My year in review

Well it has been over a year now since I have blogged and I have decided I am going to start writing again. It is probably not going to involve too much poker but I’ll try to add whatever poker content I can think of.

It has been a great year! I finished my senior year of college classes and man I am relieved! It is so good to be done with two teachers in particular who I could not handle for too much longer. My first year of coaching was pretty good. I mainly just sat back and learned as I tried to help in any ways possible. I think I want to eventually be a college basketball coach. I loved the recruiting aspect of coaching, however, we were unable to sign a few of our biggest recruits because Concordia was just not the place for them in their opinion or we didn’t have enough to offer them. We did sign some good kids though that may play a big role for us this next year. I will be back as an assistant coach at Concordia for my last year as I finish up my degree and I hope to play a bigger role as an assistant coach. I am really excited for this next and final semester for me. I will be student teaching at Seward High the whole semester. It is the ideal place for me as it is just 4 blocks away from my apartment. The gas prices shouldn’t be too much of an issue…thank God! I will be teaching freshman PE and Health and my co-op is Mr. Opfer who I have teacher aided for before. He is a really cool guy and it should be a great experience. After school every day, I will head over to Concordia to help with the basketball team.

This summer has been fun and fast so far. After school, I went to Montana for a few weeks. I kinda got bored because all of my high school friends were either still at college taking summer classes or moved away into the real world. I spent some nights playing church league softball, which is awesome, as well as played some poker. Online was horrible in May. I was mainly playing tournaments with buy-ins from 2-20 dollars. I think I struck out in every single one. I don’t think I cashed in more than 2% of them as I ran horrible and obviously must have played bad too. I would take breaks from online play a few nights and go play a 3/6 structured game at a card room in Billings. I never lost money in the like 4 nights I played there, but it so hard to win a lot because the rake makes it almost impossible. I was starting to really dislike the game of poker.

Also while I was in Billings, my sister graduated from high school. She was one of the 11 Valedictorians of her class of around 550. She did a great job on her graduation speech. I’m so proud of her. She is going to be attending Colorado State where she is going to study Biochemistry (whatever that is) next month.

June came around and I drove down to Nebraska. I picked up Leah and we went to my great friend Dave Anderson’s wedding in Minneapolis. That turned out to be three of the best days of my life…and I didn’t even get married. Dave had two main groups of friends there. There were the old college friends and the poker player friends. There were so many great guys in the wedding party; it was a true honor to be the best man in the wedding. Both groups got along so great though, it was like they all had known each other for years. Being the best man, I was pretty nervous because I had no clue what to do for the bachelor party because I had no familiarity with Minneapolis and I had only been to two weddings in my entire life. Dave bailed me out though and kind of set everything up. The first night there, the whole wedding party and girlfriends/wives went to PF Changs for dinner. After that, the guys and girls split up and went their separate ways. Dave had suggested Dave and Busters and man was that a good choice. Dave and Busters is like a Chuck E Cheeses for adults. There was a bar and a ton of arcade games. This just fed the poker players’ gamble and the non-poker players had a blast with it too. There was this basketball shooting game that was just fun as heck. Seven of us put down $20 in a pool with the best score take all. I was very confident, so I decided to gamble a little. Only 4 of us really had a legit chance of winning…thank God for fish like Shannon Shorr. I ended up shipping the dough with a score of 30. I think 24 was the next closest. Anyways, after giving the groom back his buy-in and buying shots for everyone, I ended up leaving Dave and Busters up a little. We combined all of our tickets to get Dave some things that were ridiculous, I don’t really even remember exactly what they were (maybe a shirt and Titlist Dave and Busters golf balls?). We ended up going back to hotel where we all went straight to the hospitality suite where there was a bath tub full of beer. This was just a great time! After 1-2 hours of sleep, the guys got up and played a tough round of golf. There were (if I remember right) four teams of 4-5 people where we scrabbled. In the 18 holes, our five-some used just two of my balls and they were both putts…I suck at golf. I quit teeing off after the 13th because I was sick of losing golf balls. Dave and his uncles ended up winning the contest. After golf, we went and made sure our tuxes all fit and then went to the rehearsal and dinner. The dinner was awesome as it was catered by Famous Dave’s. Haha just noticed Dave’s wedding had Dave and Busters and Famous Dave’s. Anyways, the next day we had pictures followed by the wedding. It just went so well. Everything from the colors of the wedding to the pastor was just excellent. The reception followed where we ate an amazing dinner, I gave my speech, and we danced a lot. It was awesome! I’m so glad Leah could come because we got to show off some of our dance moves we learned in dance class. PE teachers have to learn how to teach dance lol. As you can tell, I had a great time at the wedding and God bless Dave and Rebecca!

The day after the wedding, Leah and I drove back to Nebraska and I had to work basketball camps for the next week. After the camps, my friend Jon Whitson and I went one day to Council Bluffs, Iowa (right across the river from Omaha) to play in a few poker tournaments. The Horseshoe Casino had a $60 buy-in at 10am and a $35 buy-in at 2pm. We had been wanting to do this for a while. When we got to the casino and I could not talk Jon into playing in the $60 because it was too expensive, so I just played in it while he just hung out and watched. There were 25 people in it and I just grinded my way to the final table never really having more than the average stack. 5 people get paid, which is kind of a joke, but whatever. I doubled up with KJ against 77 with nine people left. This was the only time I had my money in and a call really the whole tournament without the nuts. We made it to the bubble and I had taken down tons of blinds because people wanted to make the money. Finally with 6 left, I’m 2nd in chips and I raised with J5 off in the hijack (I had been raising every pot). I turned to Whitson behind me and whispered, “I love Detroit”. Small blind who hated me because early on in the tourney, I limped with AA, he raised right behind me, I thought for like 2 minutes and pretended I was trying to get a read on him before finally pushing all in. He snap called with 99 and I shipped the pot. He really wanted to get me back since then. Anyways, he called in the sb and the chip leader (a over 60 year old nitty woman) called as well in the bb. The flop came A55 dink! The sb bets out 2K into like a 4K pot. The old nitty lady min raises to 4K. I call. Sb pushes all in for like 10K. bb snap calls. I am actually kind of nervous at this point. I decide on calling. Turn was an 8. She checks…phew. Now I know I’m good and I push. She calls and they both flip over AJ. I fade the one remaining ace on the river and I collect 80% of the chips in play with 5 people left. All the other people thanked me for getting them into the money. I ended up blind raising every pot from then on when I had any fold equity because they all wanted to keep moving up the pay scale. It was funny because every time they would push all in, I would have a good hand like 10 10. I think I had that hand four times at the final table. I knocked every one out and the guy who folded to a second place finish thanked me multiple times haha. When we got HU he had 2 big blinds left and I woke up with AA lol. I put him in and he calls with A8. The board comes XA8X8 lol, to ship me the $480 first place prize.

Jon and I played in the next $35 buy-in tourney where there was I think 42 players. I busted out around 30th and Jon amazingly wins the thing for $490. We swapped 10%, so I got a little more than my buy-in back, so that was nice. Two guys drive together from over an hour away to play in the only two tournaments that the Horseshoe Casino had that day and we ship them both. Jon made a great lay down at the final table where he folded JJ preflop to an under the gun raise and the other guys showed QQ afterwards. Well done Jon!

After Council Bluffs, I went to Hastings for Leah’s 21st birthday…finally. It was a good time as a few of her close college friends also came from out of town. Leah and I have now been dating for over 2 and a half years now. I can hardly believe it.

After Leah’s birthday, I then decided to head out to Vegas because Dave was being staked in the Main Event by Nick “Ahh Snap” Van Newkirk who happens to be one of the coolest guys I have ever met. So I went out to Vegas and I get there as Dave is in the middle of Day 1. I mainly just watched him the whole first day alongside Rebecca as he ended the day with a well above average stack. We stayed that night in this sick 1.2 million house that the guys who live there pay $12K in rent a month. It was probably the nicest house I will ever stay at in my life. However, I did not have a bed nor did Dave and Rebecca. So we decided to get a hotel room and chop the $30 a night cost at the Stratosphere. It actually wasn’t as awkward as one would think rooming with a newly married couple. The Stratosphere has 4 $60 buy-in tourneys a day, so Dave and I decided to hop in the remaining 3 after we checked in. We had no luck in the first two, and then we played the final tournament that started at midnight. I guess every first Monday of the month, the stratosphere doubles the first place prize. Since it was now Monday, we were playing for a lot more money. First place was $2400 and 2nd place was $600. They ended up paying I think 7 people with over 60 entrants. The fact is that I was dead tired throughout the whole tourney as we had started drinking and stopped drinking at least three times that day while playing. I was down to a big blind and a half with 13 to go and I was sitting at Dave’s table. I ended up shoving with Q6 and got 3 callers. The flop came KQX, checked around. Turn X, checked around. River 6, one guy bet, the others folded. He showed Q9 and I quadrupled up. It was a nice little 3 outer. I ended up cruising from there. Dave busted just short of the money at the final table when his 72o was bad beat by AA. After he got knocked out, everyone was begging for a chop. I was sitting around 4th and Dave said that there was no way I was chopping with those guys. It is actually common to see 9 way chops in these tourneys where everyone splits evenly because the blinds are so big lol. Still, I don’t know how the chip leader ever lets that happen. At this point, I can hardly think, so Dave is doing the math after each person is eliminated and they keep begging for a chop. Dave keeps telling them to give me first place money or no deal as my chip stack kept growing lol. We end up getting down to 2 handed as I win a few 40/60’s and 60/40s The other guy only has like 2 big blinds left, but 2 double ups and he’s chip leader. Dave suggested we give him $800 and he snap agreed as he wanted a chop the whole time lol. So I ran off with $2200. I tipped the dealers a hundred and gave Dave some bills for not letting me chop and we called it a night at 4am.

I went to bed extremely exhausted and incoherent. However, I could not sleep for like 45 minutes before it hit me that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast at the house at 10am. No wonder my brain couldn’t function. I can’t sleep on an empty stomach so I got out of bed and went a grabbed a sandwich. I quickly fell asleep after.

The next day I was thinking about all the live tournaments I have played in and I counted them all up. I had won an amazing 3 out of 9 live tournaments I have ever played in. I blogged about my $180 40 person tourney I had won in Billings last summer. That was a $1600 score I believe. I had also cashed in another one of those 9 tourneys. Those stats can only go one way from that…and they did. I played in all the “freeroll” tournaments (as they called them) that first Monday of the month and stuck out on the other three. I then played in two $65 buy-in tourneys at the Sahara (with a better structure than the Stratosphere and many more fish believe it or not) and I struck out on those the next few days.

Dave played his Day 2 on Wednesday and he was right next to the rail, so I could follow the action well. Rebecca and I watched him the entire day. We both loved it. He played flawless in all but one hand where he bad beat KK with AJ. Despite that hand, Dave played the big stack to near perfection though. He had a juicy table until high stakes online player David “Raptor” Benefield was moved to his table halfway through the day. Dave was no longer chipleader at his table. Then Dave started to go to work on Raptor though, defending every one of his blinds. I don’t remember Raptor winning a pot against Dave and they played a lot of them. Dave ended Day 2 with another comfortable, larger than average stack.

The next day Dave was at a table in the middle of all the other tables and I could not really stand watching from the rail so I went to the Bellagio to watch Shannon at the final table of the 5K and play some as well. I finally got in a 4/8 limit game and ran like God while taking breaks to check on Shannon here and there. Shannon was down to the final 5 so I cashed out my chips. I profited $190 in no more than 2 and a half hours of 4/8. I told you I ran like God. I cheered Shannon on as he played great poker. He ended up goating Jimmy Fricke into pushing all in with KQ and Shannon quickly called with AK. Flop came QXX and Shannon couldn’t catch up. It ended up being a 300K bad beat as he would have had 90% of the chips in play if he had won the pot and surely would have won the tourney. Shannon handled it with class though as always. We talked and I congratulated him as he’s cashing out for 127K before we parted ways. I went to play my second tourney at the Sahara and busted in the 3rd hour. I heard Dave had busted out of the Main Event so I headed back to the Stratosphere to talk to him. I decided I was going to leave the next day because I thought it would be good to caravan with them through the desert as my car had overheated that day. I played a little 1/2 no limit that night at the Stratosphere and profited $130. I had four short cash game sessions in Vegas (-$9 4/8 limit at the Venetian, +$2 1/2 no limit at the strat, +$190 4/8 at Bellagio, and +$130 1/2 no limit at the strat.) Maybe I should have played more cash games. I didn’t spend more than 6 hours total in these. We left the next day and apparently refilling my coolant was good enough to get my car back to Nebraska. Vegas was short, but it was so much fun. It is so nice leaving there with more money than I came with for the second straight and only times. Congrats to my friend Nate Hays for cashing in the main event for 41K and also to Dean Hamrick (a good friend of Dave’s who we had dinner with on day 2) for finishing 10th just short of the TV final table for 591K.

I got back to Nebraska and went to Leah’s house for a few days before I had to be back in Seward to work team camp. Team camp was on the 17th and the coaches went to Verdigre, NE the 20th-22th to put on an on-site camp there in northern Nebraska.

I got back to Seward and my brother stopped through town to stay with me for a few nights on his way down to Pensecola, FL, where he is moving to. We had a good couple of days before he took off on the morning of the 24th.

I decided to play in some online tourneys that day. I played well throughout the day (as I always seem to do after taking breaks). I cashed in multiple tourneys and ended up taking down the Cake 5K guaranteed $15 buy-in for over $1100. I was pretty pumped as it was the best online poker that I have ever played. I was chipleader with 28 left (30 got paid) with 250K in chips. Second place had 100K lol. I was chip leader barely and I got into a nice pot with the second place guy. He limps for 2K in early, I raise to 8K with AA, everyone else folds. Flop comes Q62 rainbow. He bets out 10K, I raise to 30K. He calls. We each had around 120K behind us going into the hand. Turn 7. He checks, I bet 45K, he calls. River K. He checks, I push all in for about another 45K, he auto calls with Q9o. I ship the 240K pot. I love Cake players! I surrendered my chip lead for one hand with around 8 left when the 2nd place guy knocked out the 3rd place guy. I reclaimed the lead the next hand with a blind steal and go on to win the tourney. I like online poker again! I have also been dabbling in some $.25/.50 Stud Hi/Lo and I think I want to start getting good at it. So we’ll see.

The next day I went to Hastings to work concessions stands with Leah for a nice $10 an hour. I worked 23 busy hours for the three days. So it was nice to pocket that cash.

The rest of the summer, I plan on working the University of Nebraska basketball camp August 4-7. Then I’ll head back to Montana following that for a little while before school starts. I plan on writing every week or so check it out if you desire.

In other news, three sets of my good friends have all gotten engaged within the last two months. Congrats to all of them! It is going to be a busy summer next year, but I am looking forward to it!

Sorry this was so long. It was a year recap though so forgive me.