The weather there isn’t favorable, but it’s more affordable than my beloved L.A. and it’ll be a great place to raise a family.  I’ll probably come back to L.A. quite a bit though, since it’s only a Southwest flight away.

Until then, I shouldn’t have a problem staying busy.  I have around 17 clients at the moment and been playing a lot myself.  Reed and I are going to either St. Louis or Houston to watch Kansas in the 3rd & 4th rounds in a couple weeks and I may go watch St. Mary’s next week depending on which location that they draw.  Crystal is visiting this weekend and I’m going to Kansas for Easter and hopefully for the Final Four as well.  After that, I’ll be pretty much dedicated to the chair and computer for the remainder of April and May.  It’s imperative that I’m in an appropriate financial situation before I leave for Las Vegas on May 24/25th.

Ironically, I’m watching American Idol at the moment.  There’s only one way to watch AI and that’s with Tivo.  I can’t remember life without it.

Fast forward a few months.  Hailey and I had been watching American Idol every week.  I felt that the bet was to bet on the guys to win at -110 several weeks  into the competition.  The girls seemed pretty weak to me.  I didn’t make the bet in time and when the competition was down to 36 the line had dropped to something like -330.  There was no way I was going to bet 100 to win 30ish, so I decided to bet it on a person to win.  I scouted the bets for a few weeks.  I thought Kris Allen would be a good person to wager on.  Every 12 year old girl was going to vote for him like they voted for Jason Castro last year.  KA seemed like a lock to make the last 4 to me.  When he hit 25 to 1, I jumped all over it for my case money in the Sports.com account - $100.  It’s amazing how this has transpired.  I remember making large compulsive sports bets all those years ago.  In the end, I actually made money, but it was very bleak there for a while.  I was making 500 - 1,000 bets almost randomly.  I faded disaster then, kicked that habit and now somehow have $2,600 in my account.

Ah, it feels sooo nice!  I’d like to thank the supposed 38 million votes that came in from Arkansas out of the near 100 million votes made.  Yeah, you may have stolen most of your name from my beloved, but I sure as heck don’t care about that now.  Yes, I’m going to send my i.d. verification now.

Reed and I are going to live at The Pointe in Woodland Hills starting in a couple months.  It’s really nice and should serve as a very good home base for 9/10 months.  I’m moving things out Thursday and Friday, spending the weekend with Hailey - I think we’re going to the La Brea tar pits - and I’m off to Vegas on Monday!  Tonight, we’re watching American Idol and I’ll be voting religiously for Kris Allen.  I decided not to hedge and just go for it all.  He’s currently running at 12/5 on Bodog.  That’s a lot better than the 25/1 price that I got him at.  Gogogogogogogo…

Hailey and I concocted an alcoholic beverage for Saturday’s graduation.  She got the recipe from Cosmo.  The ingredients were cranberry juice, lemonade, 3 types of polmegranate and vodka.  It was quite the hit for those that drank it.  During the graduation, Marla made her way over to us before she was called up to get her diploma.  She was visibly drunk after having gone to a pre-graduation celebration at The Hacienda, a very good Mexican restraunt, earlier that morning.  Being the great brother that I am, I hooked her up with a bottle of it and she took it with her back to her seat.  Now if you know my sister, you’ll know that this is unlike her.  About 1,600 students were called to the stage and received a diploma.  Marla was the only student that ran up to the person that was to hand her the diploma and jumped into his arms in celebration.  They had 2 big screens showing the action from the stage so everyone saw it quite well.  It was hilarious.  And no, she didn’t know the person.  It must have been that extra kick of alochol that I had given her and probably a lot of bottled in excitment as well.  She was rightfully excited.  I’m very proud of her.

I played 2 sessions of cash games today and it didn’t go particularly well.  I lost 1,000 playing 100 & 200 NL.  I ran pretty terribly, but I’m very happy with one thing in particular.  In the last month, I’ve played 9-handed 400 & 600 NL when it’s running.  I was very cautious about game selection.  In doing so, I noticed that I was playing much differently at those tables and it wasn’t for the good.  I was playing overly cautious and at other times very stubbornly.  It didn’t feel very good at all.  I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately and in doing so I’ve lost much of the desire that I had previously to play at those limits online.  This is a very good thing and especially after losing 7,500 at Commerce the other day.  Things are really starting to line up for me I feel.  At this point, I’m in a position of great comfort playing 100 & 200 online and playing higher only in live cash games.  Lately, I’ve been playing in the later evening hours and I think I’m going to continue doing that.  This will allow for me to have more time to play live during the day and early to mid evening hours.  I’ll have to wait until mid-August to see how this schedule will go.  As long as I play regularly at Commerce and play well of course, everything should work itself out with the rest of the business ventures that I take part in.  I’m going to try my best to practice this type of a schedule when I’m Vegas this summer.

Tomorrow I have the second charity golf tournament of the year.  This one if for the high school that Matt, Russell and myself graduated from.  We’re also golfing with another grad from Chaminade.  This tournament is a shamble.  Each player takes their first shot, the best shot is chosen and each member of the team plays their own ball out from there.  I’d rather it be the scramble format from last week, but I’ll do my best to contribute in this format tomorrow.

So, I went to Commerce last night.  I started at 5/10 and made a terrible play that left me not wanting to leave.  I grinded out half my losses back there before I went to play 10/20 after the easy spots made their way to the exit.  The 10/20 was playing relatively slow which I liked until this Russian player sat down.  Boy, was he ready to play.  I’ve never seen someone get away with so many bluffs and continue to keep showing.  It was miraculous.  He went broke twice early and then went on a heater after the worst fold I’ve seen in a while.  Tight player raises in a straddled pot to 150 and 4 players call him.  The flop comes J73.  Russian check/calls 400.  The turn is a Q.  There are now clubs and spades on board.  Russian bets 500 and tight player calls (lol).  The river completes the flush and Russian goes ai for 800.  Tight player tanks and folds QQ face up.  Russian shows K3.  I have no idea what the other guy was thinking obviously and neither did he nor anyone else.

the Russian goes on a tear.  He built his 2,000 rebuy up to 8,000ish when Hand #1 comes up.  I’m really upset about this one and will be for a long, long time.  I’ve always wanted to be able to make this type of play and wasn’t able to pull the trigger when the opportunity arose.  It’s my straddle.  Action is folded to the Russian and he raises to 240 which he had been doing just about half the hands per round.  I call with ATcc.  We’re headsup.  The flop is 744 with 1 club and he bets 400.  I call.   The turn is the 5c.  He bets 600.  I deliberate for a little time and raise to 1,600.  Also, there was an A9 (no club) exposed pre after I had already called.  The Russian asked the dealer for no point on 2 occasions I believe.  Immediately after I raised, the Russian said, “reraise 2,200.”  So, it was only 1,100 to me.  It really smelled fishy.  He was bluffing so much and I just didn’t believe him.  To be honest, Iwas thinking more about trying to raise him off a better hand and not a bluf or AJ/AQ/AK.  The problem is that I only had 2,600ish after the 1,100.  I thought for several minutes trying to find more money (lol) to raise with.  In hindsight, I should have listened to my guy.  It was crying out to me, but I couldn’t think clearly because it was obvious to me that I at least had to call.  This guy didn’t have a 4 or a full house.  I was very certain of that.  I thought too much about the outs that I had rather than the merits of shipping it in his face.  I finally called.  The river was an 8 completing a backdoor straight.  He immediately bet 1 stack of 100s for 2,000 and said, “2000.”  I immediately felt that he was bluffing, but I just wasn’t thinking clearly.  I wasn’t prepared for this situation after awaiting it for 5+ years.  Here I was in a spot to make the HOF bluff for my last 600 and I was so confused I forgot to pull the trigger.  I thought for another couple minutes.  I knew that he could have me beat with AJ/AQ/AK, but I didnt’ put the pieces together and realize with confidence that he couldn’t call with those hands.  I even said, “I’m going to be so sick when you show AK” right before I threw my hand away.  He showed KJ and I wanted to throw up.  This was a terrible lapse of judgement on my part.  I genuinely felt that he was going to show a bigger A and for some reason I didn’t raise allin for my last 600.  I simply just wasn’t prepared for this one.

I regained my composure and battled back.  In less than an hour, I was a winner in the game again.  I kept chipping away at and the Russian.  Then, Hand #2 came up.  The Russian raised to 120 early, I called with KK.  This was really stupid looking back.  I was more afraid of him folding more than anything but I did have position on him and why I just flatted.  My friend Jerry called behind me.  The flop was JT5 with 2 hears.  The Russian cbet 240, I called and Jerry raised to 800.  The Russian thought for a few moments and called.  I backraised to 3,200.  Jerry folded.  Action is back to the Russian.  He has 6,960 left.  He thinks for a few moments…

TR:  “Will you check it down if I call?”

Me:  “No.”

TR:  “Ok, I’m all in.”

Me:  “I call”

I show KK.  He shows AJ.

Jerry:  “Don’t worry [Mike].  I had AJ.”

Turn… X

River… J

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.  I have a golf tournament in the morning until the early evening and have to write a paper that is worth 50% of  my grade that is due on Tuesday at 2:00.  I got a A-/B+ on the first paper.  Not sure what that means yet, but I’m not too worried about it.  I’m writing the paper on a pasttime of mine.  Television!  I choose to The Office to write my semiotic analysis on.  I also have an Anthro paper to write this week as well that I would like to get done by Tuesday afternoon, so I have the rest of the week to attend to more important things.  We’ll see how that going.

I’m just about settled with next year’s living situation.  Matt is going to live in Santa Monica next year, so it’s going to be Reed (badbeatme) and I next year again as roommates.  It should be a blast.  We’re trying to sign a 9/10 month lease at The Pointe in Woodland Hills.  It’s half way between Friday’s and B.J.s and right across the street from Morton’s.  The rent is the same that I’m paying this year, but I’m sure with such close proximity to the aforementioned places I’ll be spending a lot more money on food and drinks next year.

Anyways, back to the voting process.  AI needs to stop letting people vote an unlimited amount of times just so Seacrest can say, “We had 35, 37, 42, 47 million votes!  A new record!”  Adam almost got knocked off because people are voting for who they don’t want to get knocked off and not who is the next American Idol.  The only reason the save was necessary was because of this.  Here’s a solution to the problem

First, I think it would be better for voters to vote for who they want to be ELIMINATED rather than to stay on until there are 10 contestants remaining.  This will most likely never happen though since it will confuse people once you start to vote for the contestant that you want to stay.

Voters should have 6 votes with 11-16 contestants remaining, 5 votes with 9-10 remaining, 4 votes with 7-8, 3 votes with 5-6, 2 votes with 4 and 1 vote with 2-3.  Each phone number can vote for each contestantly only once per week.  The remainder of the votes can be used on the other contestants.  Lets get rid of the judge’s save and not lettle Paula babble on so that they run out of time every other week.

Until then things change, please vote endlessly on Kris Allen FTW!

Today I have a practice round at Porter Ranch in preparation for the golf tournaments that I’ll be participating in.  The first is this upcoming Monday and the next is the following Monday.  I’ll be golfing with my brother, Russell and Unknown.  I hope to not be a complete hack and left to drink heavily throughout the tournament.  American Idol is only a few weeks away from the Finals.  Although it’s unrealistic, I hope that Kris Allen is able to somehow finish 1st.  If so, I’ll be $2,500 richer.  If anything, I’d appreciate to sweat it for another week.

I’m very pleased with the decisions that I’ve made so far in 2009.  In each of the last three years, I wasn’t satisfied with the way that I went into the WSOP.  Unless I do something unorthodox, that won’t be the case this year.  Certianly, things could have gone better, but I’m not going to find a reason to complain.  I’m content.  I’m going to continue to play 100/200NL just about every day and try to turn things around and start to play much more steadily.  In backing/coaching, I want to get a couple ponies to play a little more consistently and once I’m done with school I’m going to play a handful of sessions at Commerce.