Decent showing at NAGA

My first Jiu Jitsu didn't go exactly as hoped. I ended up finishing a respectable 3rd out of the 10 competitors in my division. I was pretty confident going in, but I found out that I'm really not in the kinda shape I need to be to succeed with multiple successive matches. I destroyed my first opponent 15-2 but after four minutes of all out aggression I found myself really gassed. The 2nd match started about 10 minutes after the first and because I was still so tired, I was psychologically drained as well. My opponent got my back within about the first 20 seconds which is never a good sign. I defended the multiple attacks he threw at me pretty well and was happy not to tap out, but I did lose 4-0. In the third match, I was taken down and held full guard for the first few minutes and couldn't pull off any sweeps. Finally I just let guard go and managed a reversal. I was down by 4 points with only 30 seconds left and I knew that I had to get submission to win. At this point I was in side control. I got to full mount and used a kimura as a bate to get an arm to attempt an arm bar. His right arm freed up and I switched to spider guard and used all my might to get a submission.

Grappler's Quest is exactly a month from today and I will have high hopes for that tournament as well.

Jiu Jitsu tournament, NAGA, next weekend

I've been putting a lot of effort both physically and mentally into my martial arts training for the past 5 months now. I've been waiting for a chance to pit myself against others of similar experience and that will happen next Saturday at the North American Grappling Association (NAGA) tournament. They have tons of different skill and weight divisions, so I will be competing in the white belt, 160-170lbs, Gi division. I'll let you know the results!

Need to keep focus

Ok, so the truth is poker has been a bit rough lately. I've been putting a lot of hours in online but I've been treading water the last month or so. It is a bit discouraging but I am attempting to keep things in perspective. If I can't handle some tough times then I certainly would not be cut out to do this long term. As it stands, I really think I'm getting better each day, so it could be just a generic "bad luck" situation. Of course, my ego is in check so I know it's been partly my fault as well. I've made some pretty bad plays in the heat of the moment, but have had plenty of sick coolers. I had quads beaten by quads for a huge pot and the nut flush beaten by a straight flush etc. The game was pot limit omaha though so those situations do come up, but it still sucks!

So anyways, I'll keep churning away as I'm sure I'll get out of this slump soon enough.

My First Publish

In further efforts to expand my horizons, I decided to spend some time working on an article. I submitted it to two magazines and it was picked up by Two Plus Two which is a website mostly known for its forums, but it runs an online only once a month magazine. You can read the article over at:

http://www.twoplustwo.com/magazine/current/

Just search for "Overpairs". It's not a perfect article by any means but it is geared towards intermediate level players and has some really good info. Check it out.

Don't try this at home!

Ok, so I decided I just had to get money back into an internet poker site. I figured FullTilt was my best option as I get a decent rakeback there of 27%. The only way which seems like it was going to work to get money in was epassport but the damn site took 10 days to get $300 bucks into and that was the max I could put in! Well today I finally put $295 from epassport into Fulltilt ($5 was a fee to get money into epassport from my bank account). So I played for about 7 hours starting with that $295 and was down to $42 playing $.5/$1 and $.25/$.5 Pot Limit Omaha after getting donkey raped every damn hand. All my draws were missing and all my sets were getting rundown by other players' draws. I was getting really pissed and pretty much on insta-tiltomatic. Just about anything was setting me off. Now I figured with $42 bucks I really didn't have enough to play many tables so wanted to either go bust or get a real stake back. So I jumped up to a $1/2 blinds table which really still isn't that big of stakes but with $42 it was all I could join. After 2 hours of some crazy luck against really really bad players I am now still playing and have over $700 in my stack! Don't try this at home!!!

Pot Limit Omaha is amaaaaazing!

Again I apologize for lack of updates. I'm not sure what will get me posting regularly. Anyways, I was playing $2/5 No Limit Holdem on Sunday over at the Venetian. I was down a couple hundred when the table broke and there since it was 8am Monday morning, the room was basically now dead. There was a $1/2 table running with a donator (ie fish giving away money) so I got on the list for that. In the meantime, I looked over at the only other table running and it happened to be Pot Limit Omaha (PLO). I've never played PLO before live, but I wanted to here. Only problem was that the game was running with $5/10 blinds which is pretty big and over my comfort level. I sat and watched the table for for a round and wow did it look juicy (ie really bad players), so I just had to take a shot. I bought in for short for $500 and most people at the table had between $2k and $10k in front of them. After 11 hours of play with possibly the worst PLO players ever, I cashed out pretty well. Two of the players had actually never played PLO before... like ever... and it really showed. One of them kept forgetting that you needed to play 2 cards from your hand. I hope to find more games like that!

Life outside of poker

After choosing this new career path, I decided I needed something outside of poker to focus on as well. Maybe I could become a better poker player quicker and move up the ranks faster if I was 100% poker, but I also think it creates a high risk for "burnout". If I have poker and only poker, what do I do when I need to get away from poker? (like if I go on a bad run and need time to psychologically and mentally recuperate) I wanted something to help keep me in shape and something that I have a passion for similar to poker. That something turned out to be Mixed Martial Arts. Most of you should have heard of The Ultimate Fighting Championship and maybe have even watched a few of them. Basically two men enter a cage and try to beat the crap out of each other till someone is knocked out or gives up. I know at first it may sound brutal but there are plenty of safety precautions in place to keep this a civilized sport. I don't have plans to step in the cage anytime soon, but I will be training with hopes of competition somewhere down the line. I am training Gracie Jiu Jitsu and Muay Thai Kickboxing and took my first Power Yoga class this week. Yoga may sound a little "woosie" but it can make a grown man cry. There is a Jiu Jitsu tournament coming up in Septemer in Las Vegas called Naga that I will be competing in for the first time as a white belt. I'll return to some poker stories in my next post. Thanks for reading.