Merry Christmas + 2nd in $8k

Merry Christmas everyone! (all 2-3 of you) I hope all of you are enjoying being lazy, eating/drinking too much and getting fat just in time to declare that next year will be the time to get in shape (maybe that's just me).

It's been 2+ weeks since I posted. Since then, I finished finals which weren't too difficult, and my final grades turned out to be below EV :( Either way, I pulled a 3.5 and didn't work all that hard. My cume GPA is a 3.49, so I don't think I raised that at all. I am going to try and work hard and get a 3.7 next quarter which might be tough because I am taking my first 400 level class as well as econometrics which is going to suck.

Some highlights from the past two weeks include partying with my Italian friend Francesco on his last two days in Bellingham before he heads back to Italy (exchange student), hanging out with my old high school friends Ross, John, and Greg, seeing The Day the Earth Stood Still in IMAX which was meh, our friend Carl's bachelor party and tailgating for the Hawks game.

Last weekend on Friday, I went to dinner with John, Greg, and their/our friend Jason at Azteca. I opted to pass on food and stuck with chips/salsa and two very large Coors Lights. After that the night took us across the street to Wizards where we had to obtain the obligatory Matchplay coupon from the Cashier Cage for $25. Basically this means that if you place one $25 bet and you win, they pay you $50. I obv wanted to punish the house and pay for the night of debauchery so I went straight to the Pai Gow table. I pushed my first 2 hands then woke up with Kings and Tens which is probably a win 65% of the time, a push 25% of the time and a loss 10% of the time. I held the two pair and was elated.

John was going to play blackjack as is his game of choice, but I convinced him to play Pais. He had never played before, and I taught him my rituals as I learned from my mentors. These include taking the top card off the deck and putting it horizontally in front of you then taking the bottom card and placing it symmetrically vertical on top of the other card. This is then followed by looking at the first card, and if it is a J+, you show your friends and get excited. You then slowly (and I mean very slowly) pinch the other 4 cards. You then pick up the vertical card followed by the horizontal card. Anyways, John pushed his first 3 hands I believe and then found a pair of 3's and KT up, which is not good. Somehow the dealer rolled out a pai gow, and John also won. While at our Wizards stop, I think I had 4 beers served by our favorite waitress Barbara, who could/should be my grandma.

After that we went downstairs and played pool where I was most definitely on the downward end of my drunken bell curve in terms of being able to play these types of games. I don't think I won a game, and we retired the night around midnight.

The next day was Carl's bachelor party which started off at Carl's house followed by Red Robin, which was fun, and then back to his friend Todd's house. While we were caravaning from RR to his house, we sort of got lost and ended up playing in the snow for a while. The worst part of this was when Derek said, "hey everybody, let's tackle Joel" and I knew I was in trouble.

After that, we played a game of poker at Todd's which was a blast. We came up with several drinking games, and the first player eliminated had to chug a beer, run around the house twice (in 25 degree weather + snow) then chug another beer. Our friend Anthony was the unfortunate one to get knocked out first when he had 87 against his brother's A7 and my 10-8 when we got all in on the turn of a A J 8 8, and the river was a T to give me the scoop. I ended up running well and got down to heads up with Carl, the bachelor. Everyone was rooting for Carl to win as was I, and Derek ended up rigging the deck giving me AK against his 33 AIPF on a board of xxxK3 for a fun little sweat LMAO!

We then obviously went to the nearest casino, the Silver Dollar where all of us lost but had a good time. Derek drove us home, and we set our alarms for 5:25 the next morning to go tailgate. We struggled out of bed and got everything ready only to have Derek's car get stuck in the snow just out of his driveway. We tried shoveling the snow out from around the tires but still couldn't get it going. We tried putting wooden boards on each wheel which also didn't work. We eventually moved it to the bottom of the hill and were able to lucksack our way out of there. We arrived downtown around 7:30 and proceeded to put down about 60-70 beers between like 8 of us while playing the most fun/addicting game in the world - bean bag toss. For those of you who have never played and think that it sounds lame, I feel for you. You really don't know what you're missing out on.

The game was pretty fun. When we arrived to our bleacher seats, they were all covered in snow, so we had a good time digging through the snow to find our seats. After having probably 8 beers, Derek apparently went to a bar and had 4 shots and another beer. Needless to say, when he entered the stadium halfway through the 2nd quarter, he was quite sloppy. The highlight of the game, besides the Hawks winning, was Derek getting kicked out for throwing snow and then proceeding to walk down the steps and pick up a huge snow ball and hold it over his head yelling and then throwing it on the side of the bleachers.

Anyways, besides these few events, break has been a ton of sitting in front of the TV watching Pete play College Football '09, going between the kitchen and back, and grinding out hands. Things hadn't been going that great until Tuesday. I played in the 6:20 $8k gtd. tourney. I decided to really knit it up and wait for good spots to accumulate. The field was surprisingly weak, and I was able to double up on a few occasions and was chipleader with 70 left with 45 paying. I coasted into the money with ease and, tbh, never 3-bet anyone light but was just raising in position, picking up the blinds and antes enough to stay afloat.

With 18 left, I decided to post on my facebook status that there were 18 left. Within 5 mins, there were about 15 responses from people which made me feel good that I had like 3 railbirds for such a small tourney.

I made it to the FT 3rd in chips of the 9 and was able to get to 100k before we went on break with 6 left. The first hand back from the break, I picked up JJ, and the chipleader who started the hand with ~280k made it 15k at 2500/5k. I had a marginal shove for like 90k, and he called with AQ and I somehow held to get up to 200k.

From there, I went on to lose like 3 pots in a row and somehow lost half my stack. I stayed around here and we got down to 4 when I had around 80k at 4k/8k, the guy in 3rd had like 90k, the guy in second had like 200k, and the chipleader had ~300k. Then a really weird pot came up. UTG potted to like 30k, the SB (2nd in chips) flat called, and I had a trival shove for 80k with 99. The UTG, with 50k left tanked. I couldn't believe he could raise/fold, but he ended up calling, and the SB somehow folded getting like 4:1. Amazingly, the UTG player had 98s!!!! I was ecstatic and was a 7:1 fav. to nearly triple up. I held, and we were down to three. Simultaneously the two big stacks got all in and the chipleader won, so I found myself HU with a 4:1 chip disadvantage.

This guy had been playing like a monkey, so I really tried to slow the action down and find good spots to re-ship. The blinds started off at 5k/10k, and I had like 160k to his 600k. I started limping a lot of buttons, and he kept 5x'ing it from the BB, and I would fold. I guess I should have switched gears and start re-shipping light, but idk, I just didn't really have any great spots. I doubled up twice, but just wasn't able to adjust to the high blind levels and ended up shipping 77 into his KK and lost.

I took down $1480 for my efforts which is cool and I am excited about this. It hopefully will be the start to a good upswing. I have been watching tons of CardRunner cash vids and it has actually helped my tourney game. I am thinking on higher levels and am really progressing.

Anyways, it is Christmas, and I am sitting with my brothers watching South Park, so I am going to stop this blog before it gets too out of hand.

Happy New Year and God Bless,

JG