Recap from California

I'm blogging from California, about an hour southeast of the Bay area. I'm in the middle of a 3 day excursion to visit my mom's side of the family. I haven't blogged in a week, so let's back-track:

Jeff (Jethro87) arrived into Vegas last Friday. We decided to go check out the Wynn, which I would put in the top tier of overall casino quality with others such as Bellagio and Venetian. It's a plus that the main poker rooms in Vegas are in the nicest casinos, and makes commuting to live poker more enjoyable. Jeff and I sat at the same 5/10 NL table. The first observed hand involved a creepy middle-aged guy with bulging eyeballs. He was using semi-abusive table talk during a big hand with someone. I found out later he was Alan Boston, a sports bettor who was on Poker After Dark recently. He came off as a miserable old man, something stereotypical of a classless and jaded live player.

Anyway, my most interesting hand of the session came in the first orbit: a guy in MP opens to $40, the cutoff calls, and I call from the big blind with KQs. The flop comes KTT rainbow. I check, the PFR checks, and the cutoff bets ~$80. I make an extremely obvious call, and the PFR folds. The turn comes a 4 of hearts, giving me a backdoor flush draw. I check again and the CO bets ~$220 without too much hesitation. At this point I think he may very well have a ten, since he didn't seem scared that I might have a ten, and competent live players generally don't slowplay. I think I would have made a pretty nitty fold here if I didn't have the FD, but it's another pretty obvious call with it. The river comes a 6 of hearts, completing my flush. I checked since I expect him to bet-call any ten, and this give him some shot to bet air. Also, a river lead by me basically announces my hand and never gets raised. He bet ~$350 and I made a very easy shove less than double that, and he called quickly. I flipped up my flush, and he showed a ten and mucked. I've had a lot of fortunate spots like this in my live sessions thus far, and I definitely believed I've been running hot overall. I booked a $1300 win and Jeff booked a $800 win, which must have seemed like a solid start to his stay.

Cntgetmedown arrived on Saturday. Jethro, him and I quickly hit it off. The three of us have been talking regularly online since June 2007, and our personalities mesh really well. It's funny because I was confident it would be this way. Simply talking to someone online can still be a great indicator of how you will get along in person. This is not to mean that I don't get along with any of my current (or past) housemates. I definitely wouldn't take back living with any of the guys I have, and I'm very thankful that the entire Vegas house has lived up to all my expectations.

I went and got my first lay-down massage on Sunday. I was recommended by my Uncle to get a deep tissue massage. Some of it was painful, particularly the upper back massage in the beginning. I felt great afterwards though, and definitely plan to get massages monthly from now on. Sitting with a computer about 30-40 hours a week isn't exactly ideal for the human frame, so massaging out tension seems to be a great supplement.

I finished June at +$10K online (I'll post a screenshot in the next entry) and +$5.5K live. Considering I had my largest downswing ever, I'm satisfied with this result. I am only disappointed in the fact that I played 16K hands, which is way less than my goal of 25-30K. I seem to always have a different excuse every month for why I didn't play as many hands as I originally shot for.