Out of the $1 Million Turbo Takedown in 59th place out of over 9500 people

I sniffed some life changing money today but had to settle for a $625 payday. I can’t complain because I got into the tournament for a little over 100 frequent player points. Here is a funny hand that kept me alive with about 130 people left.

PokerStars Game #23346183008: Tournament #200801228, 5000FPP Hold'em No Limit - Level XXII (5000/10000) - 2008/12/28 18:21:48 ET
Table '200801228 703' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: PsYcOsNiPeR (475888 in chips)
Seat 2: fearcepearce (124885 in chips)
Seat 3: knusper (81775 in chips)
Seat 4: CU_bball (124004 in chips)
Seat 5: JohnFR (159928 in chips)
Seat 6: Fighter (167049 in chips)
Seat 7: sean4040 (406182 in chips)
Seat 8: tercet (206964 in chips)
Seat 9: Cubits (249678 in chips)
PsYcOsNiPeR: posts the ante 1000
fearcepearce: posts the ante 1000
knusper: posts the ante 1000
CU_bball: posts the ante 1000
JohnFR: posts the ante 1000
Fighter: posts the ante 1000
sean4040: posts the ante 1000
tercet: posts the ante 1000
Cubits: posts the ante 1000
sean4040: posts small blind 5000
tercet: posts big blind 10000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to CU_bball [9h Th]
Cubits: folds
PsYcOsNiPeR: folds
fearcepearce: folds
knusper: folds
CU_bball: raises 113004 to 123004 and is all-in
JohnFR: folds
Fighter: folds
sean4040: calls 118004
tercet: folds
*** FLOP *** [8h 3d Jh]
*** TURN *** [8h 3d Jh] [7h]
*** RIVER *** [8h 3d Jh 7h] [Kc]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
sean4040: shows [Ts As] (high card Ace)
CU_bball: shows [9h Th] (a straight flush, Seven to Jack)
CU_bball collected 265008 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 265008 Rake 0
Board [8h 3d Jh 7h Kc]
Seat 1: PsYcOsNiPeR folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: fearcepearce folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: knusper folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: CU_bball showed [9h Th] and won (265008) with a straight flush, Seven to Jack
Seat 5: JohnFR folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: Fighter (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: sean4040 (small blind) showed [Ts As] and lost with high card Ace
Seat 8: tercet (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 9: Cubits folded before Flop (didn't bet)

I also shallow cashed in the 3 of diamonds PL Holdem event for a free $3.40.

Poker Update??!!!!!!

Just played in two random fpp satellites for the fun of it and won both! I played in a 8 fpp R&A and finished top 2 out of 378 people. So I qualified for the 5,000 fpp buy in $1 Million Turbo Takedown on Sunday on Stars. I hovered just above one big blind for it seems like an hour after the rebuy period. Then just played push/fold poker until I shipped it. I put a lot of bad beats on people, but I was always the one pushing, not calling :) I used a little over 100 fpp of my 250 fpps because I like to rebuy I guess. The second tourney was a 200 fpp buy in to the 2,000 fpp Extra Holiday 100K. I finished in the top 17 out of 175 people. Both these tourneys will be on Sunday, so I guess I have my day planned out. I also plan on playing in the 100K Holiday on Saturday for the 2,000 fpp buy in. I’ll be a baller and just buy-in directly because I have like 3500 fpps on there. Now I need to make these satellite wins worth something. Good luck me!

College Graduate; Back Home in MT

Once again I’m slacking when it comes to blogging. So I apologize to my thousands of avid readers :) So I’m a college graduate now and I can’t even describe the feeling. I’m going back to Seward soon and I won’t have to stress out about homework. It is going to be great!

Basketball is going really good even though I am now 0-7 as a head JV coach. However, our varsity is 10-1 and still #17 in the country (new polls haven’t come out yet). I look forward to going back to Seward around New Year’s to continue with the basketball season.

Montana has been crazy busy but also really fun. I drove the 12 hours here and didn’t hit that much bad weather, which was a huge relief. Before I got home, I stopped by Best Buy to buy a laptop. I knew that I wanted the 15 inch Acer with the keypad ($500) going in. When I got there Saturday night, the only one they had left was the floor model. So I said I’d take it. I notice a few scratches on the lid, so I talked them into giving me $40 off. So I have nice, basic laptop for $460. I have no complaints so far. Also, while I’m here, I wanted to at least look hard at buying a new car as mine is becoming less and less reliable with 128,000 miles on it. So I went to our family friend’s car lot and he had some nice ones. I really like his 2007 Ford Focus SE. This car dealer is unlike any other I’ve met as he is a strong Christian guy who tries to give us a great deal. I ended up getting the $12K Focus for $7300 plus my car. It was as good a deal as I am ever going to get as it is a great time to buy a car with the state of the economy. Also, the last two nights have been fun hanging out with my old high school friends. On Monday, my friend and ex-teammate Keil had a Christmas party at his house. Then last night, a bunch of us went to Old Chicago and another bar for some drinks.

I am thinking about heading back to Seward on or before the 1st depending on what my friends here are doing for New Year’s.

I have my eye on some gold card tourneys on cake as well as the 2K points buy-in 100K guaranteed on full tilt in the upcoming week. Hopefully I have time to play them and make some free money.

Well I’m off to church to celebrate Jesus’ birth tonight and then once again in the morning. Merry Christmas to everyone! God bless!

Month in Review

I can’t believe its been a month since I last posted but it has been. I have a lot of good news to report. I am in my last week of student teaching and then I am a college graduate. Also, our basketball team is an incredible 9-1 beating every team we have played this year. We bounced back and beat St. Mary’s pretty handily at home after our 2 point loss to them. We are now 3-0 in conference and ranked #17 in NAIA II after beating the formally #10 team in the country on Saturday. On a sad note, I am 0-5 as a JV head coach, but oh well. I’m just glad that our varsity team is doing extremely well.

Leah and I had a good run in 2 on 2 volleyball. We lost in the semifinals in a close fought 3-setter to an ex-volleyball player and a 6’8 football player. Playing 2 on 2 volleyball with Leah was so fun though I can’t even explain. We just started dodgeball (6 on 6) as we try to avenge our loss in the championship match last year. We are 4-0 without losing a game much less a match (best 3 games out of 5) so far. Hopefully we roll this week and win it all.

On a sad note, my computer has broke on me and I don’t think I am going to be able to fix it. So for the last two weeks, I have been “renting” a computer from Walmart that I am going to take back tomorrow because I have 15 days to return it. I’ll probably have to buy another computer in Montana where there is no sales tax. So, I need a new computer, a new car, and have to start paying off student loans when I graduate in a week. Money is kind of stressing me out right now for the first time since my freshman year of college. But I am not complaining as I have it really really good for a guy about to graduate college!

I have actually been playing some weekend poker! Brandon will be happy to hear this. Over Thanksgiving weekend, Cake poker did a promotion where they were giving out 4 times as many gold cards during ring games. So I started grinding 4-6 tables of 3/6 limit cash games last weekend and this weekend and I guess I have it back. The money has rolled in pretty well and the last two weekends and I made 140 gold cards and over 50 gold chips that can be used for tourney buyins. So that’s my poker news. Thank you rental computer!

I’m excited to go home to Montana next week to see my family and enjoy Christmas with them! Hopefully my car makes it there!

Alright, time to win another dodgeball game.