I’m undertaking some big lifestyle changes this year. Quick recap: I worked regular jobs after graduating from university from 1988-2002, ran my own company as a consultant from 2002-2006 and gave that up for poker in 2007. I’ve made a reasonable living from poker for the past two years, but somehow I’ve lost some of my passion for the game over the last year or so.

I went back to part-time consultancy work in mid-2008 and honestly enjoyed doing that more than the poker. Recently I was offered an opportunity to return to full-time employment for a company based in Montreal, Canada. It was an easy decision to accept their offer as I’ll be getting a good salary plus benefits at a solid company with excellent prospects for growth and personal career development.

Some of you may know that around 2 years ago, I turned down an offer of employment in Dubai to pursue my poker career. I don’t regret that decision one bit. The company in Dubai seemed pretty flaky, the Dubai economy was going crazy bat-shit with ridiculously spiralling accommodation and living costs, and in hindsight the resulting crash would most probably have negatively affected me if I had been there.

I’m very happy that I spent the last two years pursuing my poker dreams while living in paradise and enjoying many new experiences. My life really was a paradise: sharing a luxury apartment with my beautiful and caring wife on a marina in the Costa Del Sol area of Southern Spain; sleeping-in until noon or later; swimming, sunbathing and working-out in the afternoons; and playing poker in the evenings.

Reflecting on that today, the day that I left paradise, it felt like it had been a two-year holiday of fun and relaxation, although I know I went through some tough times due to runs of bad luck at the poker tables. After that I really will be returning to an ordinary world, which coincidentally is one of my favourite songs by Duran Duran. This segment reflects very much how I feel about it:

But I wont cry for yesterday, there’s an ordinary world,
Somehow I have to find.
And as I try to make my way, to the ordinary world,
I will learn to survive.

Before finding my ordinary world in Canada, however, I still have my summer in Las Vegas to look forward to, which will certainly be far from ordinary and hopefully extra-ordinary if I can make a big score. I discussed it with poker playing friends, as well as my wife, and we agreed that even winning $500k and/or a bracelet wouldn’t be enough to stop me going back to work, but if I made the November Nine then that would be a game-changer. I can still dream of that, at least for the next few weeks.

As my plane ascended over the Mediterranean today, yet another perfect day in paradise, I felt a little sad. We wheeled around back towards the land and I could see my apartment block in the marina. Then we nudged forward, over the Sierra Nevada mountains and it edged away, finally slipping out of view, perhaps forever. I wasn’t really sad though because it had been a great experience. I smile as I recalled a line from The Cure’s Lovesong:

However far away I will always love you

We redrew for Day 2 with 41 players remaining on 5 tables with average ~27k. I got drawn at the "TV Table" (event is streamed live on some obscure Euro website, I think) with a very different set of opponents to Day 1:

Seat 1: Young Danish guy, (Owner of LiiPoker - Cake skin that sponsors the tourney series), plays lots of pots, ~40k
Seat 2: Middle-Aged Spanish guy who seems to be not only a poker retard, but literally a genuine real llfe retard. He spends an age hollywooding every single hand before mostly folding and sits on a short-stack ~8k
Seat 3: Empty
Seat 4: Middle-Aged Danish guy from LiiPoker, plays lots of pots and likes to 3-bet big, especially over his Danish friends, ~18k
Seat 5: Me, 22k
Seat 6: Hot Russian Girl, seems fairly tight with a calculating mathematical approach on ~35k
Seat 7: Middle-Aged Spanish lady from my Day 1 table on ~15k
Seat 8: Empty
Seat 9: Older Spanish guy, seems to be quite tight, ~15k
Seat 10: ~30 yr old Danish guy from LiiPoker plays lots of pots, ~25k

I'm card dead for the first couple of orbits and sit tight. The three Danish guys from LiiPoker all seem to play a typical Scandinavian LAG style, but I am a little concerned that they seem to be playing a lot of 3-bet pots with each other without any showdowns. It is possible that they are colluding to win more than their fair share of the blinds/antes, but I figure that given my table position it should help me overall to take such a possibility into consideration in my decisions.

The Russian girl quickly busts the Spanish lady in a pot where she obviously and correctly calculated that her 98 had enough equity on a 975 board versus the obvious all-in overpair (which turned out to be JJ).

We're then joined by two more players:

Seat 7: Young Spanish guy that was at my Day 1 table for a short while at end of Day 1, seems to be quite aggressive and has a reshove stack ~15k
Seat 8: The English guy from my Day 1 table with ~40k

Within a few hands of their arrival, I pick-up my first big hand of the day:

My Stack ~20k, Seat 8 ~40k, Blinds 300/600/75

Our over-betting English friend makes it a massive 2600 UTG and it folds to my button where I peek at two red Kings. Although he knows my game from Day 1 and he therefore knows that a raise from me here will appear very strong, I figure his large UTG opener is also pretty strong so I 3-bet to 6500. He thinks about it for a while, but unfortunately folds.

I pick up a few uncontested pots, including one with two red Kings again, open one pot where I have to fold to a 3-bet shove from Seat 9 and then I get my next big hand:

My Stack ~24k, Seat 8 ~35k, Blinds 400/800/100

Folds to me in MP with TT and I open for my usual 2200. Another overbet from matey-boy as he makes it 7000 from the SB. He took a while to decide on making his 3-bet and from his demeanour I felt he was not that strong with a medium strength hand that could not call a 4-bet, even though he would be getting good odds. So as soon as he dropped his 7k into the pot, I confidentally shoved and he rolled his eyes and insta-folded, telling me he had AJ.

That got me up to 32k. In the meantime Seat 1 had donked off half of his stack playing too many pots, Seat 2 had annoyed the hell out of everyone by (very slowly) blinding off then doubling up, Seat 10 had lost a little to Seat 4 and in the biggest pot of the day, Seat 4 had doubled through the Russian girl when his AK outran her KcQc on a AJXcc flop. He now sat on a massive stack when my next interesting hand arose:

My Stack ~30k, Seat 4 ~60k, Blinds 500/1000/100

Folds to Seat 4's button and he makes it 2500 and I look down at two red Kings for the third time today! I've chipped-up from 22k to 30k without any showdowns and feel that I have played enough hands to have generated a less than tight image. I've also commented on some of the Danes' plays to the extent that I hope they feel I am getting tired of their antics and want to aggressively play back at them. As such I think I have to 3-bet here. Also, if I just call, the BB will be priced-in and I don't want to play a 3-way pot OOP with KK. I try to mix-up my bet-size to make him think I'm weak by making it 8000, but after a short pause for thought he folds. Damn! I can't seem to get these guys to play a big pot with me.

A few hands later I pick up AK, open for 2700 from MP and Seat 10 jams his 15k into the pot. I insta-call and lose to 66. Sigh! Down to 18k and an obvious resteal stack, I'm just waiting for one of the Danes to open the pot on my next BB. Unfortunately theres a 3500 raise from the tight retard in Seat 2 (with ~9k behind, lol) and a call from Seat 4 and I don't think I can get a squeeze through with J9o. The next hand Seat 10 obliges with a 2750 opening bet. I mentally tell myself I've got KK again, barely look at my measly 53o and confidentally shove. Bad timing. He insta-snaps me with QQ and although I turned a gutshot I'm out in ~32nd place just before the dinner break.

I don't mind my shove as I know it is a +EV spot with ATC versus that player's open bet frequency with my image, but after playing for ~10 hours without any showdowns, to lose the only two in quick succession at the end and go from a comfy stack to out was quite a blow, but one I know I'll have to get used to in Vegas.

My friend Hugh made the dinner break, my (very beautiful) wife and her very beautiful friend showed up and I quicky forgot about my bustout and enjoyed a nice dinner in the casino. We railed Hugh for a while after dinner while most of the remaining field ogled my wife and her friend, but then he busted out in 20th and we were done with the casino. We went out for a few drinks in Marbella, enjoyed a wonderful long relaxing lunch in the sun today and everything's cool as I prepare for Vegas.

I'm leaving for Vegas in just a few days and I've completely suspended online play and started to focus on the things I need to be thinking about for live play, especially live play versus weak fields. A perfect warm-up for that is this weekend's Marbella Poker Classic (MPC).

The MPC is a series of six monthly tournaments each with up to 120 runners and featuring a deep stack structure. You get 7500 chips for the initial EUR 250 buy-in and can purchase one 7500 chip rebuy or add-on for another EUR 250 anytime during the first three levels. Essentially it is 15000 chips for EUR 500, but some nits don't buy the second set of chips.

The structure is great with 25/50, 50/100, 75/150, 100/200, 150/300, 150/300/25, 200/400/50, 250/500/50 and 300/600/75 planned for Day 1. As such there is no need to gamble early and you can sit back and wait for good spots to accumulate.

Countering this feature however is the absolutely terribad awful play and most of the mostly-Spanish field. This feature makes it optimal to play more pots than normal due to the opportunity to accumulate the fish’s chips before others do. My opening table featured:

Seat 1: Youngish Spanish guy with no clue about bet sizing and a very bad bluffer
Seat 2: Middle-aged Spanish lady who can't let a hand go and plays way too many pots
Seat 3: Empty
Seat 4: Me
Seat 5: Older rich-looking Spanish guy who calls every hand and every bet with ATC and is literally just giving his chips away and appears to not have the faintest clue about poker
Seat 6: Youngish loose aggro Spanish guy loves to raise limpers and 3-bet
Seat 7: Older Spanish guy who is a fixture in local cash games who is terribad, but at this table he is the best Spanish player by far as he actually does sometimes know how to fold a hand
Seat 8: Empty
Seat 9: Young Spanish guy who makes massive overbets, c-bets and silly river bluffs, but who can fold a missed-hand to aggressive play
Seat 10: Older English guy who is semi-decent, but prone to overbetting

Pretty much everyone at this table has no clue how to size bets and generally just throws random amounts of chips out without counting the pot or their stacks.

After sitting tight and witnessing much of the above for a couple of orbits, I play my first hand of note (nobody has yet taken the add-on).

My Stack ~7500, Seat 2 ~6500, Blinds 25/50

Seat 2 opens for 300 from EP, I call with Ac7c and two other callers. Flop KcJc2x. Seat 2 bets 600. Normally I would raise NFD in position, but I know this woman is never folding and likely paying me off if I hit so I just call. Others fold. Turn Qh. Seat 2 checks. I check. River 3s. Seat 2 checks. I know I've said she never folds, but actually with the same betting sequence she folded to a river bet from the guy on my left a few hands earlier. So I take a 1500 stab at it, but she snaps me off with AQ. My first significant hand and I've played it really bad. I mentally tell myself off and to focus better. I immediately buy the add-on so that my stack covers the table. Next hand of note:

My Stack ~12500, Seat 1 ~9000, Blinds 25/50

Seat 1 opens from EP for 300 (see what I mean about bet-sizing) and I've got AKo. I decide that raising is just pointless as I always get called and not just by Seat 1. So I just call and 2 more callers. Flop KJ2dd. Seat 1 bets 600, I think he has nothing and he bluffs multi-streets, so I just call and others fold. Turn is a blank and he bets 1000. For same reason I just call again. River completes the diamond flush draw and he quickly checks. Perhaps I missed some value here, but I checked behind because getting C/R here puts me in a tough spot. He basically mucked without showing.

My Stack ~14500, Seat 10 ~9500, Blinds 50/100

As yet, nobody has taken the rebuy except me so I'm still covering the table. Lady in Seat 2 limps UTG and I look down at two black Aces. I know that she is never folding to a raise once she has limped preflop, so I make it 600 to get more value. Folds to Seat 10 in SB and he thinks for a while then calls the 600. That was quite a surprise as he has played pretty tight so far. Seat 2 calls and we see a flop KcJd2c. Checks to me and I figure with 1900 in the pot, I need to make a decent sized bet to make any draws pay, so I fire out 1500. Seat 10 thinks for a quite a while and it looks like he is about to call, but at the last moment he raises to 5000. Seat 2 folds and I consider my situation. I feel that it is unlikely that he called so much with 22, unlikely that he doesn’t raise KK, but JJ is right in his wheelhouse. I ask him outright "Do you really have JJ" and something about his reaction tells me he does, but I'm not sure and don't want to make a hero fold only to find out I'm wrong, so I take some time to consider other hands. Can he have KJ, QT or a flush draw? I don't see him calling with KJ/QT, but he could be calling with a flush draw and pushing his luck on that flop (he can still take the 7500 chips rebuy if he loses here), but I can only see him doing that with the nut flush draw. Then the key piece of info comes to me like a light bulb switching on, but I check my cards to make sure: I have the Ac so he can't have the NFD. I'm now almost certain he has a set of Jacks, so I fold my AA face-up while asking him to show me. He shows me KK for top set. Phew!

He told me that I'd played so tight that my big raise to 600 made him suspicious that I was very strong, so he wanted to peel a flop before committing himself with KK, just in case an Ace flopped. He said if I had made it 300 or 400 he would almost certainly have re-raised me preflop, so my overraise saved me from falling to ~5k. I was pretty pleased with myself for getting away with so little damage and moved on with more confidence.

Somehow, however, I bled off chips for the next couple of levels missing every flop without any significant hands to speak of. I'm down to ~7800 while I watch as the Spanish players try to outdo each other as to who can spew off their chips in the most terribad manner. The beneficiary is mostly the English guy in Seat 10 who builds a big stack by constantly hitting flops and getting paid

My Stack ~7800, Seat 6 ~9000, Blinds 150/300/25

We're just back from dinner break and into the antes already. The TD seems to have decided to skip the 150/300 level without antes.

UTG+1, I look down at two black Aces once again and make it 900 (3X has been my standard open raise size, even though others have made it anywhere up to 12X). Seat 6 has been aggressively 3-betting and already caught me trying to steal with this tactic. He makes it 2400. This seems to be an unusually small 3-bet from him as he has usually made it 3-4 times the opening bet, so I think he must have a big hand. As such I figure that he will be getting 2-1 if I shove and surely he can’t find a fold. I shove. He folds telling me "against you I'm no better than a coin flip" - based on that comment, I'm pretty sure he folded AK, which is pretty amazing for a Spaniard, but I had been the tightest player at the table so I guess that counted against me.

Still I had halted the slide and got myself back into 5 figures. The very next hand I pick up KK UTG and once again make it 900. I'm annoyed to see everyone fold (honestly there have been very few hands where this table has folded to a single bet).

The next big hand I play is my first bluff since my failed river attempt in Lvl1:

My Stack ~12.5k, Seat 10 ~30k, Blinds 150/300/25

Seat 6 bets 900, Seat 9 calls, Seat 10 calls OTB, SB folds and I look down at Td6d in the BB (Seats 1 and 3 are empty). There is over 3k in the pot and only 600 for me to call off less than 5% of my stack, so I make a speculative call. Flop K84dd. I check expecting one of the two EP players to bet, but they both check and look very disinterested in the pot. I've watched both of them for long enough to know that both have missed and I'm sure Seat 10 has seen the same thing. He bets out 4k, slightly more than the size of the pot. I immediately put him on a steal and don't think he has much if anything of that board. He has generally played pretty solid, but over-betting is his biggest leak. I figure out my remaining stack and the pots odds. Do I have fold equity? Well, I am offering him slightly over 2-1 to call if I move in and he can certainly afford to call given his stack-size. I think for a while shuffling chips. I'd already done this before betting when I showed down big hands and felt that I could use this as a reverse tell this time. So after thinking and shuffling chips for the requisite amount of time, I announced all-in. He quickly folded and I'd almost doubled my stack with a sweet semi-bluff.

Nothing much happened during the next level, and then this hand came up during what turned out to be the last level of the day:

My Stack ~23k, Seat 10 ~35k, Blinds 250/500/50

I feel I've got a fairly tight solid image and open with JdTd from MP into Seat 10's BB. All others fold and he calls the extra 850. He's defended his BB a lot and generally got lucky. Although he isn't the softest spot on the table, he's still not that good and I feel that playing him in-position after the flop is generally a +EV prospect for me. It just so happens that I've picked-up playable hands versus him all day whereas I've missed out on getting into very many pots with some of the Spanish fish.

The flop came KJTss and he leads into it for 4000. Again he is over-betting the pot, as he has done quite often and I feel that shoving here is normally the best play, but given that I shoved over his last 4000 bet and got him off the hand, he will call me this time and there was something about his demeanour that told me he wasn't folding. So I decided to peel to see where the turn would take the hand. Well it was a sharp u-turn to hell as the dealer laid out the worst card in the deck for me, the obvious Ace of Spaces! He quickly checked and I reluctantly checked behind and silently prayed one time for my 4 outer on the river. The river blanked and he confidently bet 5000. This was the easiest fold of the day and following the usual form of showing my hand so that he would show his, he obligingly showed my Ks5s for the nuts. He told me he was definitely going with his hand if I shoved, so I dodged another bullet there. Double Phew!

The last hand of the night:

My Stack ~17850k, Seat 7 ~28k, Blinds 250/500/50

Seat 7 was fairly new to the table, middle-aged English guy who I knew to be a fairly tight player. He limped UTG+1 and it was a limp-fest as the next five players limped behind, before it folded to my SB and I looked down at 99. There was 4250 in the pot and nobody looked particularly strong. The only guy I was worried about was the original limper, but I felt from a stack-size perspective that he would only risk more than half of his stack on the last hand of the night on a monster (Chip Average was around 26k). So I figured that shoving here adds almost 25% to my stack with very little risk. After thinking and chip shuffling for a while, I confidently slid my stack into the pot. Seat 7 thought for quite a while, but finally reluctantly folded and everyone else insta-folded to enable me to end the night with 22100, not far below the average and over 35BBs for Day 2's 300/600/75 level.

I felt it was a tough day where I got off to a shaky start in my first live deepstack tourney for a few months, but I made a super laydown with the AA, kept patient during a grim run if cards and flops and finally got rewarded with a little surge late in the day that put me in good shape for Day 2.

I know that I said that this blog would be about my Vegas fashion choices (and I’ve since extended that idea to include a discussion of other players’ fashion choices and what that usually says about them as poker players), but that can wait for my next blog and first I’d like to talk about getting fit for Vegas. And by that I mean physical fitness, which itself promotes mental fitness and enables us to become better poker players.

I started to think about getting fit for Vegas during my visit to the Aussies Millions in January. I’d let myself get into pretty bad shape, to the extent that most of my trousers did not fit me very comfortably and some of my shirts were too tight. Moreover when I looked at myself in the mirror I was disgusted at the fat belly that I saw.

I believe that my lack of physical condition and comfort in Melbourne led directly to deterioration of my mental performance and concentration and, as a result, some bad poker decisions. I also believe that the two times that I succumbed to tilt during the series were due to bad physical/mental conditioning, including when I tilted off lots of my chips near to the end of Day 1 of the Main Event. I hadn’t been able to mentally accept that a chip-handling mistake by one of my opponents led to losing a bunch of my chips that I wouldn’t otherwise have lost. I feel that if I had been in better physical condition, and therefore less tired at the end of a long day, that I would have been less inclined to tilt in that spot.

I also remember being very jealous of watching Bond18, Timex and Atimos (Yevgeniy Timoshenko) perform a sprinting + drinking challenge at the end of our day out at the park playing kickball. Even though these guys are all much younger than me and likely still able to out-sprint me today, it would have been plain ridiculous for me to try to compete in that challenge at the time, as well as half-killing me from a couple hundred yard sprint. It may also be no coincidence that these three physically fit guys have also turned-in some impressive live tourney results.

As soon as I returned home from Oz in late January, therefore, I started going regularly to the gym and eating more healthily. Most people don’t realise how long it takes to get into good shape. They see that they’re doing something where they’d like to look good in a month’s time and start to get into shape. But they’re already too late. A guy in his 20s needs a good 6-8 weeks on a disciplined fitness and diet program to get into good shape. Those guys can exercise every day and recover quickly enough for it to do them good rather than harm. That’s because their bodies are still producing Human Growth Hormone (HGH), which promotes physical recovery and higher metabolism.

When you get into you 30s or, like me, your early 40s, your body has stopped producing HGH and you suffer from lower metabolism and need longer to recover from exercise. People my age can only strenuously exercise around 3-4 times per week and need around 3-4 months to get into good shape. By strenuous exercise I mean stuff like running a few miles or lifting heavy weights. Everyone can do a little light exercise every day like walking or cycling, but it’s only the strenuous exercises that really enable you to change your body shape by promoting the growth of muscle and the burning and reduction of body fat.

From the end of January until now, therefore, I’ve followed around a 4 month program to get into good shape. I’m pretty much where I want to be now, although if I had my druthers I might want to be a little more ripped (i.e. less body fat), but at my age that’s probably not as healthy as it looks and hard to achieve. I’m now fitting into all my trousers and shirts, I’ve reduced my body fat, added a little muscle definition and feel good when I look at myself in the mirror.

I’ve done this gradually through a process of exercise and diet. Most people don’t really understand how nutrition works and condemn themselves to a lifetime of obesity. I’ve never actually been obese, but always struggled with a little too much body fat. I used to be the typical office worker skipping breakfast, grabbing a sandwich for lunch, working late in the evening and then having a big main meal with a ton of carbs before bed. This is such a bad way to eat and of course you feel hungry during the day following such a diet so you end-up snacking on unhealthy biscuits and sugary treats.

My current diet, on the other hand, is both enjoyable and healthy. I love to eat and you’ll never catch me making protein shakes or eating meal replacement bars (at least not normally – I might make an exception to this during live tourney play where anything else is impractical, but generally I want to eat a good balanced healthy diet).

A typical day starts with the most important meal: breakfast. OK, so I get up at 11:30am and typically eat this around noon, but its breakfast for me and it comprises a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, a cup of tea with honey and lemon, two slices of whole-wheat toast (no spread), a two-egg omelette and a bowl of gazpacho (chilled tomato soup). The juice gives me a quick energy boost to get me going, the toast gives me slow-release carbs to keep my energy levels good for a few hours, the eggs give me protein and essential omega-3 fatty acids and the soup is an excellent source of vitamins and other healthy compounds. It’s around 500-600 calories, which as 1/3 of my daily intake is just about right. It gives me the energy levels to keep going for the next few hours.

On my workout days, after letting that settle for an hour or so, it is off to the gym for my exercise. I always start with a 5 minute warm-up on the rowing machine followed by either a cardio session or a weight + cardio session. Either way I’ll aim to be burning around 1000 extra calories from my workouts on top of the 1800-2000 calories that I’ll naturally burn through the day.

After getting home from the gym, I’ll usually have a healthy afternoon snack comprising a bio-yoghurt drink (or just a glass of milk) and tuna + a little mayonnaise on one slice of whole-wheat toast. That’s around 300 calories to keep me going while I play poker.

As an online poker player, I’ll usually fire-up a few tourneys starting at 6pm and play through until around 2am. During this session my wife will bring me dinner around 9pm. That’s still 5-6 hours before I go to sleep, which is quite important, but more importantly it will be a healthy meal with a reasonable portion size. I go for low fat proteins such as chicken, turkey and fish, along with vegetables followed by fresh fruit for desert. The evenings are not a good time for too many carbs so I don’t normally have anything like potatoes, rice or pasta with my meal. It will generally be around 600 calories so as not to fill me up too much (otherwise I might become drowsy when I need to be at my most alert while playing my tourneys).

At the end of the night I’ll have another 300 calorie healthy snack around an hour before sleep. This gets my daily intake to around 1800-2000 calories. On the days that I don’t exercise, therefore, I’ll be just about calorie neutral. When I exercise I’ll be burning extra calories, which means a reduction in my body fat.

Most people don’t realise how difficult it is to reduce their body fat. One pound of body fat represents around 2500 calories. With my program I’m burning around 3000 more calories per week than I’m ingesting. That’s just over a pound per week. That’s why the 15-20 lbs of extra body fat that I was carrying around in January have taken 3-4 months to shift. Any quicker than that at my age is probably not very healthy.

I give myself a treat by eating out once per week and having anything I like, including luxuries such as rib-eye steak and rich creamy deserts. Adding a few glasses of wine to this and it probably explains why I’ve still got a little body fat, but life’s too short to take all the fun out of eating and drinking so it’s a good trade.

I’ve tapered off my online play now and I’m now really focused on getting into the live play mindset, studying some important concepts and tactics before my trip. My physical and mental preparations are in good shape for my trip to Vegas. And they’ll need to be. I’ll be sitting playing poker for 12 hours per day and likely have less time for exercise and eating good.

I’ve rented a condo with a communal gym so that I can still try to get my workouts done in the mornings before my tourneys. I can also do my own breakfasts and snacks in the condo, but time is precious in Vegas and I know I’ll need to take short-cuts such as eating in restaurants, food halls or buffets during my dinner breaks.

My physical preparation will help immensely with both my physical comfort during long sessions and my mental alertness for long periods. I intend to keep up my exercises 3-4 times per week, in the mornings before playing, which means I’ll also get the residual benefits of the endorphin rush giving me a feeling of well-being that generally lasts for several hours after strenuous exercise. This should also help me keep tilt under control and able to focus on making hundreds of correct decisions throughout each day.

Now I just need to decide what to wear…

Hi Everyone,

I'm so buzzed about my Las Vegas trip this summer that I've decided to finally succumb to the blogging phenomenon (I know I'm two years too late and now everyone twitters, but at 42 this is fast enough for me).

I chose TwoRags because my favourite blogger, bond18, posts here and as I'm here everyday to read his blog I thought I may as well make mine here too. Alert readers may also recognise that I am indeed the same Zpaceman that featured early in bond's blogging career as the source of a couple of highly humorous ghost written stories about my antics.

Regarding my summer trip to Las Vegas this year, I don't even leave home until 10th June, but such is the anticipation that I couldn't hold back any longer, especially given that the WSOP has started and I'm avidly reading the updates on the 40k event (as well as my friend, Rob Price, just reporting that he's made Day 2 of the $1500 O8 tourny with a decent stack).

Once I get to Las Vegas on 11th June, I'll be sharing a luxury condo with Rob at The Meridian Suites, which is ideally located only one block East of The Strip at Flamingo (i.e. it is walking distance to Bellagio, Caesars Palace and Venetian). This will make it no longer necessary to rent a car (the last two summers I stayed in shared houses a few miles from The Strip and had the hassle and driving most days - not usually a hassle but sometimes an issue once it comes to evening's out drinking).

The last two summers I have mainly played The Venetian's Deep Stack Extravaganza, with a few lower buy-in WSOP events at Rio, the odd Bellagio tourny, a few random others and, of course, the Main Event. I won a DSE tourny in 2007 and chopped one 3-handed in 2008. Meanwhile, I have blanked every WSOP event I ever played at Rio.

This year I intend to change that by firstly focusing much more intently on WSOP tourneys and secondly trying to avoid The Venetian. It seems like a strange decision, given my past record at the two venues, but I just have a feeling that if I devote more effort to the WSOP it will pay off.

Given my planned WSOP schedule, there will still be many free days during my month in Vegas where I'll generally be playing at Caesars Palace. Although their Mega-Stack Series structure is not as good as the V's DSE, it is still a damn good live structure and the generally weaker fields should compensate for that (plus it is considerably closer walking distance from my condo and with searing Vegas temperatures that's probably quite important).

As such, I have planned the following series of NLHE events:

12-Jun F $550 CP
13-Jun S $1,500 Rio
14-Jun S $550 CP
15-Jun M $2,000 Rio
16-Jun T $1,500 Rio
17-Jun W $1,070 CP
18-Jun T $2,000 Rio
19-Jun F
20-Jun S $1,500 Rio
21-Jun S $1,070 CP
22-Jun M
23-Jun T $550 CP
24-Jun W
25-Jun T $550 CP
26-Jun F $1,070 CP
27-Jun S $1,500 Rio
28-Jun S $550 CP
29-Jun M $1,500 Rio
30-Jun T $550 CP

01-Jul W
02-Jul T $1,070 CP
03-Jul F $550 CP
04-Jul S $1,080 GN
05-Jul S $10,000 Rio

Number of Tourneys: 20
Total Buy-Ins: $30,000

It's unlikely that I'll stick to this schedule. For one thing, all of these tourneys at two-days or more and when I make Day 2 of some of them, I'll have to miss the start of others. Also, as the series progresses, I might diversify my play by adding in the odd Bellagio tourny.

What is certain is that I'm targeting $30,000 of total buy-ins. This is important because I've sold $15,000 worth of action to various stakers and I want to have 50% of my own action. I confidentially expect to cash for over $50,000, giving a good ROI to my stakers and myself, but I fully recognise that MTT variance is a bitch and it is entirely possible that I win nothing; or conversely that I could have my one-time run-good and bink a bracelet and over $500k.

I'm obviously hopeful it will be the latter.

My next blog entry will be all about my Las Vegas fashion choices - somewhat in homage to bond's article on fashion tips, but also quite important to help me decide what to pack for over a month in Las Vegas.