Matt "ch0ppy" Kay

Placed 50th in WSOP ME.

2011-07-19T19:20:00.003-04:00

I came into day 7 as one of the short stacks and just couldn't get anything going.

I was put on the secondary feature table which had a live stream on espn 2. It was an enjoyable experience, but I was only there for just under 2 hours before I busted. I was extremely card dead again. BvB I shoved JQo, got a fold. Then reshoved Q9s vs a PF raise the next hand, got a fold. That put me up to 1.4 million at 30k/60k 1k ante. Then I had absolutely nothing and had to fold down to 880k. I then picked up AJ in the CO and B woke up with AKs. I told him he was in trouble.. but I didn't end up getting there.

I'm happy about how I played overall, and there wasn't really anything else I could have done differently in the later stages. I learned a lot throughout the 7 days of play and I'm much more confident about my live game now. I know that if I keep at it, I'll have more deep runs to come.

I fly home tonight.

Matt.

WSOP ME Day 7 Tomorrow!

2011-07-18T02:44:00.002-04:00

I've survived Day 6!

I started at 1.88 million, and within the 1st hour I was up to 2.5 million. Then utg+1 opened 50k, I 3bet from utg+3 (can't remember exactly) 130k, he jams for about 700k. I look at him for a bit, and he seems nervous so I call. In the past I have snap called these spots, but with so much money on the line I should be very careful. He shows 88 and wins the 1.5 million flip. I was down to 1.7 million, and then got 88 next hand and lost a big pot. Down to 1.2 million.

Another hand, utg raises (I did not see this), utg+3 raises (older guy), I flat KK. Everyone else folds, I see that it is now 3 handed and I should have 3bet preflop. Flop comes Kd 7d 7x. utg leads, i call. turn T. check check. River K. I now have quads. He checks, I bet about 3/7th of pot, he calls. (probably with an A, but I don't know this for sure).

Sometime after this, I had about 1.6 Million. HJ+1 raises (he's playing really crazy). I have A8hh on the button and 3bet him. It gets back to him, and he just barely 4bets over the minimum. I thought he was full of shit. I don't want to jam because I thought I'd be able to take him off of it, or he'd give up fairly quickly. The Flop came J 9 6. He bet less than 1/3 pot. I flat, and plan to bet small on the turn. Turn is 6. He announces all in, which puts my life in danger with 1.1mill back. Pot was about 1 million. I had to fold. We showed are cards to the hole cam, he later told me that he had A9. If he doesn't hit that 9, I probably win that pot.

After that, I was basically carddead for almost 4 hours (did get JJ and AK once). I manged to reshove enough to stay alive.

I'm ready to run better than I have ever before.

In 2007, I was 63rd of 64th at one point, and then I went on to win it.

Short, but not out.

Matt.

WSOP ME Day 6

2011-07-17T02:56:00.003-04:00

I'm onto Day 6!

142 Remain, I have 1 880 000 chips. Average is 1 450 000. It was a rough day overall. Early on I got hit down to 1 100 000, but recovered slowly throughout the day.

Trying to get some sleep tonight, I believe I'll succeed.

Now on Twitter! follow me as ch0ppyPoker

Matt.

WSOP ME Day 5

2011-07-16T08:54:00.002-04:00

I've made it through to Day 5! I started the day with 232.5k chips, and ran it up to 1756000! I'm 8th of 378 remaining and have 3x average. I'm very happy with my play overall so far. Here's 2 hands that stood out.

I raised KTo on the Button (15k at 3/6k). BB calls. Flop J 6 6 rainbow. He checks, I bet 17k, he check raises me to 42k. I had been aggressive, and I'm pretty sure he's just trying to play back at me. I decide to flat. The turn is a 3. He checks, I make I small bet of 27k, he check raises again to 75k this time leaving about 130k back. I shove and he folds fairly quickly. I show the bluff.

I raise CO to 20k at 4k/8k with KQo, SB is the same player as above and he flats. Flop comes K T 8 with 2 clubs. He checks, I bet 25k, he calls. The turn is an 8. He checks, and I go all in. He has about 140k behind. I don't think he has a draw here, so most likely it's a weaker king, or a T. I also think he's likely to try and hero call me here as it looks like I'm just pushing him around. He tanks, and calls with AT. River J.

I'm having a lot of trouble sleeping tonight unfortunately. Hopefully it won't affect my play too much today.

Matt.

WSOP ME Day 4

2011-07-15T03:24:00.002-04:00

So far in Vegas I have bricked everything I've played, although I have been happy with how I played overall. However, I went into the main event with a great positive attitude and I have an average stack going into Day 4. 853 Remain, and 693 are paid. I have 232500, Blinds will be 2000/4000 500 ante. So I have plenty to work with.

It's tough to update after playing poker for so many hours, and I haven't had internet very often down here or I would have updated earlier. As I get deeper, I should get more media coverage on Pokernews, so you can check there for updates hopefully.

I'll try to do a writeup of my time in Vegas as well. It's been much more enjoyable this year. I've had a great time.

That's all I want to say for now, want to watch a show then sleep.

Matt.

Update

2011-06-14T13:45:00.005-04:00

A lot has been going on in my life recently. About a month ago I had one week where a lot of things were just going terribly, and I decided to make some big changes. Mainly that I'm not happy with poker, and want to look for a different job. Also that I plan to sell my house shortly as it's too big and unnecessary. I don't want to be invested in real estate right now and would rather take it out to put it into gold. There are other things that I don't want to mention as well, but basically everything was going bad at the same time. Anyways, throughout all of this, I had a wonderful girlfriend who I thought would be there for me. However that ended for reasons that.. aren't really reasons because most of them I was actively trying to change BEFORE she even mentioned them as reasons (things like different sleep schedules)... and I was making excellent progress on all of that. The one thing I can't argue is that I said one thing that wasn't bad in itself, but made her think of a past abusive situation and that's likely what scared her off. Didn't seem to matter how much trust/comfort I had built after that. I had been there for her throughout so much, and given her plenty of chances... the first time I needed to rely on her.. she leaves. I had never had such high expectations and hopes so early in a relationship as well. I've never felt so hurt in my entire life. This happened almost a month ago now, but I can't seem to get over it.

Anyways, as a result it's been very difficult for me to put in any kind of volume this month. I wanted to play a lot because a lot of the good players are in Vegas right now. I have been able to play every Sunday though and I've been having a lot of deep runs. One week I was 2nd of 58 in the Warmup, and 3rd of 76 in the party major... 18th and 40th. Another week I got 3rd in the Party $530 for about $10k. Last week I went deep in the Brawl, and ended up in 6th for $10.4k. I'm fixing stupid errors of impatience and playing quite well now. Hopefully I can keep that up.

I just booked my Vegas trip. I'll be leaving on Monday June 20th, and staying until July 15th (unless I'm still in the main). I think that Vegas will be good for me this year, as I need to break my current routine and keep busy. Staying here has just been hard on me, and since I'm not even able to play online a lot right now, there's no point in me waiting longer before heading to Vegas. I have high hopes and think that this will be much more enjoyable than previous years.

Oh yea, and by leave poker, I don't mean that I'd never play again. I just think I'd be happier with a 9-5 job Mon-Fri, and then play poker on Sundays. I'd still have stocks on the side as well, and I'd still do a few live tournaments a year if possible. Playing poker is just very isolating and lonely. I'm not happy with it and need to be more involved. I plan to move to Toronto in September.

I'll try to update more while I'm in Vegas.

Matt.

Major Changes Possible..

2011-04-15T18:47:00.005-04:00

I haven't felt like writing much lately.. but here I go.

I've feel like I've been doing pretty good overall. I'm putting in a lot more volume and continuing to do well. I think I'll skip San Remo and Madrid this year and just focus online.. assuming that will be ok.. but I'll get back to that later.

Yesterday I got a 2nd in the night 7pm $109f 6max for about $6000, 1st in UB $120 for $5300, and a 5th for $1700. I also had a few other deep runs, including a 14th in the late $163. I've basically been playing 12+ hour days and usually final tabling at least one thing every day. Most days have been close to break even or up, which is good.

Anyways.. Today, Fulltilt Poker, PokerStars, and Absolute Poker have been charged with Illegal gambling. USA players funds are basically frozen, they cannot play, or make transfers to other players. I'm not sure how it's going to affect me exactly.. and I'm not gonna bother speculating or reading excess news about it. I hate the media. It's all bullshit pushing fear, and I'd rather not get sucked into that vibe. Things are always worse than they seem, this probably won't be the end of the world. If I was American I would not be as calm though. However as it is, I will likely continue as I have been and play a lot. There is no reason for me to panic about this yet... I can't help but be a little worried though. I feel really bad for all my American friends. I hope that they will be able to get their money off the sites soon and find a way to play again.

Edit: As I think about this more... the good US players will probably end up moving to Canada, or other places to be able to play. This will take away all the bad US players, while keeping the very best. Online poker could become incredibly tough over the next year.., but possibly softer in the short term as many are unable to play at the moment.

Matt.

Sunday & Double Guarantees Week

2011-03-28T03:22:00.002-04:00

This Sunday I woke up in Toronto, and had to rush back in time for the start of the day. I got back around 1:50 and late registered everything I could. Only really missed the $109f on FTP at noon.

The day was going absolutely terrible, nothing was working out. However it finally changed and I started to get a few stacks. I made it to the final 18 of two tournaments. The first one, I got 17th in the Sunday 500.. KK to QQ. The next one was the late $109r. I'm actually still playing this right now as I write this. I'm currently 2 of 4, I'll update at the bottom when I finish.

This week I plan to put in a ton of volume at the beginning of the week. I'll probably be doing full day/night sessions for 12+ hours every day I play because of Double Guarantees week on FTP. I'll be doing this Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

On Thursday I will be going to the Disturbed/Korn Concert. I only started listening to Disturbed recently, and it's my type of music. I don't really listen to Korn, but they seem alright. I'll probably taking Friday and Saturday off as usual, and then get ready for a huge Sunday.

Update: Finished 2nd for $25k

Matt.

Good run continues

2011-03-24T22:23:00.004-04:00

This week I'm continuing to have multiple FTs and feel like I'm playing very well.

I decided to play Wednesday night yesterday, normally this year I've just stuck to days since they are more enjoyable/lower variance. I managed to grow a few stacks and was up until 4am, at which time I FT bubbled the $109r 6max AK to AA. I did manage to win the $215 2x chance turbo earlier though for $16k that day, so overall it was a pretty good day.

On Monday I got a few FTs, including the UB $530 at night, and the $163. No wins, but a profitable day.

Otherwise life is good. I feel like I'm playing good and enjoying it again, which is great. Away this weekend and back again for Sunday.

Today hasn't been so good. But after one tabling the $129 KO on FTP I've reached the FT as I write this. I normally don't play this one on day schedules, even though it's a great tournament as it starts later. However with euro sites not on DST yet, euro sites all start an hour later.

Edit: 7th for $1300, lost 99 to 44 aipf.

Anyways, Random awesome video

Matt.

Sunday Monday

2011-03-15T05:01:00.003-04:00

I went into this Sunday feeling pretty good. There were a few big tournaments.

There were so many close calls and deep runs. I got 33rd in GSOP ME losing KK to QQ for a huge pot. Then I lost in 14th in the 109r turbo on FTP, QQ to JJ. Lost a few flips and eventually busted the Titan major in 8th place. I also cashed several other tournaments, and got 16th in the $215 2x chance turbo.

I really feel like I'm close to a big score. I'm playing well, and making it really deep in big tournaments. It's just a matter of time before luck runs my way.

Today I've played a full day starting at 1pm. I took 6th in the $216 turbo and 7th in the 7pm 109f PS. I also played 4 $1000s and 4 mFTOPS $109s too. After a while I had 2 big stacks in each of them nearing the money. However I only cashed with one $109f mFTOPS in all. I'm currently 32 of 78 as I write this. It's 5:10am and I'm tired and want to sleep lol. If I make the final 18 I'll get some new energy to finish this. Definitely not playing tomorrow though, will choose sleep instead.

I guess I have to wait and play this out before continuing...

65th. It was a really dumb huge hand where I cold 4bet with QT from the BB, SB flats. Flop came K J X. SB then jammed almost a pot sized bet. If he hit ANYTHING, he would be checking this flop and shoving over any bet I make. The only thing which sucks for me is AQ, and even then I have 7 outs. He had AQ and held. I then had 3 BB and lost to triple up A5s to 88.

Matt.

Recent Results

2011-03-07T20:18:00.002-05:00

I haven't written in a while... just haven't really wanted to sit down and write a bunch.

I've been home for a few weeks now and back to playing online regularly. Last week went pretty good. Multiple final tables throughout the week including the iPoker highroller win on Monday for $12k. I don't think I lost money on either of the 3 days I played, which is always nice.

Saturday I went up to Oshawa for a friend's birthday party. Had a great time, and slept in much longer than I expected. The clock had just hit 1pm and I was still lying down. I had planned ahead and brought my laptop and a mobile stick. I carpooled up with a friend, so after a nice brunch (while grinding), I headed home to finish the session at my house. Arrived home around 5:30 and got all my entries into the FTP main.

I had a few deep runs. I ended 30th in the Warm Up.. was pretty close to a big score there. My bustout hand wasn't standard (got it in with AsTx on a 2s 5s 8h board after 3betting PF 26BB deep). Really didn't believe him at all when he check min-raised me on the flop. I jammed with very little fold equity but felt pretty good about it. He actually tanked, then called with J8dd and I missed.

However while all that was going on, I managed to make the FT of the Party $530 with a nice chiplead. I was very happy with the way I was playing. I was also running very hot. In final 6 I started to lose a lot of chips, lost AA to 99 (I was holding so much before that it was actually about time I lost lol), then I kept dropping. Eventually in the final 3 I got short and got it in QQ vs A4cc 4 c c flop, 4 turn, Q river! Still alive! Eventually I got HU and we both had 80BB deep, and I had slightly more chips. I decided to just do a chip chop since it was my only tournament and I didn't want to play another hour or two. He was also pretty agro so it could've been high variance. Anyways, I cashed for about $27k, so I'm happy with that.

Continuing this about 2 hours later now... I was making a run in the $33 rush mFTOPS so decided to hold off posting this until that ended. I was 9th of 44, then just got completely screwed. Lost to two 2 outers, then lost AQ
Matt.

Update from Australia

2011-02-14T16:28:00.002-05:00

Overall, the poker on this trip went pretty awful. I never really got past starting stack in any prelim, and just ran really terrible in most. I had a good day 1 of the Aussie ME, but then busted 2nd level of day 2. Overall I like the way I played. I'd rather not post bad beat hand histories here.

However I am enjoying Australia A LOT. It's been my favourite poker trip by far, the weather is fantastic, people are friendly, and a great similar lifestyle and culture to Canada. In Melbourne I had a great time going out with friends and doing day trips to see wildlife. I also had the opportunity to learn from Bond18 in the more social aspects of life, it's very helpful and quite interesting.

After Melbourne I went to Adelaide. It's a pretty small town with not that much to do, however it had pretty good nightlife. We did a day trip to Kangaroo Island, which is basically a wildlife sanctuary. We were able to see a lot and had a great time there. I'll post pictures later, this internet sucks too much to add them. You can also add me to Facebook and I'll accept you if you'd like. If you've added me in the past, just send me a message and I'll accept you, I had been reluctant to add people I did not personally know, however I've changed my mind about this and you'll be accepted. http://www.facebook.com/ch0ppy

Currently I'm in Byron Bay. Pokerbrat13, floes, fosco, and myself have rented a beach house down here and are relaxing and enjoying life. Antesvante was down here for a while as well and we all have had a great time. We took a surfing lesson last week... it was challenging but was pretty fun.

I will definitely be coming back to Australia next year, it has been a great experience overall.

Online I have had several deep runs in huge tournaments while I've been here.. but nothing significant, just a lot of final 100s in 100k+ prizes for 1st place. Hopefully I can get a win next Sunday, I'm playing great recently.

Matt.

Aussie Millions

2011-01-25T11:48:00.002-05:00

I just have time for a quick update. Day 1c ended fairly late and I need sleep for tomorrow.

Starting stack was 20k, and after a long grind throughout the day I ended with 74.4k chips. About 1/3 of the field remains and 1st place is worth $2 million.

Hopefully tomorrow will continue to go well.

Edit: I busted on the 2nd level of the day and don't feel like writing about it right now.

Matt.

Quick Update

2011-01-12T16:06:00.002-05:00

I haven't done any updates over the holidays as I was busy being with family/friends.

I've played the $2.5k and $5k in Niagara, neither went well for me, although the field was incredibly soft. Congrats to David Quang from Waterloo for winning the $2.5k event!

Tonight I'll be starting my long journey to Australia. Heading there for the Aussie Millions and ANZPT Adelaide. I've never been before and plan to travel a lot while I'm there. I'll post updates.

For now I need to get packing and figure out what I'm forgetting.

Matt.

Update of Past Week, Another Triple Crown Chance

2010-12-22T13:14:00.002-05:00

I forgot to make a post after last Sunday Dec 12th, so I'll start there. I was final 3 in the Party $530 100k guarantee and the guy in second wanted to discuss a deal. I was in 3rd at the time, and 2nd had a decent amount more than me and offered even money, while giving 1st place more. We all agreed and went into the deal program. However the moron in 1st place couldn't figure out how to make it work, so we ended up playing. I lost a 70/30 and ended up in 3rd for $10150. However I still had more deep runs later in the day. I was crushing the late $109r, in 1st, and then I lose 2 big 70/30s in the final 22. I ended up finishing in 9th place for $2956. Then I was going deep in another one! This one was the $105 super turbo on FTP. I ended in 6th place for $2722. So overall a pretty good Sunday.

Monday and Wednesday followed, both were pretty terrible. Thursday I had a lot of deep runs. Got 21st 109f, 14th 55f 2x chance turbo, 10th PS 109r, 19th 109c turbo, 31st Party $99 30k, 9th $216 turbo (guy made a horrid spite call to bust me), and 5th in Titan 55r for $1740, 1st OnGame 108f turbo $4000. A lot of potential, but still a pretty good day overall.

Sunday was incredibly disappointing. I was 1st of 28 in the Titan Major, and then ended up running JJ into KK a bit later to bust in 24th. Stacks were shallow, it was unavoidable.

Monday had been going terrible for most the day, in fact I don't even know if I was playing too good. However I eventually started playing better/running good and grew a stack in the Party $99f 30k and went onto win it for $7800. I now have 2 wins.

Tuesday was very frustrating. I had a big stack in FTP $109r, 2x starting in $216 turbo, and was nearing the bubble of the $75f deepstack. Then FTP went down, so I got refunded/payed out instead of being able to finish. Really felt like I had a good shot at the triple crown. I also finished 19th in the $109r on Titan. I think I ended up or even after the FTP refunds.

Today I decided to just play 3 turbos to try for the triple crown. The $82 hyper, $109 2x chance turbo, and the $54 KO turbo. I won the $82 hyper for $3300!! Triple Crown! .... At least I thought so... however I just realized that Pocketfives does not track the OnGame network anymore... So that leaves me with 2 wins. On the bright side, I would not have played yesterday or the little bit today if it weren't for the triple crown chance.

I have until Monday to win another tournament for the triple crown, however I don't know if I'll do it. I may only be playing Sunday because Christmas this weekend.

I've also made live plans for January, however I'll discuss that in a future post.

Matt.

Quest for a Second Triple Crown

2010-12-08T19:38:00.004-05:00

This week had been alright. I played Thursday night and won a $120f on UB for $5500. I took Friday/Saturday off and opted to have fun instead. Went to a Christmas party on Friday with some friends and had a great time. Saturday was more about doing nothing and recovering.

On Sunday I felt pretty good and was ready for the big day. Now that I'm rarely playing nights, Sunday is really my only day for a "big" score. The day started off really awful, but as it progressed several hours later I had gathered a lot of stacks in several tournaments. Nothing really amounting to anything except for the $162 6max on PS. I was 3rd of 7, and had the best 4 handed table to be at... the other table was 3 handed and full of the big stacks and better players, I had the chip lead at my table. There were literally 7+ (probably more) all ins where the shorter stack won at my table. As the bigger stack, this sucked. If I had held a 70/30, I would have been 2nd of 6 at the FT, but instead I repeatedly lost and busted in 7th.

Monday I went deep in the party 30k, but busted 24th, that pays $7800 for 1st. I also went deep in the $16.50 turbo again. I don't know how I managed to do this twice so recently, but I ended up 6th this time for $1400ish.

Tuesday started off really good. I won the $55 2x chance turbo on PS for $5500. It went really well, I was in control for the entire final table, it was fun. Now I just needed a win on Party, Titan, Ongame, or FTP for my 2nd triple crown. Later in the day I'm 1st of 22 in the ongame 55r, I have 3x as many chips as 2nd place and a final 5 average stack. I then lost 2 biggish pots, one flip, one as a favourite, that would have made me SO HUGE (final 3 average stack) with 20 left. If I had done that, it definitely would have been a record lead for me in any tournament ever. I was still in 1st after losing those hands too! However I went card dead and eventually busted in 5th for about $2400.

Today I was ready to win my second triple crown. I won my 1st one a week or 2 ago, and if I were to win another one so soon it would be awesome! I started at noon, late regging for the $75 KO on FTP that started at 11am. As the day progressed, I busted 13th in the $75 KO, lost with AA to TT. Then I was deep in the $109f on tilt as well and got 22nd or so. I went completely card dead for my final 50 hands, only 2 were playable, including my bustout JQs when I was only 2-3BB deep. It really sucks when you have to fold that low when you have zero spots. Finally, ongame was where most the action has been recently. I was 1st of 11 in two $100 freezeouts! It felt way too good to be true, was really expecting to get screwed but really hoped I wouldn't. Lost some 60/40s in the turbo, and busted in 5th. The other one I was 1st of 5 with double 2nd place. I got 5th also. REALLY mad about that one. The guy in 2nd just started going crazy. He jammed over on one 8 8 4 X board and I almost called with A high since it seemed so unbelievable, but i restrained myself, everyone else was 10BB deep. Then He was about 25 BB deep now. I raised the Button, he jammed. I raised CO, he jammed again! Next time I raise Button with AJ, he jams again!! 32BB deep. WTF? Usually people are full of shit here, and I want to win most for triple crown, 1st is only $3800 or so, so I call (quite happily actually) , and he had AKs and holds. I'd make this call again, I don't feel wrong at all, he just happened to pick up AK here. Now I'm 10BB deep with everyone else, and he is jamming like crazy. I pick up A7 and shove, called by 55, lose. Down to 3BB, new chip leader jams, i have to call, KT, I lose, out 5th.

Now I just busted the 55r in 24th, this moron at the table has been playing so awful and so spewy, I had already hero called him once on the turn successfully to win a nice pot. In the end, I got dealt AsKs, raised utg+1, he flats me on the HJ. Flop: 2h 3h 4x I bet the flop and got called. I quickly checked the turn like I'm giving up, and then he just jammed 1.5x pot. He's NEVER strong here... EVER. Although I only have AK, it should play fairly well against what he could have, mostly I'm expecting some dumb draw. This is the most I've timebanked all year probably. Even if I'm wrong, I should expect to have 10 outs. He's also from Brazil, which tends to have much crazier players than average, so that also factored into my decision. However he had 46s and held to win the pot. I also bubbled Titan 109r in 10th around the same time. I dunno, regardless I probably should've folded as there would be better spots, but I just really wanted to own him and felt like I had a pretty good chance. I'm usually right when I make these kind of calls. An example today would be in one of the ongame tournaments where I hero called 99 on an A Q 6 board when I checked and this one guy shoved into me... He had 89 lol

So no Triple Crown... Don't know if I win something tomorrow during the day if it will count. I won the UB tournament that started at 7pm or 8pm, and ended around 2am friday morning, So I might have another day to do it. Although incredibly frustrated about today at the moment.

Matt.

Deep Run in Canadian COOP ME

2010-12-01T00:02:00.002-05:00

I was so confident throughout the entire event, but wished I wasn't. If I were to make day 2, of a tournament that pays 38.7k for 1st, I would have to be up playing until 8am. Around midnight I really wished I did not register for this event, terrible planning to start it at 6pm, and the rest of the CCOOP starting times were awful as well.

Anyways, I played quite well throughout all of day one. There was one huge cooler hand where I lost a pot around 2am that was slightly smaller than the stack I ended the day with! KK vs QQ and AA, was such that I could not fold. I ended the day 11th of 18, and quickly went to sleep. Woke up at 3:30pm, bought an Irish bank stock (Contrarian Investment, buying at maximum pessimism) then got food ready for the Monday night grind.

At 6pm the tournament started up again, and unfortunately it went really awful. Everything just went wrong, I didn't really get any real breaks. I went out in 11th.

Also on Sunday I had a deep run in the $53 super turbo, but got 21st or so. I also went deep in the $150r, where I got 20th. Was extremely frustrating, but I can't really complain with the success I've had in the past week.

Matt.

The hot streak continues!

2010-11-26T01:36:00.003-05:00

Today I have won my first ever Triple Crown! I played a full schedule today, starting at 1pm, and stopped registering for non-turbos at 9:30pm.

Highlights:
1st $109r FTP for $11485.50
1st $99 Party for $2513.70
9th $108 ongame (HW)
10th 109c turbo
19th $120 KO
22nd PS 109r
9th $105 Super turbo

I'm playing great, running hot, and pretty damn happy at the moment. The $109r on FTP was another deep HU match that I managed to get the best of once again. I started down about the same amount as I was on Titan on Tuesday.

This weekend I'm going to celebrate a friend's birthday out of town. It should be a fun weekend, a lot of friends that live out of town now will be there. I'll be back in time to play on Sunday.

Matt.

More Results

2010-11-25T13:23:00.003-05:00

So I decided to play tuesday anyways. I checked the day schedules for Tuesday/Wednesday and it seems that Tuesday was much better to play, with a $109r on titan 40k guarantee, and a $525 high roller 40k on ongame.

My day was pretty frustrating until I got down to my last two tournaments, a $16.50 turbo on PS, and the $109r on titan. I ended up taking 2nd in the $16.50 turbo (that really big one!) for $4600, and I ended up playing HU for 1.5 hours in the $109r on titan, I started down, about 80BB vs 120BB, then I took the lead and had the momentum going my way. However I then got coolered with QQ vs KK and he took the lead again. Eventually I was able to gain the lead again and kept grinding him lower until I finally won! This was worth $9600.

So another good day of play! I also late regged for the CCOOP at 11:25pm since I saw there was overlay, and joined a bunch of turbos on PS and FTP. I'm one win away from my 1st triple crown, so figured I'd go for it. I did take Wednesday off for a break. I'm currently playing today, probably for a full day to try and get that triple crown, I figure it's about time I get one. I've never really put in the volume in the past to give myself a good chance, although I have had some chances with 2 wins during a week before.

Friday and Saturday I'll be taking off as I'm heading to a friend's for his birthday celebrations. I'll be back on Sunday and play again then.

Matt.

Three days in a row

2010-11-22T21:18:00.003-05:00

Just finished playing three days in a row, Saturday-Monday.

On Saturday I took 4th in the 109r for $15k, I had a stack in the $2k, but then made a big error... wasn't happy about that, but it's expected until I get used to this again. Sunday I had over 7 cashes in total, I think I broke even, no big scores. Today I just finished, I won a Party $109f for $3800, and took 5th in the $75 Deepstack on FTP for $2200.

I'm playing good and getting back into the rhythm of playing, I'll be taking tomorrow off and then playing again on Wednesday most likely.

Matt.

The first day back

2010-11-10T22:27:00.002-05:00

Wow, today was quite the experience. I focused 100%, didn't browse the internet or get distracted, just kept focused throughout my entire day session.

Guess What? Same old shit! Argh! I had an 8th in the 109r, a 14th in the 109c, an 11th in the Party 30k, and a 15th in an ongame 109f. So many deep runs and nothing significant to show for it. So tired of busting 10th-18th, so frustrating, but at least I'm playing good, if I can keep it up I should have some results soon.

I plan to play mostly days for a while, when I can. Unfortunately I don't know if I can play tomorrow yet, and I can't play fridays, or next monday. However tuesday I should be playing for sure. I want to be able to play 5 days a week pretty soon.

One major problem that had deterred me from playing poker was the unhealthy aspect of it all. I had to order food all the time and it generally wasn't healthy. It really bothered me for a while and I was feeling like crap. In my time off I started doing cardio at least 3x a week, and lifting weights 4 days a week, and now I'm feeling absolutely fantastic. I can now make meals while I play (although it was quite difficult with 14 tables going) instead of ordering food. I'm avoiding all GMOs (Genetically Modified Organism) as I've been shocked to find how full of shit the studies are by Monsanto. It really bothers me that they are in our food supply unlabeled whereas almost every other country at least requires labeling for it and the potential health risks appear to be pretty big. A lot of people assume their safe, kind of like smoking 100 years ago. If you were alive then you'd have see advertisements such as "Doctors prefer Camels brand cigarettes!" there's a lot of conventional health beliefs that are just so incredibly wrong... But I'll save that rant for another day, once traffic returns to my blog I guess.

Matt.

Major Final Table

2010-11-08T21:19:00.004-05:00

I registered regular tournaments on Sunday from Noon - 2pm. I felt very good in everything I played, it seems I'm much more motivated now, which is great. The Party Poker Million was this weekend which made me want to play, it's a $640 buyin with $1 million guaranteed in the prizepool. I finished 10th (10 handed FT). It's extremely frustrating to be that close to a big score, like so many other times this year. I cashed for $9500... 1st place was $200 000. Overall I was very happy with how I played, and really felt like I was going to do better, but that's how the cards fall.

Soon I will be playing much more frequently.

Matt.

Almost time to Return

2010-10-29T01:36:00.003-04:00

After some much needed time off and a lot of thinking about what I want to do, I believe I'm ready to return to poker. I plan to play more than just Sundays, and to start playing weeknights once again. I also plan to start watching some training videos. I have never watched a training video before, but I understand that I'm not nearly as good as I was 2-3 years ago compared to the average player... In fact I'll never have that kind of edge again. Now everyone watches training videos.. I probably should have been watching them for the past 2 years, but I just hated them because they have caused my ROI to decline by making everyone else competent. However after I bring my game up to speed, I should be able to learn by experience like I once did very successfully.

I'm hoping I'll be able to keep this attitude, but I guess only time will tell. Look for me at the tables soon!

Matt.

Summary of Past Month

2010-10-02T23:11:00.003-04:00

I haven't been in the mood to write, or to play a lot of poker recently. I didn't play that much of WCOOP as a result, however I did play every Sunday.

So I finished 11th-20th in 3 cake majors in a row, started at the end of August, and the 1st 2 weeks of Septemember I think. Really frustrating. I also finished 15th in the brawl about 2 weeks ago. I took 69th in one of the $215 WCOOPs... Just a lot of deep runs and nothing to show for it. It's been a while since I've done well in anything, and can't seem to bring myself to focus on cash games yet.

I think I'll take tomorrow off. Give myself a full 2 weeks off of poker and then see how I feel. I expect I'll return and put in volume before the year is out, but for now I just need to take it easy and enjoy myself.

I may also start doing some lower stakes. I basically just need to get confidence back. Logically I know I'm a good winning player, but it's not enough to logically know that. My heart isn't in it right now. It's tough when I've gotten SO MANY final 18s this year in big tournaments and no big scores. Just a few flips needed to go the other way and I could've easily had a 6 figure score.

I have avoiding updating because I don't like talking about this. It's part of the game, and I just need to deal with it. However until I start to care again, I need to take it easy. I find I'm not paying attention enough to play my best. Rather than forcing myself to continue playing, I just need to wait until I want to play again. (Although I still might play the $640 party million.. i dunno)

Matt.

Trip to Algonquin Park

2010-09-01T12:27:00.004-04:00

This past weekend I went up to Algonquin Park in Ontario with a few friends for a canoe trip through a wildlife reserve. Went up to a cottage on the friday night, then woke up SO EARLY the next day to drive up to start the trip. It was pretty awesome being out of the city for a while and being able to just enjoy my surroundings. We camped in the park that night. Our campsite was awesome! We basically had our own private beach. On Sunday I played the Turbo Takedown from a dock at the cottage, but ran awful. However it was really nice playing outside in the sun. I unfortunately missed all other tournaments and the $1k UBOC which I really wanted to play, but it couldn't really be prevented as I had to drive some friends home.

I really like that the $1ks on the WCOOP are now 2 day events, and $1mill+ guarantees. Those are my favourite online tournaments and I'll definitely be playing them. Not sure what other tournaments I'll be playing, I'll have to see how I'm feeling. Still need to learn cash, but enjoying the peace and quiet for the moment.

Matt.

8th in 1k euro turbo bounty.

2010-08-13T03:11:00.002-04:00

Last night I played the 1k turbo bounty.

I had a gross starting table with Sorel Mizzi, Ivan Demidov, and at least 2 other EPT regs that I recognized. I was focused and played a great game and slowly managed to chip up.

I had one big pot where I got it in TT vs AA (cooler) and apologized and said I was gonna get there, and I actually did.

I ended in 8th losing JKs to Q3o for a 2nd place pot.

I got one of the big randomized bounties for 1k, and 2 other bounties. My total cash was for about 3300 euro i think, but I'm not really sure to be honest.

One more of these tournaments on the last day that I will probably play.

Matt.

Deep run in Million, In Estonia now

2010-08-11T17:06:00.002-04:00

On Sunday I stopped registering for things at 5pm Eastern since I didn't want to be up late since I had a flight the next morning. I was doing pretty good in the million for a while, but I ended 85th.

I flew out of Toronto on Monday, the flight left at 2:40pm and I left for the airport around 11am. I connected in JFK in New York, then flew into Helsinki. The other choice was to have a 7 hour layover and a move expensive flight, so I opted to just end my flight in Helsinki and try to take a ferry to Tallinn. I took a bus to the downtown, then a tram took me close to the ferry, then after a 2 hour ferry ride, I was in Tallin at around 230pm, and I was tired but couldn't sleep yet. I ended up sleeping at 7pm and waking up around 2:30am (bah!) So I watched some shows before breakfast opened and ate. It's a great breakfast with lots of selection, I'll be looking forward to that every morning.

The tournament started at noon. I arrived with a good mindset and was playing pretty good. Although I was running so bad.

One hand HJ-1 raises to 300, I call in HJ with 88, CO calls, and button makes it 1400. HJ-1 calls, I call (we're 300BB deep), and CO calls.

Flop: 5 A 5

It checks around

Turn: 8

It checks around to button who bets 2800. I call, everyone else folds

River: 4

I bet out 7200, button makes it 15500 and I quickly call, he has AA.

I got most my chips back the next level when button raised, and I 3bet 99 from the SB (BB is a dead stack). Flop came 3 4 Q. I cbet and he called. turn is a 2. I check, he bets, I call. River is a 6. I check, he bets (if I'm wrong I'm left with 1400 chips), I call and he has 7T.

Not that eventful until the last level. I had been fairly active in the last level and was building up a stack (up to 40k+ now). I raise 2500 in HJ with JJ, the button who is an active player 3bets (I don't believe him at all), then an online player in the SB shoves all in for 27k after some thought. I'm not folding here, it's likely the SB suspects the 3bet is weak and is doing this with a weaker hand. He has QK and hits a Q. I'm down to 14k with 5 hands to go.

On the last hand, the Button 3better raises from utg+1 (he's done this the last 3 opens, and only to 2.1x, I suspected that he would raise before the hand even started and I planned to shove my 13.5k on him with anything of value). I look down at 68cc and shove. He calls with 77 and holds to bust me on the last hand.

It's really frustrating how I just kept chipping up without showdown, then as soon as I do to showdown I can't win a damn thing. I keep thinking it'll change, but it's been 3 years now of this. I guess I'll keep trying.

Tomorrow is a 1k euro turbo bounty. I'll be playing that.

Matt.

EPT Tallinn in Estonia this week

2010-08-08T13:19:00.002-04:00

I've been busy with some personal things the past few weeks, so haven't played as much as I planned. My best friend had her wedding last night, and it went very well. I was a groomsman and I'm very happy for her and think that they'll be together for a long time.

My motivation to play poker is deteriorating. The main thing I hate is not knowing when I'll be done. So as I'm playing a Sunday right now, I'm not enjoying it at all. It's just so repetitive and boring, and that makes me not able to focus enough to play my best game. What I think I need to do at this point is to learn cash games. That way the main thing I hate about poker will be eliminated, I'll be able to play when I want, and be done when I want. That sounds so much better than struggling through days that are way too long. I just can't take many online tournaments seriously anymore.

I fly out to Estonia tomorrow. It should be a good trip, it's somewhere that I have never been to before, which is great. I'll try and convince people to see more sights rather than stay trapped around the hotel like most people usually do. We go to so many interesting places, and it sucks that many people don't take advantage of it. The tournament itself should be really good. Usually when the EPT goes to a new location, a decent amount of locals come out that add a lot of money to the prizepool. There are also 2 turbo 1k euro events which will be great to play.

Matt.

Playing More, Better Attitude

2010-07-23T19:42:00.002-04:00

This week I played Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday during the days.

I got 2 15ths in the 109c turbo, some smaller FTs, and on Thursday I got 2nd in the $109r for $11k (lost a huge flip HU). Today I also lost HU for another Tallinn seat, It was really frustrating because I had over 2/3 of the chips 4 handed, and then I just could not win a single hand.

My attitude is much improved towards poker and I'm going to try to put in at least 40 hours a week now for a while, and also win more tournaments. I'm changing my strategies and finding out what works best now. Since I didn't play that much for the past year or so, I need to adjust some things that are now no longer working. I'm finding that the adjustments I'm making are making the game much more enjoyable and profitable for me as well.

I plan to play again tomorrow, and then on Sunday.

That's all for now,

Matt.

Out of WSOP Main, Deep Sunday runs

2010-07-12T15:12:00.003-04:00

This will just be a quick update. I busted in the last level of day 2. The two prior levels just went completely awful, and I couldn't win very many pots at all and eventually just lost all my chips. I didn't play bad, it's just how tournament poker goes sometimes.

On Sunday I was deep in the Warm Up. Was playing very good and trying some new things as well. I ended up getting 10th (argh). I lost a 4 mill flip AK vs a low pair which would have put me in a great position had I won that. I then doubled to 10BB, then lost QK to A9 to bust 10th. I also cashed a few others on Sunday.

I'm going to start driving home either tomorrow or Wednesday, I'm in no real rush, but I would like to go home soon. It feels like such a long time since I've been home and I don't like being away for too long. When I get home I'm going to increase my volume of play and start making a lot more.

Matt.

Onto Day 2 of WSOP, Playing Great.

2010-07-08T01:39:00.004-04:00

The rest of the WSOP has been pretty uneventful, I managed to cash one other one, but not for much. I played the WSOP ME yesterday on Day 1b. I think I played pretty good throughout the entire day, and had to make some tough laydowns (had to fold QQ PF and was shown KK after I folded face up, also had to fold JJ PF). My table draw wasn't awful, however the best players were to my left, but they didn't play back at me too much, so that was nice. I peaked around 50k, and ended the day with 38k. I play day 2b on Saturday.

Online has been going pretty good, I'm getting a lot more deep runs and fixing some errors in my play that I have noticed while I'm here. I'm also getting more motivated. I'm considering making a run for top 20 on the pocketfives leaderboard, which would mean I'd need to play a lot more, and play pretty good of course. I don't think it would be that difficult to accomplish if I can stay motivated. If I get there I may try for top 10 again, but that involved A LOT of playing and I don't think I'm willing to play that much. I have hated playing week nights on East Coast time since I have to be up so late if I go deep, but I may try to play some more nights when I get home, but I'll likely play more days since I like having a more normal sleep schedule.

Anyways, just a quick update, been quite busy learning more and playing a lot, I think a big score isn't too far away.

Matt.

Great WSOP table, Successful Sunday, WSOP NLH Shootout

2010-06-21T21:54:00.003-04:00

It's not often that I sit down at a poker table and really enjoy myself. However in one of the $1500s recently, I was moved to a great table. I sat down and heard much more conversation going on than at a typical table, and people even calling each other by their first names. It was kind of weird at first, but I introduced myself and joined in the conversation. At one point they made a comment about how I was a statue after I had raised, so I smiled huge and gave 2 thumbs up. I wasn't strong with my raise, but they seemed to not mind folding their blinds after a good laugh. It's rare that you get a table where most people are enjoyable to be around and play with, but this one was great. I still remember everyone's name there. Last year I had another great table, I sat down and two players were talking like they had been friends for a while, then I joined in. One of these players was Joe Sebok, we started ordering drinks by the 2nd or 3rd level and were making a lot of noise. It was pretty sad when that table broke.

Sunday I played online, and did very well. I ran very good, and played a bit different than my normal game as well and it seemed to work well. I took 5th in the early FTP $109 for $3700, 5th in the $55r for $10.5k, won a $12k WSOP seat on FTP, and then got 7th in the $117 Super turbo on FTP for $1400. As good as I ran overall, I ran really awful at the final tables. Especially in the Super turbo, I entered the final table with 30BB and chip lead. I then ran QQ into KK, lost AQ to AJ, won a small flip, lost QQ to QT, then busted by losing AQ to KK. It was an awful ending to a pretty good day, 1st would've been $12k, but I was still in a pretty good mood anyways. I had to run pretty good to get to the final tables, and I still had a $20k+ day which is great, especially since most of the recent Sundays have amounted to nothing.

Today I played in the WSOP $1500 NLH Shootout event. My starting table was probably a little tougher than average, but I played pretty solid throughout, picked my spots well, and didn't tilt off my stack even though dfish was 3betting me so many times. In the end it worked out and I won at the end of level 4. I play day 2 tomorrow at 2:30pm west coast time. Hopefully I'll have a favorable table draw and go on to make my 1st WSOP final table. Guaranteed $5600 now, and 1st would be $382k.

Here's a hand from the $55r:

PokerStars Game #45782580929: Tournament #316010597, $50+$5 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XIX (2500/5000) - 2010/06/20 20:36:49 ET
Table '316010597 72' 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: jcamby33 (151690 in chips)
Seat 2: Jay Baggs (42140 in chips)
Seat 3: marktb (237159 in chips)
Seat 4: TwinMSU (310003 in chips)
Seat 5: KarinaGYG (146582 in chips)
Seat 8: delaney_kid (183212 in chips)
Seat 9: ch0ppy (285633 in chips)
jcamby33: posts the ante 500
Jay Baggs: posts the ante 500
marktb: posts the ante 500
TwinMSU: posts the ante 500
KarinaGYG: posts the ante 500
delaney_kid: posts the ante 500
ch0ppy: posts the ante 500
ch0ppy: posts small blind 2500
jcamby33: posts big blind 5000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ch0ppy [6c 6h]
Jay Baggs: folds
marktb: folds
TwinMSU: folds
KarinaGYG: folds
Bandano is connected
delaney_kid: raises 5500 to 10500
ch0ppy: raises 14500 to 25000
jcamby33: folds
delaney_kid: calls 14500
*** FLOP *** [2c 9d 5h]
ch0ppy: bets 30000
delaney_kid: raises 35555 to 65555
ch0ppy: raises 129445 to 195000
delaney_kid: calls 92157 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (37288) returned to ch0ppy
*** TURN *** [2c 9d 5h] [Js]
*** RIVER *** [2c 9d 5h Js] [4s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ch0ppy: shows [6c 6h] (a pair of Sixes)
delaney_kid: shows [7c 5c] (a pair of Fives)
ch0ppy collected 373924 from pot
delaney_kid finished the tournament in 40th place and received $594.60.
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 373924 | Rake 0
Board [2c 9d 5h Js 4s]
Seat 1: jcamby33 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: Jay Baggs folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: marktb folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: TwinMSU folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: KarinaGYG folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: delaney_kid (button) showed [7c 5c] and lost with a pair of Fives
Seat 9: ch0ppy (small blind) showed [6c 6h] and won (373924) with a pair of Sixes

I had 3bet him in this same position last orbit, and he folded (although I had AA last time). He flats this time. I don't believe he's that strong here, and likely just tired of getting 3bet by me and is playing back at me now. The flop isn't a bad one for me, and I cbet. He raised me pretty small, and I think it's incredibly likely that he is pretty weak here and is likely making a move, so I went all in and to my surprise he called. I think I was already in first place before this hand, so I had a very big chip lead after this hand.

Matt.

Poker, Cirque show, TV, and Food

2010-06-15T14:41:00.004-04:00

Since my last post, the guy I got into a fight with has moved out, and the house has been much better since then. Everyone seems to be happier and in a better mood, and no one else has come home late during the night to wake everyone up.

Poker hasn't been kind to me. I keep getting it in pretty good usually, or I've gotten coolered. No real errors that I can think of, just losing AK to AK and other dumb beats you probably don't want to hear. Today I'm going to play some live cash. I've heard it's really soft and I should be playing more since I think I'm quite good at the early levels of tournaments, and it's basically the same thing. It's been tough to get motivated for poker lately, but my attitude is improving. Hopefully I can get it back and enjoy myself more.

Last week I saw the Beatles Love Cirque du Soleil and it was really well done. It's tough to not like it with constant Beatles music playing. It's tough to really describe it in detail, but it's definitely worth seeing if you are in Vegas. I saw Ka last year and really enjoyed it as well. I liked Ka more, but both are worth seeing. I still want to see the O cirque du soleil before I'm done with this trip, and I also think that seeing Penn and Teller would be highly amusing.

Breaking Bad had it's season finale on Sunday. An amazing show, if you aren't watching it yet, you should now. I thought the ending was very well down and pretty intense. Kind of sucks now though since I have to wait so long for new tv. Summer TV just isn't the same. I recently started watching another show called Party Down. It's hilarious and I'd definitely recommend it. I've finished the 1st season and just started the 2nd season. I'll probably finish the 2nd season this week.

I'm now addicted to Smoothies. There's a chain in Vegas called Tropical Smoothie Cafe, and it is SO GOOD! I always get at least one per day, but I usually get 2 per day. A few others in the house usually go with me for them as well. It's just too good to pass up, and once I get back to Waterloo I won't be able to have them anymore. So I may as well enjoy them while I can.

I guess the highlight for this week has been food. After the 1st shitty week, I've avoided most American food. I've found a few great Indian places, the best thai place I've ever been to, and also tried Ethiopian food for the 1st time. Indian is one of my favourite foods, I love spicy curries, and I seem to handle it better than most people. If you're in Vegas I'd check out India Oven, and India Palace. Both are excellent, and much better and cheaper than Gaylords at the Rio. Lotus of Siam is the best thai place I've ever been to. I ordered the Musaman Curry Chicken and got it made spicier, it was fantastic. Ethiopian food was also delicious. Cutlery isn't really used, we got this sponge bread for our dishes, and used it to pick up food on this giant platter that we ordered. I'll be eating there again before I go home.

That's all for now.

Matt.

First week in Vegas: Deep Run, Food Poisoning, and a Fight.

2010-06-04T22:23:00.005-04:00

A bit later than I wanted to post, but you'll hear why soon enough.

My 1st WSOP tournament was Event #3 $1000 NLH. I played day 1a and it went very well. Early on I was constantly crushing people. People kept trying to make moves on me but I just seemed to know every time and played back at them and kept winning. I was very focused and had a pretty easy starting table with good reads on my opponents. There were 2 times in the early levels where I 4bet over a 20BB stack's 3bet and got folds. I only had AJ and AT too when I did it, the way they bet just seemed so obvious that they didn't have it. Anyways, I ran pretty good throughout the day and on the final hand of the day I picked up AA and ran into AK to finish that day with 75.5k. After day 1b had finished, I was about 15th in chips going into day 2.

I lasted a while in day 2, but my luck had pretty much vanished going into the later part of the day. An old guy rivered a set vs me, lost 77<66, 44
I have also played 2 more events now, which were 2 $1500 NLH events. Both of them I did not last too long. It's tough to get it going a lot of the time since the starting stacks are so small.

Tuesday I played a few turbos online, and won a $10r 3x deep turbo to the WSOP ME. That was nice, made up for an awful Sunday.

Wednesday I also played online after busting the $1500 event early. It's SO NICE to play on west coast time since the latest the big tournaments start is 6pm (9pm EST). Which means I can play a full night and not be up forever. I'm really starting to wonder if I should move to British Columbia, Canada. It would make me play many more tournaments on weekdays, and be able to put in much more volume.

Anyways, Wednesday was when I had planned to do an update, but during my play I started to feel sick, and it kept getting worse. I was hungry and convinced others to order pizza with me, I lost the credit card roulette and had to pay, and by the time it arrive I couldn't really eat it. At one point a little bit later I had to quickly fold all my hands, run to the bathroom, throw up, then run back to keep playing. This happened a few times until I finally busted everything. That night I had to go to the bathroom over 7 times to throw up, it was almost certainly food poisoning. The quality of food in the US is so awful compared to other places in the world, it's really frustrating to try and keep up a healthy lifestyle while I'm out here, in fact it's just not possible with how often I'm playing, and the available food I can get. The next day I started to improve gradually throughout the day. Right now I have a shortness of breath, but nothing that major. I tried to lift weights today but just had no energy to do so. I hope to be 100% again soon.

I skipped the PLH $1500 event yesterday since I was still recovering from food poisoning, I decided to go to bed at 10:30pm since I was very sleep deprived from the previous night. Now, I'm in Vegas to work. I want to win a WSOP bracelet and play my best everyday, and be focused each day. Most people in my house feel the same way. However two of them like to party excessively instead, which I have no problem with, to each his own, I'll be going out some nights as well. However if they are loud coming back, then I have a problem. That night at 5:00am, two people (don't really want to use real names) came home and were drunk and shouting. I angrily got up, opened my door, and yelled at them to shut up. I don't think they heard me, and it kept on getting louder, and then they turned on one of the hallway lights that shines directly into my room, making my room as bright as day. So I got up, went outside my door, and they heard me this time. However instead of apologizing, and turning off the light, they were assholes about it and said I had to come downstairs to turn off the light myself and told me to chill out. They were completely unaware of how they were acting. This was absolutely ridiculous, they wake me up and show absolutely no respect for others in the house as well. I got so little sleep the night before, I'm still recovering from food poisoning and here they are being assholes at 5am making a ton of noise. I go down and turn off the light, and call one of them an asshole as I go upstairs. He tells me to say it to his face. Now, the smart thing for me to do would've have been to just continue walking up the stairs, I mean, even if they had been a little bit nicer I probably would have, but they were complete assholes and showed no respect at all, and I won't take that. It just hit a breaking point with me, I turned around and said it to his face, aware of what might ensue, but hoped it wouldn't. Shortly afterward he throws 2 punches at my face. The other one then comes in and tries to break it up (trying to keep me off of him, while the initiator gets more cheap shots at my head). I managed to get him away and push the one who hit me to the floor in a headlock before other people that were awake at this point had come down to break it up. I think I got a few in, since he threw up shortly afterward and appeared to be in rough shape. He was out of control, I've never seen anyone with such a huge lack of self control. Some drama ensued afterward, but nothing that interesting besides him breaking a glass, and the other one telling me I should apologize and I was out of line. I lost a ton of respect for him since he was just so stupid to not realize what had happened even though he was there, in fact he even claimed I threw the first punch.

Before this, I had never really been in a real fight (way back in grade school, but that doesn't really count), however I'm strong and have basic karate training, and have sparred with friends before, so I'm not afraid. Despite him landing so many hits to my head, I was relatively fine. I'm usually very calm, very logical, and think out my decisions carefully. I wasn't the only one that was woken up also, and other people were angry about it too. They had been loud before (around 8-9am last time) and we were worried there might be issues. They know me fairly well though and know that I wouldn't start anything like that, but of course I have to defend myself. Things were a bit awkward today, but he seems to not want to start anything today. They said they were going to move out last night, but who knows if that will actually happen. I guess this should be a lesson to choose your roommates carefully on these trips. A happy home will make for a happier me which will lead to better results.

I play another $1000 event tomorrow, hopefully I can go deeper than the last time, and keep my hopes high.

Matt.

In Las Vegas!

2010-05-28T16:19:00.002-04:00

I arrived yesterday in Las Vegas by car.

I drove about 8-9 hours on Tuesday (left later than I wanted to, and held up at border for 40min or so). Stayed the night at a hotel, then left by 10am the next day and planned to drive 16 hours. After about 10 hours of driving, I just really wanted to get there, and didn't really want to stay in another hotel. After 16 hours I just kept on driving. Around 2-3am (so many time changes it's hard to know for sure lol) I was starting to feel too tired to drive 100% safe, so I pulled into a Rest Area and took a 1.5 hour nap. Woke up feeling great and drove the remaining 10 hours to get to Vegas. Arrived in Vegas at 12:20pm, and didn't even feel that tired until around 9pm that night. At which point three of us went to Naked Fish and ate a delicious feast. I definitely missed eating there.

We rented a house in Vegas, staying with me is ImaLuckSac (Kevin), ImaLucSac (Dylan), pokerbrat13 (Simon), floes (Joe), rivermanl (Lawrence), rjmgrace (Richard), and jackpot786 (John). When I write I will usually use real names now, so check back at this post if you forget. But anyways, we should have some good times here.

The 1st $1000 event is tomorrow, it should get A LOT of runners, and hopefully I can start off the series with a good cash.

Matt.

Lack of Updates

2010-05-20T13:27:00.003-04:00

Since I've been home I've just been taking it easy, and not really wanting to do too much writing or work.

I'm leaving for Vegas on Tuesday (by car, 35 hours!), but it'll be worth it to have my car, guitars, and other things I want to bring.

In Vegas I'll be blogging much more often, I'll even be doing some blogging for Bluff.

Until then however, I plan to continue relaxing until the WSOP. I may even skip this Sunday, but maybe not.

SCOOP went pretty bad, but I was break even on the day of the 10k, so that makes me feel good lol.

That's all for now.

Matt.

Won the 1k 6max turbo in Monte Carlo for 30 800 euros

2010-04-30T17:48:00.002-04:00

Finally a live tournament win!

It had been almost 3 years since my last side event win, and I've now won another one. I got a pretty big chip lead about 2 hours in, and only lost it briefly in the final 2 tables of the tournament, and went into the final table with a big chip lead.

Three handed a really dumb situation happened, where the other two players wanted to do a chop. I knew that it was so incredibly likely that I would win since I knew exactly how they were playing, and how to play against them optimally, and they were making huge short stack errors. I said if I get 1st place money, they can split 2nd and 3rd. They countered with 27k euro and I said no. Then they started discussing amongst themselves saying they would split 2nd/3rd if they finished 2nd/3rd. I disagreed, and they kept trying to do that.

Now, I realized that they did not know this, but that is a form of collusion. When they asked why not, I said it's a form of collusion. Oh right, I also had lost my voice when I woke up this morning, and it has not recovered yet. So it was extremely hard for me to argue this too. The floor was even going to let it happen until a friend went and got someone higher up to confirm that what they were trying to do was not allowed.

So, nothing against the 2 other players, they are friendly, but just did not understand why they could not do that. The reason why this affects me so much is that the payouts were about: 30k, 18k, 10k. That's a huge difference between 2nd and 3rd. I have about 1.2 mill in chips, they each have about 250k, and big blind is at 40k. I can shove every single hand and blind them both down since they will both want 2nd place money. Basically, I should win almost every single time, but if this deal was allowed to happen, that fear of the pay jump would be lost and I would lose much more often. However everything worked out for the best for me thankfully.

The following really pissed me off though. After the tournament, the guy who finished 2nd approached me and told me that I was good at poker, but had a lot to learn about life because of how I argued. This guy is completely ignorant and a moron. He cannot see his own faults and wants to blame me for being right. I apologized that he felt that way, but all I said at one point was, and this was after 8+ minutes of arguing this chop and him continually trying to offer me 27k, and me continually saying no. I said "I'm a professional, and I know your tells, I want to play." He claims that I said he and the other guy were bad players, and I was far superior blah blah blah blah. Untrue, that's just how he interpreted it. I only said that, and I said nothing about their play being bad at all to them, nothing even remotely close. It's frustrating because I just won a tournament and I'm supposed to feel happy, then he takes these cheap shots at me and doesn't see his own faults, and I told him that and he didn't apologize at all. I was the one that they were unknowingly trying to cheat.

Anyways, the guy who finished 3rd is apparently well known on the EPT circuit, and we talked a bit at the wrap up party and I have nothing against they guy. However, I did not get to say everything I wanted because I physically could not because of my voice trying to talk over the loud music. He was basically upset that I used the word "collusion". I mean, I had to... there is no other way to put it. I know that is not what he intended, but in reality it is what it is.

Anyways, enough ranting. I'm very happy to be up overall on this trip. I was about even before this tournament from San remo --> Monte Carlo, but today put me up nicely. 30.8k euro from my tournament win, and I also got 11.4k euro from my 3% swap with Andrew Chen who ended up finishing 5th in the Main event.

I fly home tomorrow, and will be ready to play the big Sunday. Party Mill, SCOOP 2k, and FTOPS ME.

Matt.

Took 92nd in Monte Carlo for 20 000 Euros

2010-04-28T14:21:00.003-04:00

Not really sure what else to say. I played great, made very few mistakes, but in the end it wasn't enough. I didn't see AK, AA, or KK all tournament, so I guess I should be happy making it as far as I did being pretty carddead.

My bustout hand:

CO raises, Button 3bets, I have 20BB in the SB with TT and I shove. CO wakes up with KK, and Button was committed to call with his 88. 8 on the flop and that was enough for the button to win a pretty big pot.

I plan to play the 2k euro event tomorrow.

A friend of mine, Andrew Chen, is still in with 32 left. Hopefully he does well.

Matt.

In the Money in Monte Carlo

2010-04-27T18:59:00.002-04:00

Won't write much since I should get to sleep soon.

I probably had the toughest table draw by the end of the day.

To my right was rdcrsn, to my left was busto_soon (after I busted him, Nick Shulman replaced him with a mountain of chips), to his left a great German player who had won an EPT, to his left a WInamax pro who was agro and not afraid of bubbling.

There is currently 119 players left, I have 115k. Blinds will be 3k/6k tomorrow. I have yet to see AA, KK, or AK. Hopefully I'll cardrack hard and build up a stack to work with early on.

Matt.

Monte Carlo Day 1b

2010-04-26T18:13:00.001-04:00

I played in Day 1b of the Monte Carlo ME today. Yesterday in a 500 euro with 1 rebuy satellite, I had this really bad old guy at my table and i ended up running QQ into his AA, however I should have folded preflop.

Today this guy was at my starting table, and I ended up taking all his chips in 2 fairly big pots. Luckily the information I learned about his play in the satellite helped me a lot to get them from him.

I don't have much time to go over the day in a lot of details, but I basically had position on the best players at the table, and I played very very good all day. I didn't get AK or JJ+ all day, but played what I was given, stayed out of trouble, and got into the pots with the bad players to chip up.

I ended the day with 51900.

Day 2 is tomorrow, feeling good.

Matt.

In Cinque Terre, Italy

2010-04-23T03:23:00.003-04:00

For the few days off that I had, I decided to go to Cinque Terre with some friends. I also met up with a friend that I went to school with from Grade 1 --> Grade 12 who had been going to school in the Czech Republic.

Cinque Terre is five small villages along the coast, has lots of great hiking trails, and just a lot of things to see around each of the villages. The food is also very good. The first day we went to Monterosso and wanted to start trail 2 since we had heard good things, however it was closed for maintenance which was really disappointing. We ended up doing trail 3 which lead to a church on top of a big hill. It was about a 40 minute hike uphill and had great scenery. I'll post a picture once I get them from Simon since I forgot my camera, but remembered rechargeable batteries for this trip lol.

For dinner we ate at a small place by the water and had some pretty good pasta (our dinners in La Spezia have been much better though, I really love real pasta in Italy). Two of us got something called "The very best fish" or something like that, and it was a huge dish for 2 people with a lobster, octopus, lots of mussles, fish, and I'm not sure what else. They ended up flipping for it, Mike lost. One person bought out, and the remaining 3 of us flipped for our side of the meal. Then there was 2 people who had to pay about an equal amount, so there was a Football (soccer) game going on near by that had 2 kids playing against each other. So they flipped a coin and decided that the 1st person to score will not have to pay. So they flipped, Andrew Chen got the left guy, and Mike got the right guy. Shortly afterwards it became quite obvious that the right one was playing in net, and the left guy was just taking shots! So it was really funny to watch, and lasted so much longer than it should have, and we even got a video of the game too. However, even though one guy was strictly taking shots, the guy in net still had chances at fluke goals since the guy taking shots didn't care that much about protecting his net, so it was much closer than it should have been but the guy shooting eventually scored.

Today we'll try to get on trail 2 from a different village, since this trail goes through all five villages. Hopefully we'll be able to get on, then tomorrow it's a 5-6 hour train ride to Monte Carlo.

Matt.

Got 16th in the 2k euro event.

2010-04-20T06:24:00.003-04:00

Went completely silent after I busted. I really thought this was going to be the one. I was 1st of 60 left at one point, but then I went completely carddead, and everyone kept hitting hands against me (and showing since I was able to convince a lot of them, so I knew I was beat). It was really ridiculous and very disappointing.

I played pretty tight most of the tournament, there was no need to make a lot of moves since people are awful and just explode into you when you have a hand.

Some of the more exciting hands:
Day 1: I'm at around 28k, 20k starting. I raise CO, I have not been aggressive at all. Button who is very agro 3bets (yea right he has something), then the SB who seems even more angry put out a cold 4bet (I really don't believe him either). I had 66 and 5bet all in and got both of them to fold.

Day 2: 1st level of the day, I started the day with 52k. I raise Button, 1st hand of the day that I have played, maybe the 6th hand or so. I have A7o. A guy to my immediate left who I know got 2nd in the EPT San Remo main last year flats, and the BB flats. Flop is 3 6 3 rainbow. They both check and I cbet to 4500. SB fairly quickly makes it 15k. I know it's very likely he's making a move, and shove and got the fold.

Maybe about 15min later, this same guy loses to a 2 outer on the river. He slams his chair into the table (hitting me also), and storms off for a little bit, comes back, and berates the guy that 2 outed him. I waited 2 hands later, took off my headphones, took off my sunglasses, looked him in the eye and said. "I don't care how angry you are, you better never throw your chair at me again." He then apologized and slowly became more friendly as the table went on. I'm really sick of taking peoples shit at the tables, it's absolutely ridiculous. There are so many classless assholes out here. Another example is when utg limps, I got QQ utg+1. and make it 6k (800/1600). It folds around and he calls. Flop is 4 6 4. He checks, I bet, he calls. Turn is a 7. He checks, I bet, he shoves, I call. He shows 55. He bricks the river (thank god, so sick of losing to those). Afterwards, he walks off about 5 feet from me, looks back, swears at me in Italian, and walks off. There are so many classless Italian assholes here it's unreal. It's not my fault he's so awful at poker. I didn't say anything to this guy, since he was already out and it didn't really matter. I guess I used my better judgement. What I wanted to do is walk after him and tell him to say that to my face and in english. Pathetic.

Anyways, I cardracked REALLY hard for the 4th level of the day. Set into 2 pair in the blinds (guy overplayed his 2 pair, brought me up to 360k), and last hand of the level I was BB, guy raised, SB shoved, and I had AA. Was very nice to experience this live for the 1st time. There were many other great hands that I had that level, however that would be all I got for the remainder of the tournament.

Monte Carlo is next week. I'm playing great and hopefully I'll be able to win something there.

Matt.

Out of San Remo

2010-04-17T11:58:00.002-04:00

I just busted San Remo. I'm incredibly angry that I can't catch a break live. I played great day 1, and played great all of today.

Level 4 of the day is 1200/2400/200. HJ shoves ai for 37k, CO shoves as well for 55k, I look down at JJ in the BB and I make the call. HJ has A9cc, CO has TT. No problem for CO as he binks the T on the turn, and I continue to lose in live poker. Lost my final 10k on the 2nd hand after that when I had to shove the button.

Still plan to play the 2k euro event tomorrow. This can't last forever, one of these days I won't be so unlucky in live poker.

I still have 2 swaps that are alive, a 5% and a 3%. Hopefully they will do well.

Matt.

Smoking Bet

2010-04-17T03:07:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was cold and rainy. With some breaks in the rain. We started the day by going to our favourite restaurant here (Alex's), like we do every day. Delicious as always, and then afterwards we decided to walk around for a bit, see part of the city, find a place to buy water, got some gelato (pear gelato is amazingly good, but few people know that i think), and continued walking. However we weren't walking in the right direction at one point, and once we figured this out, we had a long walk back. It was around this point that it started to really rain. All 3 of us (timex, pokerbrat13 and myself) were wearing short sleave shirts, 2 of us were wearing sandals, and i think timex even had shorts on lol. So we did that for about 30 minutes before we got back to the room, cold and wet, but we still got to see a lot of San Remo.

Anyways, at some point during this walk, a bet was made since Simon really wanted to quit smoking. He offered it, and I didn't want to do it at first because it's not really a bet I want to make. I'd either win money, or my friend quits smoking. But I didn't really want to try and make him smoke because of it. However Timex already made a 50 euro bet, so I took the same action since it was already going to happen, and my friend was already on a ChampX drug that will come into effect in another week which will really stop the cravings. It is also extremely unlikely that he would be able to do it since he had done so last night, everyone around us smokes since we are in Europe, and he has 94k going into day 2 tomorrow shouldn't care about 100 euros if it will help him sleep/relax. Obviously Timex and I kept the amount small since a big amount would make it more likely for us to lose.

So for the next 8 or so hours we're drilling him pretty hard. Yea, I got on board pretty quickly after I thought it through, and of course I'll be there to support him at a time soon when it makes more sense to try and quit. Timex was really loving it, and it was funny since he never has smoked and doesn't really know why people do it, so was trying to make it sound really good, but wasn't doing very well at first. Eventually we met up with some friends at our hotel and went back to Alex's for dinner. We ate, and just talked for a while. One guy there was smoking cigarettes, and that's when other people started seeing some humour in the bet and started to join in. At one point, someone was on dinner break from Day 1b and stopped by, and I saw him grabbing a cigarette ready to smoke. "John, on a scale of 1 - 10, how much will you enjoy that cigarette?" In a Britsh accent that made it sound much more enjoyable to my friend, he said "Definately 9.5 out of 10". It was hilarious since he had no idea a bet was even happening. Eventually near the end of the night, through constant pressure, one guy who was a smoker told him he had no chance, since the equity of him stopping at this point right before day 2 with 94k was hugely -EV. Shortly afterwards he paid us and went outside. Timex was disappointed since he was having so much fun teasing him lol. So yea, we were at Alex's for about 3.5 hours just talking. I actually ate 2 meals in that time.

Afterwards got back to the hotel to sleep. Managed to get to sleep around 1230am (been having some trouble sleeping here), but was woken up around 630am when people drinking were loud coming back and the walls are really thin. One of these people were timex. About 45minutes later, and many vomits later, he passed out in front of the tiolet, very very funny. This just happened and Simon (pokerbrat13) and I are still laughing. We woke him up, he has no idea what's going on and went back asleep in front of the tiolet where he currently stays. Internet is down at the hotel now, it's currently 8am, given up on sleeping more, it's just not going to happen. Breakfast is in 30min and I'm looking forward to that. Day 2 starts at noon, and I'm mentally ready for it. I would've posted this at 8am, but the hotel internet is down.

Matt.

San Remo Day 1a

2010-04-16T06:32:00.004-04:00

Arrived in San Remo around 3pm or so on Wednesday. Managed to sleep about an hour or 2 on the plane but that's it. Was great to arrive and see a lot of my friends that came out here, and to eat at our favourite restaurant Alex 76', which has homemade pasta and great service. They remembered us from last year lol.

I had tried to register multiple times during the day for the main event, but the tournament is very poorly run. They told me to come back at 9pm to register, which is so ridiculous since everyone would be there then. So I had to wait in a big line to register, I don't know how many side events I'll end up playing because of that.

Anyways, Day 1a. Timex and I registered together, and were placed at the same table. I wondered if that was random or not, but I had position on most the agro guys at the table. Starting stack is 30k, and by level 4 I had worked my way up to 78k, it was going great, but that would be my high for the day. I then cardracked, but continuously lost with monsters (QT on QT4 board, KK to AT, AA lost with top set, and others) which made me quite frustrated for the remainder of the day. The QT was an interesting hand though that I think a lot of people would have lost more on. CO raised (young guy), Button called (agro young guy), and I had QT in the BB and made the call. Flop comes Q T 4. I check, young guy bets, agro guy calls, I raised 3.4x or so, and young guy calls. The turn brings an ace, which is really bad for me, AQ, and JK get there, which should be a large part of his range. I check, he bets 11k into 14k or so, and I thought for a bit and made the fold. Even though I have 2 pair, I cannot beat much of his range here. It's incredibly unlikely he is bluffing. AQ, JK, 44 are the 3 most likely hands, and Timex agreed afterwards as well. So I guess I can feel good about making the fold, but still frustrating.

I ended the day with 34k. Almost 30BB going into tomorrow, so I'm still alive and still have a chance, hopefully I can win the races tomorrow and make it to day 3.

Today I plan on taking it pretty easy. Sleeping has been difficult each night so far, but hopefully that will fix it self and not cause a problem with my play.

Matt.

Workout Results

2010-04-09T19:41:00.002-04:00

A bit late starting this, but I'll say all of what I want before I head over to San Remo (Flight leaves on Tuesday).

I've been hitting the gym twice a week since November (upper body only), and starting in February I finally decided to add in legs as well, so that makes 4 times a week that I currently go to the gym for weights. This week I checked my max for Bench Press, and was happy to have made a new max at 240lbs. I'm very happy about this considering I weigh about 165lbs. I'm also focusing on eating much healthier than what I was before. I haven't taken a max on Squats/Deadlift yet, I have been doing 3 reps, 5 sets at 235lbs (Squats), and not doing much deadlift since I am fearful of injuring my back. Poker has caused me to sit long hours in uncomfortable chairs and it has really affected my back. My back is improving quite a lot right now and I hope it'll be above average within a year.

I started doing Cardio around the start of January. I decided I should start around that time and bought a very nice Elliptical machine on a Boxing Day sale. Buying a very nice Elliptical for me was making a commitment, I spent a decent amount on it, so I better use it. I was going everyday for the 1st month, but then I added in legs to my weight training, so I could no longer do this. So I currently do Cardio 3 days a week, which seems to be enough. In the 1st month, I lost a good amount of weight. I don't have numbers on that, because I do not care about the number at all. Scales are useless in my opinion, I've gone down 2 belt sizes (was never even overweight i think) and I'm feeling much better. I measure it by how good I feel, and there was a huge improvement there.

In Summary, I got to a point where I was too unhealthy overall, and I was really feeling it. Now I didn't notice the downward progression until I decided to make changes to my lifestyle. Once I did this, I have noticed huge improvements in my happiness and health. I feel so much better than I did a year ago, it's amazing what a healthier diet and exercise can do for you.

Will also talk about guitar before I leave, then it'll be travel updates on here and tournament results.

Matt.

Over the next week

2010-04-01T18:24:00.002-04:00

I plan to try and do something a little different over the next week. I've been doing a lot of things other than poker over the past 4+ months and I figured I will post some results of the other things I have been doing during the next week. Most of you already know what I've done in poker, so this will be some new info that might interest some of you.

Easter weekend is also upon us, and I would like to wish all of you a happy Easter break.

Matt.

I cashed!

2010-03-29T18:22:00.003-04:00

I cashed! Normally who really cares right? But it is how I cashed the 750k this week that made it exciting.

I had about 30k chips at 300/600. One guy goes all in utg+1 for about 5500. The very next guy, who happens to be the table idiot goes all in for about 29.4k. I say he's the table idiot because earlier he raised to 2700 at 300/600 and folded to my 18BB shove lol. Anyways, I am in the BB with QQ and happily shove. Table idiot has AA, 1st guy has AQ. sigh. Down to about 585 chips I go and I'm immediately moved. Now I have about 6 hands before I need to post the BB, and about 25 people till I'd be in the money. My 1st hand I say "sry guys" and then use my 90 second timebank. After that I'm talking a lot and being very friendly and convincing others to stall with me.

I MADE IT! lol Normally cashing isn't really a big deal, but the way it was done I was very happy about. My best finish on the day was 17th in the UB $530.

I also booked flight and hotel for San Remo. I guess that means I can't back out of it now. It should be a fun trip and I know a lot of people going.

Matt.

Update

2010-03-23T17:24:00.002-04:00

I know I haven't been updating a lot, but in this update I'll explain my plan.

Yesterday I bought a new computer chair. An Aeron chair, and it's great so far. Hopefully this will help support my back much better than my old one and will hopefully result in me playing more. Although not yet. I plan to take it easy until San Remo, then go there, play Monte Carlo. Then come back, play SCOOP, then go to the WSOP. So it's going to get pretty hectic soon, so I'll enjoy myself while I can, continue improving my health, guitar playing, and be social as well. Hopefully the rest before San Remo will help me play much better there. I'll be updating much more regularly during that time as I'll have much more to write about.

Anyways, Breaking Bad started on Sunday. Awesome. You can go here to watch it: Here Launch the Video Helper 1st or it will not work.

That's all for now,
Matt.

Gonna change it up.

2010-03-08T16:20:00.002-05:00

Rather than posting about bad Sundays, I just won't make a Sunday post if it didn't go well. I think it's better that way, since I don't like writing about it, and you probably don't like reading about it.

Anyways, Sunday wasn't about me. It was much more important for my friend Kevin "Imalucksac" Macphee. He took down EPT Berlin for 1 million euros. A big congrats goes to Kevin, he always works very hard and deserves this win very much.

I assume most of you have heard about the armed robbery at EPT Berlin. If you didn't search youtube, there's a ton of videos there about it. Pretty scary to think about, I had a few friends in the poker room as it was happening, but thankfully no one was injured. Hopefully they'll improve security at future events because this should not happen.

Matt.

New Show Recommendations

2010-03-04T11:18:00.003-05:00

I've found a new show to watch, it has 16 episodes so far. It's called "Modern Family". I know the name doesn't sound great, but it is a very funny comedy and I'd highly recommend watching it. I'm 4 episodes into it so far and I'm enjoying it a lot.

"Community" is also a great show and I've been watching it from the start. It's also a comedy, however if I say too much it probably won't sound interesting. It also has the Donald Glover from Derrick Comedy (Bro rape video and more).

Finally, Breaking Bad is set to return on March 21st. It's a drama that involves a chemistry teacher/father who is diagnosed with cancer. He doesn't have much time left, and doesn't want to leave his family in debt, so he decides to start cooking crystal meth. It's a very interesting show and is highly recommended.

Hope those 3 will keep you busy for a while!

Matt.

Quick update

2010-03-01T19:45:00.002-05:00

I woke up at 10am on Sunday and was read to play. However I wasn't feeling good. I wasn't sick, but I just felt kinda weird and had a really sore back. I debated whether or not to play. I rarely miss Sundays, however I decided to skip the past one. No real bigger tournaments than normal, and I felt like I would just want to bust everything if I played. That's a very poor attitude to go into Sunday with so I decided it best that I take it off. I did play the $215 Party Poker major, since it was early and had a fast structure. I felt very uncomfortable because of my random back ache and was glad that I only played that.

This also allowed me to enjoy the Gold Medal game which was a great game to watch. It was also really great for me to watch all the Canadian's at the olympics. Unlike most countries, I feel like we do not pressure our athletes as much, and we just want to see them do their best and I think it helps the athletes to remain calm as well.

Matt.

Really frustrating.

2010-02-22T21:33:00.003-05:00

I've avoided posting for a bit just because there's just nothing really that interesting, and a lot of deep runs but nothing big.

From my last Sunday you read about the 10th in UB, and 8th in the Party 530. The next day in the 1k FTOPs, i got really deep then lost a massive flip in final 35 and eventually busted in 25th for $5kish. 1st was $330k. NOT FUN. Then this Sunday came. I was at a friend's cottage with 10+ other friends for the weekend. That was a lot of fun and I had a great time. However I had to wake up at 830am to drive back in time for a shower, then the warmup. So at the start of the day I'm already a little tired and frustrated. Now for the disappointment. 13th 2pm 109r (90k for 1st), 32nd mulligan (70k for 1st), 13th Super turbo $117 (17k for 1st).

I don't really enjoy posting things like this, so I avoided it for a bit. I do plan to recommend some more shows though soon, and talk about some other things that I think about.

Anyways, all for now.

Matt.

Good Sunday?

2010-02-14T23:09:00.002-05:00

Lots of mixed feelings right now. The day has had so much potential, but I've been mostly disappointed. I took 8th in the Party 530, and I took 10th in the UB $215. Obviously that alone is disappointing, coming so close, but not quite there. However, my stake took 3rd in the party major for 20.7k which does make it a good day overall for me. It's also great to see a big cash for him and I hope to see him continue his run. I just busted the $109r turbo on ftp and am now done for the day.

I plan to play tomorrow for the big $1k ftops. The big 1ks are my favourite of the online tournaments, hopefully my hot streak will continue into tomorrow.

Matt.

Last Sunday

2010-02-09T13:10:00.002-05:00

I'm a little late getting to this, but here it is anyways. Sunday went pretty terrible, was going great in the GSOP main but got really screwed a few times getting it in good and busted just before the money. I also was the exact bubble in the 55c on FTP, that's getting very annoying.

I decided to stop registering at 6pm, I just did not want to continue playing (except for super turbo). At 7:15 I busted my last tournament as an 80/20 favourite. Just then, another game popped up............ ARGH! I forgot to unregister from the turbo cashout. I could cash out after the 1st level for 50% my buyin, but its a turbo so I just decided to suck it up and play. I just kept on chipping up, couldn't seem to bust it. I ended in 4th place! Got $1300 from the cashout at the FT, and $1200 or so for placing 4th. I'm still down on the day of course, but it's nice to end on a good feeling like that.

Matt.

Played the day today

2010-02-05T18:39:00.002-05:00

Bad news and good news today. I usually don't play fridays, even though there are some great day tournaments. In fact, my 2nd and 3rd biggest all time online scores have come on a friday. I know that sounds really weird since I've won a lot of Sunday Majors, but the ECOOP for $91k, and 3rd in a SCOOP for 128k both happened on a Friday.

Today was GSOP, $82k for 1st. The other big one was the iPoker 109r 100k. It has been an incredibly frustrating day for poker. 3 hours after I first registered, I was still in everything i joined! (except the 3x turbo satellites). However it has all ended pretty terribly so far. 10th in a 3x turbo, 9 paid and 1 seat. 17th in the other 3x turbo, 15 paid and 1 seat. Bubbled GSOP in 165th, 160 paid, guy is raising 50%+ of hands near the bubble, i shove K5hh and he wakes up with AQ. This is a clear correct shove on my part, and it's really irritating to read the chat afterwards when people say my shove was bad. It's mostly irritating because it shows how easy my table was, since anyone that says my shove is bad, is actually bad themselves. Another bubble in the 109c turbo, when bleedblue33, who continuously gets it in bad vs me and wins, got it in bad and won. Cashed the PS $109r, 23rd or so. Finally, still alive in the $163, 40 of 61 with 54 paid. I'm gonna go nuts if I bubble this one too.

And onto the good news! This is not poker related, but is stock market related. After watching the market action yesterday, it seemed like the market was very close to bottoming. I did a lot of buying today early on, especially in gold stocks, and the market turned up at the end of the day and I have a lot of nice gains. I expect Monday to be another up day and I'm pretty excited to watch my stocks go up then. I have been very patient since the beginning of the correction and it's great to see that patience pay off so far.

That's all for now.

Playing very good

2010-02-01T00:29:00.003-05:00

I've been playing very good today, and have had a better attitude than usual today but for no real reason.

The night before my Grandpa was in town and I visited with him and my dad for a while last night. They said they were going to brunch this morning and I decided to try and join them. I was very rushed this morning and forced myself awake around 10am. I went downstairs, did a quick 30 minutes on the elliptical, then quickly showered before driving off to meet them around 11am. My brother and his gf were also there and we had a great time. My Grandpa on my dad's side is 80 years old, and I'm very happy that I'm able to have intellectual conversations with him despite his age. I see him living into his 90s which is great.

Lots of deep runs today, or at least semi deep runs. I cashed the Warmup, 1pm 109f, and a lot of other tournaments. The deepest run was in the $150r, which was HUGE today with the double guarantees. $116k for 1st. The final 10 took over an hour and was incredibly stressful, a 1st in this tournament is pretty huge for me. Finally the FT arrived, and on the 1st hand 2 players busted immediately! So at this point I'm already guaranteed 7th place money. The next hand I get dealt 99. An aggressive player who was winning a lot of pots without showdown at my previous table raised in the HJ. I 3bet, I had 3bet him twice b4 and he folded both times at the last table, but this time he made a small 4bet back. This spot sucks a lot because I cannot fold to this given how he's been playing, so I shoved into his JJ and busted in 7th for $15k or so.

I'm still in the mulligan as I write this with 53 players left. I'm only 20BB deep and will update if it amounts to anything. This is also supersized today and pays 87k for 1st. We'll see what I can do.

Matt.

Quick Summary

2010-01-25T23:50:00.001-05:00

Today was full of potential, but also full of disappointment.

I started at 2pm, and stopped registering at 9pm.

I got 2 13ths, a 20th, and several other cashes, but nothing big.

I plan to play again Wednesday night.

Matt.

Party Poker Major

2010-01-25T10:23:00.002-05:00

I've been doing well in this tournament lately. I've had a couple deep runs in this over the past 3 months or so, including a FT, however it was a 10th place finish. Yesterday I did much better and won it for $60 000! My best finish before yesterday in this tournament was a 5th place way back in 2007. I guy i was facing HU was really bad. The 1st hand of the HU we were both fairly deep (throughout most the FT, most people had 20BB, now we both have about 50BB). I got dealt QQ 1st, he had A7 and he called my 5bet all in and spiked an ace on the river. This was incredibly frustrating because I was down to 20BB or so now. However I had great reads on him the entire match, and coming back from that wasn't too hard, but very stressful. I can add this to the big list of majors I have already won, but it has been a while since the last one.

It's great to get a big win like this going into a week that I have planned to play a lot. It improves my attitude towards poker for this week and hopefully that will help me do even better. I will be playing today for FT's 2x guarantees, GSOP, and UBOC. I'll also be playing much more than normal all this week.

That's all for now.

Matt.

Sunday

2010-01-18T11:45:00.003-05:00

I won't really go into much detail about the entire day, since it's just a lot of complaining, and no one really wants to read that (I think at least, but who knows).

I will say the main thing that really bothered me yesterday. I was running very awful for the first 4 hours. I managed to win a very small number of big flips (that all got lost back within an hour to another flip, or getting it in good). So often when I won, I got these comments "MBN to be ch0ppy", "do you ever lose?" and stuff like that. It's just so frustrating how ignorant people are about poker, and it really irritates me that I can't just win one, finally after so many losses, without getting a dumb comment like that.

But anyways, feeling great today. Been doing cardio daily, and weights for upper body twice a week still. Might add in legs soon, but it's a pain going there in the winter.

For poker, I said I'd start playing more, but just haven't been able to bring myself to play. I'm on a more normal sleep schedule now and am enjoying it a lot more than my old erratic one. I also feel more energized and much better overall (although the exercise is probably helping a lot too). The problem with playing weeknights is that I feel like I want to bust to have a more normal sleep schedule, and that affects my play negatively. However Jan 25th-31st FTP has double guarantees, and ongame and UB both have a tournament series. So it's very likely I'll play much more than normal that week.

Matt.

Niagara

2010-01-14T17:14:00.002-05:00

Well, I felt really good about this tournament. When I arrived, I recognized SirWatts, Timex, and pokerbrat13. Also there was Gavin Smith, the only real live pro that I recognized. There were only 155 players, however the field was incredibly soft, and with only 155 players, I felt like I had a chance.

I was playing very good overall, I had to be very patient. Level 7 started, 500/1000/200. The 200 ante is HUGE. I had been super tight the previous level and planned to step it up for this level. I have about 60k at this point, maybe a little less. I got 99 utg+1, utg+3 who seems like just a casual bad player 3 bets small, he is 25BB deep. Online this is a very easy fold. Live however, I have seen these types of players make incredibly tight folds since they care about their tournament life too much, so I quickly shoved all in and I do have a lot of fold equity here since they don't understand the game very well. However after a minute of thinking, he called with QQ and held up. Two hands later I get 99 in the BB. The only player who seems good at the table besides myself raises the HJ. I only have about 30k now and raise him to 7k. He asks how much I have and shoves. It looks like I'm on tilt here, so I have to call. Committed to call as well. He may think he has fold equity also because of the hand 2 hands ago. He shows AK. Flop is safe, then turn brings a King to finish me.

I then drove home angry.

However, I swapped 5% with Sirwatts, Timex, and pokerbrat13. I just heard that pokerbrat13 won the tournament for $270630!!! So congratulations to him, it's great to see him get a live score. Also this makes me up on the trip! I get $13531.50 of that amount. So I guess going to Niagara wasn't a bad idea afterall!

Matt.

Today had potential

2010-01-10T19:37:00.002-05:00

Went deep in the early 109f, and the early 109r.

Just busted 37th in the 109r. Stopped registering at 6:30, since i knew that if/when I busted the 109r, I would not want to keep playing and I'm very happy that I did that. I'm still in the 2nd chance and cake major.. I wish I could just shove and end them both, but I will always try no matter how much i hate being in them right now. I'm stubborn like that :P

Anyways, I will be playing Niagara 5k on tuesday. I called today to make sure I'd have a seat, and I believe one is reserved for me, although who knows for sure. I know I won't be happy if i drive up and they tell me it's full. Hopefully 2010 will be my live poker year.

Matt.

Pre-Sunday Post

2010-01-10T12:01:00.002-05:00

Woke up at 10:20am today. Which is very rare for a Sunday. Normally I barely make it out of bed, and skipped the ongame $200 at noon the past few times. I got on the Elliptical and worked out for 37min, then showered, grabbed my lunch, and I'm now ready to start my day.

Feeling much more confident and focused than normal, we'll see if that helps for today.

The NIagara 1k sold out 3 weeks ago. The 2.5k was today, I opted to play online today. I didn't want to skip the Titan $535 1mill guarantee. The 5k is on Tuesday and I plan to play that.

Time to start.

Matt.

Holiday Recap... Let's not talk about poker

2010-01-04T23:55:00.002-05:00

I feel like doing a post that is not poker related (except for the last paragraph). There is not much exciting going on right now with poker, so I'll go through what I've been up to.

Over the holidays all my roommates left to stay with their families, and I was left home alone. It had been a while since I have had the house to myself, and I made full use of it. I played a ton of guitar, learning and practicing, mostly Metallica songs. Could also play it very loud, and at odd hours like 3am, was great! Getting up to speed in Master of Puppets and noticing huge improvements in my playing. All it takes is practice in almost anything and you can succeed. Maybe I'll record something and put it up here.

I also had the chance to hang out with a lot of my friends from high school. A lot of them went away for school, however a decent amount of stayed in town. Over the holidays, almost everyone was back and I had a great time hanging out with all of them. It felt SO GOOD to not think about poker much at all over the holidays, and was a much needed break from it.

Christmas was spent with my family. My parents are divorced, but it is thankfully much more civil than other ones that I have heard of. For that I am thankful, and because of this my dad was able to join on on Christmas morning at my Mom's house. My one brother (3 years younger than me), my dad, my mom, and my mom's bf were there and it was a very nice Christmas morning. Ever since I started doing really well in poker, it has been more about giving than receiving for me. I mean, I can buy almost anything I receive, but I can make others much more happy than myself by planning thoughtful gifts on a generous budget.

For the afternoon, my dad had left and one of my Uncles came down with his family. We had a great dinner, and later that night I showed them my house for the first time. Of course, I had to leave before them and do some emergency cleaning before they arrived, but the house wasn't in bad shape, there have been other times where it just wouldn't have been possible to show them the house lol.

That's all that really comes to my head right now without going into a lot of detail about it all... I don't really want to be writing all night.

For Poker, I plan to go to Niagara later this week and play the $1k, $2.5k, and $5k tournaments. The $1k is probably sold out, I'll have to act tomorrow if I'm going to have a chance of getting in that one. I really should act since it'll be one of the easiest live tournaments I could play.

Anyways, all for now,

Matt.

Deep run in the warmup

2010-01-03T21:20:00.002-05:00

But I got 17th when I ran into AA after shoving on button.

A lot of cashes today, even hit a lot of sets early on, but nothing to show for it. As soon as I busted the warmup, I started to bust everything else at an amazingly fast rate. No, not from tilting, I played completely normal but kept getting crushed losing 80/20s, AA to AK, running KK into AA and so on.

Don't really feel like going on with this post, in 3 still but not hopeful. I'll be writing more often now since the holidays are over, and will do much better posts than just sunday recaps.

Matt.

Sunday

2009-12-27T21:35:00.002-05:00

My day is close to finishing today.

Pretty disappointing overall, 11th in UB $530, and 39th in $109c on ongame.

I had stacks in 150r and Mulligan and i think something else when FTP went down around 7:40pm, so that could've turned into something.

I haven't been updating much over the holidays as I am kind of taking a break except for Sundays.

You can expect more updates in January, I've been busying hanging out with high school friends that are back in town for the holidays, and family as well.

The break from poker has been nice, and I've enjoyed it so far. After next Sunday I will start playing on Wednesday again, and maybe some Mondays as well. I will also be going to Niagara for their series in mid-January. I'm expecting very easy fields there, so hoping that something will go my way.

I'll update if the 109r or 215r ends well, otherwise it's safe to say they didn't end well.

Hope you all have had a great Christmas.

Matt.

Exercise and the Stock Market

2009-12-15T02:21:00.002-05:00

Well, I feel like making a completely non poker related post here.

Exercise

About 45 days ago I decided to get back into working out. I have been able to be consistent with it and I'm noticing clear results. I used to compete in power lifting competitions back in high school and learned the proper ways to do it from guys that could bench press 500lbs+. One of my high school teachers was in that group and because of him I was able to learn properly.

I'm back on track now after about a 3 year break, and plan to keep at it for a while and maintain a more healthy lifestyle. I feel much better right now and am happier as a result. I've gotten most my old strength back and I'm ready to reach new highs.

Stock Market

I'm very excited about the stock market now. Today (Monday, I don't call it a new day until I go to sleep, much less confusing that way), the S&P 500 closed above its big resistance level of 1110, and I am expecting to make a lot in the next few months. Hopefully it will all go well, I'll post a few stock results in about 2 months. I don't really want to post any here now because I'm legally not allowed to give stock market advice and don't want to risk that. However, I am heavily margined (bought stocks with borrowed money against the stocks I own) since I expect this to be pretty huge.

In other news, I believe Breaking Bad season 3 comes out in March 2010.

Matt.

Sunday, Avatar, and Quiz!

2009-12-14T00:09:00.003-05:00

Pretty disappointing overall, I'll keep it short.

Busted 21st Titan major, AA < KTo

busted 350th in $30 mFTOPS, 800k pot for chip lead, AA < KK

Not all bad, won $109 turbo cashout for about $4800

Basically broke even on the day.

My one room mate took 2nd in the $24 KO on FTP for $7.5k. I put him in the $200 sunday majors, and a lot of smaller tournaments. It's great to see him do well.

I have a new PS Avatar.. that'll be up soon once it is approved. I just did a cool looking design in photoshop.

PokerStars has a quiz with 12 questions making important events of 2009.

I was the answer to #11, which I thought was pretty cool. You can find the survey buy going to PokerStars lobby, Help, then My News. I think you get into some small buyings with a lot of money added or something.

I plan to take it fairly easy for the next week.

Sunday Report

2009-12-06T23:29:00.003-05:00

ECOOP was unsuccessful, but winning an event every series is obviously unsustainable, although I still wanted to do it. Was hoping I was saving it for the main, but lost a flip to bust 3 hours in or so.

However It has been a great day. I chopped the Party $530 100k guarantee and got 23k from it. I decided to chop for a few reasons. The biggest one, was that the big stack was very agro and to my left. Secondly, I wasn't going to take their crap, and would likely get in a huge pot vs the chip leader. The 3rd guy was tight/bad and tried to do some weird moves that were obvious. Finally, I arranged to get 10% more than a chip chop. Here is the deal making screen.

As you can see, I got the chip leader, who had a decent amount more than me to give $1000 to me, and I also got 3rd place to give $1300 to me. So that was good enough for me to accept the chop and be very happy happy about it. I do wish we left $10 for 1st or something though. I didn't know the tournament would end immediately after the chop. I wanted to still play for 1st for PocketFives rankings and a chance at a triple crown. But whatever, I'm happy with the chop still.

Just busted $200r in 30th, and that finishes my day. A pretty good day overall. Pretty pretty pretty pretty good. (Curb you Enthusiasm anyone? :D)

A tournament win!

2009-12-02T23:18:00.003-05:00

Today has been a good day for tournaments.

I FT bubbled the HW $50r, but that didn't matter a few hours later when I won the PS $50r for $14.8k. I ran really good, but also flat out owned a lot of people. I've even saved some hand histories that I'll talk about.

Hand #1 (FT Bubble)

PokerStars Game #36168807686: Tournament #234010593, $50+$5 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XX (3000/6000) - 2009/12/02 20:46:16 ET
Table '234010593 25' 9-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: GripDsNutz (325402 in chips)
Seat 4: ch0ppy (466267 in chips)
Seat 5: buddahead9 (144933 in chips)
Seat 6: LosChief (192816 in chips)
Seat 9: twelver1232 (127479 in chips)
GripDsNutz: posts the ante 600
ch0ppy: posts the ante 600
buddahead9: posts the ante 600
LosChief: posts the ante 600
twelver1232: posts the ante 600
buddahead9: posts small blind 3000
LosChief: posts big blind 6000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ch0ppy [8d Qd]
twelver1232: folds
GripDsNutz: folds
ch0ppy: raises 7300 to 13300
buddahead9: folds
LosChief: calls 7300
*** FLOP *** [8s 3s 3c]
LosChief: checks
ch0ppy: bets 18000
LosChief: raises 160916 to 178916 and is all-in
ch0ppy: calls 160916
*** TURN *** [8s 3s 3c] [Qh]
*** RIVER *** [8s 3s 3c Qh] [2c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
LosChief: shows [2s Ks] (two pair, Threes and Deuces)
ch0ppy: shows [8d Qd] (two pair, Queens and Eights)
ch0ppy collected 390432 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 390432 | Rake 0

There is just no way he can have my hand beat here. He plays any hand that beats me here much differently. So I quickly called and hoped to hold against a flush draw or low pocket.

Hand #2 (5bet all in)

PokerStars Game #36169059218: Tournament #234010593, $50+$5 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XX (3000/6000) - 2009/12/02 20:53:35 ET
Table '234010593 37' 9-max Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: jimbo1420069 (465240 in chips)
Seat 2: agriffrod (107089 in chips)
Seat 3: fortea88 (384853 in chips)
Seat 4: ch0ppy (662683 in chips)
Seat 5: germain133 (130492 in chips)
Seat 6: buddahead9 (137133 in chips)
Seat 7: GripDsNutz (327752 in chips)
Seat 8: twelver1232 (111279 in chips)
Seat 9: FatsoFat6969 (149479 in chips)
jimbo1420069: posts the ante 600
agriffrod: posts the ante 600
fortea88: posts the ante 600
ch0ppy: posts the ante 600
germain133: posts the ante 600
buddahead9: posts the ante 600
GripDsNutz: posts the ante 600
twelver1232: posts the ante 600
FatsoFat6969: posts the ante 600
fortea88: posts small blind 3000
ch0ppy: posts big blind 6000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ch0ppy [8d 8h]
germain133: folds
buddahead9: folds
GripDsNutz: folds
twelver1232: folds
FatsoFat6969: folds
jimbo1420069: folds
agriffrod: folds
fortea88: raises 12000 to 18000
ch0ppy: raises 30000 to 48000
fortea88: raises 66000 to 114000
ch0ppy: raises 548083 to 662083 and is all-in
fortea88: folds
Uncalled bet (548083) returned to ch0ppy
ch0ppy collected 233400 from pot
ch0ppy: doesn't show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 233400 | Rake 0
Seat 1: jimbo1420069 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: agriffrod (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: fortea88 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: ch0ppy (big blind) collected (233400)
Seat 5: germain133 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: buddahead9 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: GripDsNutz folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: twelver1232 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: FatsoFat6969 folded before Flop (didn't bet)

He raised on SB pretty fast. I initially did not believe him at all. I quickly 3bet him back. Then he tanked for a bit, and put out this weak 4bet instead of shoving. I really don't believe him now, and shove all in and he folds.

Hand #3 (Caught Re-stealing)

PokerStars Game #36169248716: Tournament #234010593, $50+$5 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XXI (3500/7000) - 2009/12/02 21:00:23 ET
Table '234010593 37' 9-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: jimbo1420069 (463940 in chips)
Seat 2: agriffrod (105789 in chips)
Seat 3: fortea88 (269553 in chips)
Seat 4: ch0ppy (777283 in chips)
Seat 5: germain133 (138992 in chips)
Seat 6: buddahead9 (135833 in chips)
Seat 7: GripDsNutz (326452 in chips)
Seat 8: twelver1232 (109979 in chips)
Seat 9: FatsoFat6969 (148179 in chips)
jimbo1420069: posts the ante 700
agriffrod: posts the ante 700
fortea88: posts the ante 700
ch0ppy: posts the ante 700
germain133: posts the ante 700
buddahead9: posts the ante 700
GripDsNutz: posts the ante 700
twelver1232: posts the ante 700
FatsoFat6969: posts the ante 700
germain133: posts small blind 3500
buddahead9: posts big blind 7000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ch0ppy [Kd Jh]
GripDsNutz: folds
twelver1232 has timed out
twelver1232: folds
twelver1232 is sitting out
FatsoFat6969: raises 8799 to 15799
jimbo1420069: folds
twelver1232 has returned
agriffrod: folds
fortea88: folds
ch0ppy: raises 760784 to 776583 and is all-in
germain133: calls 134792 and is all-in
buddahead9: folds
FatsoFat6969: folds
Uncalled bet (638291) returned to ch0ppy
*** FLOP *** [Ac Qd Tc]
*** TURN *** [Ac Qd Tc] [8h]
*** RIVER *** [Ac Qd Tc 8h] [4c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
germain133: shows [Kh Kc] (a pair of Kings)
ch0ppy: shows [Kd Jh] (a straight, Ten to Ace)
ch0ppy collected 305683 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 305683 | Rake 0
Board [Ac Qd Tc 8h 4c]
Seat 1: jimbo1420069 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: agriffrod folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: fortea88 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: ch0ppy (button) showed [Kd Jh] and won (305683) with a straight, Ten to Ace
Seat 5: germain133 (small blind) showed [Kh Kc] and lost with a pair of Kings
Seat 6: buddahead9 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 7: GripDsNutz folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: twelver1232 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: FatsoFat6969 folded before Flop

BOOM!!! lol I felt kinda bad after this one. Even if I lost this pot I was still in 1st place. I did say that I ran really good in this :P

Hand #4 (Owned the 4bet guy again)

PokerStars Game #36169533479: Tournament #234010593, $50+$5 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level XXI (3500/7000) - 2009/12/02 21:08:51 ET
Table '234010593 37' 9-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: jimbo1420069 (433140 in chips)
Seat 2: agriffrod (105089 in chips)
Seat 3: fortea88 (254153 in chips)
Seat 4: ch0ppy (1092407 in chips)
Seat 7: GripDsNutz (364952 in chips)
Seat 8: twelver1232 (109979 in chips)
Seat 9: FatsoFat6969 (116280 in chips)
jimbo1420069: posts the ante 700
agriffrod: posts the ante 700
fortea88: posts the ante 700
ch0ppy: posts the ante 700
GripDsNutz: posts the ante 700
twelver1232: posts the ante 700
FatsoFat6969: posts the ante 700
GripDsNutz: posts small blind 3500
twelver1232: posts big blind 7000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to ch0ppy [6d 6s]
FatsoFat6969: folds
jimbo1420069: folds
agriffrod: folds
fortea88: raises 10587 to 17587
ch0ppy: calls 17587
GripDsNutz: folds
twelver1232: folds
*** FLOP *** [5s 2c 4d]
fortea88: bets 21000
ch0ppy: raises 28000 to 49000
fortea88: raises 186866 to 235866 and is all-in
ch0ppy: calls 186866
*** TURN *** [5s 2c 4d] [2s]
*** RIVER *** [5s 2c 4d 2s] [9c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
fortea88: shows [7h Ah] (a pair of Deuces)
ch0ppy: shows [6d 6s] (two pair, Sixes and Deuces)
ch0ppy collected 522306 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 522306 | Rake 0
Board [5s 2c 4d 2s 9c]
Seat 1: jimbo1420069 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: agriffrod folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: fortea88 showed [7h Ah] and lost with a pair of Deuces
Seat 4: ch0ppy (button) showed [6d 6s] and won (522306) with two pair, Sixes and Deuces
Seat 7: GripDsNutz (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 8: twelver1232 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 9: FatsoFat6969 folded before Flop (didn't bet)

He lead out on the flop, and I quickly re-raised him and was ready to snap call any shove because he has been wanting to make a successful move on me, but I caught him again and held.

After that hand I had an enormous lead and it wasn't too hard to get the win from there.

I think I played great, ran very well, and I was very happy playing the Final 18 of it.

I play friday afternoon because of the $109r ecoop.

ECOOP is a week in

2009-11-30T15:27:00.002-05:00

So far nothing yet. I got 70th or so in the $530 500k ecoop on sunday, and that has been my best finish so far this ECOOP.

Sunday I made the FT of the $200r and finished 6th. So Made a little bit overall, but not much.

Today I am playing the $2500 ECOOP. I've decided not to grind tournaments all day though, and will be doing that tournament, and 5 or 6 cash games to go with it. I will also do a few turbos as well.

Played most of Sunday in a Car

2009-11-23T17:33:00.002-05:00

Came back from Montreal on Sunday. I started playing from around 1:30pm, then got in the car around 3pm and continued playing while my friend drove. It cut out on me about 3x the entire 7 hour drive for about a minute each time, i guess that's not bad. I cut down on volume a lot since it's harder to play with a lot of bumps in the road, however it happened to be the day that i was in about 4 FTOPS challenge freerolls that I did not have room for. So I just shoved every hand until I busted but for the 1st one I went from 2000 to 8000 instead of busting. At that point I just sat out and minimized it, then continued to play after I cashed heh. Besides that, I basically min cashed about 6 tournaments.

ECOOP starts today! I already busted this 1st event however, but hopefully the series will be like the last two. I'll be playing all the NLHE events, and likely taking the other days off.

Home for a while now I think.

Matt.

Currently Driving up to Montreal!

2009-11-20T14:50:00.003-05:00

Well, after Sunday I didn't waste too much time before getting my backup internet connection. It's one of those USB sticks that you can take with you and get internet in a ton of locations. I also got a new phone while I was out, a Blackberry Bold, much better than my old crap phone.

So I decided to play some cash games on my way up to Montreal, still on my way as I write this. I bought a power converter from 12V to the normal plug, so my laptop is plugged in, and I got the Rocket Stick so I have internet. I did some $2/4 games on Party. I finished up 5 buyins ($2000) over about 3 hours of play, so I'm happy with that. It's great that I can be productive while my friend drives. I don't know why I haven't played more cash, I really should as those limits are very easy on party and have much less variance. I think I'll try to play more of those after the next ECOOP.

This morning I did some changes to my stock portfolio, positioning it better for the end of the year. I'm very happy with my holdings right now, and hope to make a lot going into the end of the year.

No real plan when I get to Montreal, just going to have fun. If I was a week earlier I would've played that UB Charity event that was in Montreal, but that was the FTOPS main weekend so I couldn't do that.

I think I'll watch some shows now,

Matt.

Leonid Meteor Shower!

2009-11-17T04:42:00.003-05:00

The Meteor Shower was tonight. I drove out into the country, didn't have to drive that far. I stayed out for about an hour and saw about 15-20 of them. Was pretty cool, one looked really bright and big, but most were smaller and dimmer. This was my first time watching one and I enjoyed it, although it was lots of waiting.

That stupid 150r

2009-11-16T01:19:00.003-05:00

I've always hated this tournament. Not an easy field, and I have never done well in it.

However, that has ended today. I finished 3rd for $37000! It's great to get a big score like this and I feel like I have fixed my game well at this point. It was really frustrating at the final table though because I had internet issues for some reason. I had to keep resetting my router to get it to work again and I missed a few hands. The last time it went down I was on the phone with a friend who was going to take over, but then FTP came back on! Everything else didn't work.. My browser, MSN, or AIM. But I was able to finish the tournament.

I was planning on taking a week off and rest up before ECOOP, but I may not, I'll have to see.

For now i'm going to relax and tomorrow I'm going to look into a backup internet connection. Probably the mobile one u can take anywhere.

Matt.

Well, I guess good news and bad news for myself.

2009-11-12T01:44:00.004-05:00

Let's start with the good news. I believe I have solved a puzzle that I have been working on to improve my game, I've tried a lot out during the 1k on monday, and i've tried a lot today and I think I may have greatly improved my game overnight. We'll see how I do in the next few months, but right now im running so awful.

And the bad news... Kinda debated writing about this one, but figured I may as well so you can get a more accurate picture of the ups and downs of a poker pro. It's not as glamorous as someone would think, money isn't everything. So anyways, I have noticed that I have been getting much angrier while I play. I'm not an angry guy at all, but lately poker has been so incredibly frustrating. Today I lost AKo vs AKs in the FTP $163 for a 30k pot when average was 16k, then in the Cake major I lost AKo vs AKs, flop s s s, and out in 7th. Over the past 3 years I haven't had any real anger issues with Poker, but today and other recent days have been so frustrating that I have needed to turn on a fan to cool me off since I was burning with rage. I think I'll likely take almost a full week off after FTOPS to rest up before ECOOP. Hopefully I'll be feeling better. When I won the Sunday million almost 3 years ago, I had been running absolutely terrible for the 3 months leading up to it, maybe it's time for a repeat? That would be nice.

However, there is still hope for tonight. As I write this I'm 10BB deep with 54 left in the $320. I'll update this if I happen to do well in it, but it is not looking good right now.

Edit: 34th, 99 < AK for 145k pot, i chipped up to around 35BB, then lost this hand, K on the river... sigh

That's all for now,

Matt.

1k FTOPS

2009-11-10T03:12:00.000-05:00

Just got 34th or so cuz some lucky clown 4bet me all in with JKs and hit a J vs my AK.

Incredibly angry, thats all i'll say for now.

Trying to take it easy

2009-11-09T19:55:00.002-05:00

First off, Sunday went pretty awful. Took 40th in the $55 Super Turbo KO, and about 200th in the big FTOPS, and I think that was it.

At first, I wanted to play more this past week. Such as Friday afternoon, and Saturday afternoon. However I decided to put friends first and try to relax. I tried to put in a ton of volume over WCOOP time frame and I didn't really do that well. I'm trying to rest my mind from poker more often right now. There are some things I need to rethink and approach other situations with a different mind set. For the past few years, I have never really been a high volume player, I like to rest a lot and try to be at my best every time I play, and it has worked for me.

I'm putting a lot of focus into the stock market right now also, since I think that is more permanent that poker is. You never really know if the poker market will dry up, or if new laws will come in that will make it hard to continue, so I need to start thinking about other possible futures as well. However, I have no plans to leave poker forever, or even take a break right now.

Anyways, I will be putting in more volume for the upcoming ECOOP, probably since I have won an event in each of the last 2, my confidence is much higher there. OH RIGHT, I almost forgot. The biggest WTF situation that I have ever had in poker happened to me in the FTOPS yesterday.

I had JJ vs 99 all in preflop for a 23k pot (average was about 20-30k i think).

Flop: X X 9
turn: J
river: 9

SERIOUSLY!? WTF! Wow I was so angry after that, and it just about summed up my Sunday lol.

Anyways, that's all for now.

Matt.

Halloween and Sunday

2009-11-02T13:19:00.002-05:00

Halloween was great! I had a pretty big party at my house and it went very well and most people had a lot of fun. I also crushed beer pong as usual :P and yes, that is my real hair! I couldn't believe how long it actually was once it was straightened, but my costume worked out great! I guess I should probably get a hair cut this week.

Sunday was just terrible, the first 3 hours was the worst Sunday EVER! It did pick up a bit after that, but was still awful overall. I won't bother describing it.

That's all for now.

Sunday, Hockey, Stocks, and Halloween

2009-10-28T18:27:00.003-04:00

I'm a bit late with this post, but here it is.

Sunday was overall pretty disappointing. I was 2nd of 12 in the $200r on PS at one point, but ended up in 10th. Just ran awful from the final 12 and it was very frustrating, but that happens often in poker.

One thing that was pretty amazing.. was that I hit not one, but TWO Royal flushes yesterday! I remember back in 2006, before I was playing seriously, I hit a royal flush and had trouble sleeping that night because it was so exciting. Not the same sensation now, but was still very cool to get two in one day.

Monday I didn't feel like pokering after the dumb Sunday, so I took the night off. I had some friends over to watch the Toronto Maple Leaf hockey game. I even convinced my friends to bet on it. Now I'm not a huge Leaf fan at all, but any game you bet on makes it much more intense. The Leafs had not won a game all year, so i said "You know what... they're due! Let's bet!" So me and 3 of my friends all bet on the leafs. I bet more than I usually would when I bet on sports, but nothing ridiculous. Payouts offered were 3:1 for Leafs to win in regulation, so why not? There was also a bunch of random bets. I bet they would win by 1 goal, I bet they'd win exactly 3:2, 6:3, or lose 1:5 so I still had hopes if they were getting crushed. The game ended Leafs 6, Ducks 3. YES! 6:3 was a 101:1 payout! lol. I only bet $2 on it, but I still profited about $800 total from the game, which was great. My room mate also bet $2 on 6:3 so he made a great amount for himself there.

On to Stocks. AHHHHH!!! I was way too margined for this correction (meaning I borrowed against my stocks to buy more stocks) I'm still learning all this, but I'm extremely smart compared to the average investor. I've learned a good lesson here to not be heavily margined when the market is overbought. I haven't sold anything, in fact I added more today with the Party poker win I had last week. Market is around it's 50 day moving average, had a big sell off today, and the VIX jumped 12%. All signs that a correction is coming to an end. My Poker mentality really helps with the stock market since I'm used to the variance of poker.

Finally, Halloween. My costume arrived today! It's gonna be so sick, I won't say what it is yet, but I have been growing my hair long for it since June when I thought of this. I'll post pictures of it later.

Tonight I'll be playing starting in.. 20 minutes. Hopefully it'll go well.

Matt.

Great Sunday!

2009-10-18T22:32:00.002-04:00

Just finishing up my Sunday now. It will probably end early, but it has been a great day.

I won the Party $530 100k Guarantee today for about $27k. I took 8th in the $55r turbo big antes on PS also, but that only paid $950. Also just now, my friend Mike McDonald just won the $5000 buyin tournament on the OnGame network. We swapped 10%, so I get $15600 from that. A much needed good day as I've had a rough past month or so.

This week I only played poker on Monday night and Wednesday night. I also cut back on the amount of table that I had been running. I started today much more focused than usual and it turned out to be a great day.

Not sure how much I'll play in this week, probably Monday/Wednesday night again. Save up my energy for the upcoming FTOPS and then ECOOP. At that time i'll start playing days again.

Matt.

Aruba Recap

2009-10-12T18:49:00.003-04:00

I am now home and ready for a fairly quiet week.

As i said in my last post, I busted set over set. Getting sick of this constantly happening in live poker, but hopefully I'll get my turn soon.

After that, it was time to have some fun in Aruba! I had to enjoy the sun while it lasted, since at my home it is much colder now unfortunately.

During the day I usually found other players I knew, and hung out around the bar, pool, and beach. The Thursday was probably the best day there. A large group (about 15 known players) decided to go snorkeling on a boat that had an open bar. The snorkeling spots were just OK, but the company made it a great outing. A lot of players with Suited Connections was there, and it is a great group to hang out with. I don't think there was one person there that did not have a good time on the boat.

Most of the nights in Aruba usually involved going out for dinner, and then to bars afterwards. The first big dinner was at a place called "Blossoms", which is a Japanese restaurant with Tepenyaki (where they cook it on the grill in front of you and do their tricks while cooking). Saki-Bombs and great food made the dinner fantastic! I had a steak and lobster combo that was very delicious. At the end, we all put in a credit card and did a Credit Card Roulette. This is where we put all the cards in a pile, then one person shuffles it behind their back. We go around the table and each person will say "STOP" then a number. That number doesn't pay, and eventually we are left with 2 cards, and then pick the one that pays. In Europe about a year ago I ran really bad at this and lost 4/6 with over 6 people in each bill! ARGH! But this time I was much luckier and didn't have to pay. An even scarier bill came on another night, when we went to a nice Seafood restaurant with 18 people!! I'm not sure exactly how much the bill was, but it had to have been over $3000. I was very happy to not have to pay for that one!

On friday I came home (they left my bags in Charlotte where I had my connection, so I had no bag when I arrived in Buffalo, but I got it the next day. This weekend was thanksgiving weekend for Canada. So I went golfing with my one side of the family on Saturday. We had the whole course to ourselves basically, and it was a fairly nice day as well. We were able to go as a group of 7, on an 11 hole golf course. Both were a first for me, had never heard of an 11 hole golf course before. I'm not a great golfer, my tee shots keep going to the right. One hole had a road with cars on it to the right, so I made sure that I was going to keep the ball low, so I grabbed my 2 iron. However, it still went high and to the right and cleared the road!! Luckily I didn't hit any cars. Later that night was thanksgiving dinner, then I came home.

The next day was Sunday, and I joined tournaments from 12:45-3pm, and did some turbos afterwards as well. There was also a random TLB freeroll on FTP that started at 3:30pm that I was in, but did not have time for it since I had another dinner to go to, so I just started shoving every hand. The 1st hand i shoved K6, and got called by AK. Flop had 2 6s on it... lol Then I kept shoving the next 11 hands. One guy raise folded to me 3x!!! I mean.. how bad a player do you have to be to raise fold to a guy shoving every hand! Then I got 44 and shoved and won a flip, so I got up to 9k, then started to try more at that point.

Eventually I left for dinner at my mom's house. I had to bring my laptop since I had 3 games going that I was fairly deep in, but none ended well. Only played on my laptop during dinner for about 20min before I was out of them all, then I had time to visit with my family.

This week I will be playing tonight, then I go my brother's graduation on Tuesday, going Octoberfesting on Wednesday (Octoberfest is big in Kitchener-Waterloo where I live). So after tonight, I won't be playing until Sunday probably. The next week I'll put in more volume, but for now I can relax.

Matt.

Day 1a

2009-10-05T20:05:00.002-04:00

I played today, we started at noon, and 5 levels was played with no dinner break. I like it much better this way as the day is over much earlier, and if I get hungry, I can just grab something quick on one of the 10 minute breaks.

I am not still in however :( I lost set over set to an aggressive opponent for a pretty big pot in level 4.

It was a fun day however, I feel like I played excellent. It was crazy at the start. First off, my table broke b4 we even played a hand. So I got moved to table 22. THen Table 23 broke, then we broke... I was moved to table 21. Then I broke again... then I was moved to table 20... then I broke again... then I moved to table 19.... Then I finally got moved to table 7 to finish off my day. It was amazing how often I had to change tables.

At table 7, just as I get there, Phil Hellmuth arrives late and sits to my immediate left. I enjoyed his company much more than I thought I would, we had some good conversations as well.

Here's a hand I played today.

Phil limps utg, another guy limps, pokerjamers completes on the SB, and I'm in the BB with 89o and check. A this point, i didn't know who pokerjamers was, but recognized him as an agro online player.

Flop comes 6s7sTs giving me the straight, but putting out a possible flush. Pokerjamers checks, i check, and phil bet 600 (lvl was 100/200/25ante), pokerjamers calls, I call. Turn is a 5x. Check check, Phil bets 1000, call, call. River brings a 3x. Check, I decide to bet here and make it 2500. Phil then raises to 7000, pokerjamers calls. This is a really dumb spot. Phil rarely gets out of line here but I look too young so Phil may think I'm just making a move. I figured he could do this with a set or better. I call, and he shows AsJs :(.

After talking to some friends, it may have been better for me to lead the flop, but I could have lost a lot more on this hand, so I wasn't that upset about it.

To bust I had 44 on a 4 8 9 board vs an agro opponent, who had 99 :(

That was my day.

Going out to dinner now with a lot of the Suited Connection guys, and my agent Katie. http://www.suitedconnections.com is the website.

Matt.

Have Arrived in Aruba!

2009-10-04T18:23:00.002-04:00

I went to sleep at 10pm last night (I normally sleep around 4am, this was no easy task). Even tougher, I had to wake up at 2:30am to wake up and get ready to leave for the Airport by 3:30am.

Flight was longish, but manageable.

I'm glad to be here now though. The temperature is much improved from the 10C (50F) it was back in Waterloo, to a nice 33C (92F) here. The bad thing about this though is that I want to enjoy the weather here rather than play poker lol.

But anyways, I will be playing the Aruba Main tomorrow. It will be the only live poker I do down here since I want to relax. By playing 1a, I'll have a day off the next day to relax, which will be great. I'll have to find out who else is here right now. All of my closest friends from poker are not here, and i'm not sure who all is here. I'll have to find out or it'll be a lonely trip =/.

I split a cab with Tmay420 to the hotel after we finally got our bags. It took SO long! We were both kinda worried if they would ever show up. I got through Customs fairly fast, but then my bag was one of the last ones to come out, and Tmay's even came out after mine. About half way through the bags, the worker there hit the Emergency stop since the bags were piling up too much, changing shape, and ready to break open lol. Was pretty annoying since they should've just been taking them off of the conveyor belt thingy as they came out, but guy appeared to be really lazy.

One great thing that happened is that my room is close to the elevator! I have always dreamed about not having to walk down a long hallway for 5min after I get off the elevator, and it has finally happened! Wahoo!

The Welcome Party is tonight, I'll be going to that shortly. Hopefully it will be a good time.

That's all for now,

Matt.

A few results

2009-09-29T23:37:00.002-04:00

Sunday went awful, so i didn't bother writing anything about that at the time, and that's all I really plan to say about that. lol.

Monday on the other hand, was pretty good overall. I played the GSOP on the ongame network. It's basically the smallest out of all the online series, but has a few good events. The Monday event was a $100 rebuy with 150k guaranteed. I did very well overall. In the final 4, I ended up losing QQ < A6, and then ran 88 into AA (both to my friend Simon, who finished 3rd lol) But the 4th place finish was good for $10k. Later that night, I also got 3rd in the $109 cubed on FTP for $5800 or so. Felt pretty good to have a winning day as they have been scarce lately, but that's all within normal variance.

I will be playing again tomorrow (Wednesday).

Today I took the day off. I have finished watching the 2nd season of Breaking Bad, it was great! I'll be looking forward to the next season. I also found out recently that Curb Your Enthusiasm is having a 7th Season. Another great show that stars Larry David (co-producer of Seinfeld). It shares the same type of humour. So I was pretty happy to see that the 7th season is in progress.

I have also booked my Aruba trip. I will be leaving this Sunday and will stay there until the Friday (unless I'm still in the main event.. then i'll miss my flight, but that wouldn't matter if I was that deep). Looking forward to it, as it will be much warmer than the recent cold weather approaching where I am. In Aruba I'll be playing the $5000 main event, and will also meet some of the higher up people in UB. If I bust the main event early, I have no plans to play any sides events, since I'll be in Aruba and will want to enjoy the sun and just relax.

Anyways, thats all for now,

Matt.

Taking it Easy

2009-09-23T00:29:00.003-04:00

Just had some friends over and watched Ace Venture, Pet Detective.

Was great to see the movie again, it had been a while and it's a really good movie.

Fall TV is starting now too, and I love fall tv! I like a lot of the fall lineup and will be watching a lot of it

I found a new show to watch recently and I have been going through it in the past few days. "Breaking Bad" stars Bryan Cranston (the dad from Malcom in the Middle) and he is a Chemistry teacher who is having some problems in his life, so he decides to cook crystal meth. Since he's very good at chemistry, he knows how to make the best but gets into trouble along the way.

I watched the 1st season in 2 days, and I'm currently on the second season. I'd definitely recommend watching it.

Anyways, off to watch more of the 2nd season now!

Matt.

WCOOP over for me

2009-09-21T14:15:00.002-04:00

Arghhh Brutal!!

I picked the worst day of the year to run awful.

Everything just went terrible yesterday. And any hope I had I just lost a huge 70/30 a couple times.

Meh, it happens... But currently I have no desire to play for a while. I started to do some dumb things, not too often, but often enough. I need some time off to rest my mind.

I may play Wednesday, but it won't likely be until Sunday. I just need to relax so that I can bring my A-Game once again.

Aruba is coming up shortly, that will be a nice vacation/tourny.

That's all for now.

Tough to write lately

2009-09-14T13:08:00.002-04:00

The past week has basically been:
- Wake up
- Play Poker
- Go to sleep

Until WCOOP is over, I won't be writing much.. just not enough time.

Yesterday was an insane day. I had so much potential in so many tournaments.

I got 9th in Party Major, 1st would've payed 60k
I got 26th in the Brawl, 1st would've payed 98k
I got 220th in the $215 WCOOP, 1st payed 274k

Then I finally did better in one. I ended up taking 4th in the nightly $109r on PS for $21k.

So overall it was an incredibly disappointing day, but I ended well into the positive so I can feel good about that.

Another full week of grinding ahead..

Here I go!

Recent Results

2009-09-07T15:28:00.002-04:00

Over the weekend I played much more than usual.

I played a full saturday, which is rare. I usually take it off and have fun instead lol

I think i may have got 9th in the $30r, but won the $109 cubed on FTP later for 9.5k. On Sunday I played the 10k (sold off 20%, so was only 8k ish buyin for me). I couldn't really get started in it and ended in 144th. But I did manage to end up on the day with a 3rd place finish in the UB Major!

I will be continuing to put in high volume this week during WCOOP.

Thats all I can say for now, trying to write all this while playing 15 tables.

Matt.

I won I won!!

2009-09-05T02:18:00.003-04:00

It's not what you think. I'm sure the 1st thing that popped into your mind when reading the title was that I won a poker tournament, but instead I won something that was much more satisfying lol.

I went to Wonderland on Thursday with some friends. It was my first time going this year, we went on a lot of rides and had a lot of fun.

I really wanted to win a giant stuffed animal. Why? Because it's just awesome! I remember when I was a kid at Wonderland and saw someone else with a giant stuffed I always really wanted one and was jealous. It's even better when you can win it in a skill game.

So I saw the one I wanted to win, it was called Jacob's Ladder. It's the one with the rope ladder that starts on the ground and ends on a wall. To win you need to put both feet on the top rung and then ring a bell. It cost me $10 for 3 tries.

I knew how to do it in theory, but I had never actually done it before. The goal is to distribute your weight properly, or the ladder will flip and you will fall. When you move your right left, you need to move your left arm at the same time. You can't think of it like climbing a normal ladder. On the 1st $10 I did better than average, but still didn't make it. $10 more... $10 more.. I was determined. Finally, on the next $10... I did it my 1st try! Got to use the other 2 tries for my friends watching, since you can only win one prize per season.

So, I won a Giant Leopard, and I am not kidding when I say Giant. This was so big, that it would not fit in the trunk of the car. There were 4 people in the car, and I couldn't even sit in the left back seat because it was so big! I had to sit in the middle, and my friend to the right had to have the Leopard head on her lap lol. I bought her Wendy's before we left since I felt bad.

Going home we ran into highway repaving too.. So the regular 1:10 journey took almost 3 hours instead! Uncomfortable ride home, but very happy that I was able to win the carnival game. It's great now that I know how to do it. Next year I should be able to win again without much difficulty. It'll definitely impress a future date at some point. I can also do the "Wacky Wire" game. I did that before at Seaworld last year. You were allowed to win that once per day, and 3x per year. So I went 3 days, winning 1 per day. But I couldn't bring them all back since they were big, but I did make a little child very happy lol.

Tomorrow I'll start my WCOOP Grind. I may play every single day now until it is over, but I will have to see.

I'll also include a picture of this giant stuffed animal once I find the cable that lets me put pictures on the computer.

Matt.

A lot to write about

2009-09-03T00:56:00.003-04:00

Well it's been a week since i've wrote, and i've done a lot.

First on Thursday I went to the Waterloo Busker Festival and saw about 4 performers.

My favourite of them was a type of magician who interacted well with the crowd. In my opinion, the best performances are those that can entertain the crowd verbally while doing something amazing at the same time. Charlie Caper did a great job at this which is why he was my favourite.

On to the weekend...

Friday night I headed up to the Muskoka area in Ontario to stay at a friend's cottage for the weekend. ARGGHHHH Just bubbled 30r on tilt and I'm done for the night there. Anyways, the cottage was a lot of fun, even though the weather really sucked for the most part. I left around midnight on Saturday to drive home (3 hour drive) so that i'd be able to wake up and poker on Sunday.

Nothing great happened on Sunday.. I did go deep in the million... got 100th something place... but thats not as far as I would've liked to have gone.

Monday I put in a full day of poker and ended up winning the $109 cubed turbo on PokerStars for $12000. Had some other cashes as well.

Tuesday the house was way too messy and needed to be cleaned. I did a lot of cleaning, mopping and everything! This is pretty rare for me to actually clean up on this scale, but I'm glad I did. Although next time i'll probably just hire someone.

Had dinner with my dad that night and had a chance to talk a bit. He makes really good meals so that was a great change from my normal food.

That night as well a friend moved in with me. Now have a few people here. We all went out and had a good night.

Then today, Gold Stocks were moving up fast! Most my other investments broke even/we down a bit, but a few of my gold stocks went up 10%+ which was great! I expect Gold to move higher from here and looking forward to the returns.

I also played online.. I couple final tables, but nothing great to write about here.

Tomorrow I'm going to spend the day at Canada's Wonderland. I'll miss the 1st WCOOPs, but I don't care too much about missing one $215 buyin. I'm determined to win a Giant stuffed animal this trip. It's gonna happen.

Matt.

Great Wednesday!

2009-08-27T16:36:00.002-04:00

I started around 225pm on Wednesday or so and started late registering. I did wake up in time for 2pm, but needed to get food etc. Pretty dumb I can barely wake up for a 2pm starting time lol.

Everything on Euro sites went very bad fairly early, although it was nice to have breaks around 5-6pm while I was only playing on FTP/PS.

My 1st big cash was in the $109 cubed on FTP. I won that one for $17.7k. That with my monday win will end a downswing and send me going higher.

But I didn't stop there! I also finished 4th in the 830pm $30r on FTP (I normally skip this one since it runs late, but my sleep is already messed up so that didn't matter) That got me 4-5k i think. ALSO I took 4th in the UB Sniper 80k Guarantee for $5600 or so. So I profited over 20k on the day which was awesome!

Today I also got paid for wearing the UB patch on EPSN.

So I'm in a pretty good mood right now, I'll leave it at that.

Tonight I'll be going to the Waterloo Busker Festival to watch some street preformers... I'll write about that later.

Matt.

Meh, Can't sleep

2009-08-26T04:10:00.002-04:00

The big problem about playing a lot of MTTs on EST is that it really messes up your sleep schedule whenever you go deep in something and it's tough to correct since I'll probably go deep in something else to screw it all up again. But it is pretty annoying that it is 4am right now and I wasn't able to fall asleep.

So anyways, I'll just make a random post and go on a bit of a rant.. cuz sleeping apparently isn't an option.

Roundabouts

Speaking very literally here when I say roundabouts. I've noticed repeatedly that many people just do not understand how to do a roundabout correctly while driving. I've also noticed that when I went through drivers training/driving exams etc it was never covered. In Ontario did you know that you are supposed to signal into, and out of a roundabout? Few people do and it should probably be taught more as more and more roundabouts are being made.

Politics and the Economy

SIGH, it's always been frustrating for me watching any type of election where the economy is involved. Most people believe that the leader of a Country is to blame for a bear market (bad economy) when really they have nothing to do with it at all. The Prime Minister/President is just there when it happens. They are also not to be praised if the economy happens to go up.
I'm mainly focusing on the stock market here. It's the Governor of the Bank of Canada/Chairman of the Federal Reserve that actually have the power to affect the economy drastically. However, in many elections the economy is a big thing that is in the mind of voters, when it should not be.

Poker

I may as well end with poker before I go and attempt sleep once again.

Sunday had some close calls.. I think I got 30 something in the FTP 750k, and I also go 15th or so in the UB 200k. SIGH.

Monday was a good day however, I won the High Roller $530 40k guaranteed tournament on Titan for $12500. That'll prevent me from going broke online for a little while longer.

That's all for now.

Matt.

Not Much this week

2009-08-20T16:23:00.002-04:00

Play a lot during FTOPS, so taking more time off this week.

I played a full day yesterday, took 2nd in the ipoker 109r for $4400 or so.. that's about it.

Have just been taking it easy during this week for the most part. Just hanging out etc and doing whatever. Not much to write about.

Practicing guitar a lot, mostly electric this week. Trying to work on One and Master of Puppets by Metallica. It's tough but starting to sound good. For Acoustic I am getting the palm muting down on Swing Life Away by Rise Against. I already learned everything else for that song so it's sounding pretty good now.

That's about all for now... not much to write about this week, but figured I'd write something.

Matt.

Finally a bit of a break

2009-08-13T15:51:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I had a lot of deep runs, including the 300r, but no big or decent scores.

I aired on ESPN on Tuesday. My part can be viewed here:

I got a lot of good comments about calling the 7 on the turn. Was pretty awesome. I found it funny how Harman asked why I made "a move" with 89 there when I had 3 BB and had a chance at fold equity. My bustout hand was 2 hands after my 77 hand. I got 77 again into Alex's AT and lost the flip.

I finally have a day to relax. I just finished watching the end of Deadwood's second season, pretty awesome show. I'll be playing some Fable II today also, almost done that game. May also stop being so damn lazy and immobile and go roller blading tonight.

Probably will take tomorrow off as well, then play the $2500 FTOPS on Saturday.

Matt.

Haven't written in a while

2009-08-11T03:34:00.003-04:00

I haven't written lately, so I'll start from the Cottage.

It was lots of fun overall, but I had to drive 4 hrs home Sunday morning with a lack of sleep and feeling ill. I threw up multiple times on the way home. That part wasn't fun

I eventually got back, just barely in time, around 1:57pm. Expected to play Barry Greenstein, however I played RainKhan instead. It lasted over 20 minutes before I beat him for $3000, but I still managed to end down on the day.

Today I bought a decent amount of stocks on a Gold Pullback, so hopefully that will go well. I think the chart of Gold looks pretty good at this time based on Technical Analysis.

I started to play poker at about 5:45pm, late registered for a bunch of the 5pm ones. I was 92% to double up early in the 1k, but lost that.. The other tournies did not end well either. Afterwards played some Halo 3 with some friends. I don't really play this often, but occasionally I do.

Will likely poker all day tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will also air on TV on ESPN for Ante up for Africa. I'll probably look bad to the general public, but everything I did was very profitable. I won't be able to watch it unfortunately as Canada doesn't have ESPN.. Oh well.

Matt.

Random Update

2009-08-07T16:14:00.003-04:00

This week I played full days on Wednesday and Thursday.

I had a couple of FTs and a couple close calls, but nothing really to show for it, although I don't think I lost much, so i'll be happy with that.

Would have played today/Saturday but I will be heading to a friends Cottage today for a couple days, so I'll be enjoying myself much more than if I was playing FTOPS... There will be plenty of time for that later. The bad news is I'll need to wake up at like 8am to get back in Waterloo to play on Sunday.

My Weekly TLB match has been changed. I am now playing Barry Greenstein. It should be a good match, that happens at 2pm EST on Sunday. Hopefully I will leave $3000 richer.

I haven't really talked about stocks on here yet, even though I have been following the stock markets pretty seriously and making some good investments. I need to make sure I don't say much in detail since I am not a Financial Advisor. I use technical analysis and believe we are in a bull market now. I switched from being a bear a couple weeks ago. I've made some good investments so far with it.

Anyways, gotta head out now, be back on Sunday.

Matt.

Just Relaxin

2009-08-04T17:31:00.002-04:00

Haven't played poker since Sunday.

I played a ton last week and wanted some time off. Watched some Deadwood, played some Fable II the past 2 days.

My back, neck, and wrist were hurting, so today I went to a chiropractor and had a massage. So I'm now feeling great, and ready to play poker tomorrow and screw up my back/neck/wrist all over again.

Just hanging out with friends tonight.

Matt.

hmm That PokerStars Lobby looks much better now

2009-08-03T13:11:00.002-04:00

Well, I did it!

I have won the weekly TLB, my picture is now in the PokerStars lobby for the 2nd time in my life. The 1st time was back when I won the Sunday Million in January of 2007. I also just received the $3000 for getting 2nd in the Monthly TLB, and my stocks are up today, so I'm in a pretty good mood right now.

My Sunday went very well overall, although I still went to be pissed. It's the sad reality of MTTs that you are only really happy when you win. But I got 3rd in the $55r turbo on PS for $6800 i think and finished 4th in the Mulligan for about $21000. I also had some other deep runs.. 20th or so in the 7pm 109f on PS, and 12th in the FTP $75 tournament at 7pm. I'm feeling much better today and happy I got some money on FTP to work with now. Overall, much better than the average Sunday.

Not sure how much I'll play in this month, probably more than I normally do. I Want to put in more volume to increase my bankroll if I want to be playing more live poker.

That's all for now,

Matt.

The Weekly grind basically over.

2009-07-30T14:53:00.002-04:00

Well I think it's safe to say that I am guaranteed to win the weekly TLB. I currently have the largest weekly TLB score ever.

For monthly TLB it looks like I should take 2nd place for the $3000 prize I had been trying for this week. 1st is pretty much out of reach, so i will settle for second. If I had another week left in this month I may have been able to have a chance at 1st.

Also will be keeping my Supernova Status on PokerStars until the end of next month. It looked like I wouldnt, but with my increased volume the past 3 days I have earned enough to keep it.

and, on an unrelated note, two awesome videos by derrickcomedy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJyelcnINH0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zvTRQr7ns8