my finish I was totally at peace. We hit the pool for the little time we had before it closed then continued to drink all night until my flight out on Sunday. I'm fortunate to have such great friends that were able to help me celebrate/forget the tournament for a night instead of being forced to dwell on what might have been.

PCA update: GaryBoroOWNAGE

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 02:44:38 -0800

So day 2 ended and I was pretty down. I had 87.5k going into day 3 with 3k-6k blinds, and my position in the field was 93rd place of 103 online poker players left. I was thrilled to still be in but well short of the average stack which was close to 300k or something. On our way to dinner we walked thru the Coral lobby to see who was around. We talked and B.S.'d with some peeps and they could obv tell I was down on my situation and they wished me luck in day 3 etc etc. Well my friend Steve "Gboro780" Gross A.K.A GaryBoro gave me a lil pep talk and told me I would do well today and that he specifically saw 3 big suck outs in my future. He was dead on.

I came in w/ 87.5k and won a few small pots when I raised to 16k from the button and the small blind jammed for 73k total. I had 40k left if I lost and made the call with KJo. He had A3 suited and even though it was just a 60-40 situation, here came my 1st key suckout of the day when the flop came KK2....Yay!! So now I had like 200k or so when I doubled thru Mark Seif with a set of Jacks vs his 4 high flush draw that missed.

So sitting on about 400k, still during the 1st level of the day a player opened for 16k from the 2 hole. I looked down to two black kings and decided to flat the raise. My read on the player was that he was slightly intimidated by me and I felt if I re-raised I might lose him right there in the hand. The flop came down J103 and I check-raised his 25k bet to 65k...he called. The turn was a very nice 6 and I tanked for 2 minutes before betting 125k with like 180k left behind. I wanted to look somewhat weak but was also making sure if I bet I was committed to calling if he decided to move me all-in. Well he jammed all-in, I shrugged and called. He had the dreaded pocket aces and I was 95% out of the tourney...oh well. No wait...king on the river!! ship an 800k pot with a brutal suckout =). That would be suckout number 2 for those keeping track at home :P

So my table broke during the 5k-10k level, which I wasn't thrilled about because I had a really juicy table. I got to a sick table with some stacks. I decided I would just sit back, pick my spots and try to see what everyone was about. About 5 orbits in, a player 2 off the button opened to 25k, i called in the cut-off with A10 of clubs and then Max Pescatori made it 100k straight from the big blind. I had about 1.4 million at this point, and Max had just about 1.1 million or so, and after the original raiser folded I decided to call. I really felt like Max might have just been squeezing trying to take the pot pre-flop. So the flop came down KcQs6c, giving me a flush draw and a gut-shot straight draw. With 240k or so in the pot Max only bet 85k. This was a really small bet and I was 95% sure he flopped a set of queens or set of kings. So I just called here trying to hit my hand planning not to make a move unless I hit my straight or flush. The turn was the lovely 9c, Max took a few minutes before checking and I took my time and bet 275k. I felt it was a great amount given he had about 850k or so and would think about shoving to take the pot right there. Sure enough he shoved and I snap called and he had a set of kings and of course I held on the river. Even though I got 80% of the money in good, I was behind pre-flop and on the flop so I count this as my 3rd significant suckout of the day that GaryBoro promised me last night ;)

That pot put me around 2.5 million and I pretty much coasted the rest of the day. I ended the day with 2.675 million and will go into tomorrow with the chip lead. There are 32 left and a ton of sickos. It's gonna be a tough final 2 days (hopefully) and I need to be sure to bring my A game at all times or else I will find myself on the rails like 1,315 other poker players before me. Hopefully I'll continue to run good the rest of the way...I lived a charmed life today =)

Kevin

Arrived in the Bahamas...gettin ready to play tommorrow

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:11:53 -0800

So I arrived in the Bahamas yesterday. It definitely started out interesting. We flew into Atlanta and while waiting for our flight to board ran into YelloSub86 and his roomates who missed their flight earlier and were flying stand by. They ended up getting on the flight with us so it all worked out. When we landed I thought about asking them if they wanted to share a cab to the atlantis but decided if our bags came up right away I wanted to try and beat the crowd and didn't want to hold them up if we were delayed. Our bags came out right away and we headed out towards the cabs.

While we were throwing our bags in the cab here came Sub and his roommates and they asked if we wanted to share the cab. Sure, why not? Then the taxi stand guy started throwing a fit saying we had to take separate cabs bc strangers sharing cabs to save money would obv take away from their economy. This starts a fight between the driver and taxi stand guy bc the driver picks up on the fact that we obv know each other and didn't just meet on the flight. So we all hop in the cab...all good.

Well...not exactly. We get half way to the Atlantis and are stopped at a red light when our cab is rear ended at like 30 MPH. We were all like "WTF just happened????" The cabbie got out, spoke to the woman who hit us, made sure his trunk still opened, exchanged info with her and we went on our way. Never once did he ask any of us if we were O.K. LOL! If this was in the U.S. we probably would have gone to the hospital just to make sure we were all O.K. and it possibly would have been a lawsuit against the lady. SHRUG.

So check-in was super smooth, maybe took like ten minutes which was alot quicker then my past 2 experiences here. We ended up taking a little nap then meeting my friend Dan (Wretchy online.. know sick brag of hanging out with a legend) and his girlfriend Audrey downstairs and heading off to the Pokerstars welcome party. To me the sickest part of this trip is getting together with all the players that you have played with online poker over the past year. Each year there are more and more faces to put to the screen names that show up on your laptop while pokering it up from home.

As the party was ending, we noticed 2 nicely dressed black gentleman just sitting in the middle of this once packed party. They looked to be football players and what do ya know it turned out to be Chris Samuels and Jason Campbell of the Washington Redskins. About a dozen of us went up to them and ended up shootin the shit with them for a good half hour...they were really cool guys. The funny thing was Chris asked if mkind (a not so well liked online player) and Agame (another online friend of mine) were brothers LOOOOL (sorry Agame I told you I was gonna blog about it.) We all had a good laugh.

Today we woke up about 11 and headed to brunch with Dan and Audrey then hit the pool. Klaudia didn't feel like going in the water at all so she just tanned while the 3 of us hit the pool and water slides. We ended up meeting up with Adam Levy and his brother and hanging with them all afternoon too. We then came back and grabbed a few drinks in the Coral Lobby with some other online players before getting ready for dinner at Nobu in a half hour.

Playing the poker tournament tomorrow, my goal once again is to make it past day ! for the 1st time in three tries. One (more) time run goooooooooooooooooood please.

Kevin

Happy New Year!!! Bahamas here I come =)

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 20:06:10 -0800

Happy New Year everyone! Hope 2008 was great for all and 2009 will be even better. I don't have much time so I'll keep this short and sweet. My NYE wasn't that exciting, just stayed local in Forest Park had a few drinks with some friends and called it a night. Unfortunately I didn't come across any strange =/. Overall my 2008 was pretty good, but I'm looking forward to an even better 2009 hopefully. I'm really hoping my 2009 is more like 2007 then 2008 when it comes to online poker, tho if I had to settle for a bunch of '08's the rest of my life I'd be OK with that too.

Next up for me is the Bahamas, I leave bright and early Sunday morning for the Atlantis. I'm already not thrilled for my flight home as I realized this week that I made a mistake when booking my flight. You see you have to fly to certain places, usually in the SE portion of the US and then take this small lil plane to the bahamas. My flight there I did fine, landing in ATL and then we'll take a short flight on this small lil plane to the bahamas. Of course when u fly home from the bahamas you also take 2 flights and the plane leaving the bahamas is a lil plane obv. Well my flight home from the bahamas lands in Detroit before heading to Chicago, so we'll be on this lil tiny plane for wayyyyyyy too long for my comfort heading home...oh well.

As for the poker tournament I'm pretty excited. They already have like 1100 people for the thing, and with some walk ups I'm sure there will be between 1200-1300 entrants. This will make for the biggest tourney of the year (field size) that I will play besides the WSOP Main Event....

One time RUN GOOT/PLAY GOOT!!!!

Kevin

Ugh...It's been a month...but Happy Holidays!!!

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 01:47:35 -0800

Ok....Seriously I need to get on top of my blogs. It's been three weeks since my last blog, and tho it's been a busy three weeks for me it's no excuse. Not sure what happened, when I first started blogging I was really into it and blogging like 5x a week. Now I can't promise you I'll be blogging that often but I'm gonna make a point to at least get a new blog up once a week if not 2 or 3. I think thats the 45th time I've said that since blogging for PR, but this time I hope to keep that promise....let's call it one of my top 3 New Year's resolutions (even tho I don't believe in those really hahahahaha).

So how was everyone's holiday? My shit was pretty cool...back home now relaxing and typing this as I watch The Dark Night (thanks Mom). Yesterday I headed to my Aunt's house to see my Dad and Step-Mom and his side of the family. It's pretty much tradition in my family, Xmas eve is with my Dad's side of the family and xmas is with my Mom's side. It was pretty cool, but at the same time reminded me how getting old sucks. When I was younger I'd see my cousins and aunts and uncles on my Dad's side of the family many times through out the year. But as everyone gets older, they all have their own families and getting together gets tougher and tougher. Of course I'm the free soul who doesn't have his own family started yet so I realize the difficulties everyone else faces but still kind of resent it. Now we get together like twice a year, and its a month a part LOL. And then there's my cousin Ryan, who is the oldest male cousin on my Dad's side and the one I always looked up to growing up who I think I've seen twice in the last 6 years. He can't make it on xmas eve anymore because thats when he does stuff with his Wife's side of the family....SHRUG.

So the week didn't start out so hot for me. On Monday I was supposed to get my xmas shopping done and then meet both of my sisters and their kids at the mall to have some professional pictures done for some gifts for xmas, then head to my Mom's house for dinner and the Bear's game. Well I woke up @ 5:30 A.M. to throw up the 1st of nine times Monday. It was a pretty miserable day and I obv had to cancel all of the plans so we never got those pictures taken. It was so cold outside here in Chicago that I couldn't even attempt to get to Walgreens to get some meds to try and get me better. Finally about 7 PM my friend Anne picked some up on her way home from work and dropped it off for me. I took about 2 swigs and the nausia pretty much went away so I was able to watch the Bears game in better comfort.

Unfortunately by halftime of the game I was nautious again due to the horrible performance of our Bear offense in the 1st half. Biggest game of the year vs our most hated rival the Packers on national TV and we were laying a stinker....WTF? As most of you probably know, the 2nd half was a much different story. The situation was clear...win and we can still make the playoffs, lose and we are officially eliminated from any chance of the post season. Well it was an amazing comeback with some freakish turn of events during the last few minutes and overtime and we won. Given the pressure on the line, I think this win might have been more amazing then the monday night comeback win a few years ago vs the AZ Cardinals where Dennis Green had the famous rant afterwards with the ever popular quote "We are who they thought they were!" So go Bears Sunday, take care of business and hopefully the Giants will crush the Vikings too.

As for poker news...well the I played Fiest Al Lago @ Bellagio earlier this month and it was pretty disappointing to say the least. I only played two pre-lims, both 5ks and neither of them went to well. Nothing too eventful and I pretty much shrug it off for what it was. The main event was a different story. Day 1 I had a pretty tough starting table, felt I stayed focused most of the day despite misplaying big pairs twice and was happy to make it out of the day with 80k from the starting 45k stack.

Day 2 was a different story. In general I had a pretty easy table and for the 1st 3 levels of the day I felt like I played some of the best poker I've played in a long time. Of course I was fortunate to crack pocket kings with 75cc when we got all-in on a Q75 flop and hold for nearly a 200k pot. My peak stack on day 2 was probably around 375k, and towards the end of the 3rd level my table broke and I was moved to a much tougher table. No problem, right? I got the chips, and there was no need to get out of line with 2 levels left in the day and a re-draw ahead. So what do I do? Well I pretty much scrape and scrape to win every pot but instead lose them all, go on pretty big tilt which ended in me having 28k in chips. How did I get that low? Yeah...I decided to make an ill-fated 3 barrel bluff vs my friend Amit (fellow PR blogger and Amak316 online poker) when he flopped a set and turned a full house. He just check-called my air balls the whole way....OOPS.

Day 3 I came in with 50k, well below average and like 35 people from the money. I ran my stack up to 65k or so before I ran my pocket queens into pocket jacks on a 642 flop vs one of the tightest players in the tournament. He hit his Jack on the river and I was out. Was I mad about the beat? Not really...after all that is poker. But more so I know that if I hadn't fluffed off my 375k stack that I had going on day 2 I never would have been in that position.

So after much thought of what I wanted for christmas, I decided to ask Santa for a few more gears to add to my arsenal. Sometimes I seem to be stuck in superfasthighlagtard mode and my game could definitely use a 2nd and 3rd gear to be much more effective. Hopefully I'll be able to apply these new gears in the Bahamas in 10 days...I guess only time will tell. If not at least I'll be in the sun and able to enjoy some pretty fun shit.

Until then~

BeL0W

A lil update from the homefront

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:09:56 -0800

So Foxwoods went OK, but not as well as I would have liked. I ended up finishing 18th, for my 2nd ever WPT cash! Pretty amazing I've only cashed twice in all the WPT mains that I have played, tho thats my style for the most part...go big or go home. Unfortunately I go home way too much. So I ended up making it to Day 4, where I came in 31st of 33 left or something similar. Of days 2,3, and 4... a trend developed that I need to fight to fix somehow. Day 2 and day 3 I came in with alot of chips, and my count went down in the 1st level of play both days before recovering at the end of the level. I think this has to due with my terrible sleep schedule in general and not being fully awake mentally at the start of play. Being tired on Day 3 I take full responsibility for, as I made a slightly poor decision to go out to the club w/ seebs, Ali and the boys. I was convinced by Jon Friedberg, who said to me " Your not gonna sleep till 3 A.M. anyways, why not just go the club and hang out, see some hotties till 2 A.M. then sleep?" This seemed pretty reasonable, but I forgot to take into the consideration the alcohol I would consume during this time, not to mention the after party that would keep me out till 6 A.M. LOL. And that fucker Jon...were in the club and I look over and of course he's drinking water...GRRR. So day 4 I came in very short, and grinded my ass off before losing 2 big races back to back and finishing 18th...oh well =/

Since then I've been relaxin alot, not playing too much online poker. I think I only played 5 events in the last FTOPS series, which went OK but was disapointing in the end. I ended up finishing 11th in the 5k 6-max event, felt I played really good but really went card dead on day 2 and again lost 2 very big races I needed to win in the end...oh well. Poker news. Besides that, I've just been taking alot of time to hang out with the family as after christmas I'll be on the road alot. I got to have my nephews over for a sleepover last week before thanksgiving. That was alot of fun, we got to play alot of video games, watch a couple movies and eat alot of popcorn and doughnuts LOL. Thanksgiving was fun, hope everyone else had agreat one too. I've been having alot of comp issues so I went and ordered a new Macbook pro laptop yesterday. Thats part of the reason I've been s lazy on the blogs... I have to email it off to someone else to upload to the site and in gen eral I just feel like a burden on other people.

Up next for me is the Five diamond @ Bellagio. I leave Sunday and plan on playing to 5k pre-lims and the 15k main event. Hopefully I can extend my cash streak in WPT main events to 2 in a row! Hopefully I'll have my new laptop by then and hit you guys up with some updates from there. After X-mas I'll be heading to the bahamas and I'm really looking forward to sitting in the sun a lil bit.

BeL0WaB0Ve

Foxwoods World Poker Open Day 1

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:50:28 -0800

Stuck in Foxwoods right now, a place that I don't think I'll ever come back to (I say this every time). It's just so boring out here and there's absolutely nothing to do but play online poker. Hopefully my trip will be a long one though, as we are about to start day 2 of the World Poker Finals tommorrow. I ended Day 1 with a really good stack...135k up from the 30k we started with, which was good for top 5 in our flight (there was 2 flight's). Hopefully I can do something with these chips and not have such bitter feelings about being stuck in the middle of nowhere. If you ask me it's time for the sequel.

I also have a little something to prove amongst friends. Sure I may have won a WPT but my best friend George Dietz (remember the name) is on a hot streak and has the current bragging rights amongst our group of friends for his tournament success. We spent the last 9 days in Hammond,IN which is about 45 minutes from where I live playing the WSOP circuit event. He took 4th in a $775 pre-lim cashing for just over 9k and also took 5th in the 5k main event cashing for just under 50k. He can have his bragging rights tho, since I'm so proud of how far he has come with his poker tournament game not to mention the fact that I back him so he makes me money too =). I've been working with him alot on his tournament game, and I really feel like he's gonna be a superstar in the future. Hope I'm right.

Poker Free Blog

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 20:43:31 -0700

Congrats to my Cubs! You managed to play your worst most un-inspired baseball of the year at the most crucial time of the year and once again we have to wait till next year. It should be an interesting off-season since every teams' goals during the off-season (especially a club thought to be as close as the Cubs are) is to improve their team in hopes of winning the championship next year. Besides the bullpen I don't see where the Cubs can improve...mostly speaking offensively and defensively. There have been talks about moving Lee for a front line starting pitcher like Matt Cain of the Giants and then putting the full court press on Texiera to be our 1st baseman. I guess I'd be OK with that but Texeria is a Boras client and will demand a huge contract for many years. Hopefully Hendry will do something out of the box as usual to get us to the promise land.

So my reunion was kind of a joke...it was at a bar but we had like a praty online poker room rented out and there were no TVs there. This was the night of Game 3, so I obv spent most my time at the bar downstairs watching the game and didn't really mingle with many of the people upstairs. Poker TV. I felt like watching my Cubs lose their 8th straight playoff game was more important then seeing people I hadn't seen in ten years and probably won't see for another ten or fifteen years.

Last weekend I decided to make a last minute trip to Ohio to visit my friends Chris and Sondra and their family. Chris knew I was coming but I managed to suprise the rest of the family so that was pretty cool. I had to let Chris know because I needed him to get me a ticket to the MNF Browns game vs the Giants since everyone else was going. Now that was an experience. I got much love for the Browns fans... no matter how bad their team sucks they have to be the most passionate fans I've ever come across. We got to tailgate for a few hours before the game which was alot of fun, and the fans were completely out of their minds once the game started. The stadium must have been ten times louder then The Cubs game 1 that I went to just a few days earlier. I also got to go the superbowl 2 years ago when my Bears lost to the Colts and the enviorement was no where near what I experienced in Cleveland.

I'm Sad

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 05:49:39 -0700

Ok, just a lil quick poker news talk to start. 1st off mad props to Alex "AJKHoosier1" Kamberis for his chop in the wcoop main event for almost 800k. Ty Alex for trading 3% with me in the event...ship me almost 24k tyvm. I haven't really been playing online poker since the main event, I think I've played twice... a little worn out from the last 2 months. Next up for me will be Bellagio later this month. Hopefully something good will happen, we know how much I love the Bellagio. <3><3> I'm really sad right now =(. WTF is with my Cubs????? They look like a minor league team right now and have to head to L.A. down 2-0 on the brink of elimination. I was so excited Wednesday afternoon for this post season, got to sit in the bleachers for game 1 and root them on to victory....uh that didn't happen. We got our asses handed to us, and it was de ja vu last night. I know the series isn't over yet, and anything can happen with a team as talented as the Cubs but this shit ain't gonna be easy.

And it has finally come. This moment can be quite depressing for a man. On Saturday I will officially be OLD. It's time for my 10-yr H.S. reunion. 10 years since I roamed the halls of O.P.R.F!!! Man do I feel old. To be honest, I never really liked high school. Most of my friends didn't go to school with me and 2 years ago there was zero shot I thought I'd even be going. But the last 2 years have been good to me, and I have something to be proud of when I go to the reunion.

Almost Over.....

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 21:16:22 -0700

The WCOOP that is, and thank GOD!!!!! It's been a pretty sick 2 weeks of tournaments, and I did have a final table finishing in 6th place for almost 50k so I really shouldn't be complaining. But let me fill you on the big picture. The WCOOP has a shitload of tournaments with big buy-ins, coupled with 2nd chance tournaments to all of the main events with big buy-ins causing for an expensive month. What does that translate to? Well, as I type this I'm in my last tournament of the day, the $300 rebuy 2nd chance online poker tournament on Poker Stars which I have no clue how much is being paid out. Even with my almost 50k score on Stars, if I fail to make the money in this tournament I will be down $1,650 on pokerstars for this month. Needless to say I'm pretty frustrated right now.

OK, so let's talk about the final table I made. It was the 200nlhe w/ rebuys, and I entered the final table 2nd in chips with 9 left. Of the other 8 players, I recognized 4 of them from past play, and felt fairly comfortable with my general reads on the table. Unfortunately I had a really shitty seat draw with Josh Arieh 2 to my left and the chip leader, and another player to his immediate left who was a re-raise machine. With the blinds relatively low I decided to just sit back and play good hands to make it easier on myself. That was working down to 6 players, when I kind of blew up and went out 6th after 2 poorly played hands. Oh well =/

I started playing the tournament at 1:30 P.M. my time. The final table started at roughly 4 A.M., and when I busted in 6th place it was roughly 5:30 A.M. or so. That's a 16-hour poker tournament and I only finished in 6th place!!! Last year there was a lot of complaining about the length of these tournaments, with a few of them lasting like 20 hours. The general feeling in the community was that all events needed to be 2-day events. Well pokerstars kind of listened to us this year, but they only made the Sunday NLH events 2-day events. Hopefully next year they make all events 2-day events. I tried to play the day after, but when I woke up I knew I wouldn't be focused enough to play well and instead went back to bed. Tommorrow is a 1k limit tourney, and a 10k H.O.R.S.E. event (which I won't be playing) and then Sunday the madness concludes with the 5k main event. I may end up taking tomorrow off to ensure I'm fresh for Sunday's main event which I hope to do well in.

Until then~

BeL0W

WCOOP is underway

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 03:30:41 -0700

Day 1 of the WCOOP on Pokerstars is in the books. Got a nice little stack going in the 1st event, 200nlhe 6-max, but unfortunately fizzled out right before the antes hit finishing 2,147th out of 7,217 people, about 1,000 from the money. Can't say I'm upset with how I played, though I still think about 1 fold I made as my tournament was nearing it's end. I managed to cash in the 2nd event, 200 pot-limit 5-card draw ( 3rd time ever playing a 5-card draw tourney), finishing 44th out of 1,024 entrants for a whopping $552.96!!! These payouts suck L, but I am up $122.96 so far on the WCOOP!!! Tomorrow's events will be pretty boring, a $200 limit holdem (Sorry Joe, limit is boring) and a 2-7 triple draw tourney (my 2nd time ever playing the game) and both will "only" end up paying 30-50kish for 1st. Sunday however will be fun as I plan to play the 10k NLHE and of course the 500 NLHE w/ a 3 million guarantee. I've been going back and forth trying to decide whether or not to play the 10k. I feel like that's a lot of money to spend on a poker tournament. Right now I'm like 90% sure I'm going to play it, but will ultimately decide at the last minute on Sunday when I get a chance to size up the field. My preference would be to satellite in, but so far I'm 0-2 in the turbo crapfest satties they are running. Online poker. Right now my gut tells me there will be between 300 and 400 people making 1st over 600k which of course I wouldn't mind winning.

On a sadder note......WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH MY CUBBIES?!?!?!?!?!?!???? Are offense has stunk this last week, are pitching looks tired, and who knows if Big Z will be healthy enough to contribute at our greatest chance for glory in the last 100 years. The good news is I feel every team goes thru funks during a season, and we will probably snap out of it....I just hope its soon. I have become a big Dodger fan down the stretch. I would love for them to win the NL West, just hopefully it's by backing in and not getting really hot down the stretch. There is one team in the NL that scares me to death when it comes to the post season, and that's the D-Backs. If the playoffs started tomorrow we would be up vs. the D-Backs, and allow their offense isn't the greatest it's the team we match up worst with in the NL. Anyone but the D-Backs please.