Gave Commerce Another Chance

Date: Sat, Sep 6, 2008 Professional Internet Tournament

I know I said i was not going back to Commerce Casino. I still had 2 satellite chips to use and it was Friday here in Los Angeles and the traffic on the freeway is horrendous. Coupled with my family going to the opening day of the LA County Fair,I stopped off at Commerce which is 5 minutes from my station and decided to enter the $225.00 NL event.

I sat down at table 5 seat 6 and a 2 time bracelet winner, Frankie Odell and another established pro,Mickey "Mouse" Mills were at my table.

Again I am down to 875 chips after another player chased a straight to the river,risking his tournament, after I flopped a set of sixes. Mickey raises the next hand to 300 when the blinds were at 50-25 and I have 99. I put the rest of my chips in and Micky calls with AK. The flop has a King and I get up out of my chair and extend my hand to Micky who is one of the "Gentleman" of Poker as the dealer puts a 9 on the turn.

So from here I go on a rush of cards flopping a Full House in two hands that double me up both times and I flop Quad sevens in Level 4 and one player chased a flush and now I am up to 8500 chips.

I as usual go card dead and in level 9 with only 5700 in chips I have AK. Under the gun raises to 3000 and I go all in. Two other players go all in and the original raiser calls.

Original raiser.AJ second all in, QJ third all in QQ and me AK.The pot is 27,000 and the flop is A-K-J turn is a 7 and the river is a 4.This was a great pot for me and I had AA as my only playable hand for two more levels.

The blinds are now 3000-1500 and a 500 ante and I only have 16,000 chips left.My Big Blind and I have JJ and the button raises to 9,000 and I go all in. He calls me with 8-4 because he only has 6,000 in chips left. The flop was 9-8-4, he flopped two pair and won the pot. I had one chip left over for an ante and I was out in 23rd place.

There were 395 players last night and we started with only 2000 chips and the Commerce Demons must have been out of town because it was a good tournament for me until the last hand.

I made no mistakes caught some cards early and just could not get over the hump late in the tournament.

I would like to thank all my friends who called me and told me to continue the grind and forget about the last tournament. Its a new day and a new tournament and go have fun.

I am getting closer and closer to taken one of these events down, again thank you for the support.

Take Care...Be Safe...

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Farewell Commerce Casino!!!!!!!!!!

Date: Thu, Sep 4, 2008 Professional Internet Tournament

It's 12:45 am and I have just arrived home after a 60 mile ride from the Commerce Casino. It was a very long ride tonight as the Poker Demons of Commerce struck again.

We started with 2000 in chips at 6:00 pm sharp after the Tournament Director, Cheri Dokken gave out the instructions for this $335.00 NL event.

I was card dead the first two levels and played some suited connectors out of frustration and it took my stack down to 900. A table change did me very good as I had AA 4 times in an hour span and only once did I get someone to go over the top of my initial raise with an All-In. He had KK and my aces held up.

I worked my way up to 8500 chips by level 6 and then went card dead and was down to 2200 chips after losing 6000 in a span of 20 minutes with my sets getting busted by flushes.

I grind and play great Poker to build my stack up to 12,500 chips when the blinds go to 800-400 and a 75 ante.

This was quite an accomplishment as there were two very aggressive players at my table. They raised All-In every time in position and protected their blinds very aggressively.

There were 45 people left out of the original 299 that started the evening and the pay outs started at 27 players. A table was broken and we got two new players to fill the empty seats and every table was now 9 handed.

I look down at JJ and raise to 1975 and it folds to one of the new players at the table. He looks at his hole cards and hesitates and then declares All-In!!!

He has me covered by 700 chips and I really believe he is just trying to steal the 4000 chip pot.

We were both just below average in chips and I feel really good about my hand so I say,"I guess this is it,I am All-In"

He turns over 77 and when he see's my JJ he cringes. Then we have the Commerce Poker Demons come after me and the flop is 9-7-6. He hits his SET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So hence the long drive home and my promising night and 6 hours worth of hard work is over in a flash and I leave the Commerce dejected once again.

Yes I satellited into this event, yes this is another bad beat story, but one can only take so much when you are determined as I am to become a respected and profitable player.

The Bicycle Casino has the Big Poker October starting in 3 weeks, so until then........

Take Care...Be Safe

P.S. To take some of the pain away...I played a $60.00 tournament on Poker Stars with 45 entries..To upset to sleep..anyway I won it and first place was $762.00...I guess i can play poker..Just not at Commerce..

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Farewell Commerce Casino!!!!!!!!!!

Date: Thu, Sep 4, 2008 Professional Internet Tournament

It's 12:45 am and I have just arrived home after a 60 mile ride from the Commerce Casino. It was a very long ride tonight as the Poker Demons of Commerce struck again.

We started with 2000 in chips at 6:00 pm sharp after the Tournament Director, Cheri Dokken gave out the instructions for this $335.00 NL event.

I was card dead the first two levels and played some suited connectors out of frustration and it took my stack down to 900. A table change did me very good as I had AA 4 times in an hour span and only once did I get someone to go over the top of my initial raise with an All-In. He had KK and my aces held up.

I worked my way up to 8500 chips by level 6 and then went card dead and was down to 2200 chips after losing 6000 in a span of 20 minutes with my sets getting busted by flushes.

I grind and play great Poker to build my stack up to 12,500 chips when the blinds go to 800-400 and a 75 ante.

This was quite an accomplishment as there were two very aggressive players at my table. They raised All-In every time in position and protected their blinds very aggressively.

There were 45 people left out of the original 299 that started the evening and the pay outs started at 27 players. A table was broken and we got two new players to fill the empty seats and every table was now 9 handed.

I look down at JJ and raise to 1975 and it folds to one of the new players at the table. He looks at his hole cards and hesitates and then declares All-In!!!

He has me covered by 700 chips and I really believe he is just trying to steal the 4000 chip pot.

We were both just below average in chips and I feel really good about my hand so I say,"I guess this is it,I am All-In"

He turns over 77 and when he see's my JJ he cringes. Then we have the Commerce Poker Demons come after me and the flop is 9-7-6. He hits his SET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So hence the long drive home and my promising night and 6 hours worth of hard work is over in a flash and I leave the Commerce dejected once again.

Yes I satellited into this event, yes this is another bad beat story, but one can only take so much when you are determined as I am to become a respected and profitable player.

The Bicycle Casino has the Big Poker October starting in 3 weeks, so until then........

Take Care...Be Safe

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Do You Believe In Jinxes???

Date: Wed, Sep 3, 2008 Professional Internet Tournament

I decided to go play the opening event at Commerce Casino 's California State Poker Championship last night.

It was a $225.00 buy in for the No Limit Event and since I won $700.00 in tournament chips and have been playing so well lately, I decided to go last minute....Turned out to be a mistake.

If you have read my blogs the past year or so I have told you about hoe tough Commerce is on me. In 2007 I played my first big tournament there, a $545.00 NL event at the LA Poker classic after winning a satellite by default, when two guys started to fight and it left me the winner.

There were 797 players and when we were down to 17 I lost a big pot with QJ diamonds in the BB to 9-3 and went out on the next hand with a flush draw. I then played the second $545.00 event with 690 entries and busted 30th. I was disappointed in my 17th place finish and my AQ lost to 65 in the second and I have never recovered.

I have played probably 15 tournaments at Commerce since 2007 with the majority of them satellite entries. I have not finished in the money in any of them since and last night was no different.

I told you the first level I would not play anything but AA-KK and QQ. Queens i would make only a small raise with because people tend to play a weak ACE anytime here in Southern Cal in these small buy in events.

I have taken some pretty rough beats at Commerce and I keep going back to attack those Poker Demons who lurk in the walls and wait for me to sit down and tease me for awhile and then take it all away with some unbelievable runner runner cards.

I imagine them laughing and high fiving each other as I leave the tournament room and as I get out of their view I can hear them yell,"Sucka"

I sat down at table 39 seat 5 last night and there were 4 players I knew and to my left was Minh Nguyen, the runner up to Daniel Negreanu in the 2004 WSOP player of the year award.

I know Minh and he was at my fallen heroes Tournament in February this year and he is a gentleman during the game and away from the game. Minh has over 2 million in Tournament winnings but has had a very tough time lately.

The blinds were 25-25 and we had 2000 in starting chips and I was the BB. I folded every hand until the BB came around to me again and I look down and have AA.

There were 3 hands I would of won big pots with if I had played my J-10. Q-7 or my 76 clubs. However i stuck to my system and as the under the gun player raised it to 225 it folded to Minh, who called.

I re-raise to 500 chips and the Under the gun calls as does Minh. The flop Q-8-8 with two hearts.

Minh checks I make a bet of all in because if the flush draw there and I am sure neither of them has Pocket Queens or an 8.

Under the gun thinks for a bit and he really wants to call and now I know he has a Queen but does not want to risk his tournament right now. He folds and Minh to my surprise says,"Sorry Scott, you are drawing dead as he turns over 88 for QUADS. The turn and River do not help and I have one 100 dollar chip left.

I was shell shocked and the under the gun guy said he folded AQ and I was still dazed my flopped quads. I could here the Demons hands slapping and it felt like everyone of the 494 players were looking and laughing at me.

What can i do... Well i am going back tonight to play the $335.00 NL event and if anything close to what happened to me again last night occurs, Commerce will be a place I will no longer patronize until I can find some kind of Poker demon spray or book on how to rid the place of the Demons.

Till tomorrow...take Care...Be Safe..

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Poker Weekend here in LA

Date: Mon, Sep 1, 2008 Professional Internet Tournament

I had a pretty good two weeks of Poker and I am very happy with the way my game has been. As I told you I won two satellites to get into the $1000.00 event at the Legends of Poker where I cashed. I have played well on-line also and this weekend we had our Monthly deputy Tournament at one of my good friends house Saturday Night.

Well being the good friend I try to be I told Jimmy I would be there until my wife kindly reminded me it was our Wedding Anniversary. So being the great Husband I am I took my wife to the Bicycle Casino on Thursday Night and we watched John Phan play some great poker and we had a Very nice dinner at the Sushi restaurant there.

So Saturday I am at work and go to downtown LA in the flower district and buy my wife an amazing bouquet of Roses and bring them home. She loves roses and they were a big hit so she packed the girls up and we headed over to Jim's house to Play some Poker and try and get the bragging rights for the next month.

There were 18 players and after a pretty good 6 hour session of playing I finally won but it was now 1:30 am and I have to get up at 3:30 am to go to work. Long day but it was worth it after winning the $500.00 first place prize.

So on my way home the Nascar race was starting at 5pm and the freeways near mu home were jammed packed with 80,000 people so I stopped off at Commerce and played 2 $40.00 satellites. I won those as the players were not very experienced at satellite play and Now I have $600.00 in tournament chips to play some of the upcoming California State Championship events.

I was wanting to play on Wednesday the $335.00 NL Event and as I was looking at the structures today,the majority of all these events only start with 1500 in chips.

This will be a good thing for me with my style of play the first few levels. There will be people trying to chip up really early or bust really early on draws because they do not have the patience to sit for three levels short stacked, as I do.

I hope your weekend has been a good one for you. I will let you all know Thursday how my tournament went, so until; then..Be Safe...Take Care.....

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the loss of "cash pickup" at Full Tilt Poker

Date: Mon, Sep 1, 2008 Professional Internet Tournament

Full Tilt Poker's payment processing problems of the past few months have been a real hassle to those of us who play on the site regularly. Their checks have always been slower to arrive than Pokerstars checks have been, but over the last few months they'd become infuriatingly slow, and many players had reported getting checks that bounced. I should point out that I don't know anyone personally that it's happened to, but was widely reported on poker forums. My checks just never showed up. Twice I'd requested a check, and after the alloted time they sent me an email explaining it had been canceled, and gave me a bonus to make up for it.

Now, the bonus was not insignificant, and after everything was taken into account, I was perfectly happy with the extra money I had received for my inconvenience, assuming that I would be able to receive the money in some way, but until that happened, they could count me as a very dissatisfied customer. It was just pure luck that the two month delay in cash flow had not caused serious financial problems for me. Soon after my second bonus, when I was ready to request a third check, a great thing happened. They announced the "cash pickup" payout system.

It was incredible. I was allowed to request a payout of up to $2500, and the next day I was emailed the name of the cash transfer service (a very well known company that they only revealed in private correspondence so I will keep it private just in case they did that for a good reason) with multiple convenient locations near to me. I just drove down the street, and picked up my money in crisp American Dollars.

I was elated. My payment problems had me on the verge of switching back to Pokerstars exclusively, and now FTP had provided me with something that would make them by far the most convenient site to use. I even evangelized the new service to my friends to get them to switch over from Stars and Absolute. (I've since been told that Stars offers the service, which I will check up on soon)

As I grew my bankroll back up from my withdrawal, time to make another crept up on me, and I was disturbed to discover that the "cash pickup" option was canceled. Was it just a one time thing for the people who they had caused so many problems? I emailed customer support to be told that it was suspended as an option, although it was still listed on the website. I grudgingly requested a check payout, my recently won goodwill towards FTP cashed in with it, to wait the three weeks that my checks seem to average, hoping that it actually arrives on time.

I can't be the only dissatisfied customer that had been won over by the new service, and I'm somewhat bothered that it was taken away so quickly. They appear to have replaced it with some type of prepaid phone card thing, which it appears requires you to be charged 3% + $0.90 to use, and can't be as convenient as Cash Pickup was.

I think I'll be going back to Stars for a month, and see how I like it. I hadn't played there in a few months, and I've changed primary formats so it's worth toying with anyhow. Maybe during my time away, FTP will realize how easy it is to lose customer loyalty, and how hard it is to earn it, and make a return to what was clearly the best thing they've done with payment yet, the Cash Pickup withdrawal option.

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Brian Towsend Admits Multi-Accounting

Date: Thu, Aug 28, 2008 Professional Internet Tournament

Brian “SBrugby” Townsend has admitted to multi-accounting on both Full Tilt and Poker Stars in recent months. In his blog, he admitted to this and said he has lost his red pro status on Full Tilt for six months for his actions. Click here for his blog.

Townsend is known for playing the highest stakes in online cash games after grinding his way from .25/.50 nl. He is one of the key members of Cardrunners. In the summer of 2007, he played high stakes in Las Vegas, which involved several million dollar swings.

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Legends Final table Tonite

Date: Thu, Aug 28, 2008 Professional Internet Tournament

I will be at the Bicycle Casino watching the Legends Final table tonite and sweating John Phan.

If you are there stop by and say hello. Also you can catch my blogs at All-In Magazine.com under blogs also...

Take Care...Be Safe....

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Legends Of Pokers Main Event Day 2

Date: Tue, Aug 26, 2008 Professional Internet Tournament

Yesterday was a long and tiring day for me. I woke up at 3:30am for work and the only thing that got me out of bed was it was my Friday and I also was going to meet the wife of the Deputy who was murdered 2 weeks ago.

It was a slow day and at 2:00pm my partners Craig and Jamie and I headed to meet Celeste Escalante for the first time to give her a check from the Fallen Heroes Fund and a Cruise for the whole family donated by Linda Johnsons, Card Player Cruises.

As you know Linda has been a HUGE supporter of my Charity and we have become good friends. I have met a lot of people in my life and Linda has the Biggest Heart of anyone I have ever met.

It was a little emotional for me to see the Escalante kids running around with a Picture of their father on an easel in the Living Room. They are well behaved and lovely children and its a shame there Dad will not be around to watch them grow up.

I arrived at the Bike about 2 hours after the tournament had started and it was pretty quiet with about 170 people still in.

I watched Gavin Smith play a hand and he called a bet on the river and his opponent had Quad tens.Mark Seif went on a rush and at one point had over 300,00 in chips but he ended the day with about 242,000.

Layne Flack was wild and crazy as usual and he was down to about 20,000 at one point but he came back and ended the evening with 189,000. The best play though was by Raymond Davis. Ray was down to 7,000 chips early in the day. With a lot of work and tremendous patience and the ability to have no fear in re-raising certain players he ended the day with close to 190,000 chips.

Alan Weintraub was by far the luckiest of the day. I watched him hit almost every flop for an hour and build his stack to over 500,000. Alan was playing J6 off and turning full houses, 5-3 diamonds flopping flushes and he knew he was hot and continued to play almost every hand.

Kelly Kim (from the November9) made a call early against John Smith with a board of 10-10-5-2-2, of 75,000 chips,two thirds of his stack. John went all in and Kelly thought for awhile and you could see the anguished look on his face. Kelly folded but with some hard work he is back in contention and I hope he makes the final table along with Mark Seif. As I told you yesterday, I am very impressed with Kelly, as he is a very polite and down to earth guy.

The other big hand I saw was Antonio Esfiadiari All In against an opponent with AQ. Antonio had him covered slightly with KK and when the flop came A-Q-7 Antonio was flustered. But as I stated to the table after the King hit the River, "Thats why they call him the Magician" Everyone just laughed and Antonio doubled to over 200,000 chips to put him in the top ten of chips.

Nothing else really exciting happened. Allen Cunnigham was reading a magazine while playing and Eric Seidel was sleeping with his Ipod on during the last break of the Night. I did see Gabe Kaplan make a King high straight flush and then call for food service. He looked at the Menu for about 15 minutes and I told him , " Gabe that's not a script, its a food menu" he laughed pretty hard and shook my hand and finally ordered a fruit salad.

Walking around the room and watching these established pro's play is quite rewarding. The style of play is so different then the players I am used to going up against. Rarely do you here an "All-In" call,the pace is much slower and position is very well played.

I enjoy watching players go at each other. I actually study their faces and look for some sort of tell and I try and guess to myself who has the best hand and what they might have.

I really believe I could do well in this kind of event, because it fits my style of play.

I will not be going to any other days of Legends until the Final table Thursday. Going to spend some time at home with the girls and take care of a few things around the house.

I am going to try and play the Player Appreciation $225.00 NL tournament on Friday at the Bike, because it starts at Noon, so I have to take a few hours off of work.

So till Friday..........Take Care....Be Safe.........Good Luck Mark,Antonio and Kelly hope you get there.

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Bad fir Poker, Baby?

Date: Mon, Aug 25, 2008 Professional Internet Tournament

I’m a little late on this topic, but some people feel that the way Scotty Nguyen’s behavior at the 50k HORSE final table was bad for poker. I’m not so convinced about that.

He clearly was out of line with his antics and deserved penalties for his behavior. I have heard that Scotty came out and said that he wasn’t drunk. I have no idea how that is possible. In fact, if I were him, I would say I was very drunk because then there is a reason to act that way. I don’t travel the tournament circuit, so I have never seen Scotty in person. His TV appearance has always come off as a nice guy. This appearance clearly is crumpled up and thrown in the garbage after the HORSE table.

I don’t think this was really bad for poker, though. People already playing poker are going to keep watching poker shows and keep playing the game. This added entertainment to poker for people that aren’t big poker fans. I had heard about the drunkenness and was looking forward to seeing what exactly happened. While this isn’t the kind of attention poker wants, it will get viewers, which certainly is not bad for the game.

The one thing that Scotty’s acts did tarnish a little was the celebration of deceased Chip Reese. The night was slightly intended to honor the poker great. The barrage of swearing put a cloud over that a little bit.

Scotty will have some work to do in order to get the image he had by the fans back. I don’t think his actions will help poker a whole lot, but it did add some entertainment that isn’t always there. I don’t think this was bad for poker. That being said, this can’t be a normal occurrence. That would be terrible for the game by giving it an image of drunks. As an isolated incident, it’s fine. People get drunk. That is not a secret.

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Legends Day 1B

Date: Mon, Aug 25, 2008 Professional Internet Tournament

Today the second starting day of The Legends of Pokers Main Event, started at 2:00pm at the Bicycle Casino.

There were 212 players who showed up to play the $10,000.00 No Limit Tournament which is the second largest event here in the Los Angeles area every year.

A total of 373 players entered to make first place One million and ninety eight thousand dollars and second place Five hundred and sixty three thousand. Last years tournament had 475 players and was won by Dan Harrington.

The big story of this tournament is the big name players who did show up. No Doyle Brunson,Todd Brunson,Scotty Nguyen,Mike Gracz,Chris Bell,J.C.Tran,Nam Le,Phil Hellmuth,Mike Matusow,Annie Duke,Howard Lederer,Michael Demichelle,Joe Hachem and Andy Bloch.

Some who did come to play are Mark Seif,Alan Cunnigham,Chris Ferguson,Jordan Morgan,Brandon Cantu,Theo Tran,Kathy Libert,Kenna James,Michael Binger,Maria Ho,Barry Greenstein,Layne Flack,Kelly Kim and David Levi just to name a few.

Phil Ivey was also here but only lasted 20 minutes before going all in blind because he had to leave for an unknown reason and losing to a very happy player, who doubled up early.

Play was very very slow and with 30,000 chips and 90 minute levels there is really no reason you should bust early because this is not some 300.00 event,it's a 10k and the play is so very different in a tournament of this stature.

I did get to speak with Kelly Kim for a few. Kelly is one of the WSOP main event final table players and he is a local, who like me, started playing small events at the Bike to hone our skills.Kelly is a great guy and I gave him one of the Fallen Heroes Shirts and he just might wear it during tomorrows play.Kenna James told me he is definitely wearing the Fallen Heroes hat and shirt during tomorrows session and that is great news.

I will be going to watch some of the play tomorrow and then I will not be going back until Thursday, when the Final table is being filmed. I am going to spend some time with the twins on my days off and get some honey do's done around the house.

Sorry I do not have anything interesting to report,but today was like watching paint dry on a wall, very slow.

Take Care,,,,Be Safe...

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Legends Day 1A

Date: Sun, Aug 24, 2008 Professional Internet Tournament

The 10,000 Main Event started today at 2:00pm PST today here at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, California.

There were 161 entries for the first of two start dates this year and by 4;00pm there were 9 people on the road home. the most notable was Joe Sebok who had Aces and Kings busted and left him short stacked almost immediately.

All players started with 30,000 in chips and the levels are 90 minutes long,so there is quite a bit of play.

Some of the notables there today were, Eric Seidel,Men the Master, Chad Brown, Vanessa Rousso, Vinny Vinh,Bryan Devonshire, Eric Lindgren,John Phan,Gavin Smith, Antoni Esfiandari,who is supposed to go on a ride with me in the morning And several others.

Daniel Negreneau stopped by and I had a nice conversation with him and he was very wound up and appeared to be very happy he was here in Los Angeles.He was doing an interview with Amanda Letherman from Poker Road so you should check it out and see how excited he was for yourself.

It was a pretty slow evening and there was some tense players in the group,but as always if you were at John Phans table, it had a party like atmosphere.

My good friend Jorge Pineda who won his seat into the event unfortunately will not make it to day two on Monday as he had an early exit.

Not much else to report, very slow day. They are still running some $1,000.00 satellites tomorrow morning to give someone a chance to play at the 2pm start time.

So if your feeling lucky head on down to the Bike and take a shot at a Million Dollar payday.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a little more exciting. have a great day..take care..Be Safe..

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Legends Main Event Starts this Weekend

Date: Wed, Aug 20, 2008 Professional Internet Tournament

Time is going by at record speed this year. Tomorrow is my two year anniversary of playing tournament poker as the Legends of Poker Media event starts at Noon.

It seems as it was just yesterday I was taking down last years Christmas decorations and in just a short few months I will be taking them out to put up again.

This is where I had my first taste of a REAL poker tournament as Kelly O'hara, the Bikes wonderful marketing Director allowed me to play, because I wrote articles for our Department magazine.So if you want anyone to blame, it would be Kelly!

I'm still thinking about my blunder from the other night. I have talked to a few close friends I have made in the Poker world and they all agree I am stupid for not shoving when I looked at two tens,but as Long as I learn from those mistakes I should be a better player in the future.

The funny thing about that hand, I had listened to that little voice in my head all night. The one that tells you don't do it and we usually do. After the flop the voice told me to shove and I did not listen, so I let my opponent catch up when I was getting greedy and trying to trap him.

One good thing came out of this tournament is that I know I can play with the Big Boys and that gives me more confidence as I grow as a player.

I watched the 50k H.O.R.S.E. Event last night on ESPN and was amazed at Scotty's demeanor.The show was not good for poker last night as ESPN was beeping half the conversations and we saw the worse of three very respectable guys come out last night.

Eric, who as an athlete learned along time ago how to curb his emotions even told Scotty he was not a fan of his. Demichele,whom I have never met but seemed like a pretty nice kid when he was doing well in the USA Poker Championships a few years ago on ESPN, lost his patience with Scotty and was biting his tongue I am sure because this event was being filmed.

The guys at PokerRoadradio.com are going to be talking about this in the next few days on one of their shows.They also talked about the same thing I wrote about a few weeks ago when Norman Chad bashed Justin Bonomo on ESPN.

I believe this is not good for Poker. People getting interested in Poker, as I did by watching it on ESPN, are going to think only morons and degenerates play Poker and are going to stay away.

I think ESPN should have not shown the 50k event on TV even though it was the premier event for professionals at this years WSOP. I, personally was disappointed in Scotty who I met several years ago at Legends and who gave my girls Chips with his likeness on it at this years WSOP. My girls were so excited to see him on the TV last night,they came in from riding their new Razor scooters I bought them yesterday to watch along with my wife.

We were so disappointed, we left and went to Chili's for dinner.

I will be playing for only the first hour tomorrow at the Media Event as I have to go to court at 2pm.

I wish I could play the Main Event it would be a goal of mine,but I have to work this weekend and I did not play any super satellites to try and gain enetry.I forsee myself playing a 10k event in the near future though, so I will be patient.

Good luck to all who enter and play, there should be around 400 entries or so as there were last year and Dan Harrington should be in town to defend his title of a year ago.

I am waiting for the California State Championship Series to start in Two weeks, so I will be giving the cash games a shot. I played $200.00 NL yesterday and won $645.00 which is good because my truck registration is due next week..LOL

Take Care...Be Safe...

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One Lousy Mistake Cost me!!!

Date: Tue, Aug 19, 2008 Professional Internet Tournament

Today was the 1000.00 Nl event at the Bikes Legends Of Poker. I have been playing very well as of late and tonite was no exception.

I won a 120.00 satellite and chopped another Sunday night and I entered todays Event. This is the biggest buy in I have ever played with exception of The Seniors Event at the WSOP.

Early on I was up to 15,000 in chips as we started with 6,000 and 45 minute levels. I went card dead and could not make any moves and was down to 8200 when I was moved to another table. I picked up some blinds and antes to keep me right around 8200 when I was moved to another table.

The chip leader was to my right and he was raising every pot. I had 99 in the Small blind when he raised to 4200 chips and I went all in. He called with A9 and I doubled up as no Ace came.

Later I had 10-10 after he made a big raise and he called me with A6 and I am now at 36k. I get blinded down to 17,000 chips when I look at JJ and again the chip leader had raised. It was only 12,000 more for him to call and he did with 9-7clubs..The Flop 5-8-6 giving him a straight. Now we were on the bubble at the time. 272 players started todays event and only the top 27 were going to be paid. First place is 97,000.00 and 27th paid 1845.00. There were 28 players left and I was sick when he called me. I had been a thorn in his side all night and he said he was getting pot odds to call.

Well the turn was the 5diamonds and the river....5 of hearts to give me a Full House and keep me alive.

The next hand I have 55 and call his raise again and the flop was J-J-K he bet 4000 and I called the turn was a 4, I bet 4000 he raised to 8,000 and I called. the river was a Jack and he checked as I did with a full house and he folded.

So Ihave 60,000 and in the Small blind and we are re-seated and another big stack to my right raises to 12k when blinds are 3000-1500- and a 500 ante.

We are 11/12 hrs into this tournament and 25 people are left. I look down at pocket tens and only call his raise. The flop is Queen high and he bets 20k...This is where I make my mistake..I should of shoved here but I did not because I put him on A-10 or A-J.. The turn is a K and now I go all in and he calls with K-3 spades . What a mistake I made pre flop or even after the flop. I am still kicking my self as I leave with an $1845.00 payday when I could have been at the final table.

One lousy misstep tonite and I am really mad at myself.

There were some big name players there tonite. Vinny Vinh,Mark Seif, Max Pescatori, Tiffany Michelle, Men the Master Vince Burgio, Robert Turner, David Pham, John Pham, Crispin Leyser and his wonderful wife Jules and I outlasted all of them.

I am playing well and I am just going to have to shake this off..

Take care...be safe...

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