Back in Bellingham

DISCLAIMER: This will probably be a long blog. I have a lot of stuff on my mind and haven't updated this thing in a while, so if you are busy with lots of time-consuming projects at work (Petar), you might want to wait til you get home.

Since I last blogged, I took a trip to Phoenix/Tempe and Vegas, returned home and had a relaxing spring break, and am now back in Bellingham where I will be starting the final quarter of my undergrad career (hopefully) on Tuesday.

I got my grades back from last quarter, and I ended with 5 A's and 1 B+ for a 3.91 GPA, very close to the holy 4.0. Oh well, still good for the best quarter of my college career. I raised my cum GPA from a 3.49 to a 3.53 which is meh. I am extremely happy with this result, and I really feel like I am conceptually understanding economics and that my degree will not just be a title on a resume but I will be able to back this up with the many skills I have learned while at college.

This quarter will not be too bad. I am taking taxation, international finance, and behavioral economics for a total of 12 credits plus a b.s. 2 credit management information systems class to meet the 180 credit graduation requirement. I am going to shoot for a 3.75 this quarter, but I am going to be honest - school is not going to dominate my life this quarter. Not that it has in the past, and not that I'm not going to try, but it is my last quarter, and my priorities will be finding a job, getting healthy, hanging out with friends, and putting in a good amount of hands.

I am going to briefly recap the time that I spent on vacation, but no one blog post could possibly describe the amount of fun that I had on these vacations. While in Phoenix, we did a lot of lounging by the pool, eating at an amazing fast food place called Whataburger, and boozing quite heavily. One of the nights, we ended up at a sports/karaoke bar where I eventually sang JoJo's "Too Little Too Late" after about 10 green bud lights (St. Patrick's Day) which was a hit if I can remember in my drunken state.

We played golf one day in Tucson, which was amazing, and we also attended a Mariners game, although we were bummed that Griffey wasn't playing. A foul ball came our way, and I almost got a finger on it but pulled back at the last second before my buddy John picked it up as it fell underneath our seat. I will never again bad mouth somebody that doesn't have the balls to barehand a foul ball. That thing is coming in hot!

It was a great time in AZ, but I was ready to get to Vegas. I got in on Thursday at about 3:00, dropped off my bags and headed down to the Venetian Poker Room for some 1/2NL. Very first hand, an older Asian raises to $15 utg and there is a caller to me. I look down at AA and make it $45 to go. Both call, and we see a 9d 8d 4x flop. Checks to me, and I lead $80 of my $155 to try and get someone to spazz out jam. Asian folded, second guy calls, and we get it in on an x turn,a nd I hold. A nice little start to the weekend.

Ironically, that was the first time I saw AA the entire weekend! That night, a group of us went out to Tao at the Venetian which was actually pretty cool. Cover was $20 for us guys and drinks cost $12. At one point, I bumped into a girl, and her drink spilled over. She requested that I buy her a drink which I politely declined.

The next day I went to play in a $60 tourney at the Mirage. The format was kind of neat early, and antes kicked in early. In the first two levels, I lost with KK, QQ, and JJ but somehow managed to get through the first hour with 3x the starting stack. When the antes kicked in, I continually raped blinds. I tried to run a bluff against this idiot who c/called turn and river with AK high on a QT97x. I guess he soul read me? Anyways, I eventually busted when the blinds went from 400/800 to 800/1600 lol. UTG limps for 1600 with T9o, and I jam the A9cc for 12k, and he felt he had to call when it mucked to him hehe.

Later that night, I headed over to Caesars to get the night started before Pete and Derek arrived. When they did arrive around 9:30, we immediately began getting serious about drinking. We got a sweet waitress named Reggie (female) who allowed us to purchase a beer and a shot each round. We shipped the white russians and the washington apples for about 5 rounds. Pete got in with 74o against Ax on the turn of A799 and rivered a 7 in a $400+ pot. He then stacked that same player the next hand with KK. Quite a large swing.

We got the HORSE game going that night, and I vaguely remember opening 73hh utg and snapping Derek's AA. I don't think I made it to the omaha round. Peter got lost in Caesars for an hour and kept trying to put his key in a room there. The hotel security guard continually told him that his room was at the Monte Carlo, not at Caesars. But Pete's body was telling him he had to find a bed ASAP. Both he and Derek made it home safely that night.

Saturday was even more ridiculous. To keep it short, Pete started drinking Bud Light at 10am and was the most social I have ever seen anyone. We had an entertaining dinner at Outback before heading to the Mirage where our plan was to chop all winnings in a $70 sng. Derek got the money in drawing dead, and Pete got coolered when he ran KK into A6o AIPF where we saw a fun flop of AA6. I ended up chopping the SNG to scoop about a $20 profit for all three of us.

We again went back to Caesars where we quickly got a 4/8 HORSE game going. This is where I enjoyed unlimited HU raising when I had 44 against QJ on a QQ432. We put in 5 bets on the river for quite a large 4/8 pots hehe. The night ended with quite a memorable walk back to the Monte Carlo that involved social Pete and a football referee flag. I really wish we had gotten more video footage of Pete during this weekend. It was the funniest thing ever.

I did pretty well sports betting while down there. On Friday, I accidentally made a $10 4-team parlay betting the spreads and was perfect through 3, so I hedged the last game and scooped $50. I bet a couple games on Saturday and was convinced by Derek to bet $75 on Japan vs. the US in the semi-finals of the WBC, which they won.

It was sad to leave Vegas for sure, but I really enjoyed my time there and look forward to our return trip in June.

The highlight of this week since I returned from Vegas was going snowboarding for the first time ever on Thursday. My buddy Steven took me up there, and he is really good at it. I opted to attend the lesson which helped me get the fundamentals down before hitting the actual slopes. My first couple runs were a little bit painful, but I finally got the hang of it, and my third run down I actually felt like I could get down without falling too badly. I did have quite a painful fall at one point where I caught my front edge and was flung straight on my face. I felt like I was in a wrestling match the next day with how sore I was, but it was a great time. I bought a 3-day pass, so I will be going back in two weekends to try it again.

On my drive back up to Bellingham, I realized that this was my last quarter in Bellingham and that I would need to find a job soon to fill the void for most likely a year before I probably will attend graduate school. For some reason though, this doesn't scare me at all. I am not going to just slack off this quarter and not seek out job opportunities for this summer and beyond, but I am going to try and enjoy my time here in Bellingham and take care of some personal things while I prepare for the future. For some reason, I am really looking forward to this quarter and feel that I am going to accomplish a lot of things as long as I set my mind to it.

Here are some random, specific goals for the quarter:

- As stated, receive a 3.75 GPA or higher

- Contact at least 3 employers per week about job/internship opportunities - this could be just e-mailing them inquiring about a position or sending in my resume.

- Lift weights 5 times a week mostly after class

- Run 3 times a week in preparation for a half marathon in June

- Eat healthier - I'm not sure how specific I want to be with this. In general, I want to get in better shape, but I'm not sure if I am going to go on a specific diet or what. I guess I need to do some more research into this.

- Finish The Power of Positive Thinking. I started reading this a few months ago but only got a few chapters in. I felt impacted by it and would like to finish it this quarter.

- I would also like to put in 20,000 hands during the month of April. I'm pretty sure that this is quite attainable. I just recently purchased Hold 'em Manager which is a data-mining program that is better than Poker Tracker. Seeing stats and trying to increase my hourly rate is something that gets my juices running. I may step up the amount of hands I want to put in for May, but I am going to try and really set aside a few hours each day to put in a nice sesh.

Overall, I am really happy with things right now. I could not have asked for a better spring break. The weather is starting to get better which means lots more golfing, and I am really looking forward to soaking up my last quarter as an undergrad. I will hopefully have frequent session reviews in the coming weeks as well as some updates on my exercise/dietary goals.

Thanks for reading. Hope this wasn't too long.

God Bless,

JG

Done with Finals + In Tempe

I just arrived at a Sheraton in Tempe and am about to go meet a few of my friends for a night of drinks out on Mill Ave, which is apparently the place to be in Tempe - directly across from ASU.

I will be here until Thursday when I will leave for Las Vegas through Monday. It will be an amazing trip undoubtedly.

I finished up finals today (I only had one) but it feels very very good. I would have had two finals today, but they were optional, and I have A's in both classes which is great. I have a pretty good shot at about a 3.8 which would be great considering the tough class schedule I had.

I will probably update this sometime this week once I arrived in LV. I am going to go get fucked up now.

JG

Screwed this one up pretty badly

I meant to post this blog a few days ago but never got around to it until now.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?3927008

I put in about 800 hands today at 100NL and ended up slightly but whiffed two 200k sats and went deep but didn't cash in the 6.5k. I felt like I played okay all day but not spectacular. I forgot my power chord when I went home this weekend, so I had to play on my desktop which I just don't like. There are a number of things that I hate about both my setup and my desktop that I am just not motivated enough to fix:

- I am borrowing Heather's monitor, which is pretty small, and I can't play more than 4 tables without them overlapping.

- The level of my desk is slightly high, so it can be a big uncomfortable. Also, it is positioned in a way that I can't get super close to my desk, so I have to extend my hand out far which sucks.

- Finally, there are a number of issues with some software programs. When I run PokerAce HUD, my comp runs extremely slow and I get tilted very fast, so I have to shut it off which doesn't help.

There are some other things that just really annoy me. I would like to have a baller setup, but that would require me to get motivated enough to either buy a new desk or alter my current one as well as buy new monitors and figure out wtf is up with PA Hud.

Anyways, I posted a hand at the top, which really bothered me, so I wanted to talk about how badly I screwed it up. I felt like this guy was playing like a monkey, even though I guess he was only playing 24/20. We had played a couple pots where I bombed the river with one pair, and he looked me up light both times. He had also 3-bet me at least 3 times, and I 4-bet once and he called and I won the pot post flop. I also had a note on him saying that he called a 3-bt with K7s.

So, that being said, p/f is standard, and I like my sizing. I am not uncomfortable playing deep, but didn't want to get in a variance war with another reg. Anyways, on the flop, the stacks were awkward, so I didn't want to bet and get jammed on by his one-pair hands. So I decided to CRAI (check raise all in). But when he checked behind, I wanted to puke. I was involved in another pot, so I decided to just bet $70 on the turn. This is not bad in and of itself but when making this bet, I absolutely have to have a plan as to what to do if he jams. When he shoved, I was getting like 2.6:1. I would have to run some poker stove stuff but I honestly felt like he might sometimes just spaz out and jam AQ or w/e. Anyways, I talked myself into a call and lost. In retrospect, I don't HATE my flop check but my turn play is spewy at best. I think a turn bet just looks so bluffy. I guess I should have just c/fold if he bets like 2/3 pot and c/called if he 1/2 pots it or something. I'm not sure. Just kinda sucks that he checked back the flop because I think it would have been a cool spot to CRAI. Either way I play it, I go broke, but I just felt like by him checking behind on the flop, I don't have a chance to get it in when my equity is high vs. his range.

Oh well, I actually still ended up on the session about $80, but it could have been much better. On the day, I am down like $50 or something.

I have two more weeks of school, and I just have to finish a take-home quiz and a hw assignment for Tuesday and then I really only have 3 finals. It should be managable.

In two weeks, I am running in a 4ish-mile St. Patricks Day Fun Run. I have been running 2.6 miles 3-4 times a week and have made a ton of progress. My only issue right now is that on days when I don't run, I typically eat not great, and weekends of drinking take it out of me. On Mondays it is usually a struggle getting through the run, but by Friday I am feeling like I am in great shape. I also haven't lifted in about 2 weeks as I have been more focusing on cardio. I don't know what I am going to do about that.

This weekend was an absolute blast. On Friday night, we went out for Buffman's birthday to this pub where we threw down some beers and played some pool. On the final game of the night, Derek had about a 5 ball lead in 8-ball, and we had $10 on it I believe. He then gave Buffman and Pete 5/1 on me winning, and we all scooped when he scratched on the 8 ball. It is very rare that we get the best of Derek in props, so we like to rub it in whenever it happens.

After that we headed to wizards where I somehow managed to run like Derek and win about $300. We had at least 4-5 rounds of jaeger bomb + beer on top of about 5-6 beers, so the night was a bit blurry.

Saturday was pretty low key. I went to a wedding then just took it easy for the night. Sunday went as mentioned above.

Getting back to my running progress, I ran about 2 miles on Saturday and 2.6 on Sunday, took Monday off then ran another 2.6 yesterday, and this morning (Wednesday) I somehow managed to lucksack my way into a 4 mile run without dying. I actually felt really fine, but I do have two issues: 1) my shoes apparently suck, and I get shin splints real easily and 2) I absolutely suck running uphill. I was doing great for about the first mile and a half until we hit this nasty hill where I almost lost it.

As far as the rest of my week looks, I have a Dodgeball playoff game tonight at 8:30 that has me quite excited. Our team isn't that great, but we played pretty well in our last game, and I feel that I am peaking right now. ONE TIME PLZZZZ!!!

Other than that, Saturday is the always exciting Western v. Central basketball game. We are having a pre-funking party at our apartment starting at 3 even though the game doesn't start til 7. Should be quite an adventure.

Well that is all I have. I am down to one more HW assignment and 3 more tests before Phoenix + Vegas for Spring Break!

God Bless,

JG