News / Imper1um / 02 June 2008 / 2 Comments

The first two WSOP events have been quite disappointing... In the 10k Pot Limit Holdem event I got off to.a really good start by winning big pots in situations where I had my opponents drawing to very few outs.

I accumulated very well and at dinner break, I found myself sitting with a healthy 80k stack. Immediately after dinner break, I lost half my stack after getting my Kings cracked by Q9s. Not a problem though, 40k was still a reasonable stack to work with at 600/1200. Our table finally broke and looking around my new table I saw that there were 3 players that I recognized. Exitonly4, Noraflum (Marco Johnson) and Sowers (Mike Sowers).

Within the first 5 minutes I had managed to double up with a turned straight vs a turned 2 pair. The VERY next hand I get dealt AKo on the button. It's folded around to me and I make a raise of 4400 (800/1600 blinds). The small blind who I have no information on other than what I can see (young, russian?) makes it 14k. I have 82k and he covers me by very little. I decide to re-raise again to 42k and he instantly shoves all in with a huge smile on his face.... I'm thinking wow, sick cooler, he's got to have Queens or better in this spot... but with HALF my stack in the pot preflop I'm not folding any hand. I sigh and call and he turns over J10o...... So in summary some idiot just shipped J10o with zero fold equity in a 100 BB pot deep in a 10k event (80 people left). I'm sure you can figure out the rest of the story... 2, 3, 3, 8, J... gg me

I elected to take the next day off for a few reasons;
a) Still felt sick about how I busted PLH
b) Saturdays event had 2 day 1's
c) Sundays usually have a lot softer fields because a lot of good players play online on Sunday
d) Was closing in on weight loss bet and had to make sure I was at my goal.

By the way, I did win the weight loss bet.. SHIP IT!

For the last week and a half of the bet when I realized how close I was, all I ate were egg whites in the morning, and green vegetables during the day (broccoli, celery, asparagus). In terms of exercise, doing hour long sessions of light cardio in the morning and evening while wearing layered clothing gave me great results. I ended up closing in on 84.4 Kilo's, 2 Kilo's (over 4 pounds) under the goal =)

I feel incredible... my mind is as clear and focussed as I can ever remember it being and I can only credit this to regular exercise and a healthy diet. As a poker player, having a healthy lifestyle will do wonders for your game... decisions will become a lot more clear and it will help bring your game to the next level. It's just so much easier to play when you're not constantly in a state of fatigue. I never even realized I was in a constant state of fatigue until I started exercising again. After exercising I'd have an abundance of energy and my focus and concentration would improve drastically. I think this and several other obvious reasons are much more of a reason to stay in shape then any direct monetary gain.

Event #2 $1500 NLH... what a heart breaker... I was up to 8k within the first few hours and then lost a huge pot to the only person on the table who could bust me. I had 33 and raised in early position to 600. She called from middle position and everyone else folded. Flop came AJ3 with two spades.... I bet 850 she called. Turn came an offsuit King. I fired 1700 this time and she moved me all in... I called and she had KK.... Not too upset.. these things happen in poker and theres nothing you can do about them.. I just have to keep a positive mental attitude and keep playing in the zone and I will eventually take a big live tournament down :). I think I have moved up a level in my game and I'm excited about playing this entire series "in the zone".