Not a good start to WCOOP

So today we start event #16 of 23, Pot-Limit Omaha Hi/lo. So far I have a whopping 1 cash, which was in event #5 the 500nl last Sunday. These events are long and take a lot of concentration to stay focus, because one slip up over a 14-22 hour tournament and your toast. I've had good starts in both Sunday NL events, more then tripling my starting stack by the 1st break yet I ended up making mistakes later. I also had a very good start to the 200 rebuy, had like 31k at the 1st break and was in for either the minimum of $615 or 1 rebuy for a total of $815. Again I fizzled late, as has been the trend for me outlasting like 75% of the field but not making the money. I'm not really worried though, variance is obviously a part of the game and will catch up to me in time for the main event =).

A lot of people have been complaining about the length of the tournaments, saying that they need to be 2 day events. The debate really heated up after event #5 lasted 20.5 hours, starting at 4:30 est and finishing at 1:08pm est Monday. I definitely agree that perhaps the Sunday events could warrant being 2 day events, but I think making them all 2 day events is a little extreme. Conversation especially was sparked when a couple of top players went deep in this and complained that they were falling asleep while trying to play for over 400k. It takes a different kind of animal to stay focused for the long haul, which is why I want to give props to James "mig.com" Mackey for taking down event #14 the 1k NL for a cool 580k on Sunday. I had to sleep when there were only 3 tables left but he was putting on a clinic for the hours I had been railing.

Hopefully the last 8 events go better then the first 15 have. There has also been an interesting trend developing in the 100 rebuys on stars, which I will go into in a few days but I think there maybe some funny business going on. In closing, I wanted to send a big congrats to Annette_15 who last week won the 1st ever WSOP Europe main event. At 18 years and 363 days old, not only did she become the 1st ever woman to win the main event, but also became the youngest main event champion breaking Phil Hellmuth's record, but also became the youngest bracelet winner, including preliminary events breaking Steve "MrSmokey1" Billirakis's 3 month old record. Beyond her just being a deserving person of such an amazing event, I really think it could end up doing wonders for poker in general, possibly having a similar or even better effect on poker as Moneymaker's win 5 years ago did which caused the poker boom which we enjoy today.

Moochi in the little league...

Growing up as a lad one of my favorite movies was Moochie in the Little League. It was a black and white movie about a little boy about 8 or 9 years old and his little league team. They ended up going on a lengthy winning streak, and being superstitious Moochie had a pair of lucky socks which he wore for every game during the streak, without washing. When I was about 9 or 10, I used to emulate this character during my own little league seasons. I remember one team I was on was undefeated and won the championship, and by the end of the season I had to hide my socks from my Mom when she would be doing laundry. Man were those socks brutal by the end of that time.

Why do I bring this up? Well with all the big tournaments on Sundays, which are usually followed with major disappointment which is where the term "suicide sundays" has come from, I find myself on my own little Sunday winning streak. With the variance of MTTs, no one should ever get too down on themselves for a losing session or consecutive losing sessions causing a losing streak. As a rough estimate, I think it would be safe to say that I probably have a winning Sunday only about 25% of the time or so, if even that much. Today I'm trying to have my 3rd consecutive winning Sunday, which I'm not sure if I have ever done before, and this maybe my 1st back to back winning Sundays ever. If not my 1st time, it's only been a handful of times. So last week I took 2nd in the warm-up for 41k, 2 weeks ago I won the UB 500nl beating a sick player and good friend Rizen heads up to win 20k. Just like Moochie, I woke up today and put on the same pants, t-shirt and hoodie that I have worn for the last 2 Sundays, finding myself a little superstitious although I have washed these items.

Today is a big day, with the 3rd day of WCOOP underway with event #5 and FullTilt having their monthly million guarantee. Here is a look at my schedule for those who are interested. (all times are local for me, chicago time)

11:45 200+15 Poker stars Sunday Warm-up
12:00 100+9 Poker stars
12:00 100+9 Bodog 30k guarantee (already busto, runnin AA into QQ in level 1)
1:00 100+9 w/ rebuys Poker stars
3:00 100+9 Bodog 100k guarantee
3:00 10+1 w/ rebuys Poker stars
3:30 500+30 Poker stars WCOOP event #5, 2 million guarantee
4:00 200+15 Ultimate Bet 200k guarantee
5:00 500+35 FullTilt Million guarantee
5:30 300+20 Poker stars Wcoop event #5 second chance
6:00 100+9 Poker stars 20k guarantee
6:05 200+16 Fulltilt Sunday Mulligan 100k guarantee
6:30 100+9 w/ rebuys Poker stars
7:00 150+13 Fulltilt 55k guarantee
7:00 150+12 Absolute weekly 75k guarantee
7:30 500+30 Ultimate Bet 75k guarantee
8:00 200+15 w/ rebuys Pokerstars

I've been slacking...starting WCOOP today

Wow it's been so long since since I've made an entry, and I apologize. I've been super busy and I apologize for my slacking. Alot has gone opn in the last 3 weeks, poker related and un related. Last Sunday, I feel like I finally broke thru in a major. A few months ago I took 3rd in the UB 200k for like 17k, and in the past I had won the Paradise 150k two times, along with their 150k masters PLO (when we used to be able to play there *tear*)but even tho they were considered "majors" I personally didn't consider them to be majors because none of them had a prize pool over 200k. Each of the Dise wins were between 28k-35k, which is nothing to turn my nose up at, but up[ until Sunday I felt like I only had done well in a major event online 1 time in 3 years of playing online for a living, and that was a 3rd place finish a year and a half ago in the party 750k for about 80k. On sunday I took 2nd in the stars sunday warm-up, which had a 400k guarantee, and paid roughly 40k for 2nd, while 1st was about 80k. I feel like I pretty much played perfect poker the whole time, and don't remember a single hand I would have played different. I will know this for sure when I make the video for WWW.PokerXfactor.com.

The final table was stacked with talent, fortunately I had a pretty good seat on the other 2 great players at the table, with SCTrojans on my immediate right and Apestyles on his immediate right. Both really good friends of mine, SCTrojans ended up finishing 6th for 14k when his AJ couldn't beat A9 aipf, and I found myself heads up when apestyles went out 3rd losing a race A5 vs 44 aipf to the other player, and eventual winner yokerface. Heads up started almost even in chips, yoker had a slight CL on me but it was not a significant one, something like 11m to 9.5m, and the blinds were 100k-200k. With about 100 BB's in play, I figured the HU would last a while, as I planned to chip away at this guy, but only a few hands into it I was dealt AK, he was dealt 1010, and after a few raises back and forth pre-flop we ended up all-in pre-flop and I lost a huge race for most of the chips in play.

I was definitely disapointed with 2nd, but very happy with my play. I switched gears when I needed to, got lucky when I needed to (except the last hand), and think it will make an excellent video. With 2,085 players, a victory would have marked the largest online field I had ever conquered, but the 2nd place cash of 41k did mark my highest cash ever on stars, and 2nd highest ever online. Oh well, there will always be more in the future......LIKE TODAY'S START TO POKER STAR'S WCOOP (world championships of online poker. There are 2 events today, the $200 NLHE 6-max, which already has a whopping 3,400 entrants registered 30 minutes before start, and $200 pot limit 5 card draw, which will have a much smaller turnout, I imagine around 700 people. The next 2 weeks are going to be so much fun, with killer prize pools in not only the WCOOP events but regular tournaments too because of higher volume of players. It's time for me to get my 1st big win baby...book it!

So I'm excited, On Wednesday I finally bought my new car, a 2007 Chrysler 300 Touring. For the most part everything went smooth, until it came to closing the deal, when for every time they told me "it will take 5 minutes" it really took about 30...LOL. I drove it off the lot that night, met my Mom and Nephews Timmy and Tyler for dinner to show them. The look on my nephew's faces when I pulled up was priceless.



I returned the car today to have some upgrades taken care of, like 20" black rims, a custom front grill and tinted windows. Overall I'm very excited and happy with my purchase. OK, WCOOP is starting now, 4,610 players and 172k for 1st...wish me luck.