I'm in.

jeeeeeeeeez brah hurry up

Ok so here's the plan:

I'm in San Diego from now until next Tuesday morning when I go to Sacramento for a couple of days and return to S.D on Thursday evening. I'm going skiing again with my sister and her husband on Friday through till Sunday so i'll be gone then - i'm not sure exactly where we're going but it's a 2-3 hour drive from here.

Then when we get back i'm here till Wednesday when I fly over to Washington DC where my cousin lives. I'll stay with him for a few days and I think we'll drive up to NYC on Saturday and spend the night there. On Sunday afternoon i'm leaving to go to Boston and crash at Xas's place for a few days. Wednesday I leave and head back to S.D (via Atlanta ZOMG H2T CATCH THE SAME FLIGHT!?!?). I'm then here for another two days and leave back to Australia on the Saturday.

So hard - try and be in xastonville between the 11th and 14th of Feb, mmkay?

Poker-wise i've played one session since my last entry and that was today. I made about $500 in an hour, which was tite, but I spent about $1k today on various airfares and some shiny electronics.

I bought this:

I've started using pokercharts.com to track my play and decided to take a screenshot of my month so far. It's nothing hugely impressive and my hours played is pretty poor, but i've been to three countries so that's a fair enough excuse:

Everything is very nice except for the fact that you blew $350 in those phones! Honeslty, if you put some sennheisers on you'll understand what I am saying.

I was going to buy a pair of those and a few friends prevented me from doing that. I put the equivalent (in price) from Grado and it is simply amazing. Very different leagues. But if you never had Hifi phones I bet you are very happy with the QC3. Enjoy them!

I own a pair of $200 Sennheisers. They've been great for the past few months that i've been using them. When I went to Canda with my friend Essex, his parents had QC3s. I tried them out. They are UNBELIEVEABLE and in an entirely new world of their own. It's ridiculous how good they are on an airplane.

I've heard similiar comments from others about how Bose are overpriced / not good, but I think it must be personal preference since I LOVE them.

Played for about an hour and made $350 or so. My camera arrived just a few minutes ago and is charging atm, awesome. Not a whole lot else to report on really, today was quite a boring day mostly spent at home and at some nearby shops.

It's been too long since i've updated this thing - i'll do it in two parts, a TR of my time with ED/EM/E in Sacramento and an update on poker.

Sacramento Trip Report

I awake at about 7:20am on Tuesday morning preparing myself to leave by about 9. I still had to pack, shower etc, eat breakfast and what not. I took my sweet time getting out of bed and at about 7:40 I get up and wander out into the hallway where my sister basically screams "WHAT'RE YOU DOING?! AREN'T YOU READY?". So it turns out We had to leave at 8, not 9. So I had a 2 minute shower and just stuffed a bunch of crap into my bag - I ended up packing about 7 shirts and no pants, so I was wearing the one pair of jeans for the 3 days I was there (which had a hole in them that kept getting larger and larger each day - not good).

Anyway - I get to the airport on time and my plane is pretty empty. The guy at the check-in counter flirts with me a bit, I get a cup of starbucks, etc. Standard airport stuff. The flight was really good since it was empty. I arrived to see ED standing at the bottom of the escalator near the baggage claim area with Emma sitting on his shoulders. We meet and say hi etc and go to get my bag which came out pretty quickly and leave the airport.

It's about lunchtime so we go to pick up EM from work and go out to lunch. We went to a Greek place which had some good food. After lunch we dropped EM back at work and made a couple of stops (costco & a grocery store) before we got back to their place. I get my laptop out and he gets on his comp and we played some poker, while drinking a few beers (they taste SO much better when they aren't costing you $10 a pop).

Dahndan came over after a couple of hours as we were all going to go out to a casino that night, Jackson Rancheria, and crush some 1/2nl. EM also came home around then so we had some dinner and left for the casino, which is about an hour to an hour and a half drive away. ED brought along a bottle of tequila, of course.

We get to the casino and get on lists for the 1/2nl (100max buyin) game - we get seated very shortly after as they opened a new table. I pick up AJ on my first hand and raise, get one caller. I CB a KT6 flop and he calls. I can't remember what the turn was, but he donked into me, and I folded. Next hand I get KTs and there are a couple of limps to me, I limp and so do a couple of others. The pot is 6 or so way and it comes down 992 with two of my suit. Checks to me and I bet $10 - guy behind me raises to $20. Folds around to ED who had limped in EP and he calls. I shove, because, well 50bbs and a flush draw. MALLIN. The minraiser behind me folds after like .1 of a second and it's on to ED. He looks up at me and says "you're allin?" I CALL QUADS SHIPIT!!!! while throwing two nines face up on the table. I sheepishly turn over my cards. Laughter ensues. Unfortunately I didn't hit my 990:1 runner-runner straight flush.

For the next few hours I played very mediocre, and lost stack after stack after stack. I got it in with 34 against AA on a 356 flop. I got it in preflop with QQ against KK. Come to think of it, I barely got my money in goot. Dan is sitting there winking his head off at ED and I and making hand gestures reminiscent of giving a blowjob so we eventually got the clue that he wanted to go back to the care and down some more of the tequila. I was all for it so we went for a short break then come up. I play a few more pots and can't get anything really going at all. Eventually I pick up QQ and there's a lot of action to me - I shove. I get a caller out of a shortstack, and ED who originally called a $10 raise says "fuckit let's gamble, I call". Now he'd been running really horribly too and had lost two big pots to the tune of about $1k ($500 of his own money) - one with a set to a straight and the other with a pair + flush draw vs the nut flush draw vs an oesd, all in on the turn - so his money was in V good. Anyway, back to my QQ hand, a guy behind ED hemms and haws for ages and finally says he's folding AQ. Well The shortstack had AQ too, and ED had AJ. I got my money in goot and made about $150 that hand. Yay. ED got up and left after that to cool off a bit and try and walk it off, he'd had it pretty rough.

Well my stack didn't last long when I got it allin with the nut flush draw against bottom set and didn't hit. Then I later got allin pre with KJ vs 66 and he flopped a set. I basically ran shit and dropped $600-700 in that game. ED dropped about the same. Dahndan, with his vpip of 0.5%, still managed to drop I think about $200 too. WE ALL SUCK AT POKER.

I went to play some 3card poker and blackjack and made about $150 back - Dan joined me at the BJ tables and we really owned them up. I mean we were calling cards and everything! Most of the time we'd get within 4 numbers of the actual card!! We'd call for a 7 and get a 5 to 9, how good are we?! That was fun for a while but eventually we had enough and went to get ED (who'd been playing a 3/6 table for a bit) and just left. We were all pretty dejected so we got in the car, drove home, and went to bed.

The next morning I wake up to a heated discussion outside in the living room which I hear about in which they're trying to decide who gets to come in and spoon with me. Or something. I can't remember, I was hardly awake. Anyway we get up and get ready to leave for San Fransisco. EM is unfortunately not well enough to go into work, but about 3 seconds after a phone call into work she feels better again. Ohwell, what's done is done! We left and had In-N-Out burgers for lunch which were great. A few minutes after that Emma wants some juice. EM is hellbent on getting it for free by stealing it from EDs mum's place which is near-by. Now she works, and it's the middle of the week in the middle of the day, so we doubt she'd be at home. We didn't have the keys either. Nonetheless EM is willing to bet she didn't go into work today for some reason or other so we rock up and low and behold, the door opens! Good call. We spend a few minutes there before heading off again - no more stops till SF now.

We arrive at the Golden Gate bridge which looks absoloutely phenomonal as we're driving towards it. We park the car and head to walk over it. It was a great walk. I got a couple of pictures - most people know what the GG bridge looks like but you don't know what it's like with me standing on it! We walked about halfway over it and came back towards the car. There were these signs at several intervals across the bridge and we just had to get a photo of one of them:


It seems so appropriate for this forum, I mean, at any given moment the following people are liable to jump off a bridge: MVP, MK, Xaston, Shamdonk, Starlitecoast, SNGNOOB, Alamedamike, and the one......... THE ONLY..... ALLLLLLEXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXMRRRRRRRR. Seriously dude, run hotter!

Anyway - from there we went and parked the care near Fishers Wharf where we also had lunch - ED told me how good the crab was, which i'd never tried before, so I gave it a go. They served it with clam chowder which was really good. So they bring out this crab, and tool that i've never seen before, and just plonk it infront of me. I look at it. I look up at ED. I look at EM. I look at the waiter. I look at Emma. I look back at it. I had absoloutely NO idea what the hell to do. Thankfullly ED is a master at eating crab so he tought be how to get the meat out and eat it and all. It was no small feat. Before we'd finished, EM had already finished her meal. It was really delicious though.

After lunch we went to Pier 39 and walked around for a bit, ED bought 3 pairs of sunglasses and EM got some saltwater taffy. Emma stole two pieces of taffy from the store (or so we thought at the time - for the next 24 hours we just kept finding taffy in her stroller and what not), so props to Emma! We went to a the Ferry Building which had some really great stores. They sold all sorts of speciality food ingrediants, such as a million types of cheese or mushrooms, dry beef, and there was a food/vegetable area with some interesting stuff. We walked around for a bit and as we're standing outside this gelato place, Emma is walking around and she stops infront of this store. I can't remember what it was called, Out something something. So she looks up at the sign and pipes out as clear as day while pointing to it "Out!". She's a genious, is what she is. ED was stunned on the spot, the look on his face was pretty priceless.

We then walked through town and took a train up to Union Square. That place is freaking amazing. Some of the stores and buildings they have around there..just wow. 8 story Macys. 4 story Borders. And then you get all the designer stores - gucci, luis vuitton, bvlgari, etc. It's just a great spot. It was getting close to dinner time so we walked towards china town, stopping at a starbucks along the way where we chat to Dan and agree to meet up with him for dinner. We get to chinatown and walk up and down several blocks going into quite a few stores. Every place we'd go we'd look at something and be like "hard2tel should buy that". This is a MUST buy for you, hard: They're originally $1,000,000,000 but you get them at 99.9999999% off so they're only $100 each! They're made out of ivory. Here's their business card if you wish to order:

So as much fun as it was taking photos of tiny ivory figurines with penises about half the size of their bodies, we had dinner to eat. We went to a nice place that had really good food. There were two men who both ED and EM think were gay and were pretty much 100% sure of it. Dan was 100% sure they weren't. I wasn't really sure either way but for the sake of making a bet I was gonna go with them not being gay - so we ended up offering $50 to ED to go back and ask the guy if he was gay or not (with the other man sitting with him) however EM wouldn't let him, KILLJOY!!! Oh well, she saved him $50 We said our goodbyes to Dan at that point and he went home. We got on a cable car which took us close to the garage to where the car was parked and we got on our way back too.

We arrived at about 10:30, just in time to get into the 1r on absolute. I'd never played a rebuy pushing allin basically every hand - god it's fun. We drank margaritas and played poker for the next few hours. Toasting at midnight to February coming around. THANK GOD. EM was playing with us for a while too but she had to go off to bed. I think we were up till about 3 or so, completely smashed off our faces on the 1/4 bottle or so of tequila we both drank.

I was up by about 8 the next morning, I think ED would've gotten up at around 7 because of Emma waking up. It was a fairly slow morning and we didn't do a whole lot. EM still wasn't feeling well enough to go into work but felt at around midday after lunch she'd instantaneously feel much better so we decided to go out to lunch where she'd go to work from. Before that though I got my butt kicked by Emma:


I'm gonna kick your ass.


Emma kicking my butt pt 1.


Emma kicking my butt pt 2.


Emma kicking my butt pt 3.


Emma has kicked my butt, taken over my computer, and is now laughing about it in the IRC channel.

After I recovered from this we went to lunch at a place called Luis Jr. which is mexican food - it was pretty good. From there EM had to go to work so we said byebye to her and went for a walk around the city for about half an hour before returning home. I packed and got all my stuff together and then we were both online and bumming around for a little while - we only had a couple of hours before we had to leave for the airport. We got there in time and my heart broke in more than one place as I had to leave ED and come back to San Diego .

The flight back wasn't exactly ideal - it was a completely full plane and I was stuck next to a giant. I couldn't sit straight comfortably and ended up sitting kind of sideways against the window and trying to sleep for the hour or so. I got in okay and my sister picked me up and I got home.

It was a fun trip and I had a great time. It was good to meet Doug, Sarah and Emma. Dan too - you crazy degenerate. Thanks to both of you for letting me crash and for taking me to see the sights of San Fran and the sight of Sacramento. You better make it to the Aussie Millions in '08 .

Your forearms are very hairy.

YOU'RE SHORT.

Poker

January was a great month pokerwise. I didn't get to play too much due to all my travelling, but I ran and played well the times I did get on. I had 12 winning days and 2 losing days. I made $6284.26 in 29.05 hours.

January PT stats:


Feb PT stats:


As you can see, Feb started off tremendously well for me. That was one session - my best session ever by a good $600 or so. It was mostly thanks to one person, who i've named "Mr. 23o" because of this hand: .

That happened right at the beginning of my session. I immediately looked him up and saw he was on two other tables so I joined them or got on the wait list. I stuck to him all night and got involved in a lot of pots with him. He was running at something like 80/40. Here are some more hands between him and I:







This one was vs someone else, but basically shows how goot I run: .

I don't think i'll be playing again in the next few days as tomorrow i'm out for most of the day and in the evening i'm going to Big Bear to go skiing for the weekend. I'll be back on Sunday night - I doubt there'd be internet up there and even if there is, i'm not going to take my laptop.

There. Finally got up to date with this