Day 3 is about to begin in the Bellagio’s Festa al Lago $15,000 WPT event. †I have $400,000 in chips and there are 34 players left. †I am a little below average, but hopefully can chip up and make a move. †I have had other deep runs in these WPT events and I’m going to use those experiences to hopefully break on through a little deeper this time. †First prize is a cool $1,400,000, And to be honest, I can think of a couple cool things to do with all that money. †
The side action (cash games) have been good at the Bellagio the past few weeks. †I played in a couple NL hold em games in Bobby’s Room and have played the $25-50 NL on a couple occasions as well. †
I have been spending a lot of time with Alec and Luke the past few weeks and we have been gambling it up on almost anything we do. †I am probably the best out of the group when it comes to turning the gambling mode off. †Luke went to Wal Mart and bought every board game known to man, and has been battling Alec in Connect 4, Monopoly, and Pot Limit Uno. †We went to the mall one day and anytime someone wanted to buy something, we would guess how much it costs, and the person who was farthest off had to buy the item. †We actually did this a few times and I got a couple cool new things that I might not have bought otherwise. †
Alec won not one, but two of the preliminary events at the Bellagio, which is quite the feat, and he did it back to back events. †Nice to see Alec win a tournament, many of us thought he was a permanent bridesmaid. †JK†Alec, great job!
Michael Phelps has been hitting the tournament circuit hard the past few weeks and turns out that he is a very good player too. †He already has his first final table under his belt. †It turns out after talking to him, that he wants to be a professional player and is taking the game very seriously. †I was lucky enough to meet him yesterday and couldn’t believe it when he had heard of my online name “Good2cu” and has railed my online games. †I told him, that I have watched a few of his races too. †lol †Hopefully I can help him with his poker and get to know him, seems like a great guy. †Maybe the most excited about me meeting Mr Phelps, was my assistant Channing, who told me about six times yesterday, that she will work for free if she can get a date with him.
I also chatted a little with Daniel N, my favorite poker player since I started playing and that was really cool. †Nick has told me for a long time what a great guy Daniel is and I was not dissapointed. †He invited me to his house to watch and learn some of the mix games he has been playing. †First he is going to have to teach me the rules, because I am a one trick pony, but hopefully that will change in the next few months. †
Well I hope I can double up once or twice and survive another day. †You can follow the action at www.worldpokertour.com <http://www.worldpokertour.com>
I am still in the WPT Five Diamond Championship with 34 players remaining.† First place is 1.4million and I’m around average in chips.† Sweat live updates at worldpokertour.com
I returned from Macau around four days ago and had an îOKî trip. †I went there in hopes of playing in a few high stakes cash games with some Asian high rollers but, unfortunately, there were few to be found. My friend Brian ‘Tsrast’ Rast also came and with no cash games to be found (the biggest game usually was 10/20 USD with a $20/hand rake), we spent most of the first week held-up in our 1800 square foot suite playing online poker. †We split action on the trip and both got killedÖfinishing the trip down $100,000 each.
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Toward the end of the first week Brian’s girlfriend flew out to Macau with one of her friends, both of whom are ìentertainersî at Spearmint Rhino. ††I may be stereotyping but I find most dancers have extremely violent personalities and, although I really like his girlfriend, she fits perfectly into this stereotype. †They got into several very dramatic fights, which kind of put a damper on the mood of the trip. †Personally, I could never date one of these girls; they are far too high maintenance for me and I don’t have the patience to deal with all the drama. †
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I ended up playing in one cash game, which was 500/1000 Hong Kong Dollars blinds, which would be around 75/150 USD. †The lineup was Johnny Chan, Brian, four other mid/high stakes internet cash game pros and myself. I still think I was a favorite in this lineup, but this was not exactly the type of cash game I flew to Macau for!
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Upon returning home, I immediately started grinding. I was eager to play on my home computer where I am able to use a HUD and try to recoup my Macau losses. †Over the course of 48 hours, interrupted by a few workout sessions and one sleep marathon, I made around 10 buy-ins playing in a mix of 25/50 and 50/100NL games.
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Toward the end of the marathon session, I noticed there was a 500/1000NL game going which I thought I would be a favorite in. †I only had one buy-in in my account so I asked for a loan from a friend and decided to take a shot. Things went well and I ended up winning $155,000. †Between that and the smaller games I played, I more than made up for my Macau losses. †This was my huge win for me. It felt good to finally book a win in a nosebleed session (I’ve been winning at 10/20 and 50/100 and losing when I play higher stakes). †
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After the marathon session, I flew to Kansas City to go to a NFL game with my extended family. It was great to see everyone but I was beyond exhausted.
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I really don’t want to do anymore traveling for a while. †It’s hard to stay healthy while traveling. With the combination of eating out, jet lag, weird sleeping hours and the fact that it’s way harder to workout, I end up feeling so unhealthy and completely energy deprived. †I like the regiment I have going on in Vegas; so I think I’m going to skip WSOP Europe and stick to tournaments in Vegas for the next few months.
