Less than 40k Hands to go

I didn't realize how long it had been since I wrote last. I was thinking it had been three months or so. Obviously a lot has happen since then; Baby, back issues, more poker.

Mckenzie has been great. She is two months now and has been smiling and cooing. Preston has warmed up to the idea of having a sister. I can't wait till she is old enough to play together. I haven't been playing as many hours the last couple months because of my back. I will get to that in a bit. It has given me more time with the family. Since Jenny is nursing, I spend a good portion of that time with Preston. He really likes to play with his stuffed animal friends having them talked to each other. It's very entertaining to watch.

I have had a sharp pain in my back for about six months now. The xray found arthritis but that is not where I am having the pain. I just started up with physical therapy again along with the chiropractor once a week. The physical therapist found a lot of knots on the right side of my neck, back and shoulder. Apparently I need to start using the mouse with my left hand too. I have also been getting massages twice a week to try to loosen and stretch things out. It has been two weeks of doing all this along with exercises and stretches at home. So far there has been little improvement. I plan on taking a week off at the end of the year, which will be the first time I have gone more than 3 days without playing so hopefully that will help.

I just got over 960k and I am getting anxious to get there. I plan on getting done on the 23rd. I get two poker tournament buyins and travel expenses. The EPT finals in Monte Carlo is the biggest buyin and best place to go. That will be in April. I was thinking about going to visit my family in Isreal before the tournament. I haven't been there since I was about 11 years old. The second buyin I will use for the WSOP. I think it might come with a suite at the Palms for a week, but I am not completely sure. We were going to use one to go to Atlantis in the Bahamas, but we didn't want to travel with the baby so young. This has been one of my best years and though I miss some of the excitement of playing tournaments it has been nice to be able to have more flexibility with my hours. I also don't think my back could take sitting for 10 hours strait like I used to do. I played my first tournament since the WSOP in Vegas. It was the WSOP circut event in Tahoe a few weekends ago. I was doing pretty well and had a chance to be the chip leader with about 50 players to go. I had 97 on a T997 board and got allin vs a guy with A9. I'm almost 90% fav there, but the Ace came on the river. One of the tougher beats I have had, but I was happy I played well since it had been a while.

I went to my first playoff game of any kind when I saw game 2 of the World Series in SF. I went there with Scott, Marc and Ted. Scott and I got some tickets off scalpers in the 2nd inning for $350 and then met up with Ted and Marc at Momo's after the game. Even though I am a Dodgers fan it was pretty exciting to see a game of that magnitude, I couldn't pass that up. There is a bunch of us going to see the Kings vs Heat tonight which should be pretty cool too.

My next post will be when I get to 1Million.

Back from Vegas

It is nice to be home again. A month in Vegas is a long time. Having Jenny and the family there helped it go by much quicker. I also drank a lot less than I have in the past. Before when I got knocked out I would just sit at the blackjack table for a few hours which leads to many cocktails.

After cashing in on two of the first three tournaments I played I went on a drought and didn't make the money in any tournament there after. I think I played 11 more. I would have to count up my receipts to know for sure. That along with Preston getting sick and having to go to the hospital several times didn't make the trip that worthwhile. It cost about $20,000 which includes tournament buyins, the condo, food etc. Considering we will have two kids this time next year I will probably just go by myself for a couple weeks next time.

I felt like I played pretty well. I almost made day 2 of the $2500 PLO and took some tough beats in the tournaments after that. I did register for the main event before I left. Not that exciting plunking down 10k after losing 20k for the month, but I can't miss the main event. I will play that one every year no matter what. I fly back on the 7th and play Day 1d on the 8th.

We did have a fun trip to Disneyland last week. We got there around 9am and walked around doing rides will almost 11pm with a couple hour break for dinner. Preston had a great time. He went about 6 hours then fell asleep in his stroller inside for a couple hours while his grandma sat with him in the shade. We were there with Jenny's mom and cousin. Got to eat P.F. Changs for dinner, which I haven't had in some time. I almost forgot how good those crab won tons are.

Not sure what we are doing yet for the 4th. I play in a golf tournament every morning, but then we are still trying to figure things out. We might try to walk to the lake and see them this year although we might have to leave early because the noise scares Preston sometimes.

Day 6 in Vegas

I have been here for 6 days and will be going to the pool for the first time. This is a good thing since that means I am doing well in the tournaments. Jenny and Preston got here two days ago. We dont start today until 2:30 so we are going to let Preston swim in the Rio pool. I am above average in chips right now and we are pretty close to making the money in event #8. I had a big double up when a guy made a nice call against my allin holding 22 on a 7344 board. I had T6 for a gutshot and some overs giving me 13outs. The river was a 3 and I took it down with 2pair and a T kicker. The pot was 40k. Probably going to be the biggest T high pot of the tournament.

Marc, Rich and Ted were here the first couple of days. Rich went and played the $500 Venetian event after getting knocked out of the 1k event and ended up winning that one for about $37,000.

Vegas and the New Baby is a......

We found out Thursday we are having a girl. She is due on Oct. 6th. We already had McKenzie pick out as a name since that was what we were going with if Preston was a girl.

I just got in last night after a 10hr drive. Rich Souza came with me, but we didn't have to pick up Marc and Ted in L.A. They ended up driving out the night before. We went strait to the Rio to register for today's 1k event #3. Rich and Marc are also playing. We are staying at the Rio starting tonight. I tried to get a room there last night but every Harrahs property in Vegas was sold out.

Most of the events start and noon. They have some updates in the first day, but with close to 3000 players it is difficult to track. I will try to post my chip counts to my Facebook page as much as I can during the breaks. At the end of the day it is easier to find chip counts. Here is the link for the WSOP updates. http://www.wsop.com/tournaments/

Long time no Type

Been way too long since I posted. I haven't had the best of luck lately. I got hit in the head playing basketball about a week after my last post. I thought I had a concussion but it ended up being labyrinths. It is similar but affect your inner ear and equilibrium. I was told by the doctor not to drive, run around or be on the computer for a few days. I took a couple days off from poker even though the symptoms lasted about 10 days. Then the first day back doing physical actives I chipped a bone in my finger and strained the ligament after taking a softball off my hand. It was on my right hand so it made mousing a little more difficult. I also got a new computer and had to transfer all my data (90% of it was poker hands). I had some tech issues that had to be resolved with the guys from the poker tracking software company. That slowed down the playing for the last few weeks. I have been spending about a third or my work time studying hands and watching videos of other players. I only played about half as many hands in the last month than what I was normally getting in. I also went on a losing streak winning only one out of about 13 sessions at one point. I went through a six week stretch last year where I didn't make any money at all. This usually happens once or twice a year. Definitely doesn't make poker fun when you sit down and lose day after day. I have played over 400k hands and will have about 500k VIP points before the end of the month.

Enough about the bad news and on to the good stuff. Preston started T-ball a couple weeks ago. I signed up as the coach and I have to say the kids are doing much better than I though given they are between 3 and 4.5 years old. Our best player is a 4 year old girl who can really hit. Last game was tough because only 6 kids showed up and two of them wanted to just sit on the grass. Its pretty funny. They don't keep score or try to make outs. They just let all the kids bat and take one base at a time. We play 3 innings. Preston is doing pretty good even though he is not quite two and a half yet. He seems to be having a good time and follows directions pretty well. I am going to have my mom video the game this week so I can put some clips on youtube.

We had a great Bday party for me on Saturday. Jenny did an awesome job putting everything together. We hung out in the pool and had a pretty big wiffel ball game till about 930 at night. After that we played some poker till about midnight. Greg Clark and I split the winnings at the end. I leave for vegas on the 29th. Rich we be driving down with me to L.A. to pick up Marc. Then Sunday morning we are going to get up at six am and drive to vegas for the first 1k event. I was going to text in my chip counts every few hours in each of the events I play. Jenny and Preston are flying in on the first of June. We have a condo about 4 blocks from the Rio rented for the month of June. I am going to play somewhere around 20 events. I think the most I played in the past was 10 or 12. I am pretty excited to have the family there with me since that was the part I didn't like before.

We are going in next Thursday to find out the sex of the new baby. We still are not sure which one we want more. My dad doesn't want to know, i don't see him making it four months without finding out somehow.

Long time no post

Sorry, I have been lagging a bit on this last post. My software that tracks all my hands and opponents data went down for a couple days and I was only able to get in 40k hands the last 12 days of April. I am up to almost 280k hands and 370k pokerstars points. Here is a link my coach pointed out to me on the most popular poker forum online.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/153/high-stakes-pl-omaha/official-2010-stars-regulars-thread-672511/index12.html

It was cool to see what some of the other players thought of me. I was also contacted by Cardrunners about making videos for their site. They are the biggest poker training site out there. I told them I was going to wait till after the WSOP because I am going to scale back my playing time a bit then. It is nice to see that all the hours I have put in are paying off.

My aunt Jen and cousins Alex and Ben came to see us on Monday for part of their break from school. Alex just turned 14 and Ben is 10. I played poker that morning then took them to the batting cages and the gym to play basketball. I had a late softball game which Jenny, Preston, Jen, Alex, Ben and my dad all went to. I was 3-5 with a couple runs scored. I had 2 infield hits after sprinting down the line. Haven't sprinted that hard in about a year. I was pretty sore the next day. I took the kids out to the golf course on Tuesday to hit some balls and play 9 holes. I hit the ball pretty well, but we didn't keep score. That night we had about 10 plus 2 babies for dinner and desert to celebrate Alex's Bday.

I got Preston signed up for Tball starting on May 8th. They play 6 games, but we will only be there for the first 4 before we head out to Vegas. I am pretty excited though and I even signed up to be the coach.

We lucked out and found a two bedroom condo a in a gated community a few blocks down from the RIO. They had been filling up fast and we had just missed the last one in that community.

I guess that is it for now, hopefully not so long till next post.

Trying to get 50k hands in 12 days

I took another couple days off to visit with family and go down to the NCAA tournament in San Jose. It put me a little behind for my hands goal so I am now going to try to get in 50K extra hands in before the end of the month. I started this goal 3 days ago and have played 14k so far. I skipped my lesson this week so that we would have more material to go over next time. I noticed that a couple guys were starting to catch me on the overall Omaha hands played for the year, which is another reason I am trying to make a big push by the end of the month. I am not sure if I have given the link out, but here is the site that tracks all the cash game hands. You can sort by different categories and click next to hands or net to sort from highest to lowest.


http://www.pokertableratings.com/stars-top-omaha-winners-year/2-4-PL

Here is a graph of one of my days last week. I was up pretty big but then went on a 8k downswing. If you click on the graph it should enlarge.




I went to see my Grandpa last Thursday with Jenny and Preston. We hung out with him for a couple hours and he seemed pretty happy. Then I went to the NCAA basketball games with my uncle Howie and his kids (Ben and Alex). We got to see a great game when Wash beat Marquette with a last second shot. We watch the first half of NM and Montana and then went home because it was 9pm at halftime.

My friend Greg came over on Friday to show me some stretches and strength exercises for my back. We watch some of the NCAA games while going through a small workout. I am going to a yoga class tonight for the first time. My back is pretty tight after playing poker for 3 long days and playing basketball last night for a couple hours. Hopefully the new exercise and stretching routine will make playing long hours easier. It already has seemed to help.

Back from vegas

Had a good time though I was feeling guilty for taking a few days off. We spent most of our time around the sportsbook watching games. Flew in Wednesday night after a delay in sac and a couple cocktails on the flight. We met up at Ballys and played some blackjack and roulette. Then we headed back to Harrahs but not without making a stop to play Beer Pong at 4am. Went to bed around 6:30am and woke up at 9:30. They had run out of regular rooms the night before and Scott and I ended up in a two bedroom suite. I sat in the Jacuzzi and watched basketball before we had to change rooms. Scott and Dustin were still up from the night before and playing in a poker tournament at the flamingo. I met them there for some Bloody Marys and some poker. Scott won the tournament for around $500. We met back up with Joe and Trent at Harrahs to watch some more hoops before heading to ESPN zone for dinner. Dustin and Scott didn't make it since they were now asleep for the first time since getting there. We came back to grab Scott and tried to get Dustin rallied, but even though Trent yanked him off the bed he still didn't make it out. We marched across the street to Mirage to meet up with Newt. We ended up at the high limit poker bar till about 1:30am. Then back to the outdoor bar at Harrahs where a band was playing. Of course had to finish up with Beer pong again from 4-6am. I got up at 9:30am getting 3hrs of sleep on back to back nights. We sat out at the Caesars pool on Friday I had lunch inside at around 2:30. I was exhausted and pretty hammered still. I walked back to the room by myself and watched the Big east semifinals games. I thought about going out that night, but was too tired. I tried to sleep, but with Scott's snoring and the TV still going since I couldn't find the remote, it was difficult. Didn't do much when I got home on Saturday, laid around watched TV and recovered.

I played a little yesterday about 3k hands. Going to need to get as many as I can in until Thursday. I am going down to San Jose all day for the first round of the NCAAs at HP Pavillion.

Baby #2 on the Way

We are soooo excited!!! Jenny is about 8 weeks along and has a bad case of morning sickness. We ask Preston if he want a little brother or sister, he goes back and forth between the two. I always thought that someone without a family would have an easier time putting in long hours of poker, but I think I way more motivated because I have them. There is nothing better than having Preston's eyes light up and run over to give me a big hug after I am done with a session.

I was going to try to do this once a week, but I already missed that. My biggest cash game winning day started my biggest session winning streak. I won 23 sessions in a row, most of those being between 1k and 2k hands per session. It has been a pretty crazy run. I have played 210k hands for the year and have 270k VIP pts. My back unfortunately has taken a toll. I had to go to physical therapy on Thursday because it was getting almost unbearable. I receive some electrotreatment along with heat, they took some measurements and gave me stretches to do twice a day for about 20 min each. Hopefully this will help.

We had a pretty good time at Dustin's bday last weekend, I didn't go overboard with my drinking so I was able to get home at a reasonable hour to play poker. I am heading to Vegas for 2 nights next week for Newts bach party. A bunch of the guys from my wedding are going (dustin, scott, trent, marc, greg). I fly out Thursday afternoon and come back Saturday morning.

Best day of the year

Had to write a blog after this one. Just ran ridiculously hot today. This month has been crazy. After running 10k below Expected Value (EV) in January, I am 30k above during February. Although the upswing is incredible, it is a little sickening to think that I will probably have a month where I run that much below or close to it. Lets hope that doesn't happen anytime soon. I hit the 200k VIP points for the year and about 165k hands. If I could get to 190k hands after two months I would be very happy. I need 1M VIP points for the Supernova Elite status and everything that comes with it.

I didn't do much this week. We took Preston to the library and I to him to gymnastics on Thursday. That has got to be the best activity for toddlers hands down. He runs non stop for almost an hour laughing, climbing, jumping, rolling and swinging. I am sweating a little when I get out of there just from chasing him around.

Hung out with the guys for a little on Friday night. Trent made me laugh so hard my cheeks were sore the next day. I am probably going to head out to Walnut Creek this weekend for Dustin's birthday.

Running good then bad

I am at almost 150k hands so far. I pretty good start on the year. I was looking around on one of the sites that track cash game stats and I think I have played more hands of Pot Limit Omaha than anyone in the world. There could be people who play with different names, but I would probably still be in the top 5 if that were the case. Only one day this week did I get over 4k hands. I think it was 5k on Wednesday, but I have not played less than 3k in a day. I also played some Ftop events on Fulltilt yesterday along with some big tourneys on Stars. I don't think I cashed in any of them.

I took Preston to Jeff's 5th grade basketball game on Saturday. We had some friends over for dinner that night and I was fairly hungover the next day after only 5 drinks. Quite different than the college days.

Jenny and I are going out tonight to celebrate valentines day since I almost never take Sundays off. Good thing she is very understanding like that. We are going to dinner at one of the Winery's then out for a movie. Both Grandmas are babysitting. Should be fun.

Super Bowl

We had another successful Superbowl party. Jenny even picked the winning square for the final score!! We had a ton of food from fajitas, 7layer dip, fruit salad, chicken, pot stickers, corn dogs, cookies, cake, brownies and of course the famous bacon wrapped duck. The keg was about 95% finished when I took it back on Monday. We had somewhere around 20 adults and 7 kids running around. Preston had a blast, he even got to play a little Wii with the Doblers across the street. I didn't get as much poker as I wanted that day, only played from 5:30am to about 9:00. Then spent the rest of the time setting up and hanging out with Preston. I need to get some extra hours in this week, which is going to be tough because my back has been really bothering me. I just bought a ergonomic chair online today for about $400 so hopefully that will help.

First Entry

I thought it might be cool to document my journey to play a million cash game hands on poker stars this year. My plan is to write every couple days, but we will see how that goes. I made a feeble attempt at a million hands last year, but didn't have the new 30" monitor, didn't start at the beginning of the year and wasn't quite adapted to playing that many tables of PLO at a time. I got a good jump on this year playing 92k hands in the first month. I have only taken one day off since the beginning of the year and played or studied at least 6 hours a day. I usually study more on the days where I am getting crushed and don't fell like continuing to play while getting my ass kicked.

I have only left the house one time in the last 6 days. Although some of that has to do with the fact that Preston and now I have been sick. I have been trying to start at 7am everyday, but that was pretty tough this week since Preston's fever was spiking around 103-104 during the night and you can imagine he wasn't very happy about it. I try to play 3-4 hours sessions at a time and then usually take an hour break to eat and hang out with Jenny and Preston. I usually get done around 6pm just in time for dinner.

The WSOP start around June 1st and I am attempting to get 600k hands in before that time. I started looking into renting a condo for the month so that I can bring the family and my desktop with monitor to keep up on hands while I am not playing in WSOP events. I looked at the schedule briefly and I think I would like to try to play about 20 events or so.