It's been awhile since my last blog post.

Briefly, I've decided that my future blog posts will focus more on poker strategy blurbs.  I want this blog to have a purpose, and I feel one of my strengths is articulating poker concepts in a coherant way at a very fast pace.  On the other hand, one of my weaknesses is articulating it to such a degree that it is acceptable and relevant enough to post in a full article on the site.  In turn, this makes the prospect of me writing full articles on the main page poor, but makes short strategy blurbs a seemingly natural fit.

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It's been awhile since my last blog post.

Briefly, I've decided that my future blog posts will focus more on poker strategy blurbs.  I want this blog to have a purpose, and I feel one of my strengths is articulating poker concepts in a coherant way at a very fast pace.  On the other hand, one of my weaknesses is articulating it to such a degree that it is acceptable and relevant enough to post in a full article on the site.  In turn, this makes the prospect of me writing full articles on the main page poor, but makes short strategy blurbs a seemingly natural fit.

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Anyways, going to Vegas Monday-Friday, if any husng guys are out there, shoot me a blog post or 2p2 PM.

We also just hired ITRIED2WARNU, a very talented $200-300 buyin regular on Full Tilt.  His first video will be up sometime today.  Make sure to give him a welcome and give us some detailed feedback on his first few videos.  Thanks.

People always seem to ask for more pics of things in the poker world, so here's some pictures:

(above) Top left: Myself with girlfriend in front.  Top right, Tim (another rack), front and center Derek (Skates) and front right, Mollie, Tim's wife.

(below) Me standing between a mash tun and boil kettle in the brewing area of Rock Bottom Chicago.

The dinner and drinks were good, we went on a short private tour of the brewery towards the end of the night, thanks to a small bribe of Pliny the Elder (Russian River, CA brewery double IPA, 2009 beer of the year from one of the homebrewing magazines).

My friend is a big beer fan, and at this point has far surpassed me in knowledge of various beers out there, particularly newer and rarer beers.  He is an active participant and reviewer on the popular beer site, beeradvocate.com.  There were roughly 15 total people in atendance for this private tour, all of them, except myself, being beer advocate users.

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I had all these updates for like 2.5 hours during my final games and I misclicked on it and I hit one of the sidebar links.  When I hit back it was gone.

So anyways, I was running really hot for about 25-30 games towards the end of this, then I got to about 52-37 or so and just started running like crap.

I was 55-44 going into my last game, meaning we push if I lose and if I win I take the bet down.

Up and down game, here are the last two hands:

Seat 1: no2spencil (1765 in chips)
Seat 2: RyPac13 (1235 in chips)
no2spencil: posts small blind 50
RyPac13: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RyPac13 [Ac 4h]
no2spencil: raises 200 to 300
RyPac13: raises 935 to 1235 and is all-in
no2spencil: calls 935
*** FLOP *** [2s Th 5s]
*** TURN *** [2s Th 5s] [6c]
*** RIVER *** [2s Th 5s 6c] [3d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
RyPac13: shows [Ac 4h] (a straight, Deuce to Six)
no2spencil: shows [8h 8d] (a pair of Eights)
RyPac13 collected 2470 from pot

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I am now 42-34 and he is 45-33.

These are unofficial, based on SS (mine are verified by me actually, so that's accurate for sure, his are likely accurate as well though) so it is possible they could be one or two games off, but highly unlikely.

Sandeep has to finish his games tomorrow, I have until Wednesday night.

The bet is close and winding down, we'll see how it finishes.  I'll probably share a few other details about the bet when it is over, win or lose.

Sandeep got somebody to give him $500 on $450 for him, so he's back in action.  He played a lot of games today, and the bet is pretty close at the moment:

After 67 games I am down $5 and after 65 games he is up $225 (hence the blog title).  We'll see how his results are by morning (he usually plays early AM).

I went 3-2 today, all five games against fairly decent winners, two of which were of the "sit same time" variety.  Sunday nights are bad for $115 fish action, but I woke up late after that Cotto bloodbath and visited my grandparents for the first time in a few months.  They took my girlfriend and I out for a nice dinner, I had a NY Strip that was actually dry aged for 30 days, it was very good.

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Sandeep is still 17-12.  He is flirting with busto, attempting to rebuild his bankroll before Tuesday night so that he can finish the prop bet and attempt to win.

He was playing too many side games at higher stakes during the bet (I think he's played over 80 games since we started the bet, but only 29 towards the bet) and he also made a side bet with skates, giving him almost 3-1 on over a grand of Skates money (so he risked like 3.4k in escrow there).

We'll see what happens, but despite my horrible day I still am in pretty good shape.

Some of the types of hands that I experienced today:

Seat 1: RyPac13 (2580 in chips)
Seat 2: zarkon13 (420 in chips)
zarkon13: posts small blind 10
RyPac13: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RyPac13 [9s Ad]
zarkon13: raises 40 to 60
RyPac13: raises 2520 to 2580 and is all-in
zarkon13: calls 360 and is all-in
Uncalled bet (2160) returned to RyPac13
*** FLOP *** [6c 5c Qh]
*** TURN *** [6c 5c Qh] [Ks]

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This was day 4 of the bet for Sandeep, he is now 17-12.

So my ROI has been around 8% and his 12% at this point.

I will update a bit more detailed tomorrow, I'm pretty tired after another meeting with some community organizers tonight about our building.