Finally an update. I'm sorry for the length.

Let’s see, what’s happened since my monster night at the card room…

I went on that trip to Denver then picked up my sister in Fort Collins and went home for Easter. I surprised my mom pretty good. Easter weekend was fun. It was good to see the family. My sister and I had to leave on Sunday after church because she had to be back in school on Monday. I stopped in Denver once again to see Leah and we had a good time for a few more days before I headed back to NE.

I got back to NE and continued to sub. I have been getting about three days a week, which is nice. I am always keeping busy even in my off days applying for jobs and doing random stuff for the basketball team. I have applied for over 20 jobs and still have not had an interview. It is pretty frustrating, but I know that others are in the same boat and are probably in a tougher financial situation than me. So I can’t complain too much.

Two weekends after I came back from Denver, I returned for Ben Ahlman’s bachelor party. Ben is in Denver now working at an electrical distributing company after graduating in December with me. I caught a ride with a couple girls from Concordia’s soccer team who were going out there for some fun of their own. On Saturday, for the bachelor party, we played golf and I kept score the first time ever. I wanted to play completely by the books without ever picking up a ball. I ended up shooting a 132 and amazingly only lost one ball. Now I have something I can improve upon. Golf has never been that fun for me, especially when we walk the course, but this time it was because I was playing to see what my score would be. Usually I have had enough after walking 9 holes, but I was fairly fresh after 18 even after my 132 shots haha. The 132 score was with women’s clubs, but I don’t think playing with my own would have saved me that many more shots to be honest. Our 4-some was Ben (like a 12 handicap), my other buddy Jake (like a 35 handicap), me, and this guy from England (6 handicap) who hopped in our group. In the biggest shock of the century (at that time, I’ll explain the new biggest one later), I won a hole. I pared a par 3 when the others all bogeyed (Jake may have tripled). Having some success makes golfing a lot more fun. I think I sunk the longest put of the day with like a 30 footer just off the green. My short game isn’t that bad, just my long game really really sucks. My goal was to par a par 4 once in the day. My opportunity came on 18 when I had a 40 footer for par. I told myself that I was going to give it a chance by not leaving it short. It ended up going right over the top of the hole with too much speed. I had like a 10 footer for bogey that I sunk. Overall, it was a great day of golf. I can’t wait to get back on the links and improve on my 132.

After golfing, we went to the Colorado Rockies game vs. Man Ram and the Dodgers. It was freezing by this time of the night, so we had to drink a lot of beer just to stay semi warm. The Dodgers ended up winning 6-5 even though Man Ram went 0-5 with 3 strikeouts. We had a good group of about 10 of us including a Ben’s brother and cousin, Jake, me, and a bunch of Ben’s co-workers. After the game, we went to this bar across the street from Coors field and drank some. Ben’s cousin started buying rounds of shot of Petron. He racked up a pretty large bar tab as you can image. Ben ended up embarrassing us all by puking all over the bar. I don’t know how he didn’t manage to get to the garbage can, but he didn’t. So we left immediately after that and called it a night. I have since forgiven him for that.

The next day, I went and hung out with Leah. We went to this silent/live auction fundraiser for the two Lutheran high schools in and around Denver. (Leah student teaches at Lutheran High Parker). I bid on a few things in the silent auction (mainly gift certificates) and I ended up getting a $50 gift certificate to Colorado Baggage Co. for $20. I gave it to Leah and she says she bought this sweet $80 bag that was on sale for $49. I can’t complain with a $20 donation to Denver Lutheran high schools and received an $80 bag! The live auction was crazy as this guy who is supposedly worth $260 million refused to quit bidding for a few of the items including an, at most, $80 bucket of beer. He easily donated over 10K in the night including over 4k for that bucket of beer. The auction was pretty fun and a new experience for me.

The soccer girls picked me up on Monday morning and we headed back to Seward. It is pretty nice to be flexible like I am and able to make random vacations whenever I want. I am definitely enjoying the flexibility while I have it.

Poker news: I have had two losing sessions in a row going to the Horseshoe (my only two), but I knew they were going to happen. Last week, I won a $5 ante-up tourney on Stars where only the antes go up. It is funny because 80% of the players don’t know how to play them. They pay huge antes and then don’t call the 5 chips it takes to see a flop. You can never fold for the 5 obviously until it gets raised. Limping with AA and KK in early position was key to me winning because people were always trying to steal the antes. I don’t think I ever even raised preflop until the final table. I was just try to see cheap flops compared to the pot size and try to bust people. Then I ran over the final table for the $333 winner. Weeeeeeeeee. And now for the biggest shock of the century:

My buddy, Noah Enke, had been begging me to go play in a real poker tournament. He had played maaaaybe 5 small unstructured home games. So yesterday he went. I decided that I would stake him, because $40 is a lot of money for him to lose. So I told him I get 50% of his winnings, even though there was no way he would cash. I gave him a few pointers. I pretty much told him not to call, pretty much raise or fold. He has no clue though about pot odds, fold equity, that pushing all in and calling an all in are two different things, etc. etc. etc. Anyway…

We played in the tourney 80 person $40 buy in tourney at the horseshoe yesterday and amazingly we were at the same starting table. In about the 3rd level, he gets KK and raised 5X even though I told him that 3X is good. A guy with A10 pushes all in and Noah busts him. A little later, Noah raises 5X again. The bb calls and they see a flop of K54. The bb leads out (obvious King) and Noah pushes all in (Noah has him barely covered I think). The bb auto calls and flips over KQ. Noah flips over A10 for A high. Turn X. River Ace to give Noah a bunch of chips and angrily knocks out that guy. I look at Noah confusingly. It’s like he just loves getting all his chips in the middle and that proves to be the case later on. I get knocked out a few levels later and I decide to just leave Noah alone and go play some cash games. We had another friend there named Drew who busted from the tourney in 2nd to last. Drew watched Noah the rest of the tourney and gave me updates from time to time. He came over for the next 2.5 hours a bunch saying that Noah just took down a pot with KK or he just put a brutal beat on somebody. Usually the latter. Noah makes it to the final table and makes the money. He folds and bad beats his way to 4 handed. When they got 4 handed, I left my cash game and went to watch even though I knew it was going to drive me crazy. Noah is like 2nd in chips with 4 left. It is folded to him in the sb. Noah completes the bb and then announces all in which is totally illegal (string bet). The dealer tells him he can only call. Even after Noah did that, the bb STILL raised obviously having a monster hand. Noah then fiddles with his chips nervously (like he did the whole tourney. I honestly thought he was going to have a heart attack.) Then Noah announces all in!!!! The bb autocalls and turns over TT. Noah turns over Q3hh. I’m about to lose it. I was like “Noah, do you have a date tonight or something you have to get back to?” Anyways, the flop comes 367. Turn 3! River X to give Noah the chip lead. Unbelieveable! Noah then beats a guy with A2 against AJ aipf when a 2 flops to knock a guy out of 4th. Then Noah makes a good call with Q10dd when another guy pushes all in from the sb. Q10 holds against 9 10. So Noah is now HU with like an 8:1 chip lead against a really good player (the TT hand earlier) who was next to Noah at our first table. The same guy who I predicted at our first table was going to win the tourney before he eventually knocked me out with 99 vs my KJ. He is a very solid player who was as shocked as I was about Noah’s run. They play HU and get closer to even though Noah still has the chip lead when this hand comes up. Noah about mucks his cards, then decides to call. The bb raises. Noah then says all in. The bb snap calls with AQ. Noah flips over T6. This time Noah couldn’t suck out on a QTX flop. Now the good player has like an 8:1 chip lead with the blinds being monstrous. Noah then won a 40/60 with like Q6 vs. K7. Then Noah held with AJ vs A4 to take the chip lead barely. Then this hand came up. Noah completes the bb. The bb pushes all in. Noah snap calls with A2cc. The bb flips over 77 and we all knew it was over for the guy. The board comes Kd Qc Qs Tc Jd to ship Noah with $700 first place prize. 2nd was $400 and Noah and I felt a little bad for him. The other guy handled it really well and is truly a class act. It was the sickest display of bad plays followed up by luck that I have ever seen. Thank God Noah knows this. He is not about to call himself a poker player by any means. It couldn’t have happened to a better guy. I collected $200 from him and called it good. Good job Noah!

That is loooooong update. My parents are coming in Friday because I am going to walk at graduation on Saturday even though I have already graduated and received my diploma. It should be a good week!