One of the recurring themes of this blog is how poorly I fare at the Borgata. I’m off to play a whole bunch of tournaments there starting tomorrow morning, but I’m going to forgo any further commentary about how awful my results in that building are.

Instead, I’m going to tell you that I’ve come out of the gate firing in 2008 with some very strong results in online play. Also, I’m going to say that I feel that I’m playing very well right now, and that I believe I’ve got a great chance to make some kind of splash in the Borgata Winter Open.

GOODFOOT!

Thank you, James.

Off to Joisey I go…

Another year has come and gone in my world.  Overall, 2007 was probably the best year I’ve ever had, but there were a lot of highs and lows.  In this blog entry I’m going to give it very short shrift, but I will try to give you the general idea.  Also you will see a lot of close-ups of the upper half of my face.  Here goes.

January:  Inauspicious to say the least.  I go to the Bahamas and get slaughtered at poker.  I’m bored, so I proceed to get slaughtered at craps, too.  I come home annoyed.  I finish off the month by playing a few tournaments at the Borgata Winter Open and I don’t win a dime.  My momentum from late 2006 is officially gone. 

February:  I take trips to Vegas and Puerto Rico but neither one has much to do with poker.  When I do manage to play, I continue to hemorrhage money.  I’m not liking 2007 so far.

March:  I go to the WSOP Circuit at Caesar’s AC and to a Foxwoods WPT event.  And I get slaughtered.  Now more worried than annoyed, I’m starting to think that maybe I suck at poker, and I’m out of reasons for why I’m constantly losing, so I do what any rational person would do:  I decide that I won’t cut my hair until I have a five-figure payday.

By the end of the month, I look like this.

April:  I host a poker tutorial and meet John Starks.  Unfortunately, my poker results still resemble his shooting percentage in Game 7 of the 1994 NBA Finals.  I decide to play a lot of online poker and have mixed results.  Nothing near five figures is happening.  2007 is a big washout so far.  Maybe this no-haircut thing wasn’t a great idea.  Now I look like this:

May:  I manage my first substantive cash of the year, but it amounts to peanuts compared to what any self-respecting poker pro should be making, and it ain’t five figures.  The WSOP is coming up soon, and I’ve been a dismal failure for five full months.  I start to experiment with my game, but the results remain the same.  By the end of May, it is time to head for Vegas for the WSOP, and I am bearing an eerie, uncanny, almost prescient resemblence to the bad guy in the yet-to-be released No Country For Old Men.  Oh dear.

June:  I decide that growing out a long, disgusting, greasy head of hair isn’t enough of a reminder of how much I suck, so I pronounce that June 2007 shall be the “month of reckoning.”  This ensures that I will jump out my window if the month ends without some kind of major score.  I guess it was just the kind of pressure I needed, because that was when it happened.  I final table a WSOP Event, come within a rivered two-outer of winning a bracelet, and I take home a quarter million dollars.  A week or two later, I tack on a second sizeable WSOP cash for good measure.  Poker is easy.  Now I look like this:

July:  Newly shorn, I do absolutely nothing in the WSOP Main Event.  Nevertheless, I’m feeling pretty self-satisfied and smug, so I take a long break from poker.

August:  I go to Turning Stone and play quite well, racking up a bunch of wins in multitable satellites, but I don’t do a whole lot in the preliminary or main events up there.  I’m still playing well, so I decide to make a nice online score as well.  Then football season arrives and I forget all about poker for several weeks while I nerd it up in preparation for my fantasy drafts.

September:  Borgata has another WPT Event.  I never win jack shit at Borgata.  Never ever.  I get slaughtered.

October:  Not much poker happens.  I watch football, go to Europe with Janeen and spend the last week of the month finally getting back to business at Foxwoods with mixed results. 

November:  I make my second big score of the year, finishing second in a preliminary event at the Foxwoods WPT.  What a country.  Man, poker is easy.  Now I look like this (I’m the guy on the left):

December:  Nothing good happens.  That’s okay, I’ve had a great year. 

Which brings us to 2008.  My poker goal for 2008 is pretty simple.  Just come close to replicating 2007.  That shouldn’t be a tough assignment, because poker is an easy game.

I’m a huge fantasy football nerd.  I’m practically psychotic about my fantasy football league.  I wasn’t always this way, but I think I know how it happened.

During my childhood, when the topic of David Zeitlin’s future would arise, my mother often recited her version of success, and they were words that this mama’s boy unwittingly took to heart.  Her idea of success was that each successive generation should achieve more than the last.  For me, that was going to be a pretty tall order.  My family tree consisted of great grandfathers who were poor immigrants, hard-working grandfathers who were never wealthy but who provided for their families, and finally a driven, educated father who crafted a busy law practice from scratch.  As the only son in my family, I knew at an early age that my assignment was to keep the graph moving along in the same direction.

It was under those auspices that I arrived, feeling duty-bound by my mother’s precept, at Penn Law School in 1995.  Tragically, when I went through the process of applying to law schools, I never stopped to consider whether I was choosing the right career.  All I knew was that I was supposed to be a bigger, better version of my father.  Not long after my arrival in Philadelphia, I discovered my misstep.

It was the first time in my life that I was truly unhappy.  Unlike my prior problems, experiencing my first law school lectures caused more than a fleeting sense of disappointment.  They brought permanent discord to my life.  It was official:  I hated law school.  Still, I refused to reject my assignment.  I stuck things out.  Rather than quit, I spent three years coping by adopting a studied somnolence, ignoring the plain fact that I did not belong there.  I simply sleepwalked through the entire experience.  I could not have cared less about Mrs. Palsgraf, and in retrospect, it isn’t a surprise that hers is among the very few names I remember from my casebooks. 

As my time in law school wore on, things never improved.  I went to class less and less often.  When I did, I was both bored and confused.  The brown-nosing students who insisted on being heard in every lecture were universally reviled, but I was less disgusted than bewildered by them.  Socially, I adopted an aloof “cool guy” persona that was a caricature of my true feelings.  Seeking a respite from the misery, I kept myself somewhat active socially, but only within a smallish community of other students who were not nutjobs.  In light of the fact that my parents bankrolled my time at Penn (a fact that also undoubtedly contributed to my lasting through three years), and in light of the fact that I graduated and then took a high-paying job, I don’t expect much sympathy, but I was a fish out of water in law school.  

It was in this atmosphere that the fantasy football league State of Yo was born.  I was already a huge pro football fan [see this blog entry] and at that time, fantasy football was a nascent hobby that was just taking hold.  Football fans everywhere were just discovering how great fantasy football was; how well NFL football lent itself to fantasy sports play.  I was no exception–I had limited experience playing myself.  So during the first week of the first semester of my third year at Penn, a group of students decided to form a fantasy football league.  I don’t recall exactly how or why–it probably was both because I was the common link between the law school participants and the college friend I recruited (hi Sherm!) and because I was searching for something–anything–to stimulate my slumbering mind, but I was appointed commissioner. 

The league rules were mostly copied from another league I had played in the prior year, with a baseball-style auction draft slapped on for good measure.  At the inaugural draft, the auctioneer, my good college friend and then-Philly resident Kaushik Datta, repeatedly uttered the name of an obscure Black Sheep song that we both loved, and the league had its name.  State of Yo.

In the inaugural season of State of Yo (also affectionately known as “SoY”)–which incidentally culminated with the crowning of a very unlikely champion who would never be heard from again–the group discovered what an enjoyable diversion fantasy football is.  For me, it was more than merely enjoyable; it was exactly what the doctor ordered.  As silly as it sounds, the league woke me up again.  Here was something I could sink my teeth into.  Yes, law school required analytical thinking, but it required (and taught) a rigid form of analysis–the memorization and application of certain principles.  But the freewheeling speculative analysis required in fantasy football was more up my alley.  Most points won.  Stats created points.  And a myriad of factors:  talent, opportunity, matchup, weather, and so many other things created stats.  Even though I was a work in progress (I had a strange predilection for third down backs in my very early days), I loved the game.   I immediately knew that I could not have enough fantasy football.

Within SoY’s first few weeks, friendly rivalries spontaneously formed, friendships were created and solidified, and best of all, the leaguemates now had something to discuss beside our courses and gossip while cutting class.  Almost out of necessity, SoY took my world by storm.  I thought of little else. 

After the rousing first year, there was little doubt that SoY was more than a passing fad.  It required significant planning and an infusion of new players, but after graduation from law school, SoY moved to New York along with me and my reluctant career.

Nothing about my life improved during this next phase.  I found work as an associate in New York even less palatable than law school.  If I treated Mrs. Palsgraf with indifference, I had outright disdain for my firm’s clients, my bosses, and the steady stream of insipid tasks they burdened me with.  It took very little time for me to grow deeply dissatisfied with my job, which boiled down to a lot of document shuffling and footnote writing.  The confusion and dissatisfaction of law school blossomed into full-blown depression.  Again, I was making a lot of money at this time and had no student loans to pay down, so you are free to regard this as puerile whining.  But I was deeply depressed, self-medicating on weekends, and had no idea how to fix myself.

It was no surprise that SoY flourished and became a massive obsession under these conditions.  My efforts to fulfill my mother’s mandate for generational progress had led me to a life of drudgery and discontent, but I found solace and an outlet for my unquenched competitive spirit in fantasy football.  This was long before I had ever played a serious hand of poker.  So, as sad as this might sound, with so little else to stimulate me, I found meaning in SoY.  Fortunately, many of my leaguemates were just as eager about things as I was.  We filled our days emailing trash talk and good-natured taunts to each other.  Then on the weekends we got together to talk some more about the same things.  We were all desk jockeys using the league as a means to entertain one another.

During this time, SoY adopted numerous changes that made it magnitudes more complex and challenging.  Some of these changes were made possible by the internet, which was then expanding at an ungodly rate (modern fantasy football and poker both owe a great deal to the internet), but most of the changes were engineered by a group of like minded, well educated nutjobs.   Spearheading the changes and summarizing them in a long document forever after called the “League Constitution” (maybe law school was good for something after all) was probably the biggest nutjob of all, me.  In my role as commissioner I often assumed an admittedly heavy-handed posture, acting like something more than a camp counselor but something less than a despot.  I have always preferred to analogize my role to that of the CEO of a small corporation.  The league rules were (and remain) a work in perpetual progress, and they were discussed in boardroom-like meetings where friendly bickering was the order of the day.  Like political issues, each league rule had its own constituency of supporting owners as well as its detractors, and all the arguing over them made SoY a year-round affair.  The result was a complicated (the Preamble to the SoY Constitution warns the reader that ours is “not a novice league”) but well balanced set of guidelines.   In the end, the most significant early rule changes may have been the adoption of tradition-creating conventions such as the establishment of a championship cup (from which the league winner must chug a Zima) and the naming of the league’s two divisions in memorium of SoY’s first (now departed) champion.

By this time (1999 or 2000) we had settled on a group of owners who were mostly like me:  diehards.  The result was that the league, while forging and solidifying friendships, also created fierce rivalries.  My leaguemates, many of whom I now count among my closest friends, lived, died, celebrated and mourned their teams fortunes along with me on our weekly roller coaster ride.  Over the years, the sheer intensity of the league has both attracted owners (we have had a waiting list for many years) and driven owners away.  The league, while creating numerous new friendships, has also been guilty of damaging a couple of relationships.  If nothing else, one thing was clear, and it had less to do with the money at stake (very little) than the egos involved (rather large):  SoY was stirring the desk jockeys’ passions.

It was under these conditions that, to my great satisfaction, I began to dominate SoY.  By 2002, I had won the league title in four of the six years the league had been in existence, and I took great delight in touting myself, at every opportunity, as a natural prodigal fantasy football talent.  Yes, I told everyone:  I am the best there is at predicting the yardage and TD totals of NFL players on a weekly basis!  Silly?  Yes.  But it was a hell of a lot better than trying to impress the partners at my law firm.  Of course, my opinion of myself was almost as overblown as SoY itself, but there was a kernel of truth in there. 

It took the discovery, a little while later, of my own proficiency at poker for me to realize why I was winning at fantasy football:  it’s a game of playing percentages that are hard to quantify.  I am good at doing this.  Fantasy football and poker have much in common.  Luck is a constant, maddening factor in both games.  In poker, you play the percentages and then let fate take over as cards are turned.  In fantasy football, you play the percentages and then leave things to fate on Sunday as you pray for your players’ knees to withstand another week of punishment and for them never to get tackled at the one yard line.  In both games, if you play the percentages correctly often enough, you are rewarded in the long run.

SoY has just completed its eleventh year of operation.  As the years have worn on, there has been a slight but palpable decrease in the intensity with which most of the owners play.  This change was inevitable.  What started out as a group of single students and/or young professional guys has changed over the course of time into a collection of middle aged family men.  While SoY for many of my leaguemates may never have been the all-out saving grace it initially was for me, it was at the very least a welcome diversion.  But life goes on.  The mean number of SoY wives has grown from zero to a number approaching one, and the mean number of SoY children has likewise expanded from zero to a number somewhere between one and two.  Understandably, this has rendered SoY a fun hobby rather than an obsession for most.  However, the crazy early years served as a method of owner imprinting, so everyone still plays hard.  SoY is aging very gracefully.

While I am lagging (perhaps now only slightly) behind my leaguemates in terms of wife collecting and babymaking, my life has also undergone substantial change since SoY’s initial epoch.  Specifically, I have reached a station in life that brings me professional and personal satisfaction.  It took me a long time, but I have discovered the things in life that make me happy, and I now spend the majority of my time and energy focusing on them.  I finally have my own idea of what I’m supposed to be.  This is obviously a significant improvement on my old arrangement, and I am quite content to be working a lot harder than I did as a lawyer.  I don’t often take the time to ponder the changes I’ve undergone in the last few years, but when I do (and it’s frequently in this blog), I am overcome with relief and pride that my old life has been put in my rearview mirror.  New David is way healthier than old David.

However, there is a solitary welcome holdover from old David’s life:  my passion for and competitive drive in SoY.  When it comes to the league–even though I have way less free time and even though my deskjockey days are over–nothing has changed at all on my end.  SoY is no longer an escape for me, but it has become a piece of me.  It just is.  I still feel irrational joy when I win at SoY, and I still feel bitter disappointment when I lose at SoY.  It’s the centerpiece of my fall and winter Sundays.  One day each week, little else matters.  This conversation has happened numerous times:

Janeen:  “How was your Sunday?”

David:  “Fucking awful.”

Janeen:  “Why?  The Jets won!”

David:  “Yes, the Jets won, and I won around $1,000, and I won in my other leagues (I now play in two other fantasy football leagues which are essentially filler), but I’m getting killed again in SoY.  I’m two and four.  My team sucks.  I doubt I’m gonna make the playoffs.  It’s awful.”

Janeen:  “Oh.”

I suppose that brings me to the main point of this essay:  After a two year hiatus, I just won the Yo Bowl again, and it feels about the same as final tabling a $10,000 tournament.  Which is to say that I’m beside myself with glee. 

This championship was different from my prior wins.  My team–the Sugar D’s, natch–didn’t put it all together until very late in the season, and I was a decided underdog against the league’s powerhouse in the finals.  Still, in the days leading up to the big game, I boldly fired off a trash talking diatribe telling my opponents in no uncertain terms that while they may have rollicked through the regular season, they were now squaring off with the man, and there was no way in hell the man would be lying down for them.  And I know that the NFL players that comprise my lineup have no idea that they’re part of the storied Sug D’s, but I’ll be damned if they didn’t each play their best games of the year, allowing me to easily dispatch the bad guys like a piece of unwanted trash.

Yo Bowl.  Ship it.  

(Yeah, I’m a huge nerd.  So?)

Haven’t updated the old blog in awhile, here goes:

My latest trip to AC was a disaster from start to finish.  I had bad luck every time it mattered, and I suspect that I didn’t play particularly well either.  Here are three somewhat interesting hands that I played.  You’ll note that all three hands take place in Level One of their respective tournaments, and that I lost all three, which should tell you a little something about how this trip went.

Hand #1

We were about twenty minutes into my second $500 Event (I lost with KK to AA in the Second Level of my first $500 Event, incidentally).  Blinds were 25-50 and everyone had around 5000 in their stacks.  I had not done anything beside fold so far.  I was in middle position and looked down to find two black aces.  One player limped and I made it 250 to go.  The guy two seats to my left, a player I’d already determined was not very sharp, responded by getting all fidgety before finally reraising to 500.  It was then folded back to me.  That reraise to 500 from that particular player in that particular situation was a hairbrained move I knew all too well.  The functional equivalent of him putting a flashing neon sign on his forehead that said “I HAVE KINGS OR ACES!”  Since I had two of the four aces in the deck, I immediately assumed that Mr. MinReraise had pocket kings, possibly queens, with A-K being a distant third possibility.  I therefore had two choices:  shove all in or flat call and trap him postflop.  I decided to flat call for the following reasons:

a)  I wanted all his chips and thought he might fold QQ or AK to a shove;

b) I was virtually certain he would not be able to get away from KK if all undercards flopped; and

c) I didn’t want to risk elimination if a king flopped.

And so the flop brought precisely what I was loathing:  a rainbow flop consisting of a king and two other cards.  I checked to Mr. MinRe to see if he’d give away any more information, and he of course obliged.  He immediately checked behind.  How tricky!  This ruled out QQ and probably AK as well.  If the preflop action was the functional equivalent of a neon sign, the check on the flop was equivalent to picking up a megaphone, turning it on, and screaming “KINGS!” in my ear.  I silently cursed my luck.

The turn was a random, irrelvant card, and I once again checked.  My opponent responded by betting 600 chips.  I felt very confident that I was losing, but I could not bring myself to fold the aces.  After all, I reasoned that this was an unknown opponent, and his line was still consistent with AK as well as KK, right?  I called.

The river was another irrelevant card, and this time he bet 900 after I checked.   I once again could not bring myself to make the laydown.  Instead I said “your set of kings are good, buddy,” as I turned my defeated aces face up.  Half a second later, he showed the kings I had already envisioned, and I was in bad shape.  I got busted not much longer after that.  Maybe I need to learn how to make that laydown.

Hand #2

It was midway through Level 1 in the $1000 buy in event.  I had about 6000 in my stack and so did nearly everybody else.  I was seated in middle position with the 5-4 of spades, and I decided to openraise to 150.  It was folded to the button–a bearded kid in a cap.  He was wearing a WSOP Circuit championship ring, so I figured he might know what he was doing.  He had been playing standard poker as far as I could tell.  He called my raise.  Everyone else folded. 

The flop was Kx-10s-2x.  I fired my contuation bet of 250 and he called. 

The turn was the ace of spades.  Now I had a flush draw and a gutterball wheel draw.  I also had five high.  I was also aware that Q-J had just hit a straight.  I checked, hoping to see the river for free and possibly extract some value later, but Beard & Cap bet 400.  I quickly surveyed the situation and decided that I could win the pot right here with a checkraise semibluff, which I proceeded to make by flipping 1100 chips into the pot.  I was representing QJ, A-K or A-10 (possibly AA, KK, 1010 as well), as I had openraised from early position, bet on a king high flop, and now appeared to have trapped Beard & Cap when I turned a powerful hand.  I knew that the kid would likely put me on one of these hands and fold.  But he did not fold, he flat called 1100.  Now it was my turn to put him on a hand.  Why in the world was he flat calling?  I decided that Q-J is out of the question, because that hand would certainly have shoved for value on such a drawy board, hoping that I’d call with the exact hands I was representing while shutting out drawing hands such as KsQs.  His flat call felt to me like AQ or AJ, which were both top pair with a gutshot broadway draw.  To a lesser extent I thought he might have a bigger combo spade draw than me, perhaps KQ or KJ of spades. 

The river was a red jack, putting A-K-J-10-x on the board.  Ugh.  i was nowhere.  I only had one way left to win the hand, so I went with it, betting 1800 with five high.  Beard & Cap said “well, I obivously let you get there, we’re probably chopping,” and tabled the one hand I had completely ruled out, Q-J.  Now I was already down to around 2400 chips after only 30 minutes of play.  I played that hand all sorts of badly, starting with opening the pot in the first place, continuing with giving my opponent enough credit to assume he’d play tne nuts normally (stupid ring), and ending with making a hopeless bluff on the river.  Nicely done all round!

Hand #3

Near the end of Level One of the $1000 Event.  Thanks to Hand #2, I had 2200 chips and everyone had me covered.  I was in the cutoff with KQ offsuit.  An old man who I had labeled as a run-of-the-mill loose/passive donk openlimped in early position.  He was called by the player to his left, then called by the player to my immediate right, who happened to be Eric “Sheets” Haber.  I decided that my stack size was too awkward for a squeezy raise–a raise to 300 and the inevitable continuation bet would have left me with crumbs–so i just overlimped.  The blinds came along and we saw the flop six handed. 

The flop was Kh-8h-7x with two hearts.  The old man immediately bet 300.  It was folded to Sheets, who proceeded to give off a pretty bad tell.  He did the following:  He separated around 900 chips from his stack, then placed those chips back into his stack, then he genuinely contemplated for an unusually long time, then after quite awhile, finally called 300.  Now the action was on me.

Since I know how Sheets plays (thanks, PokerXFactor) and also because I understood what I’d just witnessed, I could easily put Sheets on a hand.  He had a powerful combination draw along the lines of J-10 of hearts, J-9 of hearts, or A-x of hearts.  Whatever he had, I was beating it.  The fact that he contemplated a raise and then did not make one made this conclusion obvious.  I knew that Sheets would raise preflop with AK, and that he’d raise the flop with a set or two pair.  I also know that he’d fold weak kings on that flop.  The only hands he would consider a raise, then call with are strong draws.  So what was my move?

I decided that depending on what the old openlimper had, my only two moves were to fold or shove.  After about 3 seconds of contemplation, I decided that the old guy’s range included things like J-10, K-J and A-x of hearts often enough to make a shove for value worthwhile.  So I dumped my ~2100 chips into the pot.  Everyone folded to the old guy who made a quick call.  Crap.  The speed of his call made me realize that I was going to be out of the tournament unless he held exactly KQ for a chop.  Now the action was on Sheets, and he took a very long time–probably around two full minutes, which were undoubtedly spent caclulating pot odds–before finally folding.  The old guy showed a hand I didn’t think he’d openlimp with:  the 8-7 of spades for bottom two pair (incidentally, he made a big error by not reraising to shut Sheets out of the pot).  I didn’t catch up and was out the door. 

I drove home in a cold winter sleetstorm that was rougly congruent to my mood. 

Since my return from AC my life has been virtually poker free.  Between my fatigue (possibly weather related?), the huge football Sunday (I’ve made the finals in two of my three fantasy football leagues!), and last but not least–Janeen’s birthday, I’ve had little time or desire to play.  With all the travel I have lined up between now and New Years, I am more or less resigned to the eventuality of my year ending without another decent score.  I’m in a lull, but it’s a semi-satisfied, self-induced lull.

Speaking of Janeen’s birthday, I put together a well-deserved full weekend affair in her honor.  We started out on Friday with a night of karaoke, continued on Saturday with an annual late night winter ritual–the infamous “white party”–and Janeen finished up on her own on Sunday with a spa treatment. 

Here are a couple of pics from Janeenapalooza Weekend ’07:

not a bad weekend.  🙂

What location could be more inspirational than Atlantic City, New Jersey on a chilly Monday in December?

Pretty much anywhere.

But that’s where business is taking me today, to play in the World Series of Poker Circuit stuff at Harrah’s. 

At least there won’t be a long line at the White House Sub Shop.  Hopefully I’ll bring home my first WSOP Circuit cash.

That’ll be me in January.

For the past two weeks I’ve been playing “Step” sit ‘n go’s on Pokerstars in vain effort to win entry to the Pokerstars Carribean Adventure (a.k.a. the PCA, a.k.a the WPT Bahamas), which begins the first week of 2008.  The Pokerstars Steps are a series of one table tournaments, starting with Step 1 ($7.50 entry) and ending with Step 6 ($2000 entry) with the winner of Step 6 receiving entry in the $10,000 tourney along with a free week at the Atlantis.

I have had relatively little trouble breezing through steps 3 ($82) and 4 ($215), but every time I’ve reached step 5 ($700), I’ve stumbled.  On Friday, I had won yet another step 5 seat when I decided it was time for a break.  I decided to take the weekend off and return to the steps today.

So it obviously came as a bit of a surprise when I just discovered that the Pokerstars PCA Steps have been shut down for this year.  The PCA doesn’t start for another five weeks, so I’m not sure why Pokerstars would kill the satellite action this early.  I suppose they have reached their quota–they might have a finite block of Atlantis rooms set aside or something.  For the record, Pokerstars has already assured me that my $700 step 5 ticket will be redeemable in some other kind of satellite tournament in the future.

This means I will likely freeze my ass off right here in New York for the entirety of January 2008.  Since I am sticking to my super nitty plan of only entering $10,000 events via satellite, there will be no Bahamas for me.

On the one hand, I am not especially phased by this.  Loyal readers will recall that I was less than impressed with the Atlantis in January 2006, so I can’t say I was dying to return.  On the other hand, because the PCA is the online poker player’s Mecca, my absence this time around is a minor blow to my ego, reinforcing the fact that I’m not a bigtime online baller.

So it goes.

Meh.

I suppose some of you out there might be wondering what I’m up to now.  Am I basking in the afterglow of earning a healthy family’s yearly salary in a single day for the second time in 2007?  Or am I running amok, cackling like a banshee as I galavant around New York blowing wads of cash on senseless luxury items?

No and no.  The basking period lasted around three days.  And my senseless spending, coinciding with one night in the basking period, consisted of exactly one item:  an absurd night of bottle service at a New York City dance club.  What I’ve really been doing is pondering what happens next.  So what now?

To quote the great sports talk radio legend Steve Somers:  for those of you keeping score at home, and I know that you are, I’ve had a very good poker year.  I have shattered my monetary goals for 2007, which were rather moderate compared to what I have achieved.  I have also managed to attain a relatively high world ranking on the tournament poker leaderboard.  Quite honestly, both of these results are well beyond anything I ever expected.  To say I’m pleased about these particular things is an understatement.  But where do I go from here? 

That’s the question I’ve been asking myself since I’ve returned home from Foxwoods.  Despite all I’ve accomplished in my 23 months as a pro, the truth is that I’m far from completely satisfied and that I remain somewhat apprehensive about my burgeoning career.  The following are my poker goals going forward:

Stay motivated and improve my game 

Have I reached my ceiling as a poker player?  I don’t think so, and I really hope not.  Poker is a tricky business.  I am aware of how tenuous a player’s stay on top can be.  I am familiar with dozens of stories of players who flashed briefly, made way more money than I have, then abruptly disappeared from the scene forever.  I do not want to be one of those players.

Just earlier today I was perusing the 2+2 forums and came across this thread about Shannon Shorr.  For those unfmamiliar, Shorr came out of nowhere and tore up the tournament scene in 2006.  By the end of the year he was hailed as tournament poker’s next big thing, even parlaying his success into a side job writing a bi-weekly column for Card Player magazine.  But today, his stellar 2006 serves only as a stark white backdrop upon which to compare his dismal 2007, during which he has continuously toured the tournament circuit without a single large cash.  Shorr now openly admits that he might not have what it takes and is contemplating quitting poker.

The above-linked 2+2 thread is filled with some valuable commentary (along with the typical helping of bullshit).  Some important, valid points are made about how much variance exists in tournament poker, about how difficult it is to make a long-term living at tournament poker, and about how cash-poor most famous tournament pros actually are. Implicit in these comments is the notion that there are precious few people who can truly succeed in the long term playing poker tournaments.  I would like nothing more than to annoint myself a member of that exclusive club at this point in time, but truthfully, such an announcement would still be premature.

I’m not saying that I found the Shannon Shorr 2+2 thread discouraging, but it is at least… disconcerting.  The good news is this:  reading that thread has bolstered my motivation.  Screw basking.  I have a renewed desire to build on my success in the venues that are already comfortable to me, and I want more than ever to succeed in the venues where I have yet to really dominate.  Namely, I want to keep playing great live tournament poker, and I also want to improve in online tournaments and in cash games generally.

Online poker is vexing to me.  I simply am not as good online as I am live.  This is old news to regular readers of this blog.  When I speculate on the reasons for my relative struggle online, I come up with the following:

1. the UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) has chased off a ton of fish, leaving me to battle against much stronger fields than those I deal with in brick & mortar locales;
2. I cannot master the art of devoting complete concentration to a computer monitor when there are so many distractions available;
3. My game is “feel”-dependent, so I work best in an environment where physical tells are part of the poker landscape.

I’m relatively certain that each of these enumerated items is a factor and that they rank 2-1-3 in descending order of importance.  I’ve said this so many times that it’s nauseating, but I am going to work on becoming a better online player.  Starting… now!

Figure out how to invest my money

On the day in 2002 when I billed my final hour at a large NYC corporate law firm, thereby irrevocably removing myself from the god awful “partner track,” I became a prohibitive longshot to ever have this much money in the bank at the age of 34.  Well, the longshot came in.  So what do I do with the money?

The answer is probably going to be pretty simple.  Janeen and I are looking to buy a bigger apartment for us both to live in, probably somewhere in Brooklyn.  That will effectively end my days of having tons of money banked. 

Still, I am 34 years old with no clue about how to handle money.  I know zilch about investing.  I’ve heard rumors that if you have a bunch of money, it like… makes more money just by sitting in a certain place?  Or something?  That’s the extent of my knowledge.  I might take a couple of seminars about investing and about real estate so that I will feel comfortable with whatever decisions Janeen and I make going forward. 

Turn poker success into marketability

I’m doing really well in an industry that is still rapidly growing.  So why am I a nobody?  Despite my growing list of accomplishments, here are some things I’ve noticed:

–There is no such thing as a Card Player update about David Zeitlin.  The list of players whose minute-to-minute doings are widely documented includes scores of guys who have accomplished much less than me playing poker.  When I manage to go deep in a tournament, thereby forcing the poker media to cover me, the kid with the clipboard invariably says “what was your name again?”

Is this because I’m boring?  Ugly?  Still new to the scene?  I don’t know.  Hello?!

–I’ve never once been approached about any kind of sponsorship deal, even though I’m out there touring and winning.  I know for a fact that there are idiots who are dead broke who make good money on the side for wearing stupid hats and t-shirts.  I don’t even have that option.

–Forgive my insolence on this one, but the people who write about poker stink.  There is a huge, growing market of readers out there who are hungry for anything about poker.  I know this for a fact, because every poker room is now littered with magazines that didn’t exist two years ago, and because this blog gets way more hits than you’d think.  Unfortunately, the supply of quality writers seems to be outstripped by the demand for poker articles.  Pick up any issue of Card Player, Bluff, or any of the other hard copy (or worse, internet) poker publications and turn to almost any page.  You’ll probably find a poorly written (yet still entertaining, cause it’s poker!) piece of journalism.  Sorry, Mr. Shorr, but you’re no exception.

I’m not saying that I’m God’s gift to poker writing—if this blog was really awesome I’d surely have some kind of offer by now—but I can do better than half these hacks.  It would be pretty cool to have a small regular paycheck again.  I’m not deluded enough to believe that this one is someone else’s fault.  I have never made any kind of overtures to any poker publication about part time employment.  But here goes:

Hi guys! 🙂

-DZ

A shortish recap of my experience at Foxwoods:

Foxwoods gets very busy when it hosts a WPT series.  People from all over the Northeast show up and stay for the duration, selling out all three hotels on the premises.  Particularly well represented are New Englanders.  Foxwoods was definitely Red Sox/Patriots country for the past two weeks.  Roughly one out of three people up there was wearing some form of Sox or Pats paraphernalia.  And for good reason:  the Boston teams are currently destroying the American pro sports landscape.  Some of my tables were so dominated by guys in Sox/Pats clothing that I felt like asking the non-compliant if they hadn’t gotten the memo.

I had mentioned that I went into my Foxwoods trip looking to accomplish two things:  first, to get back into the routine of playing a lot of hours; and second, to re-find my game, which I felt had become a little too mechanical.  Both were accomplished.

I started out playing Act 2 sit ‘n go’s, which have a $250 buy in and award two seats into the $1100 Act 3 tournaments.  In past trips to Foxwoods, these tournaments invariably included an additional $100 kicked in by all ten players, establishing a 3rd place prize of $1000 cash.  Not anymore.  The management at Foxwoods has decided to kill off this action, warning the players in a conspicuously posted sign that anyone drumming up sidebet action would be kicked out of the poker room.  Management’s explanation for this was that they are protecting players from feeling browbeaten into kicking in the extra money.  Yeah right.  The obvious correct answer is that Foxwoods does not want vigless gambling going on under their roof.  Having not read the signs, I plopped myself down at my first Act 2, pulled out a $100 bill and said “third place money!” to the table at large.  I got a few silent head-shaking stares from the other players, and the dealer warned me that he’d call the floor if I did that again.  Oops. 

The formula for winning Act 2’s is pretty simple:

a)      don’t spew chips early;

b)      push/fold correctly late; and

c)      win races.

I followed this outline well enough to win three of six Act 2’s, and the three I lost were all bubbles.  Now onto the multitable tournaments.

First Act 3

There were only 53 entrants, leaving five seats for us to fight for.  I picked up a ton of chips right away in this tournament after completing a couple of big draws.  I had the biggest stack in the room with 40 players left, but it withered away until the following hand developed:

Sitting on about 14,000 chips At the 600-1200 + ante level, I picked up AQ in the big blind.  The action was folded to the small blind, who I covered by a small margin.  I recognized this player, he’s around at all the tournaments, but I don’t know his name.  He completed and I raised to 3600.  He quickly called.  The flop came 10-5-3, a very ragged board.  The small blind moved all in, and I was faced with a decision for my tournament holding only ace high.  But my initial reaction wass that I was way ahead.  I know a stop-and-go when I see one, and I had just been stop-and-go’d.  I called pretty quickly and J-8 was no good.  From there, I push/folded my way to a main event seat.

$600 Event

I quickly lost two-thirds of my stack in level one, then made a furious comeback to take my total chip count back up over the starting amount of 5000.  I was moved to Chris Reslock’s table.  I’ve played with him before, and Negreanu’s description of him as a “maniac in nit’s clothing” is appropriate.  He was playing about 50% of the hands.  At the 100-200 level, Reslock began opening a lot of pots for 525 chips, then took down those pots with smallish continuation bets.  On my big blind, he opened (as usual) for 525, and I defended my big blind with J-10 offsuit.  The flop came 8-7-x rainbow, giving me two overs and a gutshot straight draw.  I checked, Reslock bet 1000, and after deliberating for a few seconds, I moved all in.  Reslock had me easily covered and made the call.  He had QQ and I didn’t improve.  I have given this hand a lot of thought, and while I am fine with the overall strategy I employed, i.e., stuffing a bunch of chips in a maniac’s face with only a weak draw, there was one important clue that I didn’t detect.  That clue was the size of Reslock’s bet after the flop.  He bet almost the entire pot instead of half or two-thirds.  His bet smelled strongly of “I’m protecting my hand” rather than “I’m trying to take this thing down cheaply.”  I failed to pick up the scent.

  
$1000 Event

I was card dead from the start and couldn’t get anything going.  However, I was still sitting on around 4500 chips at the 100-200 + ante level.  A player got moved into the seat directly to my right.  Then he immediately won three big pots with AK suited, AA and KK.  On three consecutive hands.  Must be nice, buddy.  He was now probably the early tournament chip leader.  On the ensuing hand it was folded to him on the button and he raised to 625.  I had 5-4 offsuit in the small blind and pushed all in.  The big blind folds but Mr. Huge Stack snap calls and turns over aces.  Wow.  Adios.

Second Act 3

I was doing fine until I picked up AK in late position and reraised a middle position player after he openraised.  He called without much thought and then the flop came A-10-x.  He led the betting and I raised all in.  This sent the other player into a long period of contemplation.  He covered me.  After literally a minute or two he said “I can’t lay this down” and reluctantly called.  I was shocked to see him turn over A-10 offsuit.  I shook my head and said “of course you can’t lay that down!  Jesus!” (well, he should have preflop) and stalked out of the room.

$1500 Event

I started out strong in this tournament, and when there were only around 80 out of 412 players remaining, I had about an average stack.  At the 300-600 level, an older guy openraised in middle position and I stuffed it all in from the button with JJ.  He called and tabled two aces, and as I prepared to depart, the flop’s doorcard was a happy smiling jack.  No ace on the turn or river.  A few minutes later I busted John Cernuto, the same guy who took me out of this same tournament last year.  And that’s where the fun begins.

The key hand of the tournament for me was the following:

After we reached the money, at the 1000-2000 level, I had A-9 offsuit in the big blind.  I had around 40,000 chips.  The player in the cutoff, who I covered by a couple of thousand chips, raised to 5000.  I was familiar with this player as we have sat at the same table a few times before in different locations.  He likes to vary his preflop raise sizes.  In the past half hour, he had raised to 6500 twice, 5500 once, and now 5000 for the first time.  I did not like my hand, but I was getting a good price, so I called.  The flop came 7-5-5 with two spades.  I had no spades.  I checked and my opponent fired a continuation bet of 7000.  My first instinct was to toss my hand in the muck and move on, but I had a feeling that I was ahead, so I decided to do something that I almost never do:  float out of position.  Since I didn’t want to commit any more chips (over ¼ of my stack was already involved), I just called and hope to show the hand down.  The turn was a non-spade four.  I checked again, and my opponent now moved all in for around 25,000 chips. 

Now I was faced with a very big, difficult decision.  As I mulled it over, the clock expired for the level and many players left the room for a 10-minute break.  Several lingered around my table as I thought things over.  And what I was thinking is this:  what hands does this player move all in with here?  Obviously, overpairs are in the mix.  So are hands that include a five, and so is complete air.  But when I tried to get inside my opponent’s head, his small preflop raise did not match up with either overpairs or the airball hands that I was behind (A-10 through A-K).  I decided that those were hands that this player would protect by betting more with.  With his 5000-chip preflop bet, he was exposing himself to multiway action, and he was smart enough not to do that with big pairs and big aces.  Could he have a middle pair like 88, an underpair like 22, or top pair with something like 8-7?  I thought about those hands and reached the conclusion that my opponent would slow down on the turn with those hands and try and show them down cheaply.  A lot of time was ticking by and I still hadn’t made a decision.  In the end, based on the preflop, flop and turn action, I decided that I was only losing to a small subset of hands:  those hands that had flopped trip fives.  Still, this was the type of call that I have trained myself to never make:  my tournament was on the line and my opponent had shown aggression three times already in this hand, and I had bubkis.  I had never in my life made this crazy a call.  The final criterion on which I would base my decision was a look at my opponent.  I looked him up and down for a few seconds, and he looked genuinely uncomfortable.  I was scared shitless too, but after around three or four minutes, my mind was made up.  I was making this crazy call.  I shook my head and muttered “call” as I slid my entire stack forward.

My opponent let loose a mournful sigh and said “nice call” as he dumped K-J (no spades) face up in front of him.  YES!  WHAT A CALL!  I was overcome by a mixture of relief, pride and unbridled joy.  As a commotion rose amidst the players standing on the rail, I did something very out of character:  I stood up and triumphantly slammed the A-9 open onto the table.  Now there was a real uproar behind me:  “holy shit!”… “did he just call with ace high?!”… “that’s sick!”… “Whoa!”

The river was a brick.  Suddenly I was being congratulated by random people.  Guys were patting me on the back and high fiving me, calling me “sicko.”  I was overwhelmed and unable to even tell my dejected opponent “good game.”  I went to the bathroom and the topic of conversation at the urinals was the “sick call some guy just made.”  I giddily called Janeen and my father during the break and told them that I was going deep in this tournament.

The rest of Day 1 was a grind, with nobody really getting out of line.  Bustouts were few and far between, and it took until 1:30 am to get the field down to 17 players, at which time play was suspended for the night.  I was somewhere in the middle of the pack, guaranteed a payday of around $5,000, which paled in comparison to the $180,000 first place prize.  My entire family and Janeen hastily put together plans to come up to Foxwoods to watch Day 2, and I was grateful for that.  As I’ve mentioned a few times before, I am a rarity on the poker tour:  a loner.  Unlike most tournament pros, I do not travel with a posse and am reluctant to make new friends who are likely to be degenerates.  So knowing that I’d have a few fans for Day 2 was a very nice feeling.

My first important hand of Day 2 took place with around 14 players remaining.  I openraised from the cutoff with AQ and got reraised all in by Young Phan, who easily had me covered, on the button.  Phan is a very chatty player who is much trickier than he appears.  At the end of Day 1 he was playing very tight, standard poker, but on Day 2 he had switched gears.  Even though I had enough chips to easily fold and have plenty to work with, I felt that I was either ahead or racing, so I called.  Phan said “I like your hand” as he showed A-10.  My A-Q held, and I excitedly yelled “ship!” as I won doubled through and won the pot.  This propelled me to the final table, where the real money began to kick in.

With seven or eight players remaining, I picked up JJ in the cutoff at the 5k-10k level.  The player under the gun, who I had had pegged as a decent player with little experience at these stakes, raised to 30,000.  I had a tough choice between flat calling, folding and reraising.  I decided to see where I was at, so I reraised to 100,000.  My opponent called, leaving him with around 350,000 behind, about the same as me.  I decided that he had to hold a medium to big pair, something in the range of 10-10 through Q-Q.  I felt he would have reraised all in with AA, KK or AK and folded hands like 88 and AQ, thus narrowing his range to those specific pairs.  The flop came K-x-x rainbow, and now my opponent did something very curious:  He lead out with a half-pot bet of around 150,000.  What in the world did that bet mean?  I thought it over and realized it could only be one of two things:  1) a probing bet from a player who did not like the flop; or 2) a fake probing bet from a tricky player trying to induce a shove.  I considered my opponent and concluded that it was the former.  He wanted me to go away and I was not going to.  I announced that I was all in.  My unhappy opponent mulled it over for awhile, first saying “there’s so much money in the pot,” then recanting and saying “there’s no way this hand is any good” before folding QQ face up.  Awash with relief, I again did something uncharacteristic.  I smirked and flipped my jacks open as I raked the big pot.  That hand sort of iced a top three finish for me even though I gave a ton of chips back to the same player by running AK into AA only twenty minutes later.

When we were four handed, I won two big pots against the player to my left, a nice guy named Ben who was in the process of making his first big tournament score.  First, I completed from the small blind with J-10 offsuit and Ben checked.  The flop came down A-J-10 rainbow and since we were both fairly deep, I decided to lead at the pot and try to three-bet all in if raised.  I made a pot-sized bet and Ben cooperated by putting in a large raise.  I already knew that I’d be moving all in, but I decided to take a lot of time and conjure up my best “I’m making a move on you” faux-posturing.  When I finally moved all in, Ben snap called and showed A-8, leaving me ahead but vulnerable with my bottom two pair.  They thankfully held up and made me the chip leader with four players left.

A few hands later, I disposed of Ben by limping on the button for the first time in two days with 8-5 of hearts.  Ben checked his option and I flopped a flush:  A-Q-x of hearts.  Ben checked and I made my best “this is just a continuation bet”-looking bet, hoping that Ben would get frisky.  He again cooperated by moving all in.  I quickly called and was way out ahead of Ben’s Q-2 with no hearts.  He didn’t catch runner-runner anything and I now had a commanding chip lead with only three of us left.  I gave a couple of subdued high fives to my faithful railbirds and got back down to work.

I chose to turn the heat up three handed, as I figured my two opponents, the aforementioned inexperienced kid and the excellent tournament pro David Fox, might have their eyes on the $40,000 gap between third and second place.  As I raised my button almost every time, they were both aware of what was going on.  After picking up the blinds and antes several times from the button, I once again raised from the same spot with KQ of spades.  This time the young kid to my left had seen enough.  He put in a big reraise of half his stack.  I thought for a few seconds and decided that I had the best hand, so I moved all in.  This displeased the kid, he scowled and stood up as he contemplated his next move.  After maybe 30 seconds he said “there’s too much money in the pot; I hope my cards are live.  I call.”  He showed 7-6 offsuit and there was a 60-something percent chance that I was about to lock up the tournament.  But the flop came with a six and no K or Q, then a seven fell on the turn.  Now we were playing three-handed with roughly equal stacks.  A few hands later Fox and the kid got their chips all in on a J-x-x flop with one heart.  The kid had J-10 and Fox had the J-8 of hearts and was drawing slim.  But his railbirds cries of “heart-heart!” were answered as the turn and river came running hearts, giving him a miracle double through and crippling the kid, who was eliminated by Fox maybe 20 minutes later.  I was now heads up for the title and the $180k with a 2-1 chip deficit.

There’s no way of sugarcoating the fact that I got run over heads up.  I made two second best hands (top pair, bad kicker and a straight vs. a flush) right away, and from there got ground down by Mr. Fox, a very gracious winner who played superbly throughout the tournament.  In the end, I was much less disappointed with this second place than the brutal one I suffered at the WSOP. 

I have now locked in a year that is more successful than I could have possibly dreamed.  I am ranked 96th on Cardplayer’s Player of the Year points scale despite playing very low volume compared to many of the touring regulars.  Second place is really fine by me under those circumstances.  I can hardly believe how well I’ve done this year, it still hasn’t totally sunk in.  Perhaps more gratifying than the money or the ranking is the respect I’ve garnered from other players.  Both during and after the $1500 event I was approached by a lot of players I really respect who told me how well I played. 

I took a short break to bask in my 2nd place finish in the $1500, then enjoyed a weekend with Janeen and some football, then it was back to Foxwoods.

Third Act 3

This event, in marked contract to the first Act 3 I played, drew over 260 players, offering up 26 main event seats.  Having already secured a seat, I was playing for $10,000 cash.  I did a good job maneuvering my way down into the top 35, near the bubble, then with the blinds at an astronomical 4000-8000, I picked up 88 in the cutoff while sitting on around 70,000 chips.  It was folded to me and I moved all in.  The button, an older gentleman with around the same amount of chips, snap called with AQ.  He flopped a queen and sent me packing.  His call was technically incorrect at that stage of a satellite.  Oh well.

Main Event

I drew a table that included Amnon Filippi and Eric Seidel, which was exciting.  The table also included a new breed of donkey that I had heretofore never encountered.  A lot of the old pros talk about guys that they call “providers” or “whales,” the type of guys who are rich and terrible, who donate money and don’t really care.  I had never met one until last week.  I don’t know what his name is, but he knew about half the people in the room, which initially made me think that he might have a semblance of a clue about poker.  He did not.  He sat there in his white pants and expensive sweater playing almost every hand, and he played them all poorly.  First he lost most of his stack with 10-9 offsuit on a 10 high flop against an obvious overpair, then apparently frustrated, he called off his remaining chips with two all ins in front of him.  His opponents had AA and QQ, and he had J-10.  Well that was interesting.

The main event went pretty well for me through the first two levels.  I was at the top of my game, playing excellent poker.  Then I had a rough level three, during which I made an ill-advised bluff (sorry, I’m running out of gas on this blog entry, no description).  I made a very nice comeback in level four before my ultimate undoing in level five.

The blinds were 300-600 with an ante, and I had about 30,000 chips.  I held 10-3 offsuit in the big blind, and the pot was openlimped in middle position, with Filippi calling on the button.  The flop came 10-8-3 with two hearts, which made me quite happy.  I bet 2000, the middle position limper folded, and Filippi raised to 5,000.  The only hand I was scared of was 10-8 or some kind of powerful heart draw.  I considered moving all in right there but felt I was slightly too deep for that play, so I decided to call and checkraise all in on almost any turn card.  The turn was a non-heart nine, which didn’t scare me at all.  I once again checked and now Filippi made a very large bet of about 15,000.  This bet obviously reeked of someone protecting his hand against a draw, and I still couldn’t imagine a hand I was likely to be losing to other than 10-8 or 10-9, so I pushed all in.  This startled Filippi (in a good way), as he removed his headphones and said “did he just move all in?!”  The dealer confirmed that I had and he quickly called and showed pocket eights.

And so my lifetime record for cashes in $10k events is now down from two-for-two to two-for-five.  Damn variance! 

Overall, a good trip to Connecticut.  

I just busted near the bubble of my third Act 3.  This old guy didn’t know that you’re not supposed to call all in for 10 big blinds with AQ in the late stages of a supersat.  88 no good; adios Sug.

Tomorrow I begin play in my first 10k event that I haven’t either bought directly into (2007 WSOP Main Event) or satellited into online (2005 WSOP, 2006 WSOP Main Event, 2007 WPT Bahamas).  It will also be the smallest field of the five 10k events under my belt (but first place will still be over 1.5 million I’m guessing).  

I assume that I’ll be running across some really dangerous characters, but I am also aware of how poor the play in the supersats has been, and the supersat winners are playing in the Main Event, and many of them stink.  So I really don’t know what I’ll run across.

I do know this:  I’m happy to report that Kevin has been kind enough to volunteer to be the point man for Sugar D Foxwoods WPT updates, so I am going to text him information throughout the day tomorrow, and he will then post that info below this entry as the day wears on. 

Heeeeere we go!

I am taking a much needed two day break from poker and don’t have the energy to write a full recap yet, but here’s a short summary of my trip to Foxwoods last week:

I went 3 for 6 in Act 2’s, which are $250 sit ‘n gos that get you into Act 3’s.  All three misses were on the bubble.

I went 1 for 2 in Act 3’s, which are $1100 multitable tournaments that put 10% of the field into the WPT main event.  This means I’ll be playing my first 10k event since the WSOP Main Event next week.

I washed out of the $600 and $1000 preliminary events pretty quickly.

And then…

The $1500 event was maybe the best poker I’ve ever played in my life.  I know I’ve said that before, but in this particular tournament I made a lot of very good plays that I even surprised myself with.  Other than one suckout in the middle of Day 1, there was no point in time where I ever put my money in behind, and I was in solid control throughout.  I have never been more proud of my play. 

Janeen, my parents, my sister, my brother in law and my little nephew all came up for the final two tables and I’m very satisfied that I delivered such a strong performance with them watching from the rail.  It is obvious that I am also now on the radar of some well-regarded pros, as many of them either played with me or were there railing friends.  It was a great day for me yesterday.

Oh, and if the title of this entry doesn’t make it obvious, I finished second in the tournament which was good for over $91,000.*

I do want to share a lot more about the past week, particularly about the $1500 event (I made some really interesting decisions) but I’m too drained right now.  In short, I vowed to get back down to business at Foxwoods and it was a rousing success.  I am once again a very happy bridesmaid.