Wow...did that suck balls. I ended up recouping most of my losses today in a marathon session, but should've won more in the tourney. A horrid play by a player cost me all my chips, I am not complaining about the beat, even though this was the 4th time in the tourney where I was a 4 to 1 favorite and lost, I wanna talk about how terrible the play this player made was.

Final Table of the $50+4 Tourney, I have $41K and pick up KK in the BB. Blinds are 1500-3000 and player in LP makes it 10K to go with 33, not a bad play stealing the blinds is valuable at this point. I then move in for my stack he thinks for a minute then moves in, and flops quads!!!! 33 is a hand you should almost never even think of calling an allin with, especially for 3/4 of your stack, the only hand you have in bad shape is 22, then after that you have to hope a pray for a 50/50 shot, in most cases you'll prolly be dominated like he was here. I dont mind getting outdrawn to get knocked out of a tourney, but when a player calls off his chips to me in horrendous shape, and then hits it always hurts. I wouldve been up to roughly 90K in chips and you can bet I would've done what I always do with a big stack, and run away with the tourney. A $350 win really feels like a $2900 loss right now, it sucks, but my play in tourneys continues to go real well. I am now 9 of 19, with 4 final tables and 1 victory. I finished the cash games today down $650, I am ok with that as I was down $1200 at one point, and was really playing some god awful poker after a few bad beats. I decided to go downstairs, blow off some steam, and think about how much it would suck to have a job, so I sucked it up, and played some really good solid focused poker for the final five hours of my session. I have to keep reminding myself how fortunate I am to be doing this for a living, and make sure I stay emotionally stable when playing. Being emotional stable is a MUST have if you plan on playing this game for a living as it can be very frustrating. Well, thats all for now.

-Bakken

Well...I decided I'd write this blog to unsteam a bit as I am closing in a being down $1K today, I haven't been playing too bad but have made some shit plays, like moving in preflop with AK in a TIGHT cash game. Now onto my previous week or so.

We got into Vegas and pretty muched got wasted every night, the first place we looked at was a nice apartment, so we signed the lease there, and it was all fun and games from there on out. We found a good bowling alley on Fremont St. and ended up stumbling our way into a strip club, although it was fun they are definately -EV in a large way.

We then took the red-eye into Chicago, which SUCKED. I can't believe I was able to make it to Ferris State. I stayed up for like 44 hours straight, I got to Ferris and made my rounds, and decided it was time to get drunk. We had a blast up there, it included us taking a cab ride in the back of a pickup truck during a blizzard, and Cory Brownell, the kid who I first met freshmen year wouldn't even swear, now he is drinking like a madman and disappearing to girls houses, haha, how college corrupts people.

Now, I am back at Mike's house in Mukwonago, WI, packing up some more stuff before we drive down to Vegas. Hopefully my next blog will be about how I dragged myself out of this enormous hole.

-Bakken

So...today is my last day of work, and man am I pumped. After work, i'll be lighting up a cigar and driving to Mike's house in Milwaukee to spend a few days there and do some high stakes bowling. =) Speaking of bowling, my uncle and I went to Burnsville Monday night to smoke some cigars and do some bowling. We played the first few games not gambling and my uncle was just abismol, barely breaking 100, I bowled my normal 150-180's. So we decided to play some low stakes $0.25/pin action with me spotting him 40 pins. Then he caught fire, I'd bowl a 178, he'd bowl a 166, it got to the point where I was down $21, going into the last game. After some negotiation, I was only going to give 20 pins, straight up, double or nothing, but he swindled 25 out of me. This 5 pins turned out to be costly, as I only beat my uncle by 22 pins, I needed an open frame from him in the 10th and I would have to turkey to win, well he made a mark, and wouldn't you know it, I turkeyed in the 10th anyway, grrr....It was fun though, and we did smoke HIS cigars so that was good.

Last night I went and bought a thank you gift for my Uncle who gave me a job when I went broke and helped me get back on my feet playing poker again. I decided, since he enjoys poker, I'd buy him Phil Gordon's Little Green Book, well I ended up buying two more books for myself also, hehe, needed reading material for my trips. Then I went to bed last night and caught a fever!!! It SUCKED, I was hot, but freezing at the same time, it was a torture filled night and I didn't get any sleep. I felt OK in the morning and am back in good shape now for all kinds of drinking =) I think it may have been the wisdom tooth I got pulled that gave me the small fever. So, here is my schedule for the rest of the month; Tonight driving to Milwaukee, Saturday flight to Vegas, Saturday-Wednesday: Golf, Drinking, Condo Shopping, Thursday driving to Ferris State, Thursday-Sunday: Drinking loads in Michigan and Windsor, ON with college buddies. Then Monday-Wednesday: in Milwaukee while Mike is hangin with his girlfriend, prolly hangout with another friend on an occassion or two. Wednesday: Back to Minnesota, finish some dental work, bowl, and smoke some final cigars with family. Then somewhere between the 28th-30th driving down to LAS VEGAS, that weekend driving to Phoenix to visit my grandparents, pick up a couch, golf, and yes, smoke more cigars. All in all, it looks like a great few weeks, and I am totally stoked to be moving to Vegas.

It's official...I am done with my job on January 11th. Not for just any reason, for quite possibly the greatest reason in the world, Mike and I are moving to Vegas. We're flying down this weekend to look at condos and hopefully sign a lease, back in Michigan for one last hoorah, then the long drive down to Vegas for good. I am extremely excited for the this, life is gonna be rough; golfing, bowling, cigars, beer, and poker...I don't know how I am going to handle the stress (sw).

Now for a little bit of poker, I played the $100+8 US Grand Prix last night and it might've been the luckiest tourney I have ever played. I got my chips allin THREE times in bad shape (3 to 2 dog, 3 to 1 dog, and 9 to 1 dog) and all three times I outdrew my opponent. I then proceeded to have one costly mistake and one costly bad beat. I was in the BB with Q9 and saw the flop with four other players, the flop was Q83, with two clubs. I had about 9000 chips at this point, and led 750 into 1000 pot, the Villain who was an overly aggressive player called, I figured he must've been on a flush draw. turn brought a blank, so I bet 1500, and the Villain called again. The river brought an offsuit K, I was almost certain I had the best hand and decided to check trying to get the Villain to bet or else a check wouldn't have been so bad either. well, he did bet about 5500, I almost instacalled, but I decided I better take some more time and think about this since it was a LARGE portion of my chips. I talked myself into believing he had a King high flush draw and hit a pair of Kings on the river and folded. Boy was I angry when he showed his 7 high busted flush. I am still quite proturbed about this fold I made, I knew I was ahead, and for some reason I talked myself out of it, so frustrating. Had I made this call I would've been top 10 in chips and rolled through quite easily like i normally do when I have a monster stack. A little later I called an all-in with AK and was up against AJ and the villain spiked a J on the turn, and that knocked me back down to 6500. I proceeded to get blinded down and called off all my chips (3750, blinds at 600-1200) with A5 and was up against A7. The board read 9QK10, so it was a split until the 7 hit the river, and sent me packing in 35th out of 389. Ah well, I should've been out early but had a bunch of lucky breaks and ended up cashing for a small amount, $300. That brings my tourney stats in the last few weeks to:
17 Tournaments
9 Cashes
3 Final Tables
1 Victory

I also played a little $4-$4 and $2-$2 NL last night and made $425 in 45 minutes before bed, essentially all in this crazy hand. It's my second hand at the table and I pick up KK, I make it $16 to go, MP makes it $40, and LP calls?, I make it $120, MP moves in, and LP calls again. I am pot committed at this point and call, flop comes all unders with two clubs, then the dreaded ace hits the turn and I am not a happy camper, river is a blank and I think for sure one of the players has an Ace, if not AA, nope MP had JJ and LP had 55, but wait there is four clubs on the board, ARG!, MP has a club, oh wait, I made the nuts, because I have a club as well, lol. Thsi table was crazy loose, i wished I didn't have to wrk in the morning so I could've sat here ALL night, oh well, $425 in 45 minutes isn't too shabby. Back to business.

-Bakken

WOOHOO!!!! I finally won my first poker tourney after finishing just short countless times and man does it feel good. It wasn't a ton of money, only $3163, but that's still about 2 months worth of cash games, it just feels really good to finally win, beating out 245 players, and totally taking command of the table when it became three-handed, I am very happy with the way I played, but I did get EXTREMELY lucky in two spots, and i'll talk about those in a bit.

First the hand that put me in the early chiplead, with blinds at 25-50, I pick up 57 of diamonds on the button and limp with 5 other players in front, the BB makes it 200 to go, EVERYBODY calls, so i do to. Flop comes 554 rainbow, UTG bets 200, MP calls, I raise to 1500, and get two calls!!! By AA and K4, wow did AA really screw up slowplaying this, thiis is why I say it is ALMOST always incorrect to slowplay AA pre-flop, its not invincible and hard to get away from. So I dodged the turn and river and was the early chip leader. I proceeded to build my chipstack, then had a few setbacks from either bad beats or bad plays.

Then this hand came up with about 25 players left, I have about 25K and the Villain has roughly 28K, I pickup JJ on the button, and Villain is in cutoff, he makes a standard $6K raise, looked like it might be a steal, but just in case, I wanted to see a safe flop, so I called. Flop was 1097 rainbow, he leads out 10K like I thought he would, and I moved in for 19K. I kinda thought I was behind, but he had such a range of hands he could be raising with, and I felt if i was gonna win this tourney I needed to double up, so that is why I moved in. BIG MISTAKE! he did have me throttled with KK, until of course the 8 falls on the turn, then I sweated the flush draw on the river and was up to 55K. I proceeded to steal the blinds here and there and before I knew it we were four handed, I ended up moving in preflop with 1010 and got called by AQ and won a race!!!

Now three handed we are all pretty even in chips, I have a pretty good read on both players and before i know it, I am up to 190,000 in chips not from good hands, but from simply outmuscling these two, I just took control of the table and wouldn't let off. I did have a costly hand where I ran into quads when i had a full house, the Villain played it very well, letting me catch up. i once again got on the gas pedal and built back up to 190K, when I knocked out the 2nd in chips when he moved in with AJ, with a j of clubs on a flop of 679 of clubs, I called with JJ and sweated it out.

Heads up the chip counts were ME 300K Villain 90K. He switched gears and was showing a willingness to lose all his chips, so when i got A4 of hearts on the button it felt like AA. I raised to 20K, he moved in, and I instacalled, he shows 89, and flops a nut straight, 567, ARG!, I was so close to winning, but then I see a heart on the turn and realize I still have a backdoor flush draw. I'm thinking to myself "One time baby, please," and then it hits, a gorgeous heart. I felt like Mike Matusow, VINDICATION BABY!, not exactly the way I wanted to win my first tourney, but hey, I had the best hand preflop, and its about time I get to runner runner somebody.

Its time for me to try and sleep, gotta get up and finish my last few days of work. I got some big plans brewing and will reveal them later, but I am going to Vegas on the 16th through the 20th, then to Michigan to visit the ladies and fellas, so that will be a blast! Thanks to Mike for railing tonight, he will be joining me in Vegas.

-Bakken

It is now 2006, and I had some interesting days coming up to New Year's Eve. I got into town on Thursday night and called my buddy Dan, he informed me they were going to his sister's apartment and that I should stop by, so naturally, me being the beer lover that I am, I got there as soon as possible. When I got there they had the beer pong table setup and ready to go, WOOHOO! Now I just had to wait for the first game to end and find a partner, my partner actually ended up being Dan's sister Carly, and we played against Dan and Curt. Here was my problem tho, I love playing beer pong, and we were playing 12 cup instead of 6, and I was putting two beers in my six! Hmmmm...this could get dirty, I was actually quite pleased with Carly's performance at the table, most girls are god awful at beer pong, but she held her ground well, and actually bailed me out a few times. Now the night gets blurry, after my 8th or 9th game of beer pong I wandered upstairs (to puke I think?) and passed out in the bath tub, come to think of it, I wonder if I even puked upstairs??? Well, anyway, then Curt and Adam came upstairs and started doing shit to me, so that was when I decided to go down stairs and take a shower, I remember getting in the shower and nothing else. I woke up in the morning, and man did I do a number on Carly's apartment, I don't even know if I did all the damage but, I am pretty sure it was me. I felt really bad and tried to help clean up a bit, but I was so damn hungover everytime I moved I felt like I needed to go puke again. So I gave Carly some money for the damage (hopefully enough :-/) and hope to be allowed to drink with her again at some point in time.

I got home and have essentially played zero hours of poker again, all I do is play XBOX 360 with my bro, hangout with friends, watch tv, or walk the dog. So I don't have any poker stories :-( But I did finally beat my brother at Call of Duty, WOOHOO!!!! I found my bread and butter, the trench gun, he can't touch me when I have that sweet baby, I look forward to thrashing him again today.

On Saturday, me and my bro went to Duluth and watched the Ringer, it was an ok movie, not super good, but had some funny lines in there. It's prolly worth the trip to the theater if you're bored. We then got back and played some games, watched some movies, and I waited for Dan to call me, he finally called me at like 11, and I was on my way to Superior. Luckily, Dan scored an extra wristband and I was able to get in the bar and get my drink on. It was pretty fun, I saw a ton of people from Two Harbors, including a bunch that I haven't seen since high school.

So that was pretty much my New Years', nothin too exciting, but it was nice to hangout with the Dornfeld crew again, and visiting the family. I should be headin back to the cities either Sunday night or Monday sometime, then its time to get back on the saddle again. It's now 2006 and my earnings start at $0, I closed out 2005 just under $25,000, and frankly I have no fucking idea what I did with any of my profits. I know I need to work on my money managment skills, and plan on implementing a system to help me with it this year. Pure and simple, $25,000 shouldn't just up and disappear, but hey, my family always has been good at blowing money, heh. Hope 2006 has good things in store for all, talk to ya!

-Bakken