World Series of Poker catch-up

I know the November Nine is underway as we speak but I'm doing my best to stay off Twitter and Poker News so I don't hear what happens. I don't have Foxtel which shows the World Series in Australia and have been so busy of late that I hadn't been watching online.

I had a poker weekend, without actually playing that much. I started watching the Main Event on youtube on Friday and pretty spent all weekend catching up on the action. I also had my first "poker wedding" on Saturday. No, not a poker themed wedding, but two poker friends that got married, so the only other people I knew at the wedding were also poker players/friends.

Anyway, as for the Main Event, I'm now half-way through Day 7 so I'm not far from the end. I'm not sure if I should be surprised but the first few days was so focussed on the big name live pros in the field. Despite being a chipleader on day 4, Tony "Bond18" Dunst only got a brief mention in the coverage and wasn't sighted until day 5. Nick "MI_Turtle" Rainey also came in to the coverage on day 5 sitting at one of the feature tables. I didn't realise Christian Harder was still in the tournament as I swear he was first sighted late in day 5 or early in day 6.

Its fair to say that Tony Dunst stole the show over the last few days. Not so much for his play, but for his trademark suit, cool demeanor and his working of the room (read: the ladies near his rail). Bond's charming style won over Norman Chad and Lon McEachern and after his performance on the coverage, it was no surprise that he was picked to be the new correspondent for the WPT. Unfortunately Dunst couldn't make it to the November Nine, but he'll be seeing plenty of face time on poker TV from now on.

I'm off to Longreach (outback Australia) on Wednesday so it could be possible to miss the Main Event winner, if so I can watch it without knowing the result when I get back on Saturday. Let's see how it goes.

I heart PokerStars

In my recap of what's been going on last month, I forgot to mention a few things that improved my love of PokerStars.

First they had a sale in the PokerStars VIP store and I grabbed a fleece zip-up jacket (pictured right) for about half (I think) the normal FPP's. As usual, it arrived much sooner than I expected and it was great value ... although being Spring here in Brisbane, I won't get to actually wear it for a few months.

Then, later in the month after playing a number of the $6.50 45 man games, I unlocked my next Stellar rewards bonus. It was last $10 level so I'm now working towards unlocking a $50 bonus which is a little more meaningful for my bankroll.

Considering I originally deposited just AU$20 which at the time was US$12, I've since received more than $100 worth of bonuses, a PokerStars black t-shirt and now the fleece jacket.
I <3 PokerStars

Life ...

So its not that I haven't wanted to play poker over the last month, I've just been busy with everything else, so cards has taken the back-seat.

I guess the main reason I haven't been playing is that work has been really busy. October was the most profitable month we've had in at least 2.5 years. We're coming in to peak season work-wise so I expect the next 5 weeks to be pretty busy and hopefully November can be somewhere close to last month. Its already off to a very good start so my fingers are crossed.

Last weekend I spent 4 days up at Hyatt Coolum for a friend's 40th. I had a great weekend catching up with some old friends, spending the days by the pool getting a bit of sun (not that you could tell), watching double-header NBA games and reading "The girl with the dragon tattoo". Nights were spent eating, drinking and just hanging out.

I've also been really disciplined with exercise over the last month or so and have been working out at least 4 times a week. As well as the normal mix of cardio and weights, I've also started going to a boxing gym once a week that is run by a friend of a friend. I've done boxing in the past, but it was more social-cardio based, this is a lot more serious training, focussing on actual technique and uses a lot of MMA style training methods. The sessions only last 30 minutes but I'm stuffed by the end of them ... actually I'm usually stuffed about half way through! The hard work is paying off tho and the abs are not that far off.

Movies wise, I saw Wall Street 2 earlier in the month and then The Social Network on Sunday night. Wall Street 2 was great because its one of my best friends favourite movies so we made a day and night of it by watching the original at his place and then seeing the second in Gold Class. My best friend has a very successful business so we had a delicious meal while at his place, Louis Roederer champagne and fois gras for entree, duck for main and then chocolate souffle for dessert. In Gold Class, we shared a bottle of Moet (which as you might guess wasn't cheap at the movies) had some nibbles and then some more sensational food once we got home.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Social Network, it was always going to appeal to me when its about Facebook which I use often, its essentially about the origins of an online business and is based on the book written by Ben Melzer (author of "Bringing down the house").

With the November Nine about to resume to find out who will be the new world champion, I just started watching the World Series of Poker coverage today. I've only just started watching episode 2 so I have a lot of catching up to do!

Oh, and probably the coolest thing from this month, my wealthy friend that I mentioned above, made my day/week/month by calling me rather excitedly to tell me I had helped him make $400,000 in the space of just 12 weeks! While I would have rather made the money myself, it was extremely satisfying to know that I've helped my best friend like that.

October results

Period Full Tracking Last 120 days Year 2010 Year 2009 Year 2008 Year 2007 ? <> 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2009 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2008 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2007 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2006 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January with estimated RA expenses (and bounties in FTP Knockouts) without estimated RA expenses (and bounties in FTP Knockouts) View by Game Game Size All Holdem NL Holdem L/PL Omaha Omaha HiLo Other Games

ITM Finishes 1st 2 1st ties 0 2nd 3 3rd 3 4-10th 23

MTT Avg. Finish% Early 3% (10%) EM 8% (20%) Mid. 45% (40%) ML 33% (20%) Late 11% (10%)

HU/STT/MTT * Prizes Profit ROI ABI AFS R/A ITM ITM Heads-Up 2 player $0 $0 0% $0 0 0% 0/0 0% Single Table 3-10 $0 $0 0% $0 0 0% 0/0 0% Multi Table 11-45 $930 $205 28% $5.49 45 0% 31/132 23% Multi Table 46-180 $0 $0 0% $0 0 0% 0/0 0% Multi Table 181- $0 $0 0% $0 0 0% 0/0 0% $930 $205 28% $5.49 45 0% 31/132 23%

The obvious number from the above tables is the games played, just 132. I'll talk about it more in the next post but as you can tell, I really didn't play much.

Despite the small number of games played, the rest of the numbers are ok. ROI is solid and the finishing percentages are fairly standard for a month of just 45's. What you might notice is the average buy-in which is a little higher than usual. Even tho I'm not getting that much time to play at the moment, I'm frustrated that my bankroll has essentially just hovered around the same mark for the last few months. With that in mind, most of the games I played last month were the $6.50 45's and I even played a few of the next level up, the $12's. I played 3 of them and had a 2nd (for $77) and an unlucky 7th, so that certainly helped the bankroll.

As mentioned in my last post, I was on a bit of a heater for a while but unfortunately the last day I played in the month, I got nothing going and blanked (no cashes) all 15 games. I didn't feel like I was playing badly or making many mistakes, luck just wasn't on my side and I couldn't win a hand inside the final 2 tables that would've set me up for a solid finish.

With work in peak season at the moment, I doubt I'll get too much time online this month either ... but December/January is just around the corner and that's when I get to play the most.