Backkk, lots of news O_o

Loooong time no writing.

I wanna pick blogging back up and do it a bit more consistently. I usually neglect bloggin when everything is messy and I'm stressed out, but that's no excuse anymore. So here's a recap of the past couple months and from now on it will be regularly updated. Expect this post to be looong. I'll put it in paragraphs, so whichever one you don't care about, you can skip .

Pokerstars deal~

Pokerstars approached me late last year for a possible sponsorship. I was pretty excited, and that's an understatement. I've been trying to get sponsored by stars for like 3 years now. They are focussing a lot more on the European Market than they used to, and launched the Shooting Stars Team in Germany. They raped all over the place, so because of that success Pokerstars also wanted to launch other country teams. Luckily, Holland was one of those countires, which is when I started talking to them. Throughout this year there have been negotiations and they've been gathering players they wanted for the team. The team now consists of Noah Boeken (Exclusive, he was already sponsored), Marcel Luske (Team Pro), Ruben Visser (Rubenrtv), Joep van den Bijgaart (Pappe_Ruk), Thierry van de Berg (BOKPOWER), Pieter de Korver (Won Monte Carlo right after everything got official, holla ) and me. Pokerstars signed our last member in the team a week ago, Fatima Moreira de Melo, an olympic gold medalist in field hockey. She always had an interest in poker and she is very talented and loves the game, therefore a good addition to the team.

We're going to be playing most EPT's and some of us will play WPT's as well. Ever since I signed, I've been on an animal grind and I have regained the eye of the tiger. To be honest, this was the best thing in poker that ever happened to me. I've been playing very well live, and it's starting to pay off, which brings me to the next subject~

WSOP

This year Harrah's added a 40k$ tournament, to celebrate the 40-year existence of WSOP. This is pretty exciting, especially cause it would be a very prestigious tournament. I decided to play it and sell half my action. I had a Pokerstars Camp right before, but luckily jetlag didn't win so I felt really fit. I was fortunate enough to make the final table, but couldn't close things really. I lost a big pot with AK vs AJ of Dani Stern, a pretty standard hand, but it left a scar on my soul lol. It really hurts to see that hand on tv again, and I can't stop thinking about the 'What if's'. I'm really happy with my 7th place in that tournament though, and to me it proved that what I was trying to do in Live tourneys worked. I've had some really close ones this years WSOP. A painful bubble in the 10k LHE tournament, where I finished 2 spots outisde the 27k bubble and moreso the 5k shootout. I played heads up vs the kid who won EPT Kiev, Maxim Lykov if I remember correct. I had 2:1 chipleader on the second table and lost the heads up, cashing 16k, while winning the heads up would have put me on a 5-handed final table, with 80k minimum payout. Stuff like that kind of hurts, but I was still very happy.

Last but not least day 1a of the Main event. I've gotten and read a lot of replies about my play that day. Some people think it was awesome, some people think im a donkey. However, I don't really get the people that consider me an asshole or a scumbag because of the way i played. It doesn't really affect me, just makes me think they would make excellent Vegas 60-yr olds. I don't always play like I did in that episode, it was just that the table was perfect for it. Everyone who wanted to play was to my right, the tighter players to my left. People were very aware of the cameras and possible endorsement deals if they could make the day last. I kept showing every bluff, cause it allowed me to keep doing it. I wanted to generate the 'Im sure he wouldn't bluff again!' kind of feeling in people's heads, whereas if I wouldn't have shown anything, people would have gotten curious or disbelievers and call me. I also got paid off huge on some hands because of my hands, but they didn't show those. Thanks for everyone commenting on it and people coming up to me during EPT Barca to give props, that was really cool .

My awesome gf made a compilation of the hands they broadcasted on ESPN:

Part 1

Part 2

Swings

During the WSOP I really wanted to start playing highstakes again. I hadn't been playing 25-50+ for a long long time and I was at the top of my confidence level. It didn't start out that well having a 150k and 100k downswing back to back on 25-50. This might seem a shitload of buy-ins, but considering it were 2 20k+ hand sessions and most of it deepstacked heads up, it's not so bad. After I got back I played a lot of 100-200 sessions on Pokerstars, the craziest of which being the one vs xX JD Killer xx. I was up a lot, but lost everything back leaving me with 9500$ in my account. He asked me if I was done, and then I thought, oh what the hell and sat back in. I won everything back and won some, going from 160k down to 30k winner that day.

Swings don't really do anything with me and I wanted to play higher, so it wasn't any kind of tilting. I know my game selection is poor at times, but I don't think i'm very far behind most of the people I play. I'm not going to play people like nutsinho anymore though, that's just too crazy. He is by far the sickest on PS right now. Other people I've played might be a bit better, some I might have an edge on. I do know one thing; I improved a lot over the past month and that's worth a lot to me. I want to do everything to get the best I can, and neglecting game selection is a sacrifice I have to make to achieve that. I will definitely win a lot more on more comfortable stakes, using the stuff I learn on nosebleeds. I've been taking it easy past 2 weeks to regroup a bit and regain some energy.

Plans for upcoming months

Tomorrow I'm leaving for Vegas. I haven't seen Evy for a little over a month now and it has been bothering me a lot. She is in the middle of moving and I had some obligations at home. Its her birthday next week so I thought it would be a good time to surprise her and come to Vegas. I will be playing WCOOP when out there though, but it's better than playing it here, also with the timezone. I really love being in Vegas outside of WSOP time and I have a lot less things on my head. At the end of september, I will fly back to europe for EPT London, which I'm superthrilled about. I don't necessarily like London too much, but Barcelona was another milestone for me in my live-game. Confidence couldn't be higher and I want to play as much as I can.

Yesterday I got a call if I wanted to play in the PKR 10k$ Heads up invitational in London, which takes place right after the EPT. They're gonna make it an NBC Heads Up format, but then in Europe. People like Durrr, Eastgate, JC Tran, Phil Laak and some others will be completing a field of 32 players. It's the first time I got invited to a show like this .

Right after the heads-up tournament is the Nations Cup in Baden, Austria. Together with Marcel Luske, Rob Hollink and Marc Naalden, I'll be representing Holland in a mix of PLO, Stud and NLHE fighting 17 other teams to try and bink a couple. After the Nations cup my plans are kind of vague as of yet, but I'll def play the Dutch Championships in october and the EPT in Portugal.

Sorry I have been idle with blogging to those who were following me, but that will change.

If you wanna follow me during trips or tournaments add me on

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/raszi
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Hyves (dutch users): http://raszi.hyves.nl

Im updating regularly, so if you feel like following, much appreciated!!

See you next time

Awesome: