I’m sitting here at my house, eating a bowl of ice cream and gathering my thoughts about the past week in Vegas. The trip took a big toll on my mind and body. I literally spent everyday playing poker. It messes up your eating patterns, you’re sitting stationary for numerous hours, and then on top of all that, throw in the added stress of bad beats. It could make a man go insane!

Poker is a funny game. Even if you think you are the best poker player in the world, there’s always an element of luck involved. Nothing is guaranteed and the cards still have to be played out. All you can do, from a personal standpoint, is make correct decisions and get your money in when you have the best of it. Other than that, you can’t control other people and you definitely have no control over the cards.

I took some serious beats this past week. I took a fair share of ones where I was over an 80% favorite and got sent packing for my tournament life. What I think it taught me is how to maintain composure during stressful situations and patience. I truly believe success will come to those that put in the time and effort into anything that they do and want to accomplish. One of my goals in poker is to have a big tournament win and in time, that will come. If I keep doing what I’m doing, gradually become a better poker player, I WILL win a big event. One of these times, all the things that are suppose to go my way, will, and that will lead to success.

I did not enjoy the WSOP $1500 event I played in. I don't think I'll ever play a $1500 event again unless the stucture changed. I think it is geared for pros or deep pocket invidivuals who can gamble early to try and build a chipstack or just get bust out and go sit their 50/100 NL cash game and make that back in one hand. I think thats why they have 2 events a day, so if pros do go busto early, they can just hop right in to the next one. I did however, LOVED the Caesar's Mega stack event. It is a very good structure and you get a ton of play early. In the 4 I played in, I lasted well over 5 hrs on all of them, made it to dinner break in 1, and 2 levels after dinner break in another one. I went fairly deep, just not deep enough to cash. I would recommend either Caesars or Venetian (which has a similar buy in/stucture) to anybody looking to play real poker.

I was going to take a few weeks off from poker just to relieve my mind a little bit but I think I’m just going to go forward and not worry too much about what happened in the past. The Vegas trip did take a hit on the bankroll but I feel confident I will be able to build it back up in the next few months and maybe have another run at it in the fall.

All in all, it was a fun trip. I was in good company, had some great laughs, learned a lot of new things, and meet some great people. 

See you at the felt!

TK