tsarrast's blog

I just got back from Brazil a few days ago on the 15th. I delayed my flight 2 days, because I got sick at the end of my trip in Brazil. So I got back the day of the 15k tournament. I decided to play, although I had just flown for about 16 hours, and only slept for about 4 hours near the beginning. I think it was a mistake, and I played pretty well for most of the day until I played two tens pretty badly in the 4th level and busted out to aces. I think I should have just skipped this tourney. Otherwise poker is going pretty well, and I'm up some in cash games over the last month.

I was back in Brazil to propose to Juliana, and now I'm engaged. She's amazing, and even though she still can't come live with me in America, we are working on it, and staying strong together. She's actually on skype with me right now as I'm writing this listening to a Bryan Adams song and doing something on the internet. I love her so much, and enjoyed my time in Rio.

The good news about the tournament was that all my poker friends are in town, so yesterday I got to see a lot of the guys I like in poker. Anyways, that's about all for now!

I just got back from Brazil about a week ago. I was down there for two weeks with Juliana, it was nice. I don't like playing online from my laptop, without my hold'em manager and all my stats. I used to never use stats, but nowadays it seems to me that they are crucial to winning online, especially in CAP PLO. Now that I'm back in Vegas, I feel a lot more confident about my play online.

My typical day has been... Waking up at about 1PM, playing poker online for 2-4 hours, working out in the gym with my trainer, then afterwards chatting with my girl on skype, watching TV/movies, hanging out with friends... Then at night I chat with my girl on skype, and we fall asleep together. The days are quite nice.

I've been watching some science shows, the Daily Show, and the Colbert Report... Man, Jon Stewart is so funny... I love the way he roasts some of the idiots in conservative America.

Hey everyone, I know it's been a while since my last blog... sorry! My life has been a little crazy. The most important thing going on with me right now involves my girlfriend, Juliana.  We tried again to get her a visa, this time to a school (English Time School) in Las Vegas. She was accepted at the school, got an I-20 form, we filled out all the rest of the forms, and her appointment was today at the Brazillian Embassy. The lady rejected her, again.

It's just amazing how that one little lady has so much power over my life right now, and I am pretty powerless to do anything about it. The only way I can get her here is to get a fiancee visa, which will take about 6 months from now to issue... Which gives her 1 trip here for up to 90 days, and during that time we have to marry. That's just about my only option. So, I'm going to do it. I want to say a whole bunch of bad things about our embassy in Brazil now, but I will refrain.

Otherwise, poker is going decent. I have been winning overall, mostly playing the 25/50 shallow/cap PLO, and some 7-game. I have actually been running about even in all-in equity on FTP, for the first time in 2 years, so that's probably why. =)

So, now my life is basically just working out, playing poker, talking with my girl on skype every day... And it's pretty good... I just wish I could have the woman I love come live with me. But, apparently the USA prefers to deny their citizens such a basic right simply because the other person is not a US citizen. So terrible!

So, the last two weeks of my WSOP were good. I played the 100/200 PLO, 100/200-300 ante NLHE half-n-half game in Bobby's room a bunch, and the 25/50-100 ante NLHE game at Bellagio some too. I won a decent amount... and ended up having a decent series. Not incredible, but I won some, and after being evenish through most of the series at the end of June, I am pretty happy with how I ended.

I also played more tournies... and again had a good run in the 10k PLO. I played a monster pot midway through day 2 with John Racener for the chip-lead at the time, with 100 players left. I put him on the correct hand, and delayed the all-in till the turn, to fade the flush card. It didn't come on the turn, we got it in, and he had about 12 outs, and binked the river. And yet again I played deep in a tourney with nothing to show for it!

I also cashed small in the Main Event. It was really exciting! I had never made it past day 2 before in 5 previous years, and this year I made it to day 5. On day 4, despite losing 900k worth of all-ins over 3 pots, where my equity was about 400k, I ended the day with 100k more chips than I started (115k to 231k). It was so sick how many chips I stole that day, I was playing great.

Anyways, right now I feel like I'm playing really well - back in form. And I'm kinda addicted to poker again... I find myself playing online on days I don't feel like going in to play live, or there's no good game live. Reminds me of myself a few years ago! =) It feels like the beginning of an upswing folks!

So far this series has been a little disappointing.  I have played a lot of poker!  The first 10 days of the Series I played about 40 hrs/week on avg., in part because I played through and beat FFXIII... and since then I've probably been playing 60 hours/week.  I have played about 15 WSOP tourneys, and had one cash (top 16 in 10k NLHE HU).  That has been very frustrating....  I have only gone out early a couple times, and many times I've had a decent chip stack and bubbled.  In the 5k PLO/8, I played past midnight on day 2, went out 40th, and was still 10 places away from the money!  Even missed out on the 2500$ 8-game that I really wanted to play b/c of that day 2... tilt!

 The one tourney I monied, the 10k HU, was a lot of fun.  I played some tough opponents, but thought I played really well in each of my matches.  I even beat my good friend Antonio in match 4!  He was determined not to let me win pots against him, and after I showed him a bluff on a river check-raise early, he tried to bet me out of every pot.  It was working, and there were a lot of pots where I had nothing much, but he probably didn't either and was winning them.  I quickly decided I would have to raise and stack off light for value, which is what happened, and I got him to put it in with a gutter against my top pair.  I was really feeling good about my play that tourney, but went out the next match against Ayaz (who went on to win), in a sick hand only 20 minutes in to that match where we both turned a straight, and got it all in, and he hit the freeroll flush draw that he had.  Yeah, I'm talking about a Hold'em hand not Omaha!

I got back to Vegas the day before the 50k began.  I am a little bummed I didn't get to play it this year... I think that I can play all the games pretty well, and would have a decent shot at that tournament... but right now 50k was way too much for me to put up for a tournament, and I didn't want to sell off a ton cuz it'd be pretty tilting to win and get less than half of your buy-in or something.

Otherwise, I've played the 1k freezeout & 5k shootout (both NLHE), and didn't cash in either.  I think I played pretty decent in the 1k, although there was 1 hand that I felt like I misplayed... but yesterday in the 5k shootout I thought I played great, just got unlucky.  After I got knocked out yesterday, I played the 25-50-100 PLO cash game at the Rio for like 5 or 6 hours and had a good win.

I went to Costa Rica for 9 days before the series. I decided not to play any poker here, just enjoy myself. It's a beautiful country, so green and lush, a little sleepy too. Definitely a nice place to relax before the WSOP. The first two places I stayed were out, away from cities - Peace Lodge & Tabacon. Tons of nature stuff to see, and they are right near active volcanoes. Tabacon had a sick hot springs you could use every day... My spanish has been getting pretty decent, which is cool. This year I plan on working very hard, and when I get back I'm going to start up right away, might even watch some poker videos every day.

My training and diet went south a little... Without Dave preparing all the meals, and travelling around from hotel to hotel, it's hard to eat as healthy as the cutting phase requires. But I brought a ton of protein bars to keep my protein intake up. I haven't been working out quite as often as back home... The first place I stayed (Peace Lodge) didn't have a gym, but Tabacon did, and so does the Marriott I am in now.

Victory Poker has built up quite a solid team of pros, and I think if all of us focus on tournaments this year, we could really come out with a strong showing. I have no idea what all the other guys are going to do, but I'm a favorite to play at least 10, and of course if I win one early, I'll play as many as possible to try to take down POY.

Good luck to everyone this year at the WSOP! Stop by Antonio's Nightclub to meet the Victory crew, and come say 'what up'.

Well, I've ended up not playing as much as I would have liked before the WSOP. After my month started out terribly, I stopped grinding every day. I did put in a full day for the SCOOP tourneys... and went kinda deep in the 10k. I ended up going out around 100th (out of about 600ish or so I think). Blinds were 500/1k with ante... I open the button to 2500, and sb calls. bb makes it about 9000-9500 (don't remember exactly). There was a little over 15k in the pot, and I had about 50k total. Hadn't played more than a few rounds at that table, so I didn't have much on the bb over the 4 rounds, I think he was like 20/18, but obviously it's way too small a sample size to give much weight to that. I decided to ship it with 86o, and the bb had the aces, and that was that. Wasn't a bad spot to 4-bet bluff I think... since it seems like a very good spot for him to 3-bet squeeze given my stack size... and I'm getting a decent # of chips back when he does fold. Interested as to any thoughts on the hand. Would of loved to bink that tourney for some decent cash to get things going right before the Series... but who ever wins tournaments anyways?

I played in a live cash game with Antonio in San Diego about a week ago. Half 50/100 PLO, Half 25/50 with 200ante (posted by big blind) NLHE and I dropped 50k like a donk. The game is reasonably soft, yet I've had two terribad sessions there out of maybe 10 sessions in the last year. Thought I played decent, but ehhhh.  And grindin' it online I was up a bit, until yesterday when I got slammed in one session. I also lost some having pieces in some TV games that just happened in Vegas... So all in all I lost a decent amount in the last week of poker, my first week back trying to play more often.

I'm going to try to play more for the next couple weeks online before the series, and then see where I am and what I want to do for the WSOP. I'm not sure if I'm going to play cash or tournaments yet, or just play it by ear.

In other news, I am going to see Juliana, my girl in Brazil, one more time before the series. I have been talking to her every day on skype, and I'm going to meet her in Costa Rica for about 9 days before the WSOP begins at the end of this month!

And lastly, here are a couple more songs to check out...

Sorry (Dirty South Remix) ~ Kaskade

Sasha - Talk Amongst Yourselves

Prefer to listen to it somewhere with good bass, bc the bassline is so rich and siiiiiiiiick and you'll miss how wonderful it is on headphones or just laptop speakers.

Last weekend I was in San Diego for a bachelor party. That of course involved a lot of drinking and general debauchery... and I stayed in San Diego for a few extra nights with Antonio, going out on the town. One of the days of the bachelor party we rented a yacht for the day and cruised around San Diego harbor partying. That day Antonio and I made a 3 month no-drinking bet (with 6 passes) for 10k... the bet starts on Monday. I realized that I needed to stop partying and start playing some poker! I also wanted to get ready for the Series, and make sure that during the WSOP this year I was focused and playing my A-game. So there it is! I'm getting back to the basics folks!

There's a killer song I found down in Brazil. I haven't heard it once yet back in the states; check it out if you find it: Stereo Love - Edward Maya & Vika Jigulina.