May - Beginning of the WSOP

May didn't go great, but it wasn't terrible. I lost a little but I made some progress in setting up some future opportunities.

May	Cash Games	Live	$9,672.50
		Online	-
	Tournaments	Live	($1,795.49)
		Online	-
	Poker		$7,877.01
	Staking		($4,865.00)
	Other Gambling		($9,150.00)
	Month's Expenses		($165.00)
	Net on month		($6,302.99)

As usual, I win in cash games and just hemorrhage money elsewhere.

I got blasted in chinese poker this month, lost a HU match to Zach (part of other gambling), and got killed in blackjack.

That's already pretty ugly, but on top of it, I bought pieces of BJ in big limit hold'em games and he got crushed too. So yea, another losing month. On the bright side the WSOP is starting, and I'm like 90% sure I'm gonna ship something, so it's just a matter of time.

I'll see you across the felt.
Bryce

April Update - 1st Winning month of 2012

April	Cash Games	Live	$15,579.00
		Online	($2,000.00)
	Tournaments	Live	($535.00)
		Online	$0.00
	Poker		$13,044.00
	Staking		($3,526.00)
	Other Gambling		($1,182.50)
	Month's Expenses		($500.00)
	Net on month		$7,835.50

My first month.
Made a little bit of a comeback, but I'm still buried this year. Unfortunately, I've made no progress in the 40k, so it looks like I'm just gonna be out the money.

A kinda sick statistic is that I won 47k in cash games this month, but cause I was selling out action in so many big games, I didn't end up winning anywhere near that amount. I've been pretty unlucky buying pieces of people too, they lose whenever I have a piece. Frustrating, but at least I won money this month. I'm making some progress towards rebuilding my bankroll before the WSOP, but I only have a month left. I need to have a solid May in order to be ready for the WSOP.

I'll see you across the felt.
Bryce

A glimmer of hope

I haven't made much progress settling that staking problem I've had. Unfortunately it seems that guy has no real intention to do anything about, and I can't really force him. I can't even pursue a lawsuit given that my friend (who's a lawyer) said that most gambling contracts are unenforceable. He doesn't think I could win. I'm probably just going to be stuck the whole $40k.
On the bright side, I'm actually winning at poker again. My bankroll is in a precarious state though, so some people have offered to loan me money if I get too low. I'm grateful for their support, but I really hope it doesn't come to that. Gambling with borrowed money is dangerous, because its not like you have steady income. If you lose, you're just in a deeper hole than you started in. If I get really low, it might be time to get a job. It's tough to imagine being on a normal 9-5 schedule again. It would take a lot to get adjusted. I might pursue a propping job at a casino if that's the case. The extra hourly income should be enough to stabilize the short term swings. It wouldn't be a bad idea to just work and then play poker on the side though. I'll have to make that decision if I go on another downswing.
Honestly though, I think I'll be ok as long as I don't let myself get screwed out of another huge chunk of money again. I know what my winrate is at different forms of poker, so I can just choose the lowest variance routes for a while until I rebuild some.

I have another staking deal set up, but this time I'm much more careful about it. Even though I trust this person a lot more than the last, I'm being more cautious as well. I make sure the marker is under his name. It looks there is no problem for now though, I played and got paid out cash. That's close to the idea situation to not get screwed. Basically, since the marker is in his name, they go to him for money, but give me the cash when I win. That allows me to make sure the money is split in a fair manner. It helps that the guy staking me has been very fair and equitable in my past dealings with him.

As I write this, I'm waiting for a friend to come pick me up. It's gonna be my first trip to vegas in quite some time. I'm pretty excited actually, although I don't really know why. It's not like I'm actually going for a particular reason. Maybe I'm just happy to get away from the LA scene for a bit. I dunno.

I'm just really hoping my bankroll is healthy for the WSOP, because I don't want a repeat of last year where I don't have a big piece of myself in anything. I really feel like I'm gonna win a bracelet, I've been close so several times, but needed to catch a break in the end stretch and couldn't do it. This time I feel like I'm even better than before, and not just in pure technical ability. I feel like I have better tilt control this time, and I know how to manage my time during the WSOP better. Things are stacked up for my corner this year, if the cards fall my way, I know I'm ready to take it down.

I'll see across the felt.
Bryce

March Update, with a bit more.

March	Cash Games	Live	($53,514.00)
		Online	$0.00
	Tournaments	Live	$3,935.00
		Online	$0.00
	Poker		($49,579.00)
	Staking		($1,410.00)
	Other Gambling		$4,012.00
	Month's Expenses		($400.00)
	Net on month		($47,377.00)

This looks a lot worse than it is.

First off I didn't actually lose 50k in cash games, but it's complicated. The short story is that I got staked in a really big poker game and lost. Due to a few communication issues, my backer is disputing the loss with me and thinks I should be responsible for 40k. I think that's absurd, but unfortunately I think it's gonna go the wrong way for me and I'm going to be out 40k. Hopefully it works out, or at least we come to some sort of settlement. I'm really tilted about this whole thing, and it's made me really jaded about doing any kind of financial transaction in the poker world. Maybe I learned this time, god knows it's happened enough times for me to know better.

Aside from that, this happens to be coinciding with a cash game downswing. Given I've been selling out my action in the bigger buying tournaments I've done well in, this all adds up into a pretty crappy month for me. Even if I somehow got all my money back from this 40k dispute, I would still be in the hole like 7.5k.

The only good news is that I feel like I'm playing amazingly well. I know I'll turn it around in poker, I'm just hoping I do so before the WSOP starts because my bankroll is hurting right now. I really don't want to sell off as much action as I did last year. I'm owed a fair chunk of change right now too, most of the people who owe are doing their best to pay me back, but simply can' pay the whole sum at once.

Luckily, I've done pretty good in my other gambling, mostly chinese poker. I also got set up with a 50% rakeback poker account online at a small site that still serves US customers, and they have some pretty decent games running. I haven't tried cashing out yet, but some other people I know have, and haven't had any trouble. If that all works out, I could make some pretty decent money playing online.

Anyways, March has been a really stressful month for me, I'm kinda glad it's over. I learned a few life lessons this time. Hopefully I'll run a bit better and make some better life decisions in the upcoming month.

I'll see you across the felt.

BRyce

Crushing Some Tournaments

I played a couple of WPTs recent. The LAPC and Bay 101 Shooting star event. They were both 10k buyins, and I did pretty well in both. I feel kinda disappointed though, I could've gone a lot deeper. As usual, I had action sold out in both events.

At the LAPC, I had a good day 1, decent day 2, and crushing day 3. On day 3 I drew a tough-ish table and things broke my way, and I ended up with like 420k going into day 4. The average was only 300k, and I had an amazing table draw where I didn't really recognize anyone.

I caught an ugly break of cards where I lost several substantial pots, before I coolered a guy with a straight against top set. He slowplayed the flop and I caught my open ended straight draw on the turn.

Ironically I would get crippled against Joe Hachem in a similar spot where I raise 77 he calls with 45h, and the flop comes out 763. We end up getting it all in and I'm pretty short stacked after that. At least I lost it to Joe, we're pretty good friends and we played together on Day 1 and Day 3 together too.

I was down to about 80k at 3k/6k blinds and somehow found a fold with AQs preflop to Joe who had AK. That's a pretty big fold, and I feel really proud of it. Felt like I was freerolling. I got table changed and managed to grind my stack back up to 200k. Got lucky all in preflop once in a standard spot to get up to 140k, then got the rest with no showdowns.

Busted after jamming 88 vs AQ against Sorel Mizzi when he caught a pair on the flop. Cashed for 23k not bad.

I kinda have a funny story about Sorel actually. He played a pretty crazy hand where he got AJ all in preflop against another players T8o. He lost when the guy spiked an 8 on the river and Sorel was down to 700 chips at 1k/2k blind and somehow managed to finish 10th place. He went on an amazing upswing where he tripled up in three consecutive hands, then just beasted people nonstop for the rest of the tournament.

Since I cashed at LAPC, I decided to fly out to Bay 101 and take a shot there. It's a pretty small

casino compared to Commerce or Bike. I liked it though, staff was friendly and the games were pretty decent. They even gave away these cool decks of cards with pictures of well known poker pro's on them. I decided to start getting them signed, it seemed fun and I know someone who likes stuff like this.

In the tournament itself I did pretty poorly at first. Started with a 30k stack and down to 6k after the first couple of hours. Thankfully I got a lucky sweat by a few friends and ran my stack back up. I collected a bounty for busting Erik Seidel. At Bay 101 they give away 5k bounties for busting certain pros, so that was a nice bonus to the signed T-shirt. I got another 10k for ending up finishing day 1 as the chip leader, so I'm suddenly +5k going into the second day. Pretty nice start, and had a day off the next day, so I got dinner with a friend who lives in the San Jose area.

Day 2 was miserable though, I got JJ, QQ, and KK 4 times, and lost everytime. That'll make a chip stack shrivel up pretty fast, and I barely squeaked into the money. I'm glad I at least cashed though, so I ended up profiting 21k on that event. Not a bad trip for 4 days, got to make some new friends so that was cool.

These two events really made me feel good in my NLHE tournament game, so I think I might play some more events. I decided to take a trip to Harrah's Rincon since it's not that far, and the WSOP has a neat promotion for it's circuit events. There is a million dollar freeroll this summer during the WSOP, and they give away 100 seats to top performers at the circuit events. Given that the fields should be soft and small, I think I have a pretty good shot to win one of those 100 seats. It's worth about 10k extra, and they have some pretty decent buyin tournaments anyways, so I think it'll be worth the trip. I feel like I'm due to win something, and winning a $1500 circuit event doesn't sound half bad. I might just have to wait to the WSOP though.

Life's been interesting lately, might get even more so if I start travelling more.

I'll see you across the felt.
Bryce

February update

February	Cash Games	Live	($3,521.00)
		Online	$0.00
	Tournaments	Live	$5,492.75
		Online	$0.00
	Poker		$1,971.75
	Staking		$0.00
	Other Gambling		$50.00
	Month's Expenses		($1,240.96)
	Net on month		$780.79

Really tired so I don't want to explain much.
I'll try to get another blog post up tomrrow

New Year New Goals

These are my goals for 2012.

Win $250k+

Avg $125+/hr

Play 1600 hours+

and lose 20 pounds.

Lol gotta include the weight loss.

Here are my 2011 results and December results.

December	Cash Games	Live	$1,031.08
		Online	$0.00
	Tournaments	Live
		Online
	Poker		$1,031.08
	Staking		$940.00
	Other Gambling		$1,865.00
	Month's Expenses		$0.00
	Net on month		$3,836.08

Net on Year	$84,991.45		Net on Year for Staking		($8,468.50)
Net on Year for Poker	$101,373		Poker Related Expenses		$8,976

Other Gambling ($91)

I didn't have what I consider a very good year. I mean $85k is pretty good, but I feel like I could just win so much more. That's why my goals are set so high this year. But we're off to a pretty terrible start.

January

January	Cash Games	Live	($29,922.00)
		Online	$0.00
	Tournaments	Live	($725.00)
		Online	$0.00
	Poker		($30,647.00)
	Staking		($6,268.75)
	Other Gambling		$3,605.00
	Month's Expenses		($71.44)
	Net on month		($33,382.19)

Wow what a disaster. I don't even know where to begin. I've had terrible luck this month playing. Like horrendous. It's times like this I'm incredible grateful I've been selling out action because I would have severely damaged my bankroll if I had to eat all my own losses.

I've been buying pieces of friends of mine who are good players, but they keep losing too. It's really brutal. At least the LAPC is around the corner, and I'm really looking forward to that. There are a lot of tourneys I'm looking forward too. Maybe I'll get lucky enough to win one. That'd be nice I haven't won a tourney in a long time. Hoping I flip it all around.

I'll see you across the felt.
Bryce