First of all, huuuuuuuuge thanks to Scot and Kyle at TwoRags and Dave and everyone else at the Commerce Casino for making this happen. It was a great time, and very much appreciated. One of my favorite parts of traveling for poker is going to different sporting events around the world. So the deal was that the Commerce had arranged for a limo to pick us up and drive us to and from the game, and we had VIP tickets for the Commerce's box. Myself, Thayer, Vivek, and Ray ended up going.

The limo was set to pick us up at 7 at the casino. We had a little trouble finding the driver but we still managed to get to the Staples Center in time for tipoff. As we're walking around the side of the stadium to the VIP entrance we get a little taste of Hollywood. Some perfect 10 blonde girl is walking up to the gate and paparazzi are going crazy snapping photos of her. Unfortunately I never got a good enough look to see who she was, but it was definitely one of those things you just don't really see anywhere else. So we get up to the booth and find Scot, and meet Dave from the Commerce (thanks again guys). The booth is pretty cool, and there's lots of free food and drink so I'm quite happy with it. The first half of the game is probably the biggest annihilation I have ever seen in professional basketball. LA was pressing hard on defense and Atlanta couldn't hold on to the ball for 10 seconds at a time. It took a string of miracle threes before the end of the half for Atlanta to not finish down 40. When coach was teaching them to beat the press during timeout, they must have been as distracted by this as I was:



Anyways around half time Norm McDonald came up to the booth and he was a lot of fun to hang out with, definitely a funny guy in person. Here's a shot of everyone in the booth:



And another shot of the Laker girls just because. Unfortunately, we were a bit too high up and I didn't quite have enough zoom on my camera to get a real good shot. This time they're wearing the traditional Laker gold.



So all-in-all it was a great night. VIP treatment, basketball, free beer, Laker girls, and celebrities. What more could you ask for? Back on the grind with the $1500 LAPC event tomorrow.

Mike

I'm running so hot online since I arrived in LA. Today I played a tournament on Everest Poker. $100 freezeout and I finished 7th for $1100. So what you ask? Check this out:

http://www.everestpoker.com/en/livethedream/

If you read through all the information on that page and then realize that most of the people that have qualified seem to be $5 satellite winners you'll understand why I think I should hopefully be a lock to sign a $100K sponsorship deal with Everest Poker at the end of March. I'm looking forward to hearing more details about the live casting from them. Strange as it seems this may very likely be my biggest tournament score ever.

Right after this tournament ended I met Scot from TwoRags and got a ride to the studio for the single table tournament. The lineup was me, Thayer, Deeb, Serge (adanthar), Nath, Vivek (psyduck), Shane (shaniac), Todd Brunson, Layne Flack, and Jose Canseco. It was definitely an interesting mix of players and the table was a lot of fun for the short time I spent at it. Sadly, I was the first person to bust, and I was eliminated by none other than Jose Canseco. I basically played 3 hands.

Hand 1: 4K starting chips, 25/25 blinds. Shaniac raised UTG to 100, Nath calls UTG+1, I make it 400 2 seats later with AKss. Todd Brunson in MP thinks for a bit and then cold calls which is really confusing, I know he has a huge hand but I don't really think he'd play AA this way, even KK I think he reraises a lot. Shane folds but Nath comes along as well. Flop K87 2 diamonds. Nath checks, I bet 800, Todd shoves for 1450 more, Nath folds, and I call. Todd has the AKdd and I'm getting freerolled. He catches a diamond on the river and I'm left with 1300.

Hand 2: Jose Canseco opens to 200 in MP, I shove 1225 in the SB with AKo and pick it up.

Hand 3: 25/50 now. Canseco opens to 200 in MP, Nath calls in late position, I shove 88 in the BB for 1400, Canseco instacalls which forces Nath to fold 99. Canseco has ATo (not exactly the best call), and flops an A to bust me.

After I busted though I got to go in the other room and watch the hole card cameras and do some commentary on the tournament. It definitely took some getting used to but I think I actually did a fairly decent job, and it was a fun experience. They hooked us up with all sorts of snacks and alcohol too so it was a good time despite the early bustout. So, what am I going to do tommorow to follow a day like this you ask? Probably just relax all day, maybe play a little bit of live cash or something, and then Scot came through with the hookup for box seats at the Lakers game in the evening. Life is going pretty ok right now.

Mike

This title would have worked a lot better if I was able to win a tournament today, but I'm going to use it anyways. I managed to save my Sunday with a 3rd place finish in the $150 tournament on Full Tilt for $11.6K. I was also chipleader in the $200 rebuy as we reached the money but I lost some small pots somehow and then lost a coinflip so I only cashed for $1800. Before those tournaments the day was going pretty terribly. I was busting every tournament I played in record time, which wasn't so bad because it's relatively painless compared to going deep in everything then bubbling. The biggest success of the weekend though was finally winning my EPT Monte Carlo package. I had finished 2nd in two of the Step 6 STT Monte Carlo satellites when only first gets the seat, including one where I lost A8o to A6s all-in preflop for almost all the chips. This time I managed not to bubble the $1000 MTT supersatellite after having the chiplead for a decent amount of the middle stages of the tournament. The package includes the $10K Euro buy-in, hotel for the week, and $1500 for travel expenses. I'm also planning to play EPT San Remo in Italy a couple weeks before Monte Carlo and then figure out some plans for hanging out in Europe for the week in-between the tournaments. I haven't won a seat for that one yet though.

So tomorrow the guys from TwoRags are organizing a single table tournament that will be filmed by the Live at the Bike guys with hole cards and everything to put on their new website I'm told they're working on. It's going to be a $1000 buy-in, with a line-up of mostly TwoRags bloggers and online guys, but I think Vanessa Rousso is also going to play, and there is one other special player: Jose Canseco. Yup, that Jose Canseco. I'm looking forward to this one for sure, it should be a lot of fun and a good experience. Check the blog tomorrow to find out if Roger did it.

So far the guys from TwoRags have been great. I met Kyle the other night and he took a bunch of us for dinner during the $1K event. Definitely seems like a real nice guy with a lot of good ideas. I finally get to meet Scot tomorrow before the tournament, he's been the guy I've mostly talked to on AIM about all the different ideas and things they have going on with the site, and is at least partly responsible for getting me to haul my lazy ass out here. They definitely do have some connections in the city, and it's nice to finally be able to put faces to names to screennames. A lot more online players I know are arriving this week for the main event so there should be a lot of fun times ahead. Now that FTOPS is over I'll be leaving the hotel room a lot more.

Mike

OK not really but the stuff I do sometimes makes me wonder. I fucked up really bad today in the $2500 NL LAPC event. I'm not going to tell you the hand because it's too embarassing and you'd lose any respect you may happen to have for me as a poker player, but the cliffs notes is I made a terrible laydown preflop with 16 players left. To rub it in I obviously had the best hand and would have held up to give me an average stack which would be pretty sweet so deep in the tournament, espeically considering I'd been struggling on a shortstack for a while. Then I shoved TT over a raise 2 hands later and a guy behind me obv woke up with aces to punish me for my idiocy. So anyways I cashed for a bit under $6k or something. I guess fatigue probably was a factor playing for 11 hours but that's part of the game and no excuse. Seriously I'm really bad at poker stop reading this blog. Anyways tomorrow is the big $2500 FTOPS event which I get to play now at least. Hopefully I can sleep off my tilt. I mean seriously good players are supposed to capitalize on these few opportunities we get late in tournaments not do stupid shit and blow every chance at a 6-figure win. Sorry for the swearing mom. I'm done now.

Mike

I know that's an enormous amount of money. To be able to win that much in a day I should be ecstatic. Lots of people probably don't make that in a year and just think I'm an asshole for not appreciating how lucky I am. I guess you'd have to be a poker player, in particular a tournament player, to really understand. That's just the game. I just finished 6th in the FTOPS Event #12, a $300 rebuy tournament with 6-handed tables and over 1300 players, for $42.5K. I played for 9 hours, generally getting very lucky, overcoming the few times I got unlucky, and for the most part playing some pretty damn good poker, especially towards the end. But then I ran into an unfortunate spot at the final table where I got put to a tough decision, and in retrospect, not because of the results of the hand but because of all the factors I failed to consider, I think I made a mistake which cost me tens of thousands of dollars in equity. I was so focused on just playing well and winning, and to fall short is incredibly disappointing. 1st place paid over a quarter million dollars, it was the biggest final table I've ever made, and to screw it up after getting so close is just a huge letdown.

Anyways here's the hand. It's obviously a spot that can go either way based on so many situational factors. I feel like the key factor I missed is that the villian doesn't really know much about me, and from what he's likely seen of my play probably does not think I'm very good as I've gotten my money in bad and drawn out a few times leading up to the final table when he likely had my table open to watch. He's therefore significantly less likely to be bluffing when he makes the large turn bet and I think I should have gotten away from my hand.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2100640

For some reason I seem to go through these stretches where instead of making a lot of these good but tough folds like I usually do I just start calling everything. I had several hands like this today where I paid off big bets in spots I typically get away from, though everything is so situational some of those calls may have been correct. Anyways I'm off to replay these hands in my head a few thousand more times before I can get to sleep. Next live tournament will be the $2500 NL event on Friday, probably play some more online stuff today I guess.

Mike