Monthly Blog

November 2008

November 30
I planned on playing a little poker at the Bike earlier this week, but I couldn't manage to squeeze any time in, so when my girlfriend Susan told me she was going to go there to play the NL tournament tonight, I agreed to join her. Tomorrow night is the Omaha event and I plan on playing that as well. Even though the buy-ins are smaller than I have been playing lately, I enjoy playing in the tournaments at the Bike because it is "home" to me.

After the Omaha event tomorrow night, I won't be playing another tournament until I go to the LAPT event in Nueva Vallarta later this week. This year, I planned on going to at least one LAPT (Latin America Poker Tour) event, one APPT (Asian Pacific Poker Tournament) event, and one EPT (European Poker Tour) event, but so far it hasn't worked out that way. I have had so much fun on the LAPT events and have made so many friends while attending them that I don't want to miss any. In January, I will at least go to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure which is part of the EPT and then in April I plan on going to Italy.

November 17
I got home from Costa Rica on Monday of last week. My trip was fantastic, but I was certainly ready for some rest by the time I got home. We did so many activities while we were there including ziplining, whitewater rafting, and jet skiing (you can take a look at some of the pictures here), it took me a full day to recover from it. I probably could have rested for another day or two, but my birthday celebration was the following night and I had another week full of activities.

On Tuesday, my family had a get together to celebrate my birthday. On the following night (which was my actual birthday), I went out to dinner with a few of my closest friends. Then on Thursday, I left for Vegas with my sister to celebrate there for the weekend.

When we arrived in Vegas, we went up to the room to freshen up and by that time, my good friend Scott from New York arrived in town. The three of us went down to the bar at the Luxor to meet three more friends including Rich who is from Chicago and was also celebrating his birthday. During the weekend, we went out to a couple great dinners, did a lot of walking on the strip, played a little poker (very little), and went to the show Mystere at Treasure Island, but most of all we laughed. We laughed at each other, jokes we played on random people, my sister and how she is such a dipshit sometimes, and silly t-shirts that became an inside joke for us the whole weekend. It seems that I have laughed more over the past year than I have in my life. Fighting breast cancer sucked, but it did teach me a few thing including enjoying each moment. I am grateful everyday for the people that are in my life and I can honestly say that I have the best friends and family ever.

Now that I am back home, I have been resting and haven't played very much poker. I am going to get a massage in a little while (its been a rough two weeks - what can I say?) and then later on tonight, I might actually go play at the Bicycle Casino. It will be nice to see some of the locals because I haven't showed my face in there in about a month.

November 9
We decided to stick around at the beach house because Melina and Thomas have been such wonderful hosts. Yesterday, we walked down to the beach and a couple of us did some snorkeling and then in the afternoon we went to do a canopy tour.

The canopy tour was so great and it was much different than when I did it in Cancun. Previously, it was part of a full day adventure, so we only did one zip line. Here in Costa Rica, you go from one tree to another. There were 13 zip lines in all with some being longer than the others. Our guides made it look like a piece of cake, so when they asked, "Who wants to do it upside down?", I jumped at the chance and volunteered. I rode tandem with one of the guides and it was pretty amazing to be looking at the jungle while hanging upside down on a zip line. I was really proud of Halli because she was really brave and actually had a good time despite her fear of heights. We got lots of pictures and I will try to remember to post one when I get home.

After our canopy tour, we went back to the beach house and took our showers and went to dinner in town. After dinner, we hung around the kitchen table and talked and played a little cards. We called it a night about 1am because we had another day of activities planned.

This morning, we all got ready to walk down to the beach because we were going to rent some wave runners. We ended up with three of them with Halli and I sharing one, Thomas and Melina sharing another, and Andrew riding solo. The place that rented us the equipment didn't give us many guidelines, so we were able to travel out far in the ocean and a long distance along the island. The view from the ocean to the island was so pretty. I have never seen a place that had so much green scenery in one place. Just like I did while rafting, I would find myself being caught up with what I was looking at and wouldn't be paying attention to the actual activity at hand. One time, I actually got thrown from the wave runner (although it was probably from Halli's bad driving ;))

Tomorrow night, we head home. I am so grateful for the experiences that poker (in particular PokerStars) has given me.

November 7
Early morning yesterday, six of us (Halli, Melina, Alex the blogger, Brandon (1h8pp), Andrew (Azntracker), and I) went on a full day whitewater rafting trip that was amazing.

The bus picked us up at 6 in the morning (which was hell for all of us poker players) and it drove for two hours before arriving at the meeting grounds where we had breakfast. After breakfast, we changed into our swimming gear and then headed down to the river where we met our guide Alonzo.

I guess Alonzo knew that our group was going to be a barrel of laughs because he immediately tried to flip our raft. Unfortunately for him, he was the only casualty. He flipped out of our boat and after we all caught our balance, we helped him back into the boat.

The rafting trip was rated a 3 and 4, so there were plenty of times when we were being thrown around the boat. We all did a pretty good job staying in control and nobody was ever thrown out of the raft even though we all had a few close calls.

The scenery was spectacular and many times when I was supposed to be paddling, I would find myself being caught up in the beauty of the river. There were mountains on both sides and a couple breathtaking waterfalls. I don't even know how to put the whole experience into words. All I can say is that if you ever have a chance to take the trip, I would highly recommend it.

Today we drove a few hours to a different region of Costa Rica called Guanacaste. Our friends from the LAPT, Thomas and Melina offered for a few of us to stay with them in their family beach house. The drive was also amazing and as we were driving, I told Thomas that I think Costa Rica is the prettiest place I have ever been. When we were close to our destination, we stopped at the grocery store to pick up some food for a barbeque (we ended up buying groceries for an army) and had a nice dinner when we arrived at the house. After dinner, we played a NL tournament and then went night swimming at the beach.

We are going to stay here for another couple days. Tomorrow we plan on going on a Canopy Tour and also doing a little jet skiing and then on Sunday we are scheduled to go to Arenal. We will be heading home on Monday night. The next LAPT event is scheduled for next month in Mexico and it sounds more appealing with every passing moment. I have the best time at these events.


November 5
After watching the election returns on television, Halli and I decided to go out and celebrate at the bar near the casino. By the time we got there, there was a whole group of people doing exactly that. At our table, there were about 10 of us including many of the PokerStars staff and we had a great night. It was nice to hang out with everybody especially Brad (Otis) the guy in charge of the PokerStars blog. I don't get a chance to see him because of our busy schedules and it was especially nice since neither of us was working.

After many hours of socializing, Halli and I called it a night and Melina gave us a ride to our hotel (which was only a five minute walk from the casino).

November 4
Our adventure at the Latin America Poker Tour in Costa Rica has been great so far. We arrived early on Sunday morning and caught up on some sleep before going to the PokerStars party. The party was a lot of fun because we ran into so many people we met at the last LAPT event. The first two guys we saw (other than Rich Korbin who we sat with on the bus) were the tournament directors, Mike Ward and Greg Pappas. By the end of the night, we saw Christian, Thomas, Melina, Alex, Brad (Otis), Gary Wise, Lizzie, and the main man for the LAPT, Glen. We also met some of the players who I have played with online for years including ArbianNights. We stayed for hours and drank a little, but nothing compared to the last party in Uruguay. We were in the room fairly early and had plenty of sleep for the big event.

My table draw for the tournament was decent and even though I went up and down quite a bit during the first few hours, I accumulated some chips overall. About 4 hours into the tournament, our table got broke and I was moved to a new table with David Plastik and some total maniac. Shortly after I sat down, the crazy guy went all in and then yelled, "I am all-in, alllllll-innnnn, because that is what I do. I go alllllllll-innnnnn." I can't even begin to describe how loud and obnoxious it was and how many people came running over to see what was going on because he made it seem like some big ordeal. I was appalled, but at the same time I was laughing inside, thinking "What the hell is wrong with this guy?" He didn't stop there. He kept it up and David Plastik was furious. Eventually, David called the floor on him for a second time about bad language and the guy got a time out. David took some chips away from the guy when his TT beat Crazy's KK. The video can be seen here and you can even catch a glimpse of me (with Halli in the background). I also took chips off the guy right before dinner break when I opened for a raise with AK, he raised me and I pushed. He had AQ and after that hand I was the chip leader at my table.

When we got back from dinner, things continued going well for me. I got all my chips in with QQ versus a short stacked opponent and his AA and I hit a queen on the turn. Like I said, he was short stacked, but adding his 7k to my 30k was nice. I had about 40k (which was way above average at the time) when my QQ got taken down by A4. I was in the small blind and the guy pushed from the hijack. I actually had to think for a second because it was a pretty big shove. I ruled out that he wouldn't be doing that with AA or KK and was relieved to see that he only had A4. But right in the window was an ace and I couldn't pull another queen out of my hat.

I moved my chips up and down for a little bit before pushing in on the button with AQ on the button and getting called from the guy in the small blind with QQ. His hand held up and I got knocked out during the last level of day 1. I made it down to about 50 players, but they only paid 24.

Halli and I went back to the room and got ready to go out for the evening. A big group of us went to a local bar where we played a little pool and had a few beers. Of the 20 of us that went out, only 1 happened to make it through day 1 and as of now he is still in the tournament with 13 players left. When the bar closed, all of us came back to the hotel to have a late night snack. While waiting for our food, Halli and I went to our room to use the restroom and as we were walking we could hear some guys talking really loud in the room next to us. They said something like, "Can I bend it any way I want. If I fold it in half and put it in my mouth does it count." We laughed about it and were like "WTF are they doing in there?" When we went back to the restaurant, some young guy - who looked like a poker player came in asking for some saltine crackers because he and his friends were making a bet about eating 6 crackers within a minute. Halli started laughing and said "Was that you asking about folding it in half and putting it in your mouth." He confirmed that it was and she joked with him about him being in Costa Rica and being in his room with a bunch of guys shoving crackers in their mouth."

Today, we woke up and went over to the tournament room, but there wasn't too much going on. After chatting it up with a bunch of people, we headed back to our room to watch the election returns. Both of us are a little obsessed about this election and we certainly hope change is coming. So for now, we will be glued to the television set and in a few hours we will probably be out on the town with our group of LAPT friends and hopefully we will be able to toast a victory for our presidential candidate.

November 3
I just got knocked out of the tournament and am royally bummed out. I lasted more than 9 hours and made it down to about 50 players (they were paying 24) and am satisfied with the way I played. Even though I played well, I feel defeated and don't feel like writing all the details (I will tomorrow). For now, I am going out with Halli and the LAPT gang.

November 1
I just got done packing for the Latin America Poker Tour in Costa Rica. My plane leaves in a few hours and I am so excited about the trip. One of the greatest things about poker is that it allows me the freedom to travel whenever I want to and also introduces me to new and exciting places when a tournament is being held in a country I haven't visited.

The PokerStars package includes 4 nights, but I will be staying 8. Actually "we" will be staying 8. Halli will be traveling with me which should make for a lot of laughs. We have so many memories from South America and I am sure we will be making plenty more in Costa Rica.

I will be updating my journal on a regular basis. I really sucked at it last month and am making a commitment to be better in the future.