Cardplayer link

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-tournaments/2643-2009-venetian-deep-stack-extravaganza-iii/18664/results

My profile is all screwed as they added my results to a different Christopher Stewart. Trying to get that fixed and moved to Chris Stewart which they have my other cashes under.

Wednesday was Golf and Nobu and cash games at MGM which are just awful. Finally made it to he Rio on Thursday and played 10/20 limit game Bellatrix was talking about. Very juicy but couldn’t get anything going and lost 1 buy-in.

Well it turned out to be my best trip ever. Up next is hopefully the AZ State Championships in August and hopefully the next dreamteam poker event later this year.

This city, man. This “love-hate relationship” city, man. This “play with your emotions until you can’t take it” city, man. I’m there again. Staring at the strip, at the flashing lights, at the scores of drunken people staggering through Tropicana Avenue as I try to cross the freeway to the In&Out.

The trip was fairly uneventful. Once you escape the deathgrip of LA traffic, you just fly through the desert. Listening to my iPod to PokerRoad, the PokerBeat and the Hard Boiled Poker Show, I was longing to get there. Yes, I’m one of those people that get amped up on 2 red bulls before entering the Rio and that’s what I did during the drive, too. Familiar things passed by: the outlets in Barstow, the countless signs for highway country, the mad greek or peggy Sue’s Diner, Zzyzx road, the thermometer in Baker… and then… Primm. Welcome to Nevada, baby! I’m reminded of this one story this guy told me at a blackjack table. How he had saved up 2000$ and that was gonna be his weekend in Vegas, he didn’t care if he lost it, but it was gonna be one hell of a weekend. He arrived Friday afternoon in Primm. Friday evening he was on his way back to LA. He never even made it to Vegas.

Got lost trying to find my hotel. Turns out the room is quite nice, even if the staff barked some commands about do’s and don’ts at me. But I can take it, after all, as a german, you’re used to it, right? Quick Skype call to family. Internet works. Yay! 35$ for free internet, a fridge and a kitchen > 20$ for a cramped casino room + 12$ internet/day. Then off I go to dinner and then to the Rio.

Actually, it was kinda disappointing. Everything was quite dead. At the registration line, there were two boys (really, they looked like 15) arguing before me on what to tell their backer and how they were left with like only 5k and that the min-cash is not gonna cut it. Sadly they registered for the NL event and not the 6max LHE. This time the lady at the window was fast efficient and I was done in like a minute. Last year, I had a trainee and I was her very first customer. She gawked at the 1500$ (500 of that in 20s) and
the woman that was training her just groaned as in “wow, if you’re staring at this…”.

So I had my seat, time for cashgames! Little bankroll, I’ll put my name to the 10/20 LHE or O8 list. LHE got open first and I sit down. Lose my first two pots (one with KQ on a Qxx flop against QQ other with unimproved AQ against a rivered pair of 8s). Darn, this is not starting good. But slowly and surely, I start to chip up again.

The table:

There’s this young lady to my right. I want her there, she has no clue. I want to hug her as she open limps her button for the third time. But then she leaves… (down a rack).
The maniac to my right. Super LAG. Don’t like playing against him. He’s not bad! Then again, he’s playing like 50/40, which is not a winning formula. Still, he leaves up.
Another guy to my right. Played perfect, could hand read good. I wanted to congratulate him somehow, lol.
The two guys that sat directly to my left one after the other were exactly what the doctor ordered. Tight and passive. As was the lady two to my left.
There were two Euros also at the table. They were playing a style that would’ve been a winning style 4-5 years ago, but today is considered tagfish. If you limp in early position, I can read your hand so well. They were too tight, easy to steal the blinds from.
Then another very pretty asian lady. This one was funny, because at one time Marcel Luske came over and started hitting on her. She gave off the vibe as if she knew him, but quickly dismissed him. He came back about half an hour later, whispered something in her ear… not a reaction by her. He left disappointed. Very funny.
And then last, but certainly not least was the source of my income later. A player directly opposite of me. This guy went through three racks while I was here. True, he was getting some horrible beats. I put a very bad beat on him, when I went runner runner JJ with my QJ vs his QQ on a xxx board, but then he never showed any strength until the turn. But then the guy played EVERY damn hand. I almost felt bad for him.

So at 3 am I left up 31 BB. Good evening. Highlights of the night include Adam Schwartz (from the 2+2 pokercast) sweating me for a few hands. I pick up 55 UTG in a 6 handed pot, I fold, he calls me a nit, flop J52r, we laugh, turn 4, river 6, T3 wins, we burst out in laughter some more. Another one, where I raise ATo 7 handed, get 5 coldcallers, flop Th8d3h, I bet, get raised, everybody calls, I 3bet, everybody calls, turn blank, everybody calls, river K, everybody calls. My hand is good!

Out into the night I go. Great start to the WSOP, now some rungood for today. 5pm is the event. I’ll be twittering at breaks. Wish me luck

And that’s where I will be in a few hours. You can’t imagine the itch I have to get there. The ease it took me  to pack my bag today (under 4 minutes for all my stuff, and I’m a girl!). Went to the bank way to early and cashed out my money. The last transfer from Pokerstars hadn’t arrived yet, so it was actually stupid to cash out that early. It didn’t matter, I wanted to have the money in my hand. 2 buyins + a bit more for cash games. Yes, I’m ready.

So even though, I will be most likely to meet up with other geeky 20-somethings that love to analyze a subject to every detail and calculate every single digit of the possible outcomes, I like this thing I’m driving to much more. It’s not about the game itself. I’ve been playing so successfully the last month online, it’s almost embarrassing, it’s the buzz. You can feel it in the air, the hopes of scores of people, it’s like some electricity in the air. To be part of that…

In the last year I’ve calmed down much more. I know what I’m driving to. I know my main opportunities will be the cash games and that the people I meet are the most important thing. But there’s always that thing in the back of my head, what if I actually go deep in the events… One time, dealer, one time!

I’ll keep you updated! Don’t forget to follow my updates on twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/pokerbellatrix

Check out the pokerstrategy link…..After reading many of their articles, and getting the FREE 50$ – I’ve managed to turn it in to a nice profit and continue to grow my roll.

http://www.pokerstrategy.com/u99933

That’s what happened to me last Thursday. During the day, I lost about 200$ HU. Against a competent player, so it was totally my fault for keeping playing. That was fine and I had already forgotten about it. Then in the evening, I lost another 300$ playing HU. This time, it was against a total fish and his chat was horrible. I can deal with people cursing, calling me cu** and other words. But this guy actually was giving me lessons or saying he doesn’t understand my play. I don’t actually know what set me off so much, but I was…

Chasing… going to 10/20. Playing against a competent opponent. Losing 65BB (1300$). Yes, bad luck. But also idiot me that chasing underrolled playing good opponents, trying to get lucky. What the hell was I thinking???? Got back about 100$ playing 5/10. And that was it! At the end of the night I was down 1700$ in one day. Gah! I’m such an idiot. Back to rebuilding.

And the remorse that lingers around for days and days is bad too. It’s like a bad hangover. Sigh! You vow: never again! Maybe I would be happier if I tilted a little bit every now and then instead of these mega-tilt sessions…

Meh! What can you do? The past is the past. Ok, blogged about it, should not continue to fret about it!

Now it’s time for the WSOP. I will be going out from June 12th to June 19th. My goal is to play the $1500 horse event on the 14th and maybe the $2k event on the 18th. Of course going to try and satellite my way in but I have had good results in the past with WSOP satellites (way soft) so I expect to play in at least one of the events (probably the 2k since I’m pretty  much dead money in the $1500 horse). My preference would be the horse event as that is my favorite game. I am tired of NLH and prefer the limit mixed games but my best game is NLH and I need to make money so I’ll probably end up just playing that.  Well nothing new to really talk about besides that. If any of you plan on being out in Sin City during the 12th-19th, let me know and we can meet up. Be nice to put some faces to the names.

It’s now 2 1/2 months later and things are going pretty well. I obviously could not support myself playing poker (yet- ha!) and collecting unemployment. I freelance and started my own line of handmade jewelry. The best part is, I have time to workout and play poker on my schedule.. whenever I’m feeling it. Thinking like a true poker player, I give my jewelry business my top priority, though, because I feel I have the best chance of making money in it.. and using my years of experience in the industry to turn it into a real business but whether it’s the jewelry or poker, I love what I do.

When it comes to poker.. my game is NLHE… and I don’t have the bankroll to play cash at a level I think I could be most profitable. Instead, I chose to play tournaments with structures, buy-ins and overall skill levels that work best for me.  I also just like tournaments better anyway… although I know it’s nearly impossible to make a living just playing tournaments.. money is tight.. I don’t have much of a bankroll anyway so why not play what I enjoy most? I actually won a few tournaments in March in Vegas.. and just missed the money in 8th place at Caesars last weekend.. so it’s not going so badly.

I’m planning to head back out to Vegas 1st week of June for a few tournaments. I want to play in the Venetian Deepstack on the 3rd.. I also like the daily Caesar’s tournament structures and players too (plus I need a rematch after last weekend!).. Oh, and, of course, I’ll swing by the Rio to check out the WSOP madness..

I’ve been posting poker updates on twitter and my personal blog:

http://twitter.com/sandypantalones

http://www.poker-kat.blogspot.com

Thanks to whoever is reading!!

So was my “go pro” post just a whim, just a dream? I don’t know, but the tables are telling me to keep at it. Something tells me I should be excited about all the scientific shuttle launches happening this week and I’m just thinking WSOP is coming. sigh, this is not gonna be easy.

Anyway, my thoughts are just racing around right now, so this post is not very congruent. I guess I expected the poker gods to hand me a huge downswing when considering playing pro kind of like saying: “you wanna do this for a living? Ha, deal with THIS!!!!”, but it never happened…

Oh, I got twitter for my poker playing stuff. You can follow me under the name pokerbellatrix (http://www.twitter.com/pokerbellatrix). This thing is really addictive and since us poker players have such huge egos, there are so many poker personalities in comparison to personalities from my non-poker life.

If you’re reading… thx out there.

This sort of thing used to really drive me crazy, keep me from sleeping, make me so angry that those idiots had my money.  Lately it doesn’t get to me so much.  Partly it’s just playing way over-bankrolled compared to what I am used to.  I used to be a very aggressive shot-taker and play on a short BR frequently.  I never busted but I took some sickening steps down the ladder, even going back to playing 50NL for a while just to get the confidence back.  Now when I play small stakes games like 200NL it’s with about double the bankroll I’m used to.  A seven buy-in downswing is still extremely unpleasant but it’s not really threatening my ability to play the games (although it did put a little crimp in the plan to cash out a bunch for vacation…)  Bankroll management is very fundamental but it seems to be one of those things you can only learn by making mistakes early in your poker career.

The other reason I feel better: it gives me hope for the future of poker.  There have been so many “the games are dead, poker is a played-out fad, Cardrunners has educated the fish” posts floating around the internet that I was getting genuinely worried about poker’s survival.  In a bad economy it is a bit of a luxury product that people can do without.  So when I play small-stakes (100NL and up) and see guys still playing 70/0 and 91/24 I’m mostly just relieved that the games haven’t devolved into 21/19 TAGs never seeing a flop.  Some of them won money from me and now (hopefully) they will tell their friends how poker is so easy and how min-re-raising preflop is such a great strategy.

The games may die at high stakes but there’s plenty life left up to at least 400NL.  Reports of poker’s demise are exaggerated, at least now during the WSOP lead-up where everyone decides it’s time to gamble gamble.