The Last 2 Weeks (day 28 i think)

The Final 2 Weeks

Day 28 I think

I have gotten a little (thats an understatement) lazy on updating this blog the last 2 weeks. Not much has changed though lately. My days have basically revolved around workouts with Bobby, grinding 5/10nl at tulalip and snoqualmie casinos, and playing golf to get ready for Savages golf tournament next week in Arizona. Im on a good pace to reach my goal to get under 210 by May 31^st. Last saturday I weighed in at 214.5 after starting the goal at 223.5. I have 4.5 pounds to lose in the 2 weeks which if I focus and work hard should be fairly easy to achieve.

My diet has been fairly standardized as the following

breakfast – egg whites with turkey breast and other veggies in it.

Snack – protein shake

lunch – turkey sandwich with cottage cheese

snack – protein bar

Dinner – Chicken with salad

late night – protein shake

Gotten into a fairly consistent routine with the above meals. Currently eating 2 egg whites with artichoke hearts (really good) and sun dried tomatoes and a small bowl of special K cereal. I try to eat bigger breakfasts in the morning in order to fill me up throughout the day.

Poker has been up and down the last week and a half. I had one killer session where I lost 10k up at Tulalip. The 5/10 game there plays big and plays like a 10/25 later at night depending who is there and who is stuck with the straddles and blind raises etc. Other than that though I have come back strong and made about 4500 in my last 2 sessions since then and had 2 winning sessions before that. 

As for workouts, I have been working with Bobby consistently 5-6 days a week while I have been in town. The biggest and best workout we did was the 300 workout last Thursday. This is a grueling 300 rep workout including pullups, deadlifts, box jumps, floor wipers, pushups and dead clean and press. Basically you do 300 reps of these as fast as you can, same thing the actors from the movie 300 did, hence the name. I completed the workout in 33 minutes and 40 seconds which is not bad at all for my first time. 

Really excited today since I am driving up to Vancouver for game 2 of the NHL Western Conference Finals between the Canucks and Sharks! Going to go to the game with NeverScaredB Ben Wilfonsky, recent winner of EPT Berlin. Also plan to get a drink before the game with Greg Muller and Mike and Adam from the Twoplustwo Poker cast so should be a great time! Will only be my 2^nd ever NHL game since we do not have a team here in Seattle, but I do follow the sport a little bit and have been rooting and following the Canucks throughout the playoffs. 

No Days Off day 17-20

No Days Off Days 17-20

Been super busy over the weekend between workouts and grinding poker. Thursday – Sunday morning are when the 5-10 nl game runs almost around the clock at Tulalip casino which is about 45 minutes from my house. I put in 3 sessions totaling about 28 hours in the 3 days so very happy about that. I made about $3500 in that time. Was very very happy with my play throughout the sessions.

My workouts have been going extremely well with Bobby. On thursday after doing 18 sets (3 super sets ) up stairs we ran a mile on the treadmil. I was told to run it as fast as I could and I did just that. I ran a 7:45 mile which is probably a solid 45 seconds faster than I have ever ran. Yesterdays workout was super tough. We started with a Kettle Bell circuit that involved swings, squats and pushups that was very difficult. We then went into doing 3 minutes str8 of prisoner squats where I would do 20 seconds of squats then hold at the bottom for 10 seconds then 20 secs.... O ya forgot to mention we did all this with a 20 lb weight vest on! Then we did 10 minutes on the stair stepper still with the vest on. Finially we ended doing wheelbarrels across the gym. My body is super soar today.

Nutrition is still going super well and cant wait to weigh in saturday to see where I am at. Thursday I weighed in at 217.5 after starting at 223 so we are making some progress although I feel this weeks numbers will be huge.

This is going to be a quick blog cause im about to go workout with Bobby. This week im basically grinding the local games all week until I leave for New Orleans on Sunday for the $1600 and $10k. After NOLA I head straight to Arizona for the golf tournament then off to vegas for the WSOP. We finally booked a house also! 9 of us including Adam Levy, James St Hiliare, Jesse Chini, Ryan Daut, Adam Hui and Ahmit Makajia. I feel we have a very good chance at winning a braclet in that group!

No Days off Day 16

No Days Off Day 16

BACK TO BACK BLOGS WEEEEE!!!

POKER- Nothing poker wise to report yesterday as none of the 5/10nl games run on wednesdays in Seattle. When im at home Sundays and Wednesdays tend to be my days off as games run the rest of the days. Only thing poker wise I did yesterday was look into book stuff for New Orleans circuit. Im trying to decide how long I want to go down there for. I want to grind some prelim events there to try to get some points for the $1 million dollar freeroll, was thinking of heading down Thursday the 12^th and play the $555, $345, $1k, $1600 main and $10,000. If I dont do that ill just fly in Sunday and play the 1600 on Monday. Ill make that decision and book stuff today hopefully, but hotels look scarce in the area.

Nutrition – Another perfect day eating wise!!! I have been trying to eat a bigger breakfast in the mornings in order to fill me up for the rest of the day.

Breakfast – 3 egg whites, turkey breast and tomatoes

½ cup Special K cerial with some banana

Snacks – 2 bars while golfing.. One Cliff bar and one nature vally bar.

Lunch – Protein bar while on way to gym.

Dinner – Chicken w/ veggies and brown rice w/ salad and light dressing.

Late night – 100 cal muscle milk pre packaged protein shake and protein bar

Fitness -

Wow Bobby kicked my ass today. We started off doing a series of jumping exercises and pushups on a speed ladder for about 5-6 minutes. This is a great start in getting your heart rate up. Next, we did Up Downs with a broad jump all the way across the gym, going up and back twice. Following that we did a 90 sec circuit with a medicine ball which involved 30 secs of squatting and throwing the ball as high as I could up against the wall. Then doing side twist tosses against the wall for 30 seconds on each side. Then the hard part began. Using adjustable weight bands I strapped them around my belly and with Bobby giving resistence behind I had to sprint and drag him across the gym and back 3 times. One of the more physically draining things we have down. Finally we made a make shift slead out of 50 lb kettle bells and a coat and I slid it across the gym floor in kind of a mountain climber position. All in all I was beat after this workout and it was a great start back!

Golf! Yesterday I went golfing at Trilogy golf club at Redmond Ridge. My golf game is really coming around lately and my swing felt very very good yesterday. I struggled on the front nine shooting a 48. But I came back strong on the back nine and shot a 40 with all pars and bogeys. I feel the key to my game is keeping the big number out of play. I will be playing very well then have the random triple bogey etc so that is the part I need to work on the most. I also need to work on my iron game a lot. I am very good off the tee and around the greens but struggle greatly with my iron play. Ill try to take a video of my swing this week and post it on here for analysis :D.

Video of the day- I really dont have any ideas here so I need suggestions!!!! All I can say is go watch videos of Michael Pineda, the Mariners new starter. HE IS A BEAST! Reaching triple digits on the gun!

No Days off Day 15

No Days off Day 15

Poker - So yesterday I caught a early flight back from the WPT in Miami, which was awesome. Great location and poker there. I feel that it will be the biggest stop on the WPT in the next couple of years. The trip overall did not go to well. I never got above starting stack in any of the 5 tournaments I played. Also lost money in cash games there. I have not done the official records yet so don’t have a number but it was not a fun trip poker wise. I was suppose to fly back Monday morning but I switched my flight to Tuesday in order to sweat my good friend Allen Bari at the final table. Unfortunately he did not get the result he wanted with a 5^th place finish. Its always fun and motivating though to sweat these final tables and was glad I switched my flight.

Nutrition- the last couple of days on this trip I really slacked off on my diet. I am home in Seattle for 9 days so I have a could chunk of time to focus on my diet and cook my own food. Yesterday was a good day for me eating well.

Breakfast – Bowl of raisin Brand w/ Banana

Snack- Protein bar and Special K 90 cal bar (while on plane).

Lunch – Protein shake and light yogurt

Snack – protein bar

Dinner – Chicken with Mushrooms tomatoes peppers and a salad with light dressing.

I made up 3 more chicken dinners and brown rice last night also so I have those meals already prepped and portioned out which is very good for me.

Workout.

I got a very good workout in last night. I got in 28 sets in just over an hour at the gym. I did Bis/ Tris and Core. I am expecting a very hard workout with Bobby today as the first one back with him always seems to be the toughest.

Biceps – 1) 21's – 7 curls from down to middle position. 7 curls from top to middle position . 7 full length curls

2. Hammer Curls
3. Seated dumbbell incline curls

Triceps 1) Pulldowns

2. Assisted dips
3. Squat kick backs

Core 1) Seated machine weighted crunchs

2. Side oblique raises
3. V side to side medicine ball with a throw
4. Stir the pot planks on exercise ball.

Today no poker games running in seattle so im going golfing, working out, and going to the Mariners game I believe.

Video of the day- Steve Aoki! Saw him last week in concert and he is the shit!

No days off 10-14 May Goals

 

No Days Off Days 10-14

Alright guys my apoligies for lack of updates in the blog. I flew home from Miami yesterday and have a solid 9 days back here in Seattle before New Orleans Circuit event. Gonna try my very best to blog every morning while im back.

Today we are going to do my goals for May as I try to do at the beginning of every month.

POKER

1. In response to my horrendous start of the year (part bad play part bad luck) I am going to drop down in stakes in cash games. I am going to focus soley on 5/10 nl this month for 2 reasons.
   1. I am extremely comfortable at these stakes money wise
   2. I will get some confidence back playing against weaker opponents.
2. I am going to make $20,000 this month playing 5/10 nl. My original goal was $30,000, but I believe that would be unachievable since at the end of this month I will be going to Arizona before the WSOP for Matt Savages golf tournament.
3. I will play 125 hours minimum at 5/10nl. Again this is lower due to the golf tournament, but I don’t mind having smaller goals that I can 100% crush instead of just meet.
4. I am going to write at least 15 blogs this month. That is at least bi-daily, but hopefully every morning. I also want to improve the blog with more photos, media, etc so look forward to that. I am new to this so working on the fly on the blog.

Fitness and Nutrition

1. Continue with my No Days Off workouts. I am back in Seattle until the 12^th so I want to work out every day with Bobby (my trainer) while I am back in Seattle.
2. The goal is still to get below 210, but hopefully lower
3. Blog my food intake everyday.
4. Cutback on liquid calories (beer :D ) a lot. Only day I might be drinking back in Seattle is tomorrow for Cinco De Mayo.

Video of the day today – Its a Party at the DOJ!

No Days Off Day 10

No Days Off Day 10

POKER – Today was day 1 of the World Poker Tour Main Event here. The buyin was $10,000. Late registration is still open until noon today so we don't know the final number, but 404 people signed up on day 1 which is huge. I expect about 430 to be the final number. I had a pretty good table draw all day but I had absolutely 0 interesting decisions all day. The combination of having 0 hands all day, and the fact of when I had hands I never flopped a pair made most of my decisions pretty straight forward. I made some timely and well played triple barrel bluffs, and check raises etc that helped me maintain my stack. I ended the day with $25,525 chips which is still in very good shape despite being below the starting stack. The blinds start at 200/400/50 today so I still have 65 big blinds. There were no really interesting hands to discuss, hopefully today there will be more as I build my stack to 300k :D.

FITNESS – I got my workout in as usual yesterday before I played. I have now successfully worked out 8 of the 10 days of this challenge which is excellent I think. For my workout yesterday I focused on core since I did a full body circuit the day before. IT included

• 3 sets – Wipers (new core exercise my trainer and I DO)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcNGCG2L0OA

• 3 sets of Side Planks with curl.
  • You do a standard side plank and take a weight and curl it under your body. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1Iz_MatlHk
• 3 sets of weighted crunches on machine
• 3 sets of super mans (10 reps then a 20 sec hold)
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIJ2rcEsaUc

Nutrition – Nutrition was pretty good. I splurged a little on dinner since I had a good day overall

Breakfast – 2 eggwhites w/ ham tomato peppers and small side of fruit

snack – Double scoop protein shake / multivitamin

Snack – Protein Bar

Lunch – Greek Salad with little Italian dressing

Dinner – 8 oz Fillet (No fatty sauces on it just steak sauce) and Lobster tail (no butter)

I also had a few beers during and after my dinner so it wasn’t my best day per say but by no means a bad day for my nutrition.

YouTube Video of the Day! - This is a new thing that could be very fun for the blog. If you have any recommendations of a video send me a message on facebook or in the comments with a video and I might post it. Today- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYjXS0ualQE&feature=player_embedded

This Video is a interview with Matt Savage with this local player here who is flipping crazy. You can here this kid from across the room. Everyone calls him squeaky and say if you play with him you'll want to kill him within 5 minutes lol.

Story of the Day!- As promised on tuesday we had some connections and got to play golf on TurnBerry golf course in Miami. This course is amazing, top 2-3 I have ever played and competes with Pelican Hills for the best. http://www.fairmont.com/EN_FA/Property/TIR/Recreation/Golf/Index

So we are heading to the driving range and we notice someone who looks familiar. As we get closer we notice the Air Jordan golf bag and yes Sir Michael Jordan is warming up on the driving range. Conveniently enough the only stall left open is right next to him so I end up hitting balls on the range right next to Jordan! A few spots down was his playing partner Lawrence Taylor (not joined by any underage women). They ended up playing in the group behind us and it was pretty fucking cool looking back and seeing MJ behind us! Matt Savage has some pictures and ill see if I can get them.

No Days Off 7,8,9

No Days Off

day 7 8 9

Sorry for the Delays guys. I started this blog on Sunday but have been super busy playing here. Going to try and make it habit to write the blog for the previous day while I eat breakfast in the morning. Thus this blog wont have as much strategy / hand analysis as I would like.

Today (sunday) concluded my first week of my program and overall it was a decent success. I did not get in quite as many hours of poker as I wanted to, but I will for sure make sure I make up for that this week. My diet overall was excellent and I got into the gym 5 times so I am very excited with that. This week (I do my weeks Monday – Sunday) I will just be grinding poker at the Hard Rock all week and working out. Hopefully I will get a round or two of golf in down here.

POKER- Sunday was the $1630nl side event at the Hard Rock. I did not expect much of a turnout being that it was Easter, but I was pleasantly surprised that the tournament drew 77 people and was close to 40k to first. I was very happy with how I played compared to Saturday at the Isle casino. The fact that I was able to get a workout in before the tournament made a huge difference. I have decided that it is worth it for me to show up an hour or so late for a tournament if it means me getting a workout in the morning in. Overall I just did not get anything going in the tournament. I got no action on my big hands and got called down on one triple barrel spot that was maybe a little to reckless, but I do not think it was that bad. Result - -$693 note – I sell action at markups for most tournaments so for my records I will just recording my buyins on here.

I took a couple hour break after busting the tournament and went and laid by the pool here, which is very nice. Late reg'd the 630pm 1k mega at the last second and played that for about 20 minutes before running my 99 into 88 :(.

Finally I got my first cash game session in here at the Hard Rock. Tons of tables were going and by the end of the night they had 3 10-25 nl games running. The game started off fairly dead and was just a bunch of tight passive players. The game was still good, there were no really good players, just no one dumping chips at the table. After midnight though, which is normally the case, the action started flowing and the game got very good.

Sat + Sunday total hours = 15 hours

Profit = -$970

Monday- Played the $2160 6max tournament but only for about 30 minutes haha. Late registered about an hour in after getting my workout. I did not win a single pot and lost a bunch of small pots before getting in KQ vs AQ for 25 bb in a pretty standard spot. I played 2 megas later that night and like before busted both of those very quickly unfortunately. Also played a 1k sng satellite and got 1k in last longers going but got very unlucky and busted that.

Monday Profit - -$5043 total for trip = approx -6k

Monday hours – 6.5 total for trip = approx 21

Tueday- Yesterday was mega satellite day. This is possibly the most profitable day of any series, but is also 100% the most frustrating, annoying, make you want to kill yourself day and today was no exception. Got it in very good every time and held 0%. Lost 2 megas and a 1500 sng and quit early for the night.

Tuesday Profit = $-3625

Tuesday Hours = 5

Wednesday- (writing this blog at breakfast this morning) Today is the $10k WPT event here and I am feeling great for it. Follow updates at Worldpokertour.com!

NURTRITION – I am not going to go into specifics on this blog post due to its already long length, but my diet has been very good all week considering I have been traveling. I have been focusing a lot on a good breakfast in the morning (3 eggwhites with fruit) and protein bars / shakes throughout the day. In the future when I start blogging every morning (I E TOMORROW! I promise!) ill get back to my normal routine of writing in my food log etc.

Fitness - My workouts have been great here! I have only missed one day in the gym and that was the day I arrived simply because I was super tired from flying in. ill do a quick synopsis here.

Sunday – I did a bands circuit that my trainer taught me. Its great only takes 30 mins and is a awesome full body workout. Im using a 3 bands adjustable weight (U add or remove bands for resistance. The circuit is as follows, u do 15-20 reps of each exercise with no rest. After all 8 u rest 1 minute then complete again 3 full circuits.

1. Lunge to shoulder press
2. Back Rows
3. Fighter Curls (biceps)
4. Sky Punches (shoulders
5. Squat to chest press
6. Log Curls (biceps and back)
7. Shot Puts (Core)
8. Y raises (back)

Monday – I did a simple but tough core routine that my trainer taught me

Tuesday – I did a full body heavy lifting circuit and ran a mile after words.

Again future blogs will be a lot better of explaining my workouts diets etc but this thing is way to long. Just want to finish with saying that my body feels absolutely amazing 9 days into this and cant wait to keep it going. Time to go get me a WPT championship! 

PS. also in the future going to try to improve this blog a lot. GOing to get pictures up (will upload my Berlin Pics from last week soon.) and video links etc! 

Tomorrows blog teaser- Story of playing golf with / next to michael jordan and lawrence taylor yesterday :D

No Days Off - Day 6

No Days Off Day 6 Saturday 4-23-11

Poker -

I traveled to Hollywood, Florida to the Hard Rock casino last night on a redeye flight. The World Poker Tour is up here for the first time ever and the excitement here is great. I got in at about 7:30am this morning and unfortunately my room was not ready here (the casino is about 25 min north of Miami, right outside of Fort Lauderdale). Today poker was not great. I played day 1b of the $3200 main event at the Isle Casino. We started off with 30,000 chips at 25/50 blinds and it was super fun to play 600bb deep tournament poker. I feel that way to many tournament pros underestimate these levels as I feel extremely comfortable playing early on deep stack poker. I feel there are tons of chips to be gained early. I believe I won 7 or 8 of the first 10 hands at the table and was quickly up to about 38,000 and feeling really good. That was the extent of my good fortune though as bad play coupled with bad timing lead to my demise. A few missed draws / bad bluffs/ call downs and I quickly was down to 25,000. The biggest pot of the day was as followed and im still not sure if it was good or bad.

BB Ac7h approx 20,000 chips

CO 600 - the co was open extremely wide and even showed down J5o raising from the CO and just seemed like a tricky spazz happy player.

Button calls- tighter player who seemed somewhat competent from what I had seen

BB I raise to 2000

I could certainly fold here or flat, although I like folding a lot more than flatting. By 3 bet squeezing I give my self the opportunity to win the pot preflop, gain control of the flop betting, just overall I think I will show a decent profit squeezing here based on how wide the CO was opening and the button's flatting range (I was more scared of the button in this hand than the CO).

The button snap called the 3 bet and the button came along so there was about 6000 in the pot.

FLOP Ah Kh 5s pot 6000

I bet 2500

About the best flop I could have. I most likely here have the best hand. I think the key part here is my Cbet sizing. With a A hi board here I feel my continuation bet with my whole range should be very small because A ) if im bluffing I don’t need to bluff much to get them to fold 77 88 etc... and it leaves me more room to barrel the turn if they do call. Here my Cbet is for value yet I don’t want to bloat the pot to much but I still decide to cbet because I think it is just better than check calling here cause I don’t induce many bluffs.

CO folds

Button tanks and moves all in for 11,900 total

Bleh this spot sucks and is one of the disadvantages of squeezing preflop here with a marginal hand like A7o. My first though is what price im getting. There is 6000 + 2500 + 11900 so about 20,500 and I have to call 10,000 about. So im getting about 2-1 so I only need to be right once out of every 3 times to break even so I need about 25% equity to break even. The button never has AA KK or AK here cause he 3 bets those pre or back raises after I squeeze. So his value hands are AQ, AJ and 55. Since the A and K of hearts are out there it makes it tough for him to have a pair + FD other than like 56hh. I ended up making the call here based on POT odds and I think he has 56hh enough and if he does have a hand such as AJ or AQ I have some chop equity and a back door FD. I also think a small % of the time he could have the random T8hh or something which I am in great shape against. He had 55 and I was drawing slim and lost. This though is the worst case and I still have like 10% equity.

I bled down my short stack in some unfortunate situations Before jamming 13 justin beibers (ya I said it) with Jtss after 2 limps and getting called by AQ.

Overall not that happy with my performance but after writing about that hand I don’t feel as bad about it as I did before as I am getting a very good price to call on the flop vs his range and it is hard to make sets / I have an A blocker to AQ and AJ.

Im to tired to play cash tonight I think so just gonna wait till tomorrow and play the $1500 prelim at the Rock which I expect to be small prob less than 60 players.

Nutrition-

My first day traveling on my no days off was pretty good food wise. While my diet is never “perfect” and I don’t expect it to be, I am making every good food decisions when I can.

Breakfast – 3 egg white omelet w/ ham, jalapenos, tomatoes , peppers, salsa

small portion of fruit salad

Snack / lunch -

Beef Jerky

protein bar

protein shake

Dinner -

I ate at a buffet for the first time of this series and I should probably get used to it with how much I travel. I felt I did alright considering some of the options. I was very good about skipping the obvious bad stuff

• 2 portions of lobster
• Salad (don’t know what kind of dressing so could have been bad?)
• Steak – was a very lean cut of some kind of roast not sure what
• dinner roll (don’t know why I ate this.... grr)
• Ahi Tuna (had a decent amount of this and I assume it is very healthy)

Snack – Protein bar

Overall a very clean day for being on the road! I am making sure I pack plenty of bars / shakes when I go to play so I don’t eat bad at the table.

Fitness

I did not workout today unfortunately. I just didn’t have the energy after playing the tournament an traveling. So for my first week as long as I work out tomorrow I will be at 5 days in the gym, while below my goal of 6 is still a good start.

Just going to chill for the remainer of the night. Its 10pm here and its weird being on the east coast and just having sporting events start on the west coast. Gonna head down to the bar (only a couple light beers :D) and watch the San Jose Sharks game with Matt Savage and sort of see where the night takes me, but I plan on taking it ez.

No days Off

NO DAYS OFF OVERVIEW

This idea was inspired by my good friend Tony Dunst and his workout / diet / poker program called No Days Off. His blog can be found @ www.tonydunstpoker.com.

Plan and simple this is a 6 week program for me leading up to the WSOP. It will run April 18-May31. For this 6 week period my main objectives everyday are to play poker and get in shape through a good diet and strong workouts.

My main goals are

Poker – Play a shitload of hours and make $35,000 during this time

Weight loss – I weighed in at 223.5 and myy goal is to get below 210 by the end.

My blog will be starting from Day 6 cause I just decided to start blogging about this. Expect to see updates on Poker, nutrition , and my workouts. I will be posting hand histories from tournaments etc we will just see how this goes. Sort of winging this blog.