Hey everyone,

Continuing to be on a huge downswing, havent even got deep in a tournament for literally forever.I have been taking a little break which is usually a good solution, i am barely playing any mtts right now except sundays of course which i still never miss because of the chance to hit a huge score obviously.During the week ive beem pretty much just going out and hanging out with my friends, or playing PLO cash which i have been 10/12 tabling or playing HU(2/4 and 3/6 mainly) which is pretty much consistantly easy cash.However ,there is an ftops and the wcoop coming up very shortly so pretty much all it takes is one score to erase everything/EPT just starting again which i am hoping to be playing a lot of.See you guys at the tables!

P.S Shoutout to my sister lindsey who is getting married on august 9th very happy for you <3.

Pils

Hey guys,

Sorry it’s been a while since my last update - definitely wanted to take some time off of poker and blogging after that brutal WSOP, but mostly I’ve just been very busy.

I left Vegas a couple days after the Main (and my last horse busted on Day 3 soon after), and took a weekend off of everything. Then, I had to go back to my apartment in Bloomington, IN, to move all of my things into storage to get ready to move into my new place in a month or so. After getting back into town, I pretty much took it easy, and only played online a couple days… which didn’t exactly prevent any heartbreak.

Last Sunday (the 12th) was one of the more brutal nights I’ve dealt with in a long time. Long story short, I made the final table of the big $200k gtd. $150+R on Full Tilt, only to lose a huge QQ to Q9 (yes Q9) all-in preflop, and then grind my very shortstack all the way back up, just to run KK into AA to lose the rest, going out in 8th place. It was pretty unreal, to say the least. I was also simultaneously deep in another couple tournaments that didn’t pan out… what can ya do, I guess.

That took a couple days to get over, but whatever. I’m back on the grind now and should be at the tables pretty frequently over the next month or so, so be on the lookout for me there and for some good results (hopefully) on the way.

I’ll be back with another update soon, just wanted to let you guys know I’m still alive, and explain the reason I haven’t exactly felt like blogging about poker lately.

-AJK

Brothels cut prices to beat the recession

German prostitutes are offering discounts, loyalty cards and ‘extras’

By Erik Kirschbaum in Berlin

afp

The Artemis Club in Berlin: The oldest profession tries modern marketing

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Way back in May I was interviewed about the upcoming World Series of Poker. I forget where this specific interview was published or how it was used…, but I still have the conversation log which had an interesting question considering the circumstances.
Reporter: what needs to happen for you to consider your first wsop a success?
Me: [...]

I had my worst day ever at my normal limits NL($1).
This excludes the 2 times I took shots NL($50) and $30/$60 HL Stud.

Lost $825 over 16,200 hands and was $700 below allin EV.
I already mentioned the 5 set over sets.
[img]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_eyOVJXwz228/SlFr3AQT_BI/AAAAAAAAApo/Di8mHqZ7g98/s400/070509-worstday.bmp[/img]
It was extremely painful. Normally I should win about $500 over this many hands with KK. However, AK seemed to be a favorite over KK today, and was up against AA many times too.
[img]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_eyOVJXwz228/SlFsn-7kgzI/AAAAAAAAApw/-DmGX9TSXSw/s400/070509-KK.bmp[/img]
Probably need some time off, after two full days of nonsense.

Hey, FTP is pretty awesome, the seat they booked for me turned into a full out bed that was super comfy, definitely the best overseas flight I’ve had. Also before I forget, FTP is planning on breaking the world record for biggest poker tournament by having a giant $5 freezeout at 15:05 on July 19th, I’ll be registering and hope everyone else joins too.

Anyways, I got here and then hung out with tufat and some of the pkr people who were pretty cool(tufat is sponsored by pkr now). We went to this awesome restaurant called “The Hare and Tortoise” which we went to almost every day when I stayed with him during WSOPE and EPT London and the food was as good as I remember. I made my way back to my hotel which is apparently in the same area as Ali G’s character is from and went to bed. I woke up pretty early to get ready for my heat. I would have Ram Vaswani, Josh Gould, Julian Gardner, Josh Gould and one online qualifier at my table. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

10K since starting my new database in June:
[img]http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/914/7142009stats.jpg[/img]
And the graph:
[img]http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/7672/7142009.jpg[/img]
Mostly I’ve been game selecting well and not really that much as picking my spots well. Around 2700 hands of that is 6-max play and the rest is HU. I’m going to take the rest of the day off in order to stop and smell the roses.

Location: St. Julian’s, Malta

So…Jaka didn’t take it down. I don’t know what happened. The stars were all aligned, and I was positive it was his time, but it looks like he will have to wait to get his first clear major live title win.

I’m sure he’s disappointed still, and I can’t blame him. It’s hard to explain to normal people how you could be upset when you still make so much money, yet when this has been your passion for years and all you have ever dreamed about is taking down a major title…it’s hard to handle when you come so close and don’t finish the job. It’s hard when you hold the chips. It’s hard when you play with the guy who eventually wins and you feel you had an edge on him, and you know had the cards broken just a little differently you’d be the one holding that trophy.

Still, we all know it’s silly deep down, and once the initial disappointment goes away you realize had the cards broken slightly differently you might have had another wash out summer. You gotta take what you can get.

Jaka is one of the best tournament players I know. Watching him play got me to try and open up my game more and more, and I don’t think I’d be doing as well as I have been lately if it hadn’t been for seeing how much fun he was having destroying every table he was on.

He just doesn’t care what’s conventional. He goes with what he believes is right. He trusts himself so much, yet he still is open minded and wants to learn about everyone’s game.

I’m done mancrushing for now but seriously, Jaka leads by example. He is polite and professional to everyone he talks to, and has put in a ton of hours over the years. Out of the hundreds of people I’ve met on the tournament trail he has impressed me the most. He deserves the $1.2 million he made this summer, and its great to see him finally come out and make some noise at these tournaments.

***

I haven’t been doing shit lately. Reading a lot into Barack Obama’s health care bill. I personally am subscribing more and more to the notion that a government shouldn’t provide you anything, but also should take very little of your paycheck for taxes if they do that. I don’t believe it’s healthy to a populace to condition them to the idea that the government is going to take care of you.

That being said if you are going to charge as much as you are in taxes as the United States wants to its a fucking embarrassment how little we provide our citizens in the realm of health care, not to mention how broken and backwards our education system is.

The real answer in my mind is not forcing the rich to pay the bill but instead a complete restructuring in Washington, with an eye towards wasteful spending. That of course will never happen in my lifetime, given how deep the corruption goes in Washington, and how deeply embedded the corporate lobbyists are allowed to be in our system.

I don’t think you’ll ever see America be as powerful as we once were.

I haven’t met anyone who has visited America and has not enjoyed themselves, and I am proud of my lineage, but I have no desire to raise my children in the United States. McCain isn’t a down home American and Obama’s no fucking messiah. Really well organized groups seek to further their own interests and make them out to be that way, just like in any political system. In America there is a lot to gain by having control over Washington.

My only goal is to get a country that has no power, but seems to have an okay reign over its country. I just want to do my own thing and raise my children in a land devoid of the anti-intellectualism that is so profound in my home country.

Hope that wasn’t too soapboxy. Just was what was on my mind.

Oh and fucktard. Yeah, you, the one with the Budweiser can. I know, I know, ‘if you don’t like this country you can giiiiiit out.” I did. I’m still allowed to speak my mind, so fuck off.

Not much else really going on with me. I am waking, swimming, jogging, writing, and chilling. Not playing poker at all. I wanted to see Malta some more this time around but that hasn’t happened.

Buki wanted to visit Amsterdam so I am going to do that with him here soon. I’m supposed to be there tomorrow and I haven’t booked my ticket. I’m not really worried though, tickets from Malta are only about $280.00. If I wait it might go up by $50.00. We’re hoping to take trains on down to the Italian Poker Tour. Shit, I haven’t bought into that yet either. I think I finally have VIP status that allows me to not have to beg to buy in with W$. Don’t think I’ll be losing much in sponsorship opportunities if I agree to wears Stars merchandise during the event at this one.

My time here has been relaxing. Yesterday I just wrote and worked out, then went and hung out with Lauri and Angel. We ended up on that rooftop area again, getting in trouble because I might’ve sparked up something I shouldn’t have, smoking hookah, drinking, chilling with some Russian girls.

Since I’m the most awkward fuck known to man I knocked over a hookah and got a burning debris or two on this girl, and then a coal on the cushion. Then as I was getting up to let the guy in to clean up things I knocked over another drink at somebody else’s table. Lol/sigh. I suck.

I guess it could have been a lot worse. The coal could’ve landed right on the girl’s bare legs, the coal could’ve lit something on fire. I thought I cock blocked the shit out of my friend, but the girls ended up coming back after the girl cleaned up. I bought a drink for the group whose drink I knocked over, and we actually even got to talking with them after a while. Everybody was cool.

That’s why I like that environment. Tranquilo. I like just lounging, smoking a little, sipping on a drink, stars, a girl next to me. I’m a neurotic mess and if I drink a ton that just turns my noise up. It’s fine I just can’t do it all the time.

This lifestyle just effects me so positively. Sure there’s bad days, and my own mood swings to deal with, but having my friends, being financially secure, and living in this place has helped me so much. My game has grown in leaps and bounds in the last year, and my writing is just coming so well. There isn’t that mental block in my mind that was there was before, that exhaustion, that stress, that paranoia, the feeling of always trying to get somewhere…some final destination which always alludes me. I gave up. And it was beautiful. I just became myself.

Fuck the rules, fuck what anyone tells you that you have to be. Get your own.

I’m going to go jog now that it’s not so hot. Then come home and book my flight and get the W$ in my account to pay for IPT, then figure out if I can bring weed from Amsterdam down to Italy and hopefully Malta.

I dropped this external hard drive ten feet onto cement. The thing has rattling pieces in it. Somehow I managed to barely get it going and salvage all 30,000 of my mp3s and all my pictures from the last two years. How good do I run?

I made the Final Table of the WPT Bellagio Cup $15k Event last night. It was an awesome experience to say the least. I had a few friends and some family in town to root for me hardcore which was really great(thanks guys). I was very tired in the middle of the day, and to counteract that, I decided it’d be smart to counteract that by taking 5 hour energy drink for the first time ever. I was going back and forth between being completely lethargic and tired to bouncing off the walls and I couldn’t see straight for a little while, it was pretty weird. I eventually leveled out and became in the zone, and then got tired again. I played a very big pot early on where I tried to make a play but ended up being a little unfortunate even though the best flop came to proceed with the hand. I basically never had a hand the entire tournament, as you will see in the television coverage. I got dealt AQs vs AK and QQ once where they all folded to me, and that was it. I had to improvise and find better ways to win chips and I think I did a good job of that and keeping patience. I moved all-in about 10-15 times when I became the shortstack and never got called which was nice. Eventually I busted Erik Seidel with 99 against his K9 for a flush draw and then I dipped low in chips again. I made two great folds vs. Alec Torelli where I could’ve easily not folded. Alec busted and then I doubled up twice with sweet river cards and I did some excessive celebrations on the rail which included Matusow and I took a wrong step somehow and ended up re-injuring my left knee which had been hurt in my accident 4 1/2 years ago. I definitely tore a few ligaments and it was all caught on camera for TV! It’s the single most embarrassing yet at the same time hilarious thing that has ever happened to me. I really can’t wait for the episode to air as it’s really going to be a pretty awesome laugh with friends in my opinion. Unfortunately, I kinda got coolered which crippled me with AQs vs AK 3 handed and then A4 with 13xbbs to KK opening on the button. 3′rd for $460,000 was an okay score and I’m really happy with the way I played. I’m sure that will not be my last chance at a major final table.

Tonight, I took my parents and Anita out to my new joint Lotus of Siam which was cool. Anita just went to pick up some Naked Fish and should be home pretty soon which will also be great. I plan on seeing a doctor on Wednesday to get an MRI and see exactly what the damage is. I’m going to move into a new place in L.A. within the next two weeks and I’ll have surgery in L.A. as the doctors and general healthcare is better there.

It’s the weirdest thing (or perhaps not, in case someone knows something I don’t) but out of all the poker sites, I struggle on Full Tilt the most. Since I started this challenge, I’m down $891 on the site and a week ago had almost completely depleted my funds.

Bear in mind, $891 in the red is actually worse than it sounds, because for the past few months I’ve also received $158 in bonus/rakeback, so the true state of affairs is much more dire. As a result, I decided something had to change and dropped my buy-in to $5 or less on FullTilt alone. A technical aspect concerning rakeback made me not wanna deposit (essentially shift funds) on the site again, so I figured this was the only way of rebuilding my bankroll.

Now, as a result I’ve been focusing most of my attention on the 18 and 27-person STTs ($5) and trying to come out on top there. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]