Update!

My last blog post wasn't really a post at all, and it was a rather depressing one at that, so this'll be a short, fun, happy one!

In the past, I've been asked to show what it's like to mass-multitable SNGs, aka record me doing so. Well wait no longer! I recently uploaded my first video to YouTube (my late friend Paresh and our rental car exploits in Uruguay) and it really wasn't that painful. Therefore, I decided to attempt to record myself playing during one of my sessions, which is never a great idea since I'm busy enough as it is. I think I was in about 30 tables as I recorded this, which is pretty high, and something I'm looking to limit in the future (read below). You can view the fruit of my efforts here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kMOW--2Su0

I was sitting pretty close to my monitor as I usually do and my phone was even closer, so I was unable to record the whole screen. You get the overall idea though! Depending on your previous notions about multitabling, the action is either not as fast and furious as you would think (I'm in that camp), the complete opposite, or just... what you expected. I'm not trying to impress anyone, but just simply showing you what my daily grind looks like for hours at time :)

On a serious note, because the vast majority (more than 80%) of my games are 6max, I am convinced that the high # of tables is having a detrimental effect on the quality of my game. It has definitely contributed to my downswing here, that I am sure of. Consequently, I've been meaning to scale down the number of tables I'm in; no more 30+ tabling if I can help it. In addition, I've actually been making some pretty significant changes to my play style in an effort to improve my overall play. I won't get into specifics, as I suspect many of the regs I play with probably read this blog. Suffice to say that I'll be becoming harder to play against even as I do maintain a solid load of games (anywhere from 15-20 range).

In other news, if any of you guys are American and/or care about baseball, holy **** what just happened??? According to my friend, the Red Sox were 95% to win their game vs the Orioles going into the bottom of the 9th, and Tampa Bay was less than 1% to win their game vs the Yankees when they were down 7-0 going into the EIGHTH inning, but both outdraws occurred to push TB into the playoffs. What an unreal run for both Tampa Bay and Boston in September, just wow wow wow.

Cheers for now!

Goodbye Dear Friend

As the poker community has heard now, one of my best friends, Paresh Jain aka Dana Gordon on 2p2 and on Pokerstars, has passed away.

I'm not used to dealing with the passing of such a loved one as Paresh, and so I may be rambling at times so I apologize in advance. Also, I think I'll have a hard time putting his essence into words because it seems bleh to summarize his life in only a few paragraphs, but I'll try my damndest. Hopefully I won't be in tears by the end of this post although I can already feel them. And I'm not sure whether to use 'was' or 'is' in reference to him, so **** it I'm gonna use 'is.'

I met Paresh 7 years ago when we first started at the University of Virginia together. We were both SNG donks back then (I guess I still am lol) and he was back then, and remains now now, my best poker friend as we helped each other quickly learn and grow as poker players to crush all those silly games back in the Party Poker days. His regimen and approach to thinking is beyond admirable and I learned that pretty early on. He is an absolute delight to hang out with, talk strategy, play MTTs with (both $20 frat tournies and eventually Super Tuesdays and such), and just plain party with. He has met many of my high school friends through me and others, and together, we have a core group that exists today and transcends poker. As luck would have it, my best friends now are actually his best friends from the small town of Roanoke in Virginia that I would never have met otherwise.

This dude is seriously the craziest, most fun-loving, adrenaline junkie, and all-around great buddy anyone could ask for. We went skydiving in college, jet-skiing at the PCA (we were the only two ppl from our group that would go), and definitely wanted to do much more. After college, we went on two separate sweet trips to South America which embodied all that is awesome about him. Who else would randomly go with me to the Amazonian jungle in Manaus (Brazil) with me? On the other trip, we randomly rented a car in Montevideo, Uruguay, drove ourselves to the LAPT in Punta Del Este, and actually came close to having a serious accident as he drove 110 kmh over a pretty steep hill on a bridge to get some air! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vk2Tpwl6eE, notice techno blaring) We severely bottomed out the car, punctured the radiator, and the car instantly started overheating haha. We had to get help from some old dude in a bar at 2am who didn't speak a lick of English, and all we could muster was an "hola" or "gracias." My friends think we are insane.

We also hit up Europe a couple times (EPT Monte Carlo and most recently the EPT Madrid). We went on a sick drive last year that started in Geneva, Switzerland, went through the French Alps and Italy, and ended in Nice (France). My other buddies were like "wtf we're gonna fly, have fun you idiots" so it was just Paresh and I. And most recently, we hit up Madrid just cruising around randomly both at night and during the day. However, I was stuck in the tournament for a while and didn't get to go around with him like I had planned to (doesnt everyone bust Day 1?) Oh how I'd give up my winnings in a heartbeat to just spend 3-5 days more with him.

Oh and the music. As someone mentioned above, he is ALL about rockin sick beats, house, trance, techno, hip hop, mashups, anything fun and exiting with a beat. We were roommates for the last year, so Apartment 1912 in Arlington, Virginia was definitely the place to be if you wanted to rock out to techno beats blasting from both of our rooms. We'd grind poker during the day together and then I'd sweat him in his nightime MTTs sometimes while he played. Little known fact - when he is deep in an MTT, he loops the same song he's on literally 30 or 50 or however many times until the final table is over. Just incredible passion. Here are a few of his favorites: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay8zFH5a59Y, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_L1zqyUwefs, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqY-Q32wPv4, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5ezEcaZz6Q. Listening to these are going to make me well up everytime. ****.

I hope you all now have a more complete view of the guy that is Dana Gordon. I could probably talk and write for hours more about him; he is just that special to me. I feel blessed to have met him, shared some of the most fun moments of my life with him, and simply being associated with him (and I'm not even religious!). I'll save the clichés because he is as far from a cliché as one can be. My thoughts and prayers go out to his parents, his brother, and the rest of my friends (hang in there tuttle, chuc, natt, ben, leb, gabe, cara and all). Goodbye, and may you rest in peace Paresh.

spwwacewwwavy!!

Slowing down...

It's been quite the turnaround these days! And I'm not talking about my poker downswing... that's been as brutal as ever, and I'm officially at my trough/bottom as I type this. I'm talking about my playing volume, which has taken a precipitous drop these days for a few reasons. The first and most important reason is that I have been going out with a super awesome Australian chica for almost 3 weeks now. Poker runbad be damned because finding someone in Australia who's as cool as her way more than makes up for it! I've been hanging out heaps with her, consequently I haven't been getting to sleep at a decent hour.

The other contributing factor to my slowdown is "Bjoerni89" and his ridiculous VPP accrual the last few months. He has leapfrogged me in the VPP race, and is almost 200k points ahead of me as of a couple days ago. If he continues at his torrid pace playing the 2k/5k HUs, I am powerless to overtake him and he'll probably get the record if he wants to. This would very much reduce the significance of me breaking the record.

In light of these developments, I'm currently reevaluating my end of year VPP goals. My goal is, and always has been, to play as much as I feel like. You may recall that I started 2011 with this mantra, and it has certainly paid off so far. While playing poker on a regimented schedule is importance to me, my life and enjoyment of it takes precedence always. Now that I'm in a relationship and the outcome of the VPP record is becoming murky, I'm definitely thinking about my schedule a lot more.

One factor that is on my side that could help my VPP grind is that the DST (daylight savings time) changeovers will happen soon. On October 2nd, Australia's DST starts, meaning that our time will advance by one hour. Meanwhile, on October 30th, Europe's DST ends, meaning their time will go back by one hour. As a result, for the rest of the year (and until April of 2012), I'll be able to wake up/start 2 hours later and still enjoy the peak hours in Euroland.

Accompanying these DST changes, obviously, is the new change of weather! The weather, already great here even during the winter time, has been steadily getting better and warmer. We are entering spring, and so temps have climbed into the 70s pretty much every day now. With the sweet weather, I've been running quite often and will be doing the Blackmores half-marathon (13.1 miles or 21.1 km) this Sunday. This is the longest run I've ever done and it should be really exciting since Sydney is shutting down tons of roads, including the Sydney Harbour bridge, just for this event which is expected to attract 35,000 runners. I'll try to get a decent time (under 100 minutes), but I'll let you know about that!

I also went to Maroubra Beach a few days ago and look forward to many many more beach trips this "summer" in December, January, and February. There are heaps of beaches in Sydney and around it, so I'll want to see them all. By the way, it is really weird to even think of going to the beach on Christmas Day and New Years Eve haha! Maybe I'll be getting used to that...