First Quarter of 2010 in the Books

I made a bet against a well known poker pro who said I wouldn’t have $1 million in cashes in 2010, I even got laid odds slightly.

So far, I’m a little ahead of pace with $287,782. Although, I did play a lot of big buy-in tourneys so far this year. I still like my side of the bet and am hoping to have hit $1 million in cashes before the WSOP even kicks off.

The few small POY year bets are not going too bad for me, although out of the five cashes I have this year, only one of them counted towards the Cardplayer POY (sigh).

As for the goals that I made for 2010, I abandoned one of them already. Number 3 – “I am trying to ration the amount of times I drink alcohol, and am going to limit myself to drinking a maximum of 40 times for the whole year. I figure that a little less than once a week seems reasonable.”

I think this was an unrealistic and also just downright dumb goal. My intentions were good, but the practical application of this is just not +ev, if you will.

I found myself trying not to waste my “drinking” days having a beer at dinner or glass of wine and then would make sure I “got my money’s worth” if I was going to be using a drinking day.

So I would end up only drinking 4-5 days in a month, but getting hammered on those days. I decided it’s much better for me to just try not to get hammered very much and not worry too much about enjoying a beer or two here and there.

As for winning a WSOP bracelet, I haven’t had the opportunity yet. A WPT title, I was deep in LAPC, but bubbled  and didn’t crack the top 100. I’m not quite on pace to make $1.5 million dollars, not close to the top 25 for cardplayer POY (278th), and have not put in almost any volume of cash games online this year.

As for my goal to work out 75 days for the year, I’m also way behind on this too, with only 8 days of workouts so far.

Ready for the good parts? My stable has been doing very well for me this year. One of my horses cleared makeup, hitting a nice 6 figure score for me (my first ever staking), along with a bunch of other nice scores from some of the other guys.

And I saved the best part for last!!! The love of my life and I are back together for good! When I wrote the blog asking whether poker players can have normal relationships … this is the girl I was referring to.

We are back together and better than ever. We are both putting a lot of effort into our relationship and that’s what it’s going to take for us to make it work. We both know how much we love each other and that we only want to be with one another. I’m very happy that things are going so well between us.

Right now I am actually in London, I left Florida Sunday night to come here for a few days to do some commercial shooting for Pokerstars. Before I left, I spent 4 straight days with my girl in which we pretty much never left each other’s site and I enjoyed it so much.

I’m really looking forward to seeing her in a few days when I get home before heading up to Mohegan Sun for the next NAPT stop. I will then be heading to San Remo and Monte Carlo for the last 2 EPTs of the season.

FUN FUN! Feels good to write this blogpost, sorry for being so lazy lately guys. I think I’m going to buy a recorder to start doing more video blogs, because those are much easier and fun to do.

Later!

 

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Video of Phil Hellmuth’s Bust at Bay 101 (Crying)

A couple of days ago we got really excited about a WPT final table. Something we thought might never happen again after being forced to sit through this year’s LAPC finale.

The reason was Phil Hellmuth. He made the final six of Bay 101 and, as you’ve probably heard, had a bit of a breakdown when he took a bad beat and busted in sixth.

We had only heard accounts of the scene, and seen a few pics, but today we’ve dug up video evidence.

Some sneaky fan recorded this on his mobile device so it’s not exactly HD, but it does get the point across.

Hellmuth gets it in with queens against an ace and gets rivered. He stands up, shakes hands and then gets down on his hands and knees in the corner for five minutes.

In the past Hellmuth’s antics have been unsportsmanlike, obnoxious and just plain rude but never before has he got down on his hands and knees and wept. This final table is a great accomplishment and the fact he went out to a bad beat shouldn’t ruin that for him.

Don’t be sad. Be glad!

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ADZ124: LA to Las Vegas Trip Report

Hello, hello. Just wanted to give you guys an update on the weekend’s activities.

I believe we last left off with me running super bad at the LAPC and losing the high-roller to a one-outer on the river, the main event kings to aces in the first level like a fish, losing to a free roll in PLO for $50k nuts vs nuts and losing a $45k pot with a wrap and a flush draw to middle set which we ran twice.

So basically, I needed to get out of LA.

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ADZ124: LA to Las Vegas Trip Report

Hello, hello. Just wanted to give you guys an update on the weekend’s activities.

I believe we last left off with me running super bad at the LAPC and losing the high-roller to a one-outer on the river, the main event kings to aces in the first level like a fish, losing to a free roll in PLO for $50k nuts vs nuts and losing a $45k pot with a wrap and a flush draw to middle set which we ran twice.

So basically, I needed to get out of LA.

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PTP Hit and Run: February 27, 2010 – PartTimePoker News

PartTimePoker News

PTP Hit and Run: February 27, 2010 PartTimePoker News The winner will take home nearly $1.8M. Here's a look at the scene at the event: More from the LAPC here, where UB.com's Joe Sebok lost a bet and is going …

Mark Seif, Ben Zamani Among WPT LA Poker Classic Day 1 Leaders – Poker News Daily

Bluff Magazine

Mark Seif, Ben Zamani Among WPT LA Poker Classic Day 1 Leaders Poker News Daily The Commerce Casino spent the day buzzing about the now-infamous prop bet with Gavin Smith, “Poker2Nite” host Joe Sebok, and Jeff Madsen. … WPT: Seif Near the Top of 746 Person LAPC FieldBluff Magazine all 2 news articles »

Blogging on the Break at the LAPC $10k

Right now, I just jumped on a media person’s computer (Julio- thanks bro!) to write a blogpost during Day 1 of the Main event at LAPC.

We are on our 2nd 15 break of the day. I am still at around starting stack with around 21k from 20k starting stack. There is a large field for today’s tournament, over 710 players have showed up.

Unfortunately, my table is pretty tough, I know 6 of the 8 other players at my table… Aggrifrod, Kenny Tran, Bazeman, Blair Hinkle, Cody Slaubough, and Brent Roberts are all at my table.

I’m going to try and pick my spots well and hopefully chip up and head into Day 2 with a decent stack. I keep running into these tough starting tables at supposedly soft main events. Guess I’m going to have to get nasty with it and start crushing regs.

The High Roller event at NAPT did not go as planned. I got a hold of the chiplead only to lose KK vs moneymakers AK all in pre for over 40% of the chips in play at my 1st table. Then ground it out and busted 4th. It was pretty missssserable.

O well here in LA for main event and then the high rollers weeeeeeeeeee GL going back now!

peace it

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Blogging on the Break at the LAPC $10k

Right now, I just jumped on a media person’s computer (Julio- thanks bro!) to write a blogpost during Day 1 of the Main event at LAPC.

We are on our 2nd 15 break of the day. I am still at around starting stack with around 21k from 20k starting stack. There is a large field for today’s tournament, over 710 players have showed up.

Unfortunately, my table is pretty tough, I know 6 of the 8 other players at my table… Aggrifrod, Kenny Tran, Bazeman, Blair Hinkle, Cody Slaubough, and Brent Roberts are all at my table.

I’m going to try and pick my spots well and hopefully chip up and head into Day 2 with a decent stack. I keep running into these tough starting tables at supposedly soft main events. Guess I’m going to have to get nasty with it and start crushing regs.

The High Roller event at NAPT did not go as planned. I got a hold of the chiplead only to lose KK vs moneymakers AK all in pre for over 40% of the chips in play at my 1st table. Then ground it out and busted 4th. It was pretty missssserable.

O well here in LA for main event and then the high rollers weeeeeeeeeee GL going back now!

peace it

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Day Off Before Full Throttle

I’m sitting here in my hotel room while my roommate is passed out enjoying his sleep and I couldn’t be more jealous.

Since arriving in LA on Tuesday night, I have had 3 nights in a row where I woke up after only 4 hours of sleep, and could not fall back to sleep. I don’t know what it is, jetlag perhaps? I really don’t get it, but it’s starting to annoy me.

I’ve played three live tourneys since being out here in LA for the LAPC. I played a 1k NL, $500 stud8, and $500 NL.

In both of the NL events I last around 5-6 hours, getting coolered to bust both. The $500 Stud8 tournament however was quite a grind. I probably shouldn’t have played this tourney, as it was only 17k for first place. I ended up bubbling getting 18^th, sigh! Lol  

This was the closest I have ever been to being exact bubble of a live tournament before as 16 people got paid.

The event today is a $500 limit holdem, so I am going to take today off from playing tournaments. I’ll be playing tourneys everyday for probably the next 2 weeks, so it will be nice to have a little break.

Dan O’Brien just texted me inviting me out to romp around Cali and do some site seeing.

G2G! Later!

-Jmerc

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Around the felt: Jeff Madsen edges Sirous Jamshidi to win Borgata Winter Poker … – ESPN (blog)

ESPN (blog)

Around the felt: Jeff Madsen edges Sirous Jamshidi to win Borgata Winter Poker … ESPN (blog) Madsen will now turn his sights to the LA Poker Classic and the tattoo prop bet with Gavin Smith and Joe Sebok. Tournament Director of the LAPC Matt Savage …

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