Busy Times

Cannes en WCOOP

After the last blog Evelyn came to Holland. We were going to play in Cannes together for a Poker Battle tournament, as part of the Partouche Poker Tour. It was a good time to show her my house and Holland in general. Of course jetlag was there too, so we mostly did some chilling at my place and getting some rest for our trip to France. It was the third or fourth time I flew to Nice this year, pretty crazy. Everything there was organized nicely, a car to pick us up from airport, arranged hotelroom and constant transport from the hotel to the casino. Unfortunately we both didn't go deep. Evelyn did make day 2 though, only to bust out AK Vs A8. Apart from playing we had a good time at the beach and just treating it like a holiday. Of course there were also TV shows involved.

Around Cannes I started watching Smallville, this is basically a tv-show about supermans childhood. In the beginning it's kinda slow and simple, but it gets deeper and especially darker. I've also started watching the Office, which is really light entertainment and The Shield. Holy Shit, this show is the nuts. It's realistic from what I've heard and the creators are not afraid to shock the audience. Definitely a tip for people who are into TV-Shows.

After Cannes Evelyn went back to the US to attend a Guitar Hero 4 promotion thing, which wasn't badly timed, cause WCOOP started. I don't have good memories from this years WCOOP . I did get close to big scores finishing 10th in the PLO 6 handed tournament and deep in another PLO. Also a 1k holdem could have gotten big, but other than that, only disappointment. The schedule was gruelling and while I wanted to get back to a healthy life after Vegas I was forced to wake up every day at 6-7 pm :/ .

LOL:

London

Shortly before the WSOP Europe started i decided to go play. I travelled together with brummel (utreg) who had been running like Zeus up to that point. I was hoping some of his good luck would rub off on me . We arrived there on friday, met up with Eron, a friend of brummel that lives in London. After registering for the tournament we decided to go out, since we were playing day 1b anyway. Brummel had some good experiences with a club called Fabric, kind of an underground club. Later a lot of my friends told me it is indeed what it looked like and very popular in the techno/dnb scene. That night they actually played a lot of Drum and bass and it revived my appreciation for this genre. Dj Hype was playing that night and it was kinda crazy inside. A lot of happy people, a lot of drugs, loud music and Lex being kicked out. Arg.

Unfortunately after a couple of beers I decided it's not THAT big of a problem to have a no smoking rule inside. As soon as the cigarette touched my lips I saw a big blind spot appear in my vision. The bouncer didn't take kindly to my behaviour and dragged me down the stairs. I mean, I dunno how big the fines are, but chill the fuck out. It's not like I was molesting girls or something. I smoked a cigarette. 'Please leave sir' Lex: 'Sure sorry' would have done the trick. We went to the hotel to chill there a bit more. Btw when I told a friend of mine about drum and bass he said some new genre is getting popular, called Dubstep. He showed me a couple examples and i fucking love it~

The next day was a pure chillout day as we watched like 8 shield episodes and 6 smallville ones. I went to sleep around 1am, but it wasn't uninterrupted. Imagine waking up and you hear your door click in a hotel. This is the most common thing when you don't put up the Do Not Disturb sign, as house keeping comes in to clean. So I say, sorry no service, and I hear the door click. In stead of continuing to sleep however, suddenly there is a crazy person in his boxers in our room. WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!? I'm like, am i trippin? Then I hear brummels reaction and we're like what the fuck are you doing here. He replies, clearly on drugs, 'It's ok it's my room. Guess what, it's not ok. He actually wanted to crash on the bed, so we push him away and he walks out, or at least I think. I walk over to the door only to see him sit on the toilet texting someone........... Brummel called reception by now and they arrive shortly to take the guy out. It's very comforting to then hear that security let him in after he CLAIMED it was his room. I mean seriously.. Oh a drunken guy, lets quickly get him in a room, that he claims is his. We flip out to hotel management and they are kinda speechless. Imagine a guy on dope walking in on a girl like that. As compensation they upgrade our room and give us champagne the next day. Weirdest thing ever in my long hotel-visiting history.

When I got to the Main Event the only player I recognized at the table was Juanda. He was 2 to my left, which isn't that perfect, but not a disaster either. That was until John Pham sat down to my immediate left. And a sick euro player i recognized to juanda's left. Fuck my life. I started playing tight as soon as the other 2 sat down, and I lost some really unfortunate hands to get down to about 8k, from 20k starting stack. The euro player got knocked out and Hansen moved to his seat, lol. Then I raise to 600 in the 100-200 level with , Hansen called and the button called. The flop was seemingly perfect , I bet 1600, Hansen calls and the button makes it 8k, putting me allin for 7.8k. With the draw and my top-top (lol) I'm never folding here. Then something weird happens as Hansen flat calls, with just 12k behind. The turn is a , Hansen folds to the buttons shove. I ask the button please have pair + draw, and he flips over a set of 7's. Hansen doesn't fail to mention 'everyone knew he had a set'. Well guess what Gus, only you knew YOU had the clubs, so that's a pretty retarded comment. Button either had a set or a big draw, so for hansen its pretty clear the button isn't drawing when he folds , but that aside. Tournament was over and after Brummel got KO'd we planned our flight home the next day.

Time for change

I really don't like the way things are going. I'm not playing enough, I'm not playing the right games and i'm in terrible shape. The WSOP messed my whole rhythm up completely, as always. I thought about what I needed to fix and I can only come up with one thing; not travel for a while. I really need to grind the upcoming months and not destroy it by making myself more tired. I really feel if i continue what I've been doing it will destroy me, so I need to live more healthy and responsible. If i have everything in order in the basis, I can travel without it wearing me down, cause I have something to rely on. Now travelling only makes me impatient. Also I wanna be able to keep travelling, so a break here and there is ok. Luckily I have a superawesome girlfriend who understand my whining and she will visit me again this year and then beginning of next year I'm gonna go to vegas. I love being at her place and when there is no WSOP and 120 degree heat, it's not gonna drain me at all. However, I feel if i go to Vegas now, I'll kill whatever energy I have left, so this is the best thing to do imo.

I had to recover from a flu when I got back, but last days have been awesome. I took care of a lot of stuff, I grinded online, played tennis and went to the gym. Tomorrow I'm gonna watch Tony Drago play a pool tournament here in Rotterdam and soon there are some smallish poker tournaments 100 ft from my house, so I'll definitely attend those. It's called Rotterdam Freezeout Series and I'm playing the 200e 400e and 1000e event. After that it's a lot of grinding again and then the next live stop will be Amsterdam Master Classics of Poker. They have a lot of interesting events and also a 6500 euro main event, which has been one of the bigger European tournaments for yeeeaars.

There is also a lot happening with Poker tv-shows in Holland and I'm starring in most of them, so that's really exciting.

Pokernews Strategy

It's here! The site launched~ I'm so happy we got it online. There some bugs here and there, but everything is smoothed out quickly.

Go to http://www.pokernews.com/strategy-videos/ and check it out.

The whole idea is that you can subscribe for 29$ a month and then you get 1 new video a day. The team of instructors consists of Patrik Antonius, James 'mig.com' Mackey, Chris 'Genius28' Lee , Tony G and myself. I really appreciate all the feedback so far and never hesitate to give me some more. We're basically making videos for you guys, so let us know what you wanna see. I am currently working on a low stakes series cause there was a lot of demand for it. So stay tuned and check it out.

Later