VARIANCE!!!

Or, how to lose $130 in two weeks!

Yep, the 'roll has taken a swing downward and it looks like it might be time for a quick break! I guess these things happen, you lose a couple buy-ins at the $25 NL tables and thats where you are. The truth of the matter is that I got up so high in the last month that it was like me against the world, with me winning no matter what! It wasn't like I played hands rather bad, I just put myself into pretty bad situations.

Here's an interesting hand from this past weekend. I sat down at the regular .1/.25 table and after about 45mins I was down about $10, not too bad, but I was about ready to get up or re-buy, I decided one hand in MP would do the trick, so I waited for something decent. I got A8 of hearts in the CO and limped into a pot with about 4 other limpers. BB checked and we saw a flop of Q 4 9 w/ two hearts giving me four to the flush. Check, Check, Check, I bet about 1.50 and get one caller then one guy checkraises me the minimum. I decide to call that. Turn is a blank and it gets checked to me and I happily take the free card. River is a wonderful heart, it gets checked to me and I put out a value bet of about 1/2 the pot. The checkraiser goes all in and I take it down with the nut flush. Turns out the guy also had hearts, JT of hearts. Anyway, that gets me back up to about $26-27 and I feel great. It goes around for another round when I get in the BB with two red 4's. One guy in 2nd pos. min raises my BB after UTG limps, it folds around to me and I call as does UTG. We see a flop of J 9 4 with two spades I decide to get tricky (not a good idea here), and check raise. UTG bets the minimum, 2nd Pos. raises the size of the pot, I re-raise, UTG calls 2nd Pos, goes all-in as do I and UTG. I was figuring that both were on a straight and flush draw...turns out that I had bottom set, UTG had 34o!! and 2nd pos. had pocket 9's. The funniest part of the whole hand was that I thought i was dead after the turn because another spade fell, and to make matters worse, another fell on the river! Funny right, even funnier because no one even had one spade! Anyway, that one hurt a bit, but I have since shrugged it off. I feel pretty good about my play, but as the title states, it's just variance.

On another note, I have done pretty well in the $10+1 SnG's. I haven't played enough of them to show much of my results but lets just put my ITM at roughly 45%. Though I haven't won one in the last two weeks I have a couple seconds and thirds. So I will continue to play these as well as the $5's and the MTT $5's and 10's. Triple draw was even kicking my butt a little, but i'm not too worried about that game, I really like it and am still in the black in it.

As far as music, I still have not bought the new Leo Kottke/Mike Gordon CD and I really need to get it. The Martin Scorsese documentary on Bob Dylan is on again tonight (the first half was on last night) and I thought it was fantastic. My buddy David let me borrow the "soundtrack" which I have been listening to all of the last two days. In the car right now is: Leo Kottke live album, Bob Dylan "No Direction Home", Widespread Panic, Tribe Called Quest!.

UB Stats:
9/14/05 - 9/27/05
Starting Balance: $532.50
Cash Games: -$130
Tournaments: +$6
Ending Balance: $408 MAN THIS IS DEPRESSING :)

Triple Draw

Lately I have been playing many hours of Triple Draw 2-7 on UB. I am really enjoying this game, it's so much fun! The problem is that it is really a grind to eek out a profit. Last night I played over two hours and was +$16. Now this isn't bad considering it the limit (.25/.50), but this game has some major swings. I was playing with a couple forum members (NeccoWafers and OutOfOrder, and then Corona1-formerly known as Seanstack later on), and OoO really said it best in that your stack fluctuates pretty drastically, but your profit comes from your "runs" where the deck really hits you. This is exactly what happened to me last night as I was going back and forth, up $10 and down $5 until I hit one wheel followed by a draw to #2 that hit after the first draw, followed again by a pat rough 8 that I never thought would hold up but did. I did have one interesting hand where I had a draw to the wheel. Pre-draw there was major raising and I think it got capped. I had 2345 and hit my 7 after the first draw. Two other players in the hand were also drawing, one drew 1 the other drew 2. I was in EP (can't remember if it was BB or UTG). I bet out and it got capped and I of course was pat for the second draw. My opponents drew 1 and 0 collectively and here I was sitting with the straight up nutz. Of course it got capped again before the last draw, but this time the one guy who was still drawing dropped out and it was down to the pat hands, I bet out and re-raised until we capped and showed down my wheel. I don't know what the other guy was thinking I think he had a 23568! Which is in trouble and he just kept jamming? Anyway, that was a fun hand and I was positive that we would be chopping, but I later got a good read on this guy because he would go pat with real rough hands.

So my bankroll is back up and I am pretty happy. It's funny how great August was for me, and I attribute that to my cash game play. I really want to get better in the big tournaments, but I haven't been able to play many and they take so much time! I can see how it is so important to have stamina and I can't imagine how hard the WSOP main event is. The first couple months I mainly played SnG's and worked up my bankroll with many 1st and 2nds, and I cashed in 40% or so. The last month and a half I have only played a handful of SnG's. I know I wanted to track my play on these, but I haven't played more than 3 I think! I did play in one $10+1 on Sunday and got another dissapointing 3rd place, where I should've at least got 2nd. The problem was that I was playing triple draw and the SnG at the same time. I worked my stack up real big, but then with 4 people left made a bad call to an allin w/ an A9s (Chris' favorite hand!) and was up against AK. That crippled me and I was left struggling for third place.

In other news, Chris and I lost our first fantasy football matchup against Phil! :<
It was kinda flukey since Phil had the Bills defense and kicker who put up 37 points collectively. Cut that in half and we had a chance going into the Monday Night Football game with T.O. going, but he didn't score so it probably wouldn't have mattered. We still feel good about our team and feel that it is one of the most solid in the league. Brian won his matchup with a pitiful performance from Chris/Jesse. Football season is the best!!

Chris responded to my "Talking *hit" post! It was funny. Chris you're my boy, and I meant it all in fun. He seriously is the hardest working guy i've ever known. And thats why he makes the big bucks, and i'm sitting here wasting time on a blog that maybe 3-4 people read! He did make a point to invite me to play in the golf tournament on friday which I am so very grateful! I can't wait to play!

So I need to summarize my short-term and long term goals, mainly for myself:
Short-term:
A. Open account at Party or Stars - I would like to get my 'roll up to $800 before doing this.
B. Move up to $20+2 SnG's.
C. Buy Pokertracker - This will be essential because I am awful about keeping notes on my opponents. Cost $55

Long-term:
A. Win a MTT online or Live (buy-in irrelevant / pay-out irrelevant)
B. Bankroll at $2500+
C. Buy-in for WSOP prelim. event.

UB Stats:
9/5/05 - 9/14/05
UB Starting Balance: $484.38
Cash Games: +$39.12
Tournaments: +$9.00
UB Ending Balance: $532.50

Aces Suck!!!

I've seen a shirt with this exclamation on one of the guys in "the crew" in a WSOP broadcast, and I always thought it was humorous. But, never would I have thought it was true! The other night I decided to play in UB's Katrina Relief Tournament. It was the lowest buy-in $5 + 5. From the beginning of the tournament until the end, I got AA and KK about 10! times. They say that with these big pocket pairs you usually only win a small pot, but lose the big ones. Well, that is exactly what happened. I was actually pretty impressed that I made it as far as I did since I was down to 325 chips after the first 30 mins. Each time I lost these big pots it wasn't because I played it bad before the flop, in fact, there was absolutely no reason for these donkeys to be in it against me. Of course, the first hand I lost with KK, there was the dreaded A on the flop and of course the guy behind me had AQo. I was UTG and was re-raised by this donk, I re-re-raised and he calls. Too bad I didn't have AK! After getting my stack up to just under the average stack after the first break, I ended up getting all of my chip in the pot on the turn with this board Q 9 9 J. He of course had A9s! No business!! So while I was dissapointed in not making it in the money, I was impressed that I had made it that far. Later, I played in a $5+.50 with $3500 guaranteed and ended up getting 45th. Going out in a blaze of glory with pocket sevens.

So the 'roll has taken a bit of a hit, though nothing out of the ordinary. I have not had a winning session in cash games, but the losses have been small. My tournaments haven't been that great either (SnG's, MTT's). Today is the Cardplayer Freeroll, which I am glad to be playing in again. I need another money finish to have any chance of playing in the Championship tournament. We still don't know what the big prize is, but it's Cardplayer, so I have faith that it will be nice.

Talking *hit!

I got a call from one of my longtime out of town friends today, and he tells that he had just won his first poker tournament. That's right, Shmee has caught the poker bug! I am so proud of him! Shmee, if I lived that close to casinos, I would be in so much trouble! I can't imagine Shmee at a poker table. I think that is one thing he has going for him, little Indian guy, fidgeting around, smelling everything...People must think he's a real loose cannon! So if you ever see the best looking Indian on earth at your table, be scared, be very scared!
Shmee actually was upset that I haven't "talked shit" about any of my friends. I don't want to ruffle any feathers, but I could go on and on about my friends. He actually was most concerned about my friend Chris. Chances are he will never read this journal because he is probably the busiest, most hard working accountant on the planet. I mean, i'm pretty busy at work, but I always have some time to bs w/ my boys! Chris spends more time in the office than any of my other friends, aside from maybe Brian and Rob who are in front of a computer probably just as much. But, you know, Chris has a pretty important job so I can't really fault him, he just needs to work on his ADD. Which it seems that he must be doing since you can hardly talk to him on the phone during work. So NEVER call Chris at work...NEVER. It will only lead to listening to yourself talk and listening to Chris say things like..."really,...wow..., that's crazy...", etc, etc. One time I called Chris and was having a conversation with him...I asked him some question, only to hear silence on the other end. Instead of asking Chris the question again, or asking him if he was listening, I just waited...and waited...and waited. Finally, after about 30 seconds, Chris goes "oh my god...that's crazy..." as to reply to whatever he thought I was talking about. I probably should've just hung up on him, but I know how it is! Or the time that I was on the phone with him and in the middle of the call, actually in the middle of the sentence, Chris whispers "dude, I gotta go, my boss is coming". Man, it's not like you are downloading porn or something. What, are you gonna get fired? Anyway, that's Chris, and I can't really mess with him to bad since he's my fantasy football partner. Speaking of fantasy football, we need to come up with a new team name. I can easily do it, so I guess I will, I wanted Chris to come up with something, but as I said, he's busy at work.

So Shmee wants to set up a poker tournament! He's so into it, that he's ready to play in NOVEMBER! Since Shmee lives in CA, he isn't coming back into town until Nov. 18th. And he has already told me that we are playing so that he can "take all of our money". I love it, he's already talking smack!

I received some comments to this blog, which at first I was excited about, but upon review, they are mostly spam. It seems I didn't set up the comments section to defend against this, but now it is. I did get one comment by an annonymous user "Oh my god!!" I wonder who this was from, and how thoughtful it was. Really, thanks for the input, keep using that big brain of yours! I figure it's probably one of my buddies who I told about this little journal, and he probably thinks it's "gay", "stupid", or a waste of time, but whatever.

I'm on a bit of a losing streak on UB these days, mostly because I haven't been playing very well or paying attention enough. I really have been making bad decisions and need to plug some of my leaks. These will need to be addressed: Trouble hands out of position: AT, KQ, KJ, KT, QT, QJ, JT, and dare I say it Axs. I think I have been loosening up a bit and think I can outplay my opponents, but I seem to get into more trouble than I should. So I need to fold these in early position and either raise or fold in MP. It's just that the ring games seem so loose that these should be played. Folding good hands: they say that good players are able to muck good hands when they smell trouble. I have a hard time folding big pocket pairs after the flop or after being played back at heavily. Most of the time I run into a set or two pair, or even a higher pair. Regardless if these opposing hands should've been in the hand or not, it shouldn't matter. The hardest is sniffing out the set. It seems that most low limit online players slowplay sets. So if I get checked to and bet my overpair or even top pair good kicker, and I get raised big, I should assume i'm beat? This happened this weekend when I got felted by my buddy Phil in the home game we were playing. I had KJo in MP, and since we were playing shorthanded (5), I made my standard preflop raise. Phil called from SB I think, and we were heads up taking a flop of 4 J 7. Phil checked and I bet about the size of the pot, Phil raised pretty big and I re-raised all-in and he called quickly, turning over pocket fours. It was a good hand for phil as I had beaten him earlier that night with pocket threes, and David beat him after that with pocket deuces, each time we flopped sets. Now Phil was playing pretty aggressive that night and I figured he could make a move with just about any hand when he raised my opening flop bet. I thought there was a 50/50 chance that he was on a bluff or had just a small piece of the flop. He has no problem putting all his money in on a draw. But the thing is, I got blinded. In fact, I should've folded or at least only called after the raise for many reasons other than sniffing out the set. I should've thought of the hands that he would call a raise w/ pre-flop. Pocket pairs, Ax, Suited connector. I should've been mostly worried about AJ. Also, I think Phil had tightened up a bit since he was down a good bit from previous hands and had rebought twice I think. Anyway, Phil is a good player and he made a good play. Another interesting hand occured online. It is only interesting that I read it perfectly and went broke anyway. Obviously another leak. I read a quote from Antonio Esfandiari today that said basically, if you have any inkling of a thought that you are beat, fold. I was in a SnG and had just doubled up to a pretty decent stack with KJ (Interesting that these hands always involve KJ). Anyway, I get KJ again and call from LP. We take a fourway flop of T J K. A EP limper bets very little and I immediately think AQ? Quickly, I rule that out because most people would raise with that right? Then I go with either I have the best hand and am up against a smaller two pair (JT and KT could certainly be limped with in these games this early in the tournament), or I was up against the same hand as myself and that we would chop. I ended up going all in, and he quickly called with AQo. So I read it right, just ruled it out!

As for music, these days I have been listening to a lot of bluegrass. In my car today is Yonder Mountain String Band's latest live CD. These guys really bring it! They are playing three venues in the area come Oct. Mo and I are thinking about hitting one of em', just have to decide which one! Also in my car is the last Umphreys McGee show I attended at the Recher Theatre in Baltimore. I think these guys are my favorite band right now. This was a SICK show! The third CD that is getting the most playtime is an advance copy of a David Axlerod album, due out this month. I went to my favorite record store Joes Record Paradise, and got into a conversation with one of the guys that works there and he recommended this one. It's called "The Edge", and is basically a "Best of", but what is interesting about this is that so much of it is recognizable because he has been sampled by so many rap/hip-hop artists. It's really jazzy and fushion-esque. The other two CD's in the car are Ryan Adams Heartbreaker and The Grateful Dead Reckoning, both excellent and I highly recommend. Next purchase for me is the new Leo Kottke/Mike Gordon CD.

Long Weekend

This past weekend was full of relaxation and a little poker here and there. Saturday, since there was no cardplayer freeroll, I decided to play a $5 MTT, and didn't even make it to the break. I think I came in like 180 out of 300+. Oh well, it was funny because I think I made some extremely good laydowns and good reads, but lost too much of my stack to recover. Oh well, thats poker. The cool thing about this was that before the tourney started, I thought I'd play some cash games and bought in for the max at a .05/.10 NL ($10). I ended up cashing out up about $6 just before the start of the tournament, so I had my buy in back and was basically on my own "freeroll". Saturday night was pretty dissapointing since we were suppose to have about 7-8 people for the game with my buddies, but only had 5. I had a good run early and had doubled my stack but ended up giving it all back. It was a good time anyways since I got to see my friends new house and his beautiful little girl. I'm sure that one or two of my friends were happy to see me out early, probably because all I talk about lately is poker and they must love the fact that the guy who plays more poker than any of them was felted, but they are all awesome players and great friends and that's all that matters, in the end, well, I just flat out got outplayed! I don't think I am any better than any of them, I just play more and that is all. You know some days you win, and some days you lose! I really looked at that game as a night with the guys and some fun poker, and I was happy to give them my $20!
Monday I played a little $25 NL on UB and won about $6-7 in about an hour, though I was up about $20 before I folded a BIG pot w/ KK when I was sure that the villain had either AA a set or a flush. Sometimes you have to fold big hands, which I haven't been able to do much. Later last night I played $5+.50 single table SnG and came in a dissapointing third. I played with one of the cardplayer forum members (DUI) who is a good player. We got into some trash talking which was fun, and I think he actually took me out. He probably went on to win the thing. So it was a weekend in the black online, and live I ended up in the red. Thats Poker!

9/2/05-9/5/05
UB Starting Balance:$469.81
Cash Games: +$13.57
Tournaments: +$1.00
UB Ending Balance: $484.38

Played some $10 NL yesterday on UB. I like to play this limit when I am multi-tasking and not really paying attention. You know, watching tv, writing e-mails, and listening to music all while surfing the web is not the best way to play winning poker. But that is why I play this limit. So I played about an hour and lost a little. Most of it came on this hand: I get dealt 66 in middle position. The table was playing pretty passively, so I knew that I could get in cheap and possibly hit a set and take it down. Well I limp into the pot along with 4 others including the button. I get the perfect flop, all low cards and one 6, although there was a straight possibility. It gets checked to me and I bet out the pot. The big blind raises me big. I didn't have top set, but there was no way I was going anywhere and I was definitely not going to slow play, so I reraised. The big blind goes all in for about 1/2 my stack and I call, turn is a K, river pairs the board, and I lose to pocket Kings. Well i'm pretty sure I've made a ton of $$ off of people slowplaying big pocket pairs, so $6 was not a big deal, but suckouts...well...they SUCK! I went on to basically lose about $6 more bucks, I think because I got real passive in my play. I don't really know why, but I think I waited a while to re-buy back to my original buy in, so that may have had something to do with it.

Later on last night I decided to play a $10+1 SnG. I love the $5 and $10 SnG's! I really want to move up to the $20's but I think I need to track my performance in the lower buy-ins before I do that. I feel like I cash in about 40%, but I could be off. I think I'll try to track that this month, and look to move up to the 20's by October. So I pretty much crushed this SnG! There were a few hands that were pretty interesting. I had gotten my stack up to about 2400 (start w/ 1500), and this hand came up; I am dealt Ac4c in MP, usually I would throw this away in this position, but i felt that since I had accumulated enough chips, that I could afford a limp or two out of position with marginal cards, try to get in cheap, hit a good flop or get out. So, Ac4c in MP, I limp in for 40 along with one other player behind me and both the Small Blind and Big Blind. The flop comes 6 7 8 with two clubs, giving me a gut shot straight draw, and the nut flush draw, plus I also have an over card, though not really an "out". The SB, BB and I both check and I am sure the guy with position is going to put out some kind of bet, which depending on the amount, I was preprared to check raise. Well, the original raiser bets 40, the minimum. I'm putting this guy on two high cards, but both the SB and BB both called so I figured the pot odds were so great that I had to just call. The turn came an off-suit 10, and it gets checked to me so i put out a feeler bet of 140, a little less than half the pot. The guy behind me raises the minimum of 280. The SB and BB both fold and I am faced with a decision, which was pretty easy. I figured at this point I was beat to the straight or even A10, but I had to call 140 into a 740 pot. I now had only 9 outs to the nut flush which I needed 4 to 1 odds. Well I was getting about 5 to 1 on my money so like I said, it was an easy call. The river brought the dream Kc. I hesitated and put out about 1/3 of the pot in 300. Thankfully, the other guy raised me to 800, and again I hesitated and re-raised all-in. He calls and I win for a final pot of 2785. This gave me about a huge chip lead that I never really gave back.
Another fun hand was when I had pocket 9's in MP, the under-the-gun player minimum raises and I of course call. This is such a classic move that screams AA or KK. I really am always weary of that move and it is a sure fire way to have a big hand cracked. Anyway, the flop brought my set, and UTG thought he was slowplaying after the flop, he ended up going all-in on the turn drawing to two outs, and I filled up for the boat and sent the AA to the rail. I was pretty pumped about that hand because I read it perfectly. So i went on to win this SnG for a payout of $39 (minus the $10+1 entry fee). Ending my day in the black for a total of $29.

So today I was planning on playing the Cardplayer Freeroll, but I just checked to make sure I was registered, and sure enough, it's next weekend! DUH! Oh well, I'll probably try out a $5 or $10 Multi Table Tourney. Later tonight the boys are hopefully getting together for a cash game so that should be fun as always!

9/2/05
UB starting balance: $444
Cash Games: -$12
Tournaments: +$39
UB ending balance: $469.81

My First Update!

As I said previously, I have been playing almost all of my poker these days online at Ultimate Bet. I started in April after many months of wanting to give it a try. I finally put $150 in Firepay and deposited $50 immediately into my UB account. I set goals for myself, firstly making sure that I don't go broke, but secondly, I wanted to get to $200 so that I could withdraw my original "stake" and play with "other peoples money". I had been scanning the Cardplayer.com forum and contributing regularly for about 8 months, learning the in's and outs of online poker. This forum is full of very nice people and there is a wealth of information there for all forms of poker, but mostly NL Hold'em, my game of choice. Well, I had some very early success and by June I had that $200! In May I won Krampy's Forum tourney so that helped. It was a $70 win, which was the biggest payout so far I think! Actually, before that tourney, I had been doing very well getting my stake up to about $140. I then had a pretty bad run and got cold decked for the remainder of the month until Krampy's. I actually had to dip into my initial deposit of $50 to buy-in to the event. It was only $5.50, but it was the first time since my first sit-n-go on the site that I had to do this. I was very pleased with my play that night, and felt like I got lucky in a few spots, but played well enough to beat two excellent players from the forum at the end in fengshuiuser and snadly. For the most part, I had been playing sit-n-go tournaments exclusively, with occasional cash games. I really like the set up with UB, how you get 1500 in chips and you can choose how fast you want the blinds to go up. I always go with the 10 min. blinds, as I hate to be rushed into the pot with marginal hands just because I HAVE to. Well, July was the worst month for me. I was down about $120, and it was my first losing month. I really believe that it was just poker. I had the best hand when all the $$ went into the pot, but took some horrific bad-beats. I'm talking runner/runner quads type stuff. I took a couple days off, and tried to right my mind. I came back with a new philosophy. I was going to move to playing cash games exlusively in August. Well that has been the best thing i've done so far. I have been moving between the .05/.10 ($10 NL) game and the .10/.25 ($25 NL) game, depending on how I am feeling and the mood that I am in when deciding which to play. These games are very loose and with my tight/aggressive approach I have been able to clean up! My Bankroll stands at $440 today, and I have withdrawn what was left in my Firepay account ($100). So I am in the black for about $400, not bad for 5 months. They say that UB's players are some of the best online, but at the low-limits that I play I think this could not be true. Of course I have never played on any other site, so I can only go with what i've heard. I would like to eventually open up another account on either Party Poker or Poker Stars. That is one of my next goals. The problem is I LOVE UB's interface and tournaments. So my goals for the time being are this. In the short term (2-3 mos), I would like to move up in stakes and get my bankroll to $800. With this, I would withdraw $400 and put it on either 'Party or 'Stars. My long term goal, one that I have pretty much only told my wife about, is to get enough $$ to play in one of the low buy-in events at the 2006 World Series of Poker. $1500 seems attainable at the rate I am going, even considering the variance. But I would rather not take all of my $$ out of my accounts to do this. So the long term goal would have to be at the very least $2500. Can I do that in 10 months? We shall see!

YAY for me...My first Blog!

My first blog entry!
I consider myself a very addictive person when it comes to my interests and hobbies. For the most part, when I find something I like, I become immersed in it!
Music was and is my first love. When people ask me what kind of music I like or what my favorite type of music is I tell them my favorite is LIVE music. The first concert I ever attended was Janet Jackson. I went with my Mother, and I remember loving it. I got into a lot of Rap/Hip-Hop throughout my middle teen years and then I found Pearl Jam. There was something about that band that made me listen to music a little differently. I was completely obssesed with that band for a good part of my high school and early college years. To this day 4/8/94 remains one of my most memorable concert experiences ever, and still stands as one of the top 5 shows I've ever attended. This was also the day that Kurt Cobain died so it is also memorable for that of course! I remember my freshman year when the guy living across the hall from me in the dorm would blast hardcore heavy metal whenever I played Pearl Jam on my little rinky dink stereo. He of course had about $500+ invested in his stereo...what an ass! Anyway, around the time I got out of the dorm system at Monmouth University (in NJ), I moved into an off campus house with a couple of friends and one friend of a friend that at the time seemed to me to be the biggest hippie I had ever seen. Sadly, I made fun of him as soon as we moved in because he was a huge deadhead and Jerry Garcia had just died that summer. I posted on our living room wall the cover of Rolling Stone magazine with Jerry's face...underneath I just wrote in big black letters...DEAD. I still feel bad about doing that. The funny thing is that I credit this guy for getting me into my favorite band of all time...PHISH! I loved to just hang out in his room and listen to all of these different, interesting sounds coming out of his speakers. My first show was October 1996 at Madison Square Garden, and I was (pardon the pun) hooked! I went on to see a ton of shows over the years and got into many of the so-called "jambands"!
Poker has become my next hobby/fixation... I am one of the millions that caught on to the wonders of the World Series of Poker in 2003. Although, I do remember watching a bunch of the older WSOP's on ESPN whenever they were on. But as they say, if it were not for the hole cameras in 2003, I probably would not be as in to poker as I am. So I have been playing poker for a long time, because my friends and I used to have many poker games at each other's houses before the Texas Hold'em boom. I even remember at age 10 playing poker with one of my oldest friends David. We would play 5 card draw, but it would be like triple/quadruple draw and would have all kinds of "wild" cards. I have since been playing mostly No Limit Hold'em online at Ultimate Bet, and I have played in Vegas and Atlantic City a handful of times. Luckily, many of my friends are also big poker players as well so we have a poker night at one our houses every month or so.
I have focused on my hobbies in this, my first blog entry, mainly because that's probably what I will be concentrating on, but I'm sure there will be much more than that in the near future, since I am also a huge sports fan. Football season is about to start so that should be fun!