Has it Really Been a Month?

by Katrina Lim

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Where has the time gone? Sorry for not blogging sooner. Been jankin’ around. Got lots to report though. Starting with the LAPC, I played a $1065 buy in and it was smooth sailing until David “the Dragon” Pham decided to get lucky against me. I picked up JJ and raised 4 times the big blind because when it comes to JJ, I always get burned and I was happy to take it down preflop. However, Dragon decided to call my raise after some hesitation. And of course, villain #2 next to him wanted in too. Flop comes 2, 4, 8 rainbow and both fools check to me. I throw out a good pot-sized bet. Dragon thinks for a little bit, and shoves. Villain #2 folds and I tanked for a good 5 minutes. Something deep inside told me to throw my JJ away but a few hands before David showed a bluff. My gut was telling me fold. And of course do I listen? Of course not. I called. Dragon flips over 8, 6 off. To add insult to injury,  Dragon tells me my JJ should’ve been an instacall. I laughed at him and said I was so close to folding. That pretty much left me crippled and my last hand I held AQ and was called by 77. Of course the villain flops quads. Good game.

Played a home game with the gang and won that. Good stuff. My hands are holding up at showdown and I really feel good about this year. Played the $150k G at the Bike Friday night and here I’m thinking play will stop around 12:30pm. 12 levels later I’m staring at 3am and completely drained. Happy that I was patient the whole time and picked my hands carefully. Built my meager $3k stack back up to a healthy $20k but the fatigue finally took over.  I was in the small blind and folded around. Staring down at Q, 10 s and shoved expecting to steal easily. Big blind instacalls me with KJ off. That call was actually questionable to me as we both were almost even in chips and almost in the money. Questionable as in the instacall. But oh well. Good game. I didn’t need to shove there but was already sleeping between hands. Placed 70th of 500. Jank.

Big congrats to Marilou Morelli!!! Scari Mari is on a roll and placed 11th in the LAPC Main Event!!! Last woman standing. When you taking me to lunch? Day after Scari played the $5/$10 NLH cash game at Hawaiian Gardens and turned a $3500 profit. Nice work sista!

My upcoming schedule includes the other guaranteed tourneys at Bike this month and crushing the home game again. But I do have some big news…

I am back in Corporate America. I got a job offer I just couldn’t resist. I am back working with my prior boss of 7 years and best of all, my office is down the street from the house. I can eat lunch at home and no commute. I can even work at home! What a luckbox! I win! As for poker, my boss knows I love playing so much  and will let me schedule work time with poker time!!! Amazing! So, I’m still looking forward to the WSOP this summer and hope to hit a few events.

I feel a full-time job will help my poker even more. I have no pressure to win anymore. Poker is a bonus. I will still be grinding on weeknights and weekends especially when the cash games are juicy. Supplemental income is the best! And I will still be playing tourneys too. It’s nice to be part of a team again, having colleagues, and most importantly, I am back with the best boss in the world!! I would work for my boss for free. Seriously. I am extremely fortunate to have this new opportunity. Thank you so much, Boss Lady! We are going to kill the quota this year!

What else is going on? Hmm, oh yeah, with all the bad press Toyota is getting, I scored such a great deal on a RAV4, that we bought 2 of em! Don’t believe the media hype. Toyota is a great brand. Sure, lately they’ve been going 0-60 even when you don’t want them too, but hey, how many millions of Toys are on the road??!! Also, we got RAVs that were made in Japan. Only Toyotas made in the USA were recalled. Perfect example of lost in transalation. Anyway, we love our Toys that we might add a 3rd RAV to the family. Yes, we are cracked. Super jank!

Back to poker, I read Justin’s first blog for Bluff magazine. Brotha, how do you do it?! $180k profit in a cash game with Matusow and a few others…popping bottles of Cristal to boot!! Nice job! When’s the housewarming? I want to school you and Anita in ping pong. Justin and Anita moved into a newer, bigger house in the Hollywood Hills so they could have a game room and buy a ping pong table. Good stuff. I love ping pong and I hope to make bets with them. Easy money. If I can find just half the poker success as Justin, I will be happy. Good enough for me.

Pearljammer and Tracey also picked a date for the wedding and I’m so excited for them!! I’m even more excited that I get to be the maid of honor. I have exactly 1 year to lose 15 pounds. Better start soon. But with all the yummy food I’m finding, OMG! It’s gonna be hard! Time to get back to the gym. Nothing else going on. Just gonna keep grinding and dining. Life is good.

Wolfman, Shutter Island, and Alice in Wonderland.

by Phil

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The last three days I saw each of these three movies.  Here is what I thought.

Wolfman.  78.  The transformations were cool, but the final wolfman faces were sort of lame.  Also, I didn't like the continuity errors in the fight scene at the end.  On the plus side, Hopkins was great, and it was fun to see Mr Smith from the Matrix appear as the detective guy.

Shutter Island.  77.  It was cool enough.  Though the ending needed a bit of tidying up for me to give it a higher grade.  It was decently eerie where it was supposed to be.

Alice in Wonderland.  76.  How could they not stay true to the original story?  Did the screen writers even bother to read the original?  And where was the daring stuff.  Seemed all too easy to digest.  Come on man!  This is Tim Burton, I want more... The guy is a genius after all... I just expected more.  Ho hum.

Sleep Roll

by Phil

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Forgot to mention this.  But during the LAPC I was in a game I just could not quit.  During this 60 hour session there were moments where I began to dooze off.

Anyway, one hand came up where I fell asleep for part of it and also for the showdown part.  This was my first ever sleep roll.  I was so out of it that I almost forgot to turn over the winning hand!  Someone commented that I had accidently slow rolled the guy, but I hadn't.  It was merely a sleep roll.  My first ever. Somehow I found my way out of that haze to have a moment of clarity.  I corrected him with the newly coined term and then promptly went back to my sleep deprived self.  Everyone had a good laugh. 

And so a new term was forged that day.  However, it is a term that most likely will never go mainstream as one of the players has to be asleep for part of the hand to qualify.  But thought I would mention it for what its worth.

Phil

25k Venetian... LAPC... Flood stuff... NBC heads up stuff

by Phil

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25k Venetian... I was the first one out on my table.  A very fast downtick.  My last hand was Kc 10c vs 5c 6c on a 2c 3c 4s board.  I bricked out and Super Josiah Cassidy not only won the hand, but won the heat.  The fellow who won both heats and therefore the whole event... Ashton Griffon.  I would later meet him at the LAPC and liked him out of the gate.  He is a smart guy, in his own world, and had a funny hat.  What's not to like?  (As a random aside I did some radio thing last week where I was told we would be the guests.  We were, but instead of being on at the same time, we were spaced one after another.)     : (            BTW, if you want to kill and hour of your life here is a link to that interview...   http://pokercast.twoplustwo.com/listen_and_browse.php

LAPC...  The LAPC was intricately woven into my flood fiasco... (The running tab on the damage from that is so nasty gross I nearly don't feel like putting it to print.  Whatever.... Ok, so I mega spaced donked and have now loast countless hours dealing with insurance people that are trying to underpay and contractors trying to get overpaid.  It is the biggest blunder I have managed in ... well....  maybe ever... not sure.)  The LAPC was woven into the flood mishap as I have not had such a demon desire to crush games in a long time.  The way I saw it was that I needed lots of money to soften the pain from the flood damage.  At times I refused to sleep.  There was one game that I was determined to never quit.  I gave up after 60 hrs as I had a flight, and missing it would have been bad.  It was a 100 100 plo / 100 200 nlh game that eventually morphed into a 100 100 plo game with loads of straddles and restraddles, super mega deep stacks and lots of testosterone.  I smashhed it.  It felt good.  (The 10k event became a tiny speck of a memory compared to all the sloshing about I did in the cash games.)  I can only thank the poker gods for those games.

Flood Stuff....  I don't want to get into it.  It is the only thing that has tilted me in years.  When I move back into the apt and the last bill is paid I will give you an overview of the whole thing from a hindsight perspective... This hopefully wont be as tilting as me trying to talk about it during the pain.

NBC heads up stuff.... First round pick.  John Juanda.  Won it.  Played good 'cept for one donk play... (Calling with A2 os where I should have folded... but other than that... liked how I played it.)   Second round was Phil Gordon.  That one went my way as well.  The really sick thing was how it all ended.  With a chip lead I made a speculative call to his all in with Qs9s.  He had K5os and by the turn I was down to needing a 10 or he was doubling up.  I binked it.  No problem.  10 ball.  10 of clubs to be exact.  Wow.  It fell on to the table like it was meant to be.  It was a huge card as now I was in the money.  But his reaction to it was super visceral.  It had been a while since I have seen a player have a mega twitch cringe reaction to a bad card.  But now I can say I saw it close up and very recent.  It is a massive favorite to make the cut as his whole body recoiled in pain.  Sorry Phil.  I can be decently sypathetic/empathetic on those moments... and for sure I could feel his pain.

In my third heat I was grinding Jason Mercier down for a bit, and it was looking rosy... but then, as it sometimes happens in poker...  things slipped away.  I had a few mega crowbar hands and failed to get max value as I played them (I think) too fast.  Also I am not a big fan of a big (preflop) call I made towards the end with only King high, but in hindsight I see that I was influenced by his multiple previous all in moves.  None the less, I think more caution was called for.  All in all I showed a profit (Entry 20k, won 25k, net win = 5k) and had some fun, though it would have been nice to penetrate deeper where the phat money was.  Ho hum.

I have been in a poker blur... which is nice... I like poker blurs.  This current blur is going to wind down with the BAY 101 10k event that starts in 3 days.  After that event I will be in chill mode from March 15th to about April 7th.  Not much poker (I predict) for those 3 weeks.  One thing for sure is that I will be finally racking out the surf board - stoked! 

I can be in mega poker mode for weeks on end (and have been) so it will be nice to get this 3 week break.  I love taking breaks as I always return hungry and sharp.  The music is sometimes in the space between the notes.  April holds great promise for turning into a poker blur as the Bellagio will be hosting the 25k event that month.  

More later....

Phil