According to Josh

Well the new year has come and there has been quite a bit going on with the online poker scene.

Pokerstars has updated its VIP system and added new “stellar” bonuses. Click here for details.

Pokerstars has also launched the North American Poker Tour (NAPT) which will have it’s first event at the Venetian in Las Vegas very soon. There is a rumor that Vancouver will be running an event soon at the River Rock poker room. Click here for details.

Looks like it can be a very good year for poker.

Josh Poker, Trip Report Las Vegas, Poker

I’ve only gotten 1 goal for the month of december. Profit.

My last 1500 games have been pretty brutal. I’ve been running worse than I’ve ever imagined possible which combined with some mistakes has led to me having a very ugly graph recently.

Definitely a far cry from my previous 2000 or so Sit and Goes.

In an attempt to plug leaks I’ve decided to cut back from 24 tabling and play smaller sets. I’ll probably stick to running a maximum of 8 or 10 sit and goes at a time for the month.

I’m also planning on spending more time reviewing my sets once they are completed to make sure my pushing / calling ranges preflop are optimal. I feel as though my bubble play has been fine but that I’ve been making mistakes during the mid-stages of the games. Hopefully reading “Kill Everyone” again combined with session reviews with SNG Wizard will fix my leaks.

I’ll post a small update in a week or so with my progress.

Josh Poker Poker

I haven’t posted for a while so I figured I’d write a quick update on how the WSOP went. I only managed to play 2 World Series of Poker events: the $1000 No limit and the $1500 no limit 6 handed. I busted day 1 of the $1000 event about 100 places outside of the money which was frustrating. I played quite well and then had 2 big hands cracked by JC Tran right at the end of the day.

For the $1500 6 max event I managed my to get my first World Series of Poker cash. I managed to finish 52nd out of just under 1500 entrants. I got through day 1 with a good stack but eventually busted bet / 3 betting all in with a flush draw + open ended straight draw into my opponents 2 pair and not getting there.

Aside from those 2 events I played in only a few other smaller tournaments and spent the rest of the time playing the sit and go satellites at the Rio and 1/2 and 2/5 no limit games which were quite profitable.

It was a lot of fun spending almost 6 weeks in Las Vegas and I look forward to doing it again next year. Hopefully I will be able to cut back a little bit when it comes to spending and I’ll be able to come way ahead instead of a little. I managed to see a couple shows, the finale of the Ultimate Fighter and spent way too many nights out buying bottles at Pure, LAX and XS.

Since coming back home I’ve managed to hit the worst downswing in my 6 years of online poker. I’ve now reached over 1000+ Sit & Goes of Break even & Downswing on Pokerstars.

In my latest attempt to change up my luck I’ve been branching out and playing on a few different sites instead of strictly pokerstars. One of the main hassles I’ve come across in spreading out my play is having to download all the sites software on all my computers which can be a real pain. Lately I’ve been playing on no download poker sites which lets me play poker in my web browser which is far easier and quicker.

So far the change has gone well and my luck may be changing!

Josh Poker, Trip Report, WSOP 2009 Bottle Service, Las Vegas, Poker, Trip Report

This is one of the stupidest things I have ever read.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/05/online-poker-carbon-emission.php

Josh Poker Poker

Things have been a bit hectic lately trying to take care of all my work and real life obligations before my trip.

I’ve got a hotel room booked for thursday night in Vancouver near the airport which will make things easier so I don’t have to get up as early to drive out their before my 10:00am flight friday morning. I’ll probably kill time in Vancouver thursday night by heading over to the River Rock casino poker room and splash around a bit in a 1/2 or 2/5 game for a few hours.

I should arrive in Vegas friday around 1pm which should give me plenty of time to get settled in to my house and get registered for Event #4 on saturday which is a $1000 buyin world series of poker no limit hold’em. Once I have that taken care of I’ll probably check out some cash games for a while or single table sattelites before meeting up with my vegas roommates and fellow vancouver poker players for dinner at Joe’s in Caesars.

From there… it all depends on how much success I am having. Here is a rough list of events I am planning on playing unless I go deep in an event and run in to conflicts.

Saturday, May 30th WSOP $1,000
Sunday, May 31st Caesars $330
Monday, June 1st Caesars $540
Wednesday, June 3rd WSOP $1,500 (6max)
Thursday, June 4th WSOP $2,000
Sunday, June 7th Venetian $1,070

Not sure what other tournaments I plan on playing. Alot depends on how I do in those and how I do in the side cash games at the rio.

I will do my best to update this blog every few days with my progress. I’ll also be regularly posting tournament updates on my twitter account located here: http://www.twitter.com/accordingtojosh.

Josh Poker, Trip Report, WSOP 2009 Las Vegas, Poker, Trip Report

Sunday, Bloody Sunday.

Highlights:

100/200 Level in Poker Stars Sunday Million. KK vs K7o vs QQ all in preflop.

No Limit Holdem Tournament
$200+$15
7 players
Converted at weaktight.com

Stacks:

Blinds: 100/200

Pre-flop: (300, 7 players) Hero is BB

1 fold, BruceWizayne raises to 600, nipe1955 calls 600, 1 fold, 3tomake5 goes all-in 7,100, 1 fold, Hero goes all-in 8,100, BruceWizayne folds, nipe1955 goes all-in 6,775

Flop: (23,275, 3 players)

Turn: (23,275, 3 players)

River: (23,275, 3 players)

Final Pot: 22,550
3tomake5 shows:
Hero shows:
nipe1955 shows:

3tomake5 wins 22,000 ( won +14,900 )
Hero wins 1,275 ( lost -6,825 )
BruceWizayne lost -600
nipe1955 lost -7,375

Also played the Poker Stars $650 World Series of Poker satellite. The tournament had over 1000 players and was set to pay out 57 or 58 $12,000 Packages. Sadly, I managed to draw an incredibly tough table with 7 of 9 players having close to $100,000 Profit according to Official Poker Rankings.

This was a frustrating tournament as I was dealt an insane rush of starting hands and either won blinds or lost. I doubled up with KK vs QQ in the first level, and then proceeded to lose 3/4 of my stack the very next hand with AA vs KK. I think in the first 2 hours I picked up AA & KK 4 times each and never managed to accumulate chips. I finally busted with about 500 players remaining after raising with Ace King Suited and getting it all in on the turn on an Ace X X X board vs an opponent who was slow playing pocket aces. When I busted there was still 6 of the original 9 players at our table. Hopefully I can run better next time I play this tournament.

Plans for this week:

Grind out a ton of 180 player Sit & Goes and World Series of Poker Qualifiers including the Poker Stars Step Tournaments after work each night. I’m planning on playing in the Sunday $650 Qualifier again.

I’m playing in a live World Series of Poker qualifier saturday which should be fairly soft. It is a $100 buyin with 1 Rebuy & 1 Add On and will pay out 1 “package” for every $2300 in the prize pool to pay for people’s flight & accomodations to Las Vegas and entrance in a $1500 event.

Josh Poker Poker

Here is an updated link to a tournament schedule calendar. Included on this calendar are events from:

World Series of Poker
Caesars Mega Stack
Venetian Deep Stack
Bellagio Cup
Binions Poker Classic
Golden Nugget Tournament Series

http://tournamentcalendar.blogspot.com/

I currently have my eye on the following events:

Saturday, May 30: $1000 WSOP NLH
Sunday, May 31: $550 Venetian
Monday, June 1st: $550 Venetian or $540 Caesars
Wednesday, June 3rd: $1500 WSOP 6 max NLH
Thursday, June 4th: $2000 WSOP NLH
Sunday, June 7th: $1070 Venetian NLH

Hopefully I will have to skip a few of these ones that take place on back to back days for final tables.

Josh Poker, Trip Report Las Vegas, Poker, Trip Report

Like many poker players I am planning on spending a large amount of time in Las Vegas this summer. While trying to decide on my tournament schedule I found this very useful image on 2+2 which is a calendar that shows all of the larger tournaments from May 28th - July 14th.

It includes events from the World Series of Poker, Venetian Deep Stacks, Caesars Mega Stacks, and the Bellagio Cup. I will update this post if a new version is posted that includes the Binions Poker Classic events.

Josh Poker, Trip Report Las Vegas, Poker, Trip Report

* This is my first trip in 5 years where I didn’t play a single hand of poker. It was strange, but fun.

- 2 Double Vodka & Redbulls on the flight to get me in the Vegas Spirit and begin my buzz.

- Got checked in at the Hard Rock without any hassle. The room was really nice and over looked the pool.

- Nothing too crazy our first night, lots of drinking, degen-gambling in clearly -EV situations.

- Breakfast/Lunch at Pink Taco.

- Spent an hour or so lounging around the pool admiring the scenery and recovering from our first night. The pool at the hard rock is amazing, the only downside of our trip was that we arrived 1 week too early and “Rehab Sundays” began the following week. Attached is a picture to show you what we missed out on by 1 week.

Hard Rock Rehab Sundays Pool Party Vegas

- Did a bit of degen-gambling and I managed to make a small step towards recovering from the previous night’s losses playing Let it Ride & Black Jack.

- Met up with some friends and had a delicious dinner at PF Changs and then out to Nine Fine Irishmen in New York, New York for some drinks.

- After dinner & drinks we joined the girls for a night out. We decided to head over to the palms and began our night in the Playboy club and eventually moved over to Moon night club. Much socializing and dancing occured and a great deal of alcoholic beverages were consumed. After leaving the club sometime between 4am & 6am I managed to make a quick stop over at craps table before passing out and did my best to donate to the casino.

- Saturday afternoon was filled with a great run of short term positive variance while playing blackjack.

- Saturday night was spent getting bottle service at Body English. Bottle service is by far the best way to do clubs in Vegas.

- Skip waiting in line for hours (or forever if you’re a group of guys)
- No paying cover. ( At most clubs $30-$50 per person )
- Your own private table in the VIP Area.
- Personal waitress mixing your drinks for you.
- Your own bouncer keeping an eye on your table, personal items, or out in the club inviting beautiful women to your table.

The club was packed. It was by far the most fun I have ever had at a night club in my life. Managed to keep the party going all the way through the night until my 9am flight home.

Will possibly expand on this trip report in the next while and upload some pics but it all depends how motivated I am.

Josh Trip Report Body English, Bottle Service, Las Vegas, Trip Report

It looks like my pokerstars doomswitch has been turned on ever since I made my most recent cash out to pay for my new computer. The site is obviously rigged against me… either that or I am just encountering some standard variance combined with a few sessions where I wasn’t playing my A game.

March didn’t turn out nearly as well as January & Februrary but was still a winning month. I took a few shots in some cash games that looked good but ran horribly and dropped a few buyins that ate up a lot of profit. I’m planning on avoiding online cash games for all of april.

I’m headed to Vegas this weekend for a quick getaway. Hopefully I’ve earned enough run good & sklanksy bucks over the past couple weeks to make it a profitable trip. I’ll do my best to post a short trip report once I get back.

Don’t Stop Believing

Josh Poker Las Vegas, Poker