Location: Las Vegas

Well, I have finally arrived into the sin city! This is my first visit here and I am really excited about it. Let me first tell you guys what happened in SoCal. In LA, we spent one day at Santa Monica which was incredible. I loved everything about it: the beach, girls, and biking. Matthias and I then headed down to Venice Beach where a very liberal and hippie crowd hang out. There were a few hundred people gathered on the beach for a drum dance (my first) and the atmosphere was surrreal. For those of you who don't know, a drum dance is a few hundred people gathered in a circle. There are all type of instruments being played and they combine to make a snchronized beat. If you want, one can dance in the middle of the huge circle. It was cool just seeing everyone relaxing and enjoying themselves. That night we headed to Commerce. I heard the action here is crazy, but the rake stinks. They rake $6 or $7 every pot no matter how big and they even rake a $1 when players chop! I played 5-10NL w/ a buy-in of $300 and grinded out $860 in 4 hrs. of play. The table was incredibly passive and I just kept taking the small pots that nobody wanted. Matthias played 2-5NL and lost $200. I couldn't keep an eye on his play, but I saw he made one big mistake when he called AI w/ 66 on a flop of 789. There was only $20 in the pot and his opponent bet AI for $70 on the flop, Matthias called with 2 other people to act behind him. I think I gave Matthias too much credit and forgot that he is a complete novice to the game and still needs a lot of tuteledge.

After LA, we headed to San Diego to stay with Matthias' friend Jeff. The first night we were there, we headed to a great Mexican place by the beach. The Mexican food on the west coast doesn't even comes close to what I usually get back on the east coast. The next day Jeff had to work so he made an itinerary for us in SD. As we headed to the Subaru, Matthias noticed an oil leak under the wagon. The gas casket valve had cracked leaking oil, and took Matthias 4 hours. to make the necessary repairs. So much for sightseeing in SD. That night we headed downtown to check out the nightlife. The first bar we went to was Altitude. It is on the top floor of the Marriott and was a open-air bar. It had a nice view of Petco Park (where the SD Padres play) and you could easily watch a baseball game from the high venue. We then checked out another club before calling it a night.

Matthias and I arrived into Vegas on the 4th of July. It was a scorching 110 degrees when we came in. We got a place in this hostel in downtown Las Vegas. There seems to be some really neat people traveling staying here, but I haven't had the chance to meet them because I've been playing tons of poker since we arrived. On Thursday, I played a $550 satellite for the ME and placed 50th of 420. They were giving seats to the top 19 in this satelllite. I found the field to be incredibly weak and everyone was playing super cautious in an attempt to slide into the money. This is an ok strategy when there are 25 players left, but I found that people were implementing this strategy when they were 70 to 80 players left. I didn't think they realized how much poker would still have to be played. I maintained an average stack most of the satellite and then shoved w/ 33 in early position w/ 18K in chips. The blinds were 1-2K w/ a 300 ante so I was going to shove with a wide range of hands. A tight player reshoved AI on the button so I thought I was dominated, but luckily he showed AK. He flopped a K and there goes my entire poker life. JK. That night, we went to see KA Cirque De Soleil at the MGM Grand. We wanted to see LOVE Cirque De Soliel, but tickets were all sold out due to its popularity. I was not impressed with the KA Cirque De Soliel. The show told a tale of some jungle bandits kidnapping two of the emperor's children and their rescue. The acrobatics were cool (it was my first Cirque De Soleil experience), but the storyline was really difficult to follow. In the show, the performers spoke a made up language so that only made things more complicated. They tried to mix in comedy, but given the background of the storyline, it did not fit in well. Others in the audience seemed to be thorougly entertained, but I have high standards in any recreational acitivities I partake in. For example, I enjoyed when Matthias and I went skydiving, but everyone else who jumped seemed to have a much better experience than me. It seems the only thrill I get is playing poker! Spoken like a true degenerate. After the show. Matthias and I played 1-2NL at MGM. We were at the same table so I could further teach Matthias about the great game of NL Texas Hold Em. The table was soft and Matthias and I ened up with $450 and $250 profits respectively.

On Friday morning, Matthias left Las Vegas back to Alabama to tie up some loose ends. This officially concludes our road trip together. I'll never forget about what happened on this trip and it has given me a new perspective on traveling. I hope everyone has enjoyed reading about our exploits. I plan on checking into the Imperial Inn on Sunday and staying for about another week. Later today, I will try to satellite into the ME again as the field is too weak to pass up the opportunity. Even I don't make it into the ME, I will be playing cash until I leave. I will keep everyone updated on how I do in Las Vegas and this blog will hopefully have some poker content for once :).

Location: Hollywood, CA

So I don't even to know where to begin with this blog. Its been so long seen I have last updated a few of you might of thought I dropped off the face of the Earth. I had a nice blog written when we were in Oregon, but the trip took a turn for the worst when our 88' Subaru was broken into in San Francisco. Matthias lost many important items including his laptop, passport, IPod, sunglasses, and spending cash :(. The thieves somehow did not take anything of mine though. The weird part about this was that we always take in our laptop at our destinations and this was the first time we left it in the car. The robbery happened in broad daylight in a nice part of SF Pacific Heights while we were at dinner. The police called Matthias during dinner and notified him of the break-in. The event definitely soured our trip, but we were both determined to move on and finish the trip on a strong note.

Here is a brief recap of what else happened since the last blog. We spent two days in Seattle staying with my college buddy Dayne. Highlights include eating Vietnamese and Thai food, stumbling upon a gay pride parade, and going to the Sunday market in the Fremont area of town. BTW, everybody out there must try Vietnamese food. It is tasty, cheap, and healthy. You can't beat that combination. We also visited a local casino in the Seattle area where I suggested we bump up the game to 5-10NL from the 3-5NL we were playing. One guy was all about it, but everyone else was against it given their silence. The funny thing about this nobody spoke up against my suggestion and everyone just went along and pulled out more money for the higher stakes. I single-handily raised the stakes and came away with a nice $640 profit in only 3 hrs. Matthias lost $200, but had a down outlook before the session. I am a firm believer in having a positive attitude before entering any session. Coincidence you tell me?? We then stayed in Portland for one night where I got ancupuncture at a local school for the first time ever for recurring stomach problems I've been having. I did not feel any different after the treatment, but ancupuncture is a cumulative process and I was pleased with my first visit. We then drove down the Oregon coastline to stay at Cape Blanco State Park for the night. This was by far the most scenic destination on our trip. In SF, we met up with my distant cousins Danny and Elisa. It seems Asians keep in touch with distant family as I have met my third-line cousin before. That is my grandmother's cousin's grandchildren. Haha!! BTW Danny and Elisa were really supportive after the robbery. We walked 6 to 7 mi in SF visiting all the day attractions and had terrific food at Chinese and Mexican joints. Our next stop was in Monterey which is south of SF where we both went skydiving from 18000 ft, which they claim is the highest drop point in the world!! It was a 90 second free fall and I was not nervous at all before the dive. I also skydived 4 years ago in Australia, but all I remember from that dive is jumping out and doing a few flips, then the parachute opening. It was the first time for Matthias and he was all gased up about the experience. We are about to leave LA for San Diego and I'll write about our exploits in LA in my next blog.

PS I plan on arriving in Las Vegas on July 4th and attempting to satellite in the ME. I feel I owe myself the opportunity given how good I've been running lately. Even if I fail (which I won't), I would like to play in cash games for a week or two durning the ME. The road trip will end for me in Las Vegas (how fitting) and I am looking for a cheap place to crash while Vegas. If anyone can help me out, e-mail me at edwardpham@hotmail.com. BTW, I am really low maintenance and don't need any special accomodations for ex. I am willing to sleep on a floor with my sleeping bag. Thanks everyone for your support!

Location: Buena Vista, CO

I have not updated this blog as of late, because we have been making long driving legs between stops of the trip. From Chicago, we drove through Wisconsin, Minnesota, and most of South Dakota to make it to our next stop. There is plenty to do in South Dakota, but all the attractions are near Mt. Rushmore which is on the western border of the state. Our first stop in SD was Badlands National Park. The park contains ever changing rock formations that erodes every time after it rains. The neat thing about this park was that there were no off limits inside the park and you were free to roam wherever you pleased. Matthias and I ended up hiking over 6 miles in the heat. Talk about a workout! That night we headed to Deadwood (place where Wild Bill got shot with Aces and eights) to find some poker action. Matthias did not join me at the casino as he has been fighting the cold ever since Myrtle Beach. We have been doing stuff constantly on this trip so he has not had the chance to recover :(. The inn that we stayed at had a small wedding reception that night. When I took the shuttle to the casino Cadillac Jack's, I was in the middle of the after wedding party (remember the reception was very small). The groom, bride, and a few of their friends were heading to the casino for some late night partying. I chatted them up and bought them drinks at the casino to ring in their holy union.

I found myself into the poker room and put myself on the list to a 10-100 spread limit HE game with a min buy-in of $500. I have never played spread limit before, but figured it would not be a tough adjustment. I ended up playing $3/hand blackjack and 2-10 spread limit for a couple hrs. before my seat opened up in the biggest game in town (I'm not joking). As I sat down, I felt a little out of place. It was a bunch of old guys with John Deere caps and a couple guys with cowboy hats on. Then there was me a 5'5'' Asian guy with a black Full Tilt hoody. The game was very passive and the winning strategy in the game was just to value bet your strong hands, because there was not much folding going on. I ran well as usual and took down a $570 profit in only 3 hrs. of play. The funniest part of the game was this one elderly lady. Now, I do not like to stereotype players, but I do notice some group of players play in similar fashions ex.( elderly=passive, women=tight-passive, young kid=aggressive) When I am new to a table, my only info are these stereotypes of these groups from past experience. When we 5-handed, this elderly lady just ran over the table for about an hour. She was raising many pots and taking them down with CBs on the flop. I stayed out her way as I was running cold during this stretch. She then told the table " You four are the weakest group of poker players I ever played against". I had to hold myself from outright laughter as it was too funny for me. I have never seen a woman be so aggressive in a poker game and then to trash talk afterwards was icing on the cake.

The next day Matthias and I were committed to a whole day of sightseeing. We first went to Mt. Rushmore, but both of us were surprised that the monument was not as big as we had imagined.

Mt. Rushmore



We then headed to Custer State Park where wildlife like buffalo, antelope, and donkeys could be seen. The donkeys had no shame as they would approach your car looking for a free hand out. This just reminded of me of the donkeys in the poker world after they go broke. The state park also had these tall rock needles that were pretty cool to see. The next day we took a one hour tour of Deadwood that gave you the history of the town and Wild Bill. The tour guide was hilarious and we learned some really neat stuff about Deadwood. I was disappointed to find out that Calamity Jane really had nothing to do with Wild Bill Hitchcock. She met Wild Bill once, became obsessed with him, and spread rumors that they were lovers after he passed away. What a way to force yourself into history huh?

Main Street in Deadwood



After three exhausting days in South Dakota, we headed to Colorado to see a friend of Matthias who lives in the mountains. During our drive in Wyoming, we drove by a town of Lost Springs that claimed a population of ONE. That is when you know you are in the middle of nowhere. Anyways, Matthias' friend promised of great outdoor activities when we got to Colorado and she apparently lives in a tent so I was interested in checking that out. This is when our trip took a turn for the worst as our 88' Subaru broke down in the mountains. They just don't make cars like they use to :). Luckily, somebody gave us a ride to the nearest town where we got the wagon towed to an auto mechanic. The timing belt is broken and it is going to take a couple days to fix so we are now stuck in Buena Vista. Luckily, this area is a hotbed for whitewater rafting, so that is what we did today. We both had a blast and I will definitely want to do some more rafting in the future. We are really getting pressed for time (2 1/2 weeks to do the entire west coast as well as the southwest) so we are going straight to Seattle after our wagon is repaired. Hopefully no more obstacles come our way as we cannot afford to deal with them right now!

Location: Chicago, IL

I last left you guys on the way to Myrtle Beach, SC. So we got there late last Friday night and decided to crash for the night to make it a full day on Saturday. Our campground was within walking distance of the beach so that was really nice. The beaches were full of high school seniors and college kids as I think schools had just let out in South Carolina. It was ridiculous to the amount of southern girls roaming around. This was great, but when I see girls on the street, they all seem they can be anywhere from 16 to 25. It seems like every girl you meet, you have to screen to make sure shes legal. That night we went to this club called Kryptonite, but it was nothing special. We were considering hitting up the Outer Banks in NC, but our campground neighbors recommended us to Chimney Rock, NC so we decided to go their instead. Chimney Rock was nature at its best with plenty of hiking, a 2250 ft waterfall, and scenic lake. We spent half a day their enjoying all the attractions. We were then on our way to Chicago to crash with Matthias' childhood friend Adrianna. The drive was too long from NC though, so we stopped by Lawernceburg, IN for a chance to get a rare poker session in.

The first night we got into Lawrenceburg, Matthias was sick so he decided to crash for the night. I headed over to the Argosy casino and they had one 2-5 NL table going. I decided to play 1-3 NL with a max buy-in of 300 while waiting for the 2-5 game. I was playing really reckless though, because I was antsy to play poker since the stakes were lower than I normally play and I also had not been in action for over a week now. On one hand, I had the 9d4d with 2 other players in a $150 pot on a board of 8hJh10d3d. I thought both players were weak so I decided to go AI for $200 in the dark before the river card came out just in case I missed my draw. A heart fell on the river and one of the players made a marginal call of my dark AI with the nut flush. I never make crazy plays like this and was disappointed with my lack of discipline in the session. I know to be successful at poker, you must play your best at all times and there was no excuse for my play. I finally got into the 2-5 NL game after a 3 hr. wait and ended the night down $500 (almost all the loss came from playing 1-3). The next day Matthias was feeling better so we both decided to get a few hours of poker in before we headed to Shy-town. I had a much better day and ended up taking down $800 in 4 hrs. in the 2-5 NL game. Matthias continued his sick run as he pocketed $640 in 4 hrs. at the 1-3 NL game. During the session, I would check in on Matthias periodically, and I saw he was making it $60 as his raise PF on certain occasions. What is this kid thinking!!?? When I asked him about the unusual PF raises, he just told me that the table was super-passive and people were playing poorly against him because he was making some unorthodox plays. I see his reasoning, but I don't think I would ever be opening up for 20X the BB in any NL cash game. For his first two ever cash game sessions, Matthias is crushing the game at $140/hr. Obviously, there NO way he can keep this up, but I'm still impressed at his play as a complete novice to the game. There are topics like implied odds, controlling pot size, and targeting weaker players that I would think would take some time to fully understand and apply, but Matthias claims to consider this facets of the game common sense.

Matthias crushing the $1/3 NL game



I ended up playing a total 11 hrs. for a profit of $300. I'm content considering how poorly I played at 1-3 NL. Overall, I thought the play at Argosy was extremely weak. People talked about their hands so much during play and gave away so much info about their hand. There were hardly any aggressive players to tangle with and made it a much easier time for me to run over the game. The first night playing 2-5 NL, I sat down with a guy who had over $5500 in front of him. I then saw him dwindle down to $500 within just a couple hrs. How freakin sick is that? This guy had no idea what he was doing and was consistently betting $500 into $100 pots on a regular basis. These tactics caught up to him though. The only thing I didn't like about Argosy was the $5 rake/pot plus a $1 deposit for the bad beat. I would definitely recommend anybody who is in the area to check out the games their as they are GREAT!!!

Heading towards Chicago, we got pulled over again by a local cop in Lawrenceburg. We apparently made an illegal U-turn and the cop was convinced he smelled alcohol on Matthias. Luckily, Matthias had not been drinking at the casino so we had nothing to worry about. The cop searched our car for alcohol and gave Matthias FOUR sobriety tests ending in a breath-a-lyzer came up .0 for BAL. He finally released us and Matthias claims that the smell of alcohol surfaces whenever he is sick. I am now putting the over/under of us getting pulled over at 2.5. Do I have any takers on this prop? We finally got to Chicago a couple days ago and did so much here. We visited the Sears Tower, got Matthias a much needed haircut, got 1 hr. massages at a local institute for just $30, had Chicago style pizza, and went to Navy Pier (shopping, dining, and tours on the lake). My favorite part of Chicago though was Millennium Park. It was in the heart of downtown with a waterfall with a TV screen as the wall. Check it out...



The park also had this huge bean that was 50 ft high and you could see your reflection on it at many crazy ass angles. There was a lawn concert hall and were able to catch a couple pieces from a local orchestra. A highway was right by the concert hall, but they built a steel bridge that was able to block off the noise of the traffic on the highway. Words cannot do this park justice so if you're ever in Chicago just check it out! I really enjoyed Chicago as it had parks everywhere within the city, the people were dressed casual considering the size of the city, and there seems to be so much to do. Chicago definitely has been my favorite stop thus far. We are preparing on a long drive to South Dakota (I've heard so many great things about this state) so I am excited to get there!!

Location: Atlanta, GA

Hey guys, how is everybody doing? I left you guys from my last entry in Key West. Key West was obviously beautiful with its Carribean-esque beaches. The only night we were there Matthias and I went out to eat for the first time on trip (We’re trying to keep expenses low by eating out as little as possible). We went to this Jamaican restaurant and had the local delicacies fried conch and key lime pie. All the food there was good, but the key lime pie was amazing!!!! Key limes are like regular limes but super limier so the taste is much more intense. After dinner, we walked Duval St. (where most Key West bars are located), but not too many people were out. It must not be tourist season yet in Florida, because all the destinations we hit up are lacking people. I guess everybody is out at Vegas for the WSOP . The next day we left Key West to head towards South Beach, At that point, we were really in a rush as our trip is only suppose to be 5 weeks, but its taken 1 week just to go through Florida. South Beach was really scenic with its beaches and women. The women there remind me of those music shows on Telemmundo. Just HOT Latin women everywhere!! We didn’t even spend the night in South Beach (in our rush) and headed to Jacksonville to crash for the night.

The next morning while driving we stumbled by the Anheuser-Busch plant in J-ville. Matthias and I decided to take one of their free tours. The tour was cool, but the guides kept repeating the same facts over and over again. It was propaganda as its worst. They might as well have chanted “Drink Bud” over the speakers. They did have a bar in the plant at the end of the tour where everyone got two free drinks. The bar was awesome as there were barely any people, leather seats, a fireplace, and play hockey table game. The tour guide told me that sometimes people hang out there all day. I normally don’t drink, but with free samples I couldn’t pass up the offer. We then headed to Atlanta to stay with two of Matthias’ friends from South Alabama. On the way, we got pulled over for “drifting through lanes” and the cop was convinced we had narcotics. He asked up about narcotics like four times during the stop. Eventually, he just let us go with a warning, but I think we shouldn’t of got pulled over in the first place. We arrive into the ATL that night and went out to Buckhead, a strip in Atlanta with a lot of bars. We didn’t know exactly where to go in Buckhead as Matthias’ friends are new to the area and end up at this Latin club. I consider myself an OK dancer, but these guys were the real deal. The next day we went to the Georgia state aquarium and then drank at the house for the night. Now we are on our way to Myrtle Beach. We are going to continue up the coast to Virginia and then head out towards Chicago.

I don’t expect to play poker until Indiana and I am really itching to play. The past few months I’ve been running well in poker and my confidence is at an all time high. I’m ready to start playing in bigger games and take my poker playing to the next level. As for this trip, I’m really worried about not having enough time. I want to be able to enjoy the places we get to, but the driving we’re doing has been ridiculous. This county is so big and with so much stuff to do, I don’t know if 5 weeks will be enough to cover all the places we want to hit up. I’m trying not to worry about the time constraints and make the best of our current situation. Between driving, camping, going out, teaching Matthias, and playing poker it has been a hectic journey thus far.