Sorry for the lack of updates, I’ll get to that in a bit.

In 3 hours (5pm PST / 8pm EST), the first episode of the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E tournament will air, followed by the second. There are 6 episodes total, two each Tuesday. It’s hard to say exactly, but I think I’m going to be shown in episodes 2 and 3. Maybe a little bit in 1 as well.

So if you can, turn on ESPN tonight and watch me! This tournament meant a lot to me. In my opinion, it is the most prestigious tournament of the entire year. Unlike the Main Event, you have to wade through a field of the best players in the world rather than complete amateurs. It is the largest buying of any tournament the entire year, and has a great structure to test your skill in five different games rather than just one.

Ok, sorry for the lack of updates. My site went down for a while, and I didn’t rush to get it back up because I am working on a whole new website that looks awesome so far. I was hoping it would be up by now, but I think it’s still 2 or 3 weeks away. Look forward to that!

I only have a few minutes, so let’s see how quickly I can sum up things since the end of August.

Flew to London for the three WSOPE events they had there. Started off great in the HORSE. Built up to 5 times a starting stack, broke even in chips for a couple of hours. By that time the blinds were huge, and I lost two big pots and was crippled. Lost a coinflip for the little I had left. I got like 25th or something, but it was out of the money so who cares.

I didn’t want to play the PLO, because I suck at PLO, but I played anyway, and I sucked at it. I put in a lot of chips with top two pair on a ragged board vs Gus Hansen who was playing really loose, and ended up laying it down without seeing what he claimed was top set. Shoved a combo draw later and managed to get my chips in as a slight favorite, but lost. I made one really good play that I was proud of myself for, but I really don’t have a good feel for hand values. I plan to learn PLO before the WSOP comes around next year.

The main event started off great. I busted Doyle 15 minutes in. Here’s the hand:
50/100 everyone basically has a starting stack of 20k still. MP raises to 300. MP2 calls. I call on the button with 32 of spades. Both the blinds call.

The flop came T54 rainbow. It checked to me and I bet 800 into the 1600 pot. Doyle check raised out of the small blind to 2500. Everyone else folded, and I called.

The turn was an ace, giving me the nut straight, as well as a flush draw for style points. Doyle bet the full pot of 6500. I knew he had a huge hand, so I moved all-in. He said something like, “Well, I guess I’m going home early”, and when his set of 4’s didn’t improve, he did go home early.
30 minutes into the tournament I had 50,000 chips, and within two hours I had 70,000 chips. I lost a coinflip or two, as well as a couple of big pots against a very aggressive player who IMHO made some bad decisions against me and got lucky, but still ended the day with almost 50,000.

The very first hand of day two I check raised all-in with a pair and open ended straight draw, and did not improve against the set that called me. My table was playing super aggressive, and every time I raised, I got reraised. So I played tight and waited for Queens, and unfortunately ran into aces, and was out of the tournament.

I busted at 3pm and by 7pm I was on a flight to Newark. I got there, paid a bunch of money for the two hour drive to Atlantic City, and arrived at about 2am. At 11am I was up to play the $5,000 tournament. I doubled my starting chip stack, and there was a player to my right that plays poorly, and I felt like I had a really great read on him. He luck sacked his way into a TON of chips. I gambled in a spot where I normally wouldn’t have in a spot where my equity was probably 2 or 3 percent less than even, because I really wanted a shot to take all of the weaker player’s chips. Unfortunately I didn’t win the gamble.

I wrote an article for Bluff Magazine about the main event, and how eighteen slightly bad things happened in a row (including choking on a hot dog) the result of which put me on tilt, and I made a terrible play to blow my great chip stack. Read that if you get a chance. If you don’t read Bluff, the article will be posted on my new website when it’s up.

Now I’m back in LA for a few more days before I play the US Poker Bowl which is a team tournament. My team is frickin’ awesome: Jared “WacoKidd” Hamby, JC “PartyPSux” Alvarado, Steve Sung, Danny Wong, Carl “Colson10” Olson, and myself. Basically we are all online players, but the team has a combined 10 or so WPT final tables so far this year, so everyone is great at both live and online. The structure is kind of tuned for online players, so I REALLY like our chances.

After that, I play WPT Niagara, and then Foxwoods. I ended up skipping Barcelona because the jetlag in London made me miserable. I’m a complete wimp when it comes to jetlag and being sleep deprived.

Don’t forget to watch me on ESPN! If you miss it, it will probably be up on youtube in a few days.

Oh man, I almost forgot.

HUGE congrats to the following:
Annette 15 for winning the Main Event in London. This will be huge for poker because she was 18 (just turned 19 in the past two weeks I think) and is Scandinavian. She is one of the best online tourney players, and barely has any live experience which makes this really impressive.

Congrats to Alan Sass for final tabling the WPT in Turks.

Congrats to Steve Sung who just got 4th in WPT Barcelona.