Had a good week. Back home in Montana.

I'm getting better at the 12 hour drive from Seward to Billings each time. Surprisingly, I wasn't really tired at all when I arrived in Billings around 8:30 tonight. It is great to see my family for the first time since early June!

It was a fun and productive week. I worked the Nebraska basketball camp Mon-Thurs from 8:30-5:00 each day. It was tough getting up at 7am every morning but I guess I'm going to be a teacher and have to start getting used to it. The camp was great. I thought it was well organized and well ran. However, there was not much talent at the camp and I have never seen a group of more unmotivated campers. I had to remind the kids multiple times that their parents paid for the camp and they should at least hustle a little haha. I don't think it helped that there were seniors in high school playing against 7th graders. On a positive note, I met some awesome people who helped out with the camp including some of the Husker players. I hope to build on some of those relationships in the future. One can never know too many people in the basketball and coaching worlds. I have learned that many division I basketball coaches started out as just team managers. If I ever decide to pursue a division I college basketball coaching position, connections will play a vital role. I do not see that being realistic for me at this point however. Overall, Huskers camp was a great experience. Getting paid well (in my opinion) made it even better :)

Each day after camp I would drive back to Seward and play some online tourneys until around midnight. Monday, I won an $11 satellite into the Sunday Warm-Up. I cashed out $215 in tourney chips for future use. Tuesday, I made top 20 out of over 3000 in a freeroll on cake and qualified for the $40 buy-in “freeroll into millions 250K semi-final.” I will play that on Saturday at 2:00 mst. GL me! Wednesday, I took 13th in my favorite tourney in the world (the $15 buy-in 5K guaranteed that I won over a month ago) in my 2nd time playing it since for $60. Other than a few shallow cashes, I struck out in my other tourneys.

After camp was over on Thursday, I decided to head to the Horseshoe in Council Bluffs. I played in the $70 bounty at 7pm. I have a history of being an awful bounty player and I stayed true to form as I last a little over an hour and a half collecting zero bounties and finishing in like 60th out of 90 people. Fine. I hopped in one of the 3/6 limit tables after a few hands, I found the beautiful J5h in the cutoff after everyone limped. I make a suspect limp and we take a family pot to the flop: Kh Js 9h. It is bet and raised before it gets to me. Two people behind me call the $6 before I act lol. So I make it $9 trying to build the pot. No one folds. Turn 6c. Checked to me. I bet to build. Everyone calls. River 2h. Checked to me. I bet. Every one calls haha. I saw a two pair and a lower flush out there. I ship the monster pot. I sit for a while longer, lose some pots and I decide to play some $1/3 no limit. I left the 3/6 up $66. Almost even on the trip. I sit down at the NL table and the first hand I see as I’m sitting down, the guy on my left bets $150 into a $60 pot and I start licking my chops. It turns out we never get in a hand together the rest of the night. I play tight for a few rounds and feel out the table before this hand came up. Everyone folds to an aggressive player in the hijack who raises to $15. I make it $45 in the cutoff with AJo. The bb, an older guy whose was playing his second hand (he posted utg haha) flat calls. That scares me. Flop comes A83 rainbow. Checked around. Turn J. BB bets $45 with what has got to be AK or AQ. Hijack folds and I just call leaving him with $70 more to give me on the river. River 7. He bets $45. I put him in and he calls and shows AK. I ship the $250 pot. I keep on building from there for another hour and a half or so before I decide to call it quits when the blinds get to me.

As I’m racking my chips, I find 88 utg and limp. A 30-year-old dude raises to $13 from the cutoff, button calls, sb calls, I call. Flop comes 10 5 2. Checked around. Turn 5. Checked to me. I bet $25. The preflop raiser makes it $75 and the others fold. I go into the tank for the longest time that I have ever taken in my limited live poker experience. I know we are only on the turn, but as I think it out, he just wouldn’t play AA, KK, QQ, JJ, or even 10 10 like that. The only hands he possibly could have had was either AK, AQ, or AJ and he was making a play. He had $100 behind. So I decided I was going to either push or fold (comments for how I played this hand are welcome). So it was a $150 decision. I’m trying to get some read on him and I was 99% that he had AK, AQ, or AJ. But I just couldn’t pull the trigger. I am embarrassed to say this, but after more than 5 minutes of me changing my mind in my head whether it was worth it or not. I finally decide to fold, up $240 at NL. I folded face up and told him that he had AK and that I was too much of a tight wad. He shows AK and I tell him nice play. I was so mad at myself for not going with my gut. I asked him if he would have called an all in on the turn and he said yes (debatable) because he had half his stack in there and he might have been good since it took me so long. So in retrospect, I could have been 6 outted. Still, drove home to Seward so mad at myself for not just following my gut instinct and making the correct and pretty obvious play of pushing because he really only could have had those hands. So I ended up $230 on the night which I can’t complain with at all.

I woke up Friday morning, packed and hit the road. I made it to Billings and had a good talk with my parents. I’m going to sleep in tomorrow, go see my grandparents, and then play my Cake tourney that I qualified for. After that, I will probably get together with one of my best friends Colin, who I haven’t seen since New Year’s. That will be good. I have no other plans for the rest of my trip here so I will update as things happen.

Side note: In the last three days, two people have said that I look like Jon Heder from Napoleon Dynamite. One of my players I coached said that I look and talk like him. A guy at one of the poker tables said that I look like him from a certain angle. I don’t really see the resemblance as Jon Heder probably has girls flocking him, but I do have one of those faces that people always ask, “Do I know you from somewhere?” or “Have we ever met before, you look familiar?” Anyways, thanks for reading. Updates to come.