Back to the WSOP

 Today is the day, in 3 hours I will be starting my quest to become World Poker Champion with another 8,000 people from this planet. It's really sick how that many people can play a $10,000 dollars tournament

My Oscars Predictions

Best Picture: “The Hurt Locker”

I'm really hoping for a Inglorius Basterds upset, but if THL wins I'll be fine, both were my 2 favorite movies of the year.

Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, “The Hurt Locker”

Historic: First woman to ever do it

Best Actor: Jeff Bridges, “Crazy Heart”

Best Actress: Sandra Bullock, “The Blind Side”

Arrghh, it is really painful to pick Sandra here, I almost feel dirty, but I have to do it, at the end it just a prediction, for me she was the least deserving of the five and I really don't understand how they're gonna snub the great Mary Loise Streep yet once again. Still hoping from the Meryl upset, even Gaby or Carey would be more deserving

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, “Inglourious Basterds”
Terrific performance by Waltz, he stoles every scene he is in.

Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique, “Precious”

She was magnificent, the scene with Mariah Carey just gave her the Oscar

Que tan malos son los live players .... you tell me

Fui a jugar live unas 5 hrs, esta vez 1-2 NL y siempre es bueno sentir que eres el mejor jugador de la mesa, tuve una buena sesión sin ningún problema para controlar la mesa.

Hubo una jugada que me llamo la atención, porque mas o menos da una idea del nivel de juego, no me acuerdo de todos los detalles, pero la parte importante es el river;

En un board AJJQA con 3 diamantes, están heads up, después de haber llamado en el flop y turn, un regular (malo), apuesta $20, esta heads up con un turista (malo), quien le hace raise a $40, el regular piensa poco y le hace raise a $160, entonces el turista toma su tiempo y yo empiezo a elucubrar que tienen ambos:

La apuesta del $20 no dice mucho, aunque con el board implica que probablemente tiene el A, el donk miniraise implica probablemente otro A, pero entonces el raise enorme ya esta dificil que sea un A naked, asi que yo me pongo a pensar que el regular o tiene AQ o tiene JJ, manos que le ganan a un A naked, el turista piensa y piensa y piensa y al final llama, que tiene, un A? nooooo, una J? noooo, un flush? nooooooo, el inocente tiene KT; I mean, there is bad and BAD, y por su parte que tiene el regular, AQ, JJ? of course not, tiene un A3 y se aventó un tremendo value bet, jajajajajajaja.

Quizas alguien estara pensando que el regular hizo eso para hacer que el turista tirara un A y no hicieran split, (ademas de que no tuviera AQ), nah, zero chance el penso eso, para empezar el turista nunca hubiera tirado el A, ese regular no pensaba mas alla del 2o nivel, y simplemente hizo raise porque tenia full house que es una mano poderosa, jajajajajaja.

La verdad me dio mucha risa la jugada de los 2, pero ilustra muy bien el juego en el que tuve la suerte de sentarme esta noche.

Being 40

Today is my birthday, with our decimal system, it happens to be a multiple of our uber important number 10. But it really feels like bing 27.231 or 34.0011 if you know what I mean.

You don't?, I'll tell you, just feel yourself at this pretty moment, wherever you are and whichever age you happen to be, feel your present .... you did it, there you go, that's it.

Of course I don't remember how did I feel when I was 27.231, and that's precisely the point, you're just your present, ....., always, you can't be anything else, your life happens in this pretty moment.

Busy, busy, ........ never stop improving

I have been pretty busy with poker, spending a lot of hours studying and playing. I remember I used to study a lot of poker situations but I kind of lost that. I'm glad is coming back, since you should never stop studying, you should never stop improving your game.

Since I'm basically haven't studied and played a lot of poker last 2?3? years, I have to make up a lot. There are too many good players, and so many of them work pretty hard on their game, so, it's a big battle. but I'm happy I'm fighting.

Now lets variance pass and the results will come. I always say to my students that if you're pretty good at something and you have the passion and work pretty hard, success will follow.

I don't know if I'm still good enough, but the passion and the work it's here again, lets see if I can maintain the pace.

Where have the fish gone?

To say the online poker No Limit games here in the States are tough is an understatement, they are damn hard and most of the time you're playing against regulars, most of the time against the SAME guys on all your tables, since almost all regulars multitable. I'm trying to learn how to play a lot of tables, I'm not a fan of multitabling since I think it has done a lot of damage to online poker, but I don't think the big sites are going to do anything about it, so I better learn how to do it, it has been a expensive lesson, but I'm on my way, I think I can handle 10 tables now, but still if the rest of the players are pretty good then what's the point. Hopefully I'm wrong and there's still money to be made online, buy boy, it is tough; since I'm pretty stubborn one thing that is good of all this, it makes me study and work harder, since I don't want to be the "bad regular", I want to beat all of them, lets see how it goes, but if I don't see a big change online, probably I just play more live.

Respetar tu bankroll

Empiezo el año con un bankroll pequeño para jugar, asi que yo creo me la pasare grinding 2-4 and 3-6 online y 2-5 live en Las Vegas. Con el ocasional torneo de vez en vez.
Es muy importante que respete uno su bankroll, lo debes tratar con mucha delicadeza, esto es si no te quieres quebrar, si eres profesional no debes de jugar un juego para probar que eres "muy bueno", no tienes que probarle nada a nadie y ademas, nobody cares, si eres profesional, este es tu trabajo y tu bankroll es tu instrumento de trabajo y una de las razones mas importantes por las que juegas es para pagar los bills, claro, para los jugadores jovenes que no tienen familia, es mas dificil que vean el juego de esta forma, pero para los que vivimos de esto, es fundamental.
No niego que la gloria y fama de ganar torneos importantes por ejemplo, sea atractiva, lo es, pero no debe perder uno de vista las prioridades y el jugar poker no es muy diferente de cualquier otro trabajo, debes trabajar duro, debes mejorar profesionalmente, prepararte, sobre todo debes disfrutar lo que haces, you have to do your best and enjoy the ride, ... always.

Every day is an opportunity

Wow, we're in 2010, it's like living in the future. Hopefully it will be a good year, I have lots of goals, health, family, poker, economy, happiness in general; living and enjoying every moment.
I finished the year in a bad note pokerwise, I went to play live some 7 hours and won, then came back home at 8 AM and since I could not sleep and was the last day of the month, I decided to try to make it to Gold Status in PokerStars, it was a disastrous decision, since I lost a lot, I shouldn't have played that tired (but I did make it to Gold, lol).

But today it's a new day, a new year indeed and a new opportunity to make things right, but every day is, it does not have to be January 1st to start living a better life and get rid of the old, every day you have that chance, Isn't that wonderful?.
Every day you can do whatever the hell you want and improve yourself and be a better you, the past is gone forever, don't live in the past, don't live in the future either, live here, now !!!!! ....... life is good.