TomBraband

I played the lil stimulus special over the weekend with no luck. Ran a little bluff on a guy early for half my chips with a missed fd that woulda worked against a fish, didn't know the guy was a good player though. He played it weird and checked behind top top on a draw heavy board. Waited around for awhile before getting kk against qq right before the first break and he ended up rivering the Q. No sweat, gonna be a long month.

I did put in a good couple cash sessions at the venetian sunday and monday night at 5/10 and 2/5. Made about 2500 each night but there were a few really interesting hands.
5/10 on sunday 46 was the hand of the night. The first one I played was in a limped pot i woke up with 46dd in the cutoff and the flop came 752 with 2 clubs. Jeremey Joseph (good cash game player, had CL in main last year on like day 5) leads out for 40, gets called in 2 spots and I call. Turn is a 3 giving me the nuts and a passive old guy who tends to bet really small usually comes out with 200 from the bb on the turn so I'm drooling because I know he's really strong. I raise to 550 with about 900 behind, he calls and the river is a 6 and I kind of sigh because I know thats gonna ruin my action on an all in bet on the river, i decide that he has 2 pair or a set and just bet 350, he calls with a4 (turned wheel) and we chop, sigh. Very next hand I look noticeably tilted and pick up KK and throw in 50 bucks. Jeremy Joseph, whos sitting with about 25k, 3 bets on the button to 150. I could 4 bet but I decide to just call because I don't think hes very strong. The flop comes really bad, 876dd and i have no D. I chk and he bets 210, I chk raise to 600 with 800 behind and he tanks and then goes all in when I put the rest of my chips in he asks if I want to run it twice in which I reply no. It runs out A Q and I say KK and he mucks. A few orbits later I raise 46ss utg and get called in 3 spots. 2 competent players including joseph in the cutoff and button. It comes 752cc again... I cbet 180, both good players call. The turn is a 3 again, giving me the nuts. I bet kinda smallish, 400, hopefully giving the impression that I wasn't that strong (which was hard to do) and they both call again. The river was a 6 again lol. The fd had missed and i decided I had no value in betting but one of them might bluff so I checked and the 2nd guy bet 750 and i called and he said "nh" and mucked.
One unfortunate hand I played with joseph after that, was when I isolated TT on the button as I had been doing a lot because of the loose/passive nature of the table. Joseph 3 bet from the bb to 210. I called. The flop came A43, he lead 290, i called. Turn was a 4. He lead again for 450. I was pretty sure I still had the best hand, as I had seen him double barrell and run big bluffs before. I called again. The river was a J and I got a sick feeling like he hit it, he checked and I checked and he flipped up KJo to scoop. meh.
The last interesting hand at 5/10 was with joseph again. Limped pot and i made it 80 from the sb with AKcc. Joseph was the only caller, the flop came down 853 cc, i bet 150 and he called. Turn was a 7c, giving me flush. I checked and he bet 300, I called. river was Jh. I checked again, and he bet 800, i thought for a minute and made it 2500 and he tanked for several minutes before calling and mucking. I went to go grab some food with steve and when I came back there was a rich looking old guy who was throwing a lot of money in the pots and I wasn't clued into what was going on until a few hands later. He sat down with a few thousand and was making it 200-280 preflop in the dark without looking at his cards every hand and 3 betting 40$ opens to 500 every hand. Someone commented that he owned a bunch of oil companies or something. He was't drunk or anything, he just had absolutely no care in the world for money. Unfortunately during his few orbits at the table I never picked up a hand that I could play against him but it was enjoyable to watch. One hand he made it 240 as usual and joseph flatted, another good kid shoved 1200 and the old man checked his cards and called, and joseph called. It came down Qxx and went chk chk, turn was an 8 and the guy bet 200 into a pot of 3700, joseph laughed and called. The river was a blank and it checked out and the guy flipped 44, joseph showed j10o and the guy who shoved scooped with 99. Then the guy grabbed his remaining bills and said before the cards were dealt that it was all going in. About 6 people limped in on his bb and he threw in about 1800 in cash. Joseph isolated to 3500 and it came out A5442 and joseph had a5o to scoop against his t7o. He then bought in for 5k and raised to 280 in the dark again a few hands later. Another older guy flatted in late position and it came AQ3. THe old guy chcked the the lesser old guy made it 700, the rich guy raised to 3k and the other guy went all in for 4k total and was instacalled. THe old rich guy showed Q2hh and the late position guy showed AK and held for about a 8k pot. By this time there were several other players gathered around the table watching the action as the guy wished everyone good luck and left the table. Immediately everyone got racks and the game broke, standard. Fun to watch though.
Just hand one interesting hand from 2/5 last night. I was going to play 5/10 again but the games seemed softer at 2/5 and I came with one of my housemates ghettofabolous (dave) and sat down with me beause it was his first time playing live cash games. We had a fun night and I gave him a little intro on how different the game is in live cash games compared to online tourneys.
I was playing a lot of hands and it was a good time. I raised T7hh up front and got flatted by a competent asian kid who I was talking to on my left and 2 other players. It came down Q82 hh. I led for 75, he called and the others folded. Turn was a brick 4. I led again for 150, and he thought for a minute and minraised to 300. I interpreted this as a good Q and him trying to control the pot. He had about 850 left and I had him covered. I really thought he would fold if I shoved even though my image wasn't great but I hadn't really put all my chips at risk yet light so I thought he might get off it. I shoved my stack in and he thought for 6-7 minutes before calling with K4hh saying he didn't think I had anything. I'm not sure if he actually didn't think I had anything or if he just called because of the pot odds to hit his hand and was covering himself incase I showed up with a set or 2 pair. WHatever the case was a 10d hit the river and i showed me hand and he looked disgusted before showing me his hand and i kinda lost my breath for second before scooping the 2500$ pot. Ended up playing the rest of the night without too many interesting hands, just scooping small pots mostly. The entire end of the table was trying to play back at me and dave because they thought we were just some internet jokes, which was fine because we were hitting hands. I missed a pair+fd for a 1k pot and then got in a limped pot against this kid who claimed he was playing all the bigger games and looked like a tool pretty much. I played 1/2 the night before with him when I sat down with jake, steve and mike for an hour or so after my 5/10 session. He sat at the table and started talking shit beacuse he thought we were all trying to grind out 1/2 and weren't good players or something. He was talking during hands he wasn't in and calling us tools and stuff and I had to put him in his place one time during a hand that jake was in and he pretty much quieted up after that. Anyways, he sat at my table at 2/5 the next night and was playing pretty solid but had floated quite a few flops but done nothing special. Limped pot i had 97o and it came J85 giving me a double gutter (for those of you who are flop reading impaired) This kid led out 40 and i raised to 95, he called. The turn was a gin 6. He checked, i bet 210 and he shoved for about 700 and i obviously insta called. I considered slow rolling but I wasn't trying to be a douche bag so I just flipped over my hand knowing i had him stone-walled. Then he slowly flips over the same hand as i let out a big SIGH lol.

I am about to leave to go play the first 1500 NL event at the Rio today. It's going to be an extrememly busy week. Tomorrow is a 1500 6max event that i'm drooling over, as well as a 2500 HA (pl holdem/omaha mixed) at 5 pm if i bust the 6max before 5. Thursday and friday are a 5k and a 2500, not sure which day is which and then saturday is another 1500 NL. Hopefully a good week, plenty of opporunity to test out my skills. I'll update again this week to let everyone know how they go.

TT

Finally arrived in las vegas a few days ago. The drive got long on the 3rd day of driving, as Mike and I did 15 hours from western Nebraska all the way to vegas on tuesday. We got in around 9 pm and had some issues with my Garmin GPS system trying to get to Basebaldy's house. I call the Garmin voice Sondra btw, she was drunk or something and saying turns that weren't on our route and giving us awkwardly long routes to take to our destination. I'm not sure if it was because of traffic or what but I don't buy that it took us shorter going the way she told us. We finally did get there and Eric (basebaldy) was generous enough to offer us a guest bed and couch to sleep on and a fridge full of cold miller lite's. Wow were those refreshing after 15 hours of driving. Justin Young was over and the 4 of us watched some old WSOP highlights to get pumped up for this summer and then played a little HA home game, which was really fun.
Wednesday we went to a nice little pool/ bbq party at Mike Jensen's summer pad and then i went to go hang out with dave and gbecks at their place and watch the laker game. Dave and I headed to the Rio to register for some events around 10 p.m. and played about an hour of cash games.
We had an absolutely hilarious chip runner episode during our short cash game session. As we were being seated this attractive middle-aged woman in a red chip runner shirt asked us if we needed chips in which we replied yes as we were sitting down. She had made a little advance on dave, which he didn't really respond to because he noticed that she was being a little too desperate and wearing a little too much makeup. She said it was her first day and started some flirty, dumb conversation. She then asked how he wanted the chips and he said "500 in red and 500 in green".I had made a bet with dave for 50 bucks that she would bring his chips and not mine just because she seemed a little airy in the head and was paying a little more attention to him. Apparently she heard dave's request for chip colors wrong. About 10 minutes later she shows up with one rack of red 5$ chips and 6, yes 6 racks of blue 2$ chips and starts to set them down on the table. Me and dave look at each other reflecting an awkward expression almost to say "is this real?" Ohhh yes, it was real. She then defended herself to say she thought dave had said blue and that it was her first day, also not noticing that it was a 5/10 game and there wasn't a single blue chip in play at the table. During this explanation i could not help myself but to giggle uncontrollably under my breath as I noticed 2 or 3 other guys at the table doing the same. Right as she turned to walk away I gasped for air and started dying of laughter almost to the point of tears. She also had claimed that she brough chips for me too, just assuming that I wanted a ton of racks of blue as well lol. Dave did get one rack of red and i didn't get any chips so we had a short argument about who won the bet because she technicall gave him chips and didn't give me any (this arguement still isn't settled btw, would appreciate a vote on this issue). Anyways, I had asked for 1500 this time, and she brings back 3 racks of red this time, so atleast she got some of the right chips but I made the mistake of complicating things by asking her to go back and get me 2 stacks of green instead of the racks of red. She set dave's green stack next to his stack. Another guy at the table and dave both noticed that his green stack seemed a little short, as we noticed this, she returned shortly with one green stack for me the same height as dave's. We then counted it out and realized each stack was 2 chips (50$ short). This was getting a little ridiculous and we were getting frustrated so we asked her and the floor manager who was standing there to figure this out and get our 50 bucks. She gave us each a plastic 50 chip to represent the 50$ that she owed us (but declined to give me a 500 chip for my other green stack she forgot). We don't see her for a good 20 minutes but we do see her talking to the cage. During this time my girlfriend has just drive from LA after a 12 hour work shift and no dinner and had been waiting outside for 5 minutes already for me to come out so she was getting ornery because I was making her wait. I talked to the floor guy to see what was up and he told me that the cage had to recount all their chips to see where the missing 100$ came from. 5 min later the chip runner is out of sight so i ask the floor guy again what's going on. Now he says that they have to review security tapes in the back and it will be 25-30 min. I relay this message to my girlfriend, who is now ridiculously tilted and can't wait to rip my head off for keeping her wait this long. 30 min later,from that point (and about an hour and 15 min after we sit down) and about 4 bluff shoves later, we get our 50 bucks back and leave with about 1600 in combined profit.
Me and apple then went to in n out to grab a burger before heading back to our room at south point for the night. There is a minorly confusing drivethru sign on the side of the building that was kind of blocking off a little curved out mini driveway area that looked like it was for the dumpster, but obviously didn't continue around the building and was ended by a curb and a line of small trees and shrubs. So we go around to the drive through on the backside of the building and this paved area that we thought was the drivethru lane for only about 3 seconds is on our left and is seperated from us by the curb and trees as previously described. We are sitting there for a couple seconds before we see this young blonde haired kid in a crappy ford taurus drive into this paved area, slam into the curb with his front tire, get launched up on top of the curb( is now about 6 feet in front of our car, with half of his front suspended in air and the wheels spinning rapidly as the engine was roaring. The kid was trying to keep driving through to the drivethru lol. By this time we had figured out that the kid had to be completely wasted drunk and just then he gets the car going backwards and slams his back bumper into a tree behind him. We had to go around to get our food but I would have loved to see the end result of this episode. What a night, what a night.
TT

As I scramble to write this blog entry before my entire extended family rushes me into one of our cabin's on the coast of Lake Okoboji for dinner, oh,brb --- (just ran up to the cabin for prayer, sorry) I am reminded just how important and psychologically healing a break or hiatus from playing poker can be. I haven't enjoyed a full day of internet-less freedom in a long time. My internet on my own laptop wasn't working and a part of me inside was hoping they didn't have any wireless here until my dad told me that they did. And so now I bring you this blog post, only to share with you the benefits i've already had from being free from the internet, and the game of poker. I was able to relax and coast through the entire drive in my car all day yesterday as well as relax near the lake today with as little distractions as possible. Literally the only amount of stress I've gotten today was being rushed to dinner right as I started to open this computer and begin a blog post. I thought that was rather ironic considering it was my only contact with any form of internet. You would think someone out there is trying to tell me to disconnect myself with the internet for several days until the wsop starts, so that’s exactly what I'm going to do.

Being at peace within myself before playing a big tournament or a full schedule of online tournaments is so incredibly imperative to success, and a factor that really goes underrated in the poker world. When your mind is calm, you are able to have full confidence in your reads, you are able to have very good patience to wait for appropriate spots to get the money in, you have a better ability to think clearly about what your opponent's thought process is. I think back to all of the downswings and upswings I've had in my poker career and it seemed that all of the downswings came when I had a few extra stressors in other parts of my life, whether it was being time constrained to study to pass classes, having problems paying the bills, having friends or family issues, or just being generally depressed. I can even remember a case specific example of the night before the PCA main this year, I had gotten into a fight with my girlfriend and it kept me up a majority of the night, I played one of the worst live tournaments of my life, not to mention is was a 10k. I also look back on my upswings, and they usually came when I got out of my life ruts, things were going well with family, I was at peace with myself and with God in my life, and I had minimal stresses from school. I can remember several days where I came into the day on a positive attitude and it was just so much easier to let hands go, make big folds, not get frustrated with bad beats, and accept the standard stressors around you as you play and be able to cope with them on a much higher level than you would be able to under stress. Breaking from poker to focus on other important issues in life such as God, school, family or friends can be greatly beneficial when you decide to welcome poker back into your life. A mind at peace, is a healthy and efficient mind, and one that is capable of making the best decisions possible, in every realm of your life.
I can't wait to spend the weekend with my family, have a relaxing long drive out to Las Vegas (both without the internet and poker) and come back for a month-long grind to achieve success and make the best decisions on each hand this summer. I know a few of my friends ( Basebaldy, Shannon Shorr and crew) are out on a house boat trip on Lake Mead as I write this, and they are who I am learning from about life balance and peace of mind. They did this last year as well to relax before the wsop and had unrivaled success at the wsop last year.
Whether your break from poker (Or any job for that matter) and the electronic world comes in a few weeks, a few hours or a few days, I hope you can find some way to do it. These types of breaks can be found varying lengths of time; such as in daily activities outside of poker or in long stretches of time away from the game. I will be making a blog post in the future to discuss balancing life in a daily setting though. Until then, try to enjoy some peace of mind away from poker, so that you may make great decisions this summer at the wsop also.
-TT

oh hi, it's Titantom here. This first blog is gonna be kinda boring cuz iI gotta give all my background info and jargon but after this, they won't be so boring, I promise. soooo I started playing poker in home games during the poker boom back in high school in cedarburg, wisconsin. I wasn't the best player in our home game back then. I dont even know if i was in the top 3 or 4, but thats all we did back then. We were all athletes and we didn't drink or smoke or anything, we just played cards all the time so I kinda got a feel for the game that way. I dabbled on the internet when I got in college in cash games but didn't win much money til i met my now buddy mike playing at a table with me online and we actually got heated over a hand and started talkin smack at each other and then talked online after that lol. He introduced me to tournament poker, which i had never tried before. He helped me with basic strategy and within a few days i lucksacked my way to a $1200 score in a 26$ tourney on ftp. The next day I won a satellite to the 150 buy in on ftp and took it down for 9k, went on to see success in smaller field events and high stakes sng's (back when they were soft) until I binked a 2nd place finish in the ftp sunday 500 for 91k. The rest is pretty much history, ive been blessed with great poker friends to learn from and the success that has brought me.

I just graduated from wisconsin-oshkosh last winter and have enjoyed being a professional poker player for the last 6 months. I have plans to go to iowa this weekend with my family, then make the drive down to vegas (26 hour trip) for the wsop and then move to newport beach, CA this august. I'll be living with the sicko whos known to the poker world as doc sands. But i usually call him tool, or dave. I met him 2 years ago at the wsop before he really had a lot of online tournament experience and introduced him to what i thought could be a very profitable venture for him. Ill take a second to brag for him... since that time he has 6 sunday major victories along with countless other 10k+ scores and even an ftops win for 260k a few weeks ago. He's been a great friend, has a great poker mind, deserves his success for how hard he's worked and i can't wait to spend atleast the next year living with him.

I can't wait to play as many wsop events as i can this summer, as well as having a couple of my horses staying out there for the summer playing events as well. Ill keep everyone updated here with how thats going, as well as talk about random poker issues that i feel like im opinionated on, because there is a lot. Thats all for this post, but ill be back with another very soon
-TT