10 Oct 2009

I know I said I wanted to start blogging a few times a week and posting them here on P5’s about just life in Iraq as a civilian contractor as well as grinding some tourneys threw out the week. I have actually been working on two different article/blogs, after listening to some old shows from pokerroad.com I came up with the idea to write a blog on what I think the responsibilities of the members of the November 9 are to help endorse the game of poker as whole. The second is actually more of a strategy/training article on my theory of bubble play, I have about a quarter of it done, but I still have need to finish it and then get someone to review, probably bond18 or someone.

So life in Iraq! We got a new unit out at the base I’m working at, right on the Syrian border, they are a bunch of reservists, and are real high strong thinking this is Fallujah circa 2005, when really we are just in basically southern Arizona forward. Things are quite here and work is really slow, which is good it gives me time to think a lot about my poker game and the inevitable more to Vegas when<SPAN> </SPAN>I get back to grind 2/5 on the reg and finish up my degree at UNLV. I also started watching some of the free vids from poker savvy plus and think they are really well done, but I have also never been a paying member of card runners or PXF, the bandwidth out here really doesn’t allow tho.

As for results, I hadn’t been playing much, after taking a helicopter (sick brag) to a bigger base and being gone for about a week, I returned to my base and got back to my slow paced easy life, and started playing a lot the past few days on full tilt poker, going to stick with the smaller fields for another week or two till I go back to my passion of pstars. I won my first tourney in Iraq yesterday, just a small 5.50 nlo8 tourney. About 230 people to include my buddy Mr Dibbles, and I took a early chip lead and just was patient and waited for good spots, and went to the final table as one of the chip leaders, and just grinded it out, took a big chuck of chips off the chip leader and waited to get heads up where I believe the heads up match lasted about 3 hands and I had about a 5-1 chip lead and flopped an open ended against his top pair and got it and I hit my straight on the turn to take down the tourney. I also played the $ 55 20k on ftp it had about 550 people and I played very well, pretty nitish wasn’t getting many hands, I made it into the money and with about 15BBs I got it in with A10 against the A5 of P5’s own Apes Are Fun and he flopped the obvious 3 outer and left me with about 2k in chips (I talked some crap to apes are fun in chat but it was just out of good humor, I think I said apes are gay or something but no harm no foul, hope you FTed it.) So yea I was down to 2k and actually built it back up to about 18k and got it in, in a real bad spot but I was super short, oh well I think we took 33<SUP>rd</SUP> in that.

As for music while im sitting in this god forsaken country and grinding, I have been listening to a lot of newer hip hop, taking me away from the usual hip hop from the late 90s which were the best years in raps history. The Blueprint 3 by Jay Z is so sick I really enjoy that album, Jay Z gets a lot of crap from critics, but he has been around longer than most and I don’t see him going anywhere. Also I am not sure how long he has been around considering I’m about a decade behind the rap curve except for lil Wayne but Kid Cudi is a sikko, the album man on the moon – The end of day, is great, I really recommend it if you have not heard him or this album.

Back to poker for a minute before I wrap this blog up, So in about 10-11 months I am moving to Vegas (which I have already noted) however I have two of my boys moving out there with me, and I am either going to buy a house or condo out there, and they are going to pay the house bills and stuff instead of rent, pretty great deal for them, anyway one of them Is Jon Wright, (Mr J Dibbles , J Dibbles) whom is a great player, and is only a few scores away from becoming one of the online greats, but the other won is my friend Rob Kilpatrick (kilby283) he just signed up for his first money account online yesterday, and I shipped him a little bit to play some micro stakes. He knows he has a lot to learn, be basically plays super tight which isn’t a bad thing for online tourneys when you are first starting off, but he played to tight that when he got into the bigger blinds, he didn’t stand a change and actually got close to the money in 2 of the 4 tourneys I watched him in, but he got way to short and then unlucky with KK in one to actually push through the bubble. I think trying to teach him will help my game out in the long run.

Well I think only 4 people read this silly blog anyway but it helps me get my thoughts out and takes some time well I sit at the port of entry from Syria to Iraq.<SPAN> </SPAN>

Interesting fact. 67 days till I am back in NJ for 21 days on vacation and 69 days till the wsop circuit event im going to play in AC while I am back. Pretty sure im playing the 2250 deep stack event. It will be so nice to be back and playing live.

Finally ~ really Obama wins the Nobel prize not even a year INTO his presidency, kinda lame if you ask me, that’s like Mike Vick being named PETA’s person of the year a year after getting out of prison.

Chexraisen out

Greetings fellow poker players

My name is Rick Allen and I am an online/live player that has been playing poker seriously for over three years now. I stated off like most players as a complete fool, and basically gave my money away. I have over the past few years tried to become a better player but I have never actually became a student of the game; well that is about to change. <SPAN> </SPAN>

My online poker name is Chexraisen on most sites, and I generally play the lower limit MTT’s and sometimes I will attempt to jump up and play the Sunday mil or some other higher stake buy in. I think my problem at the MTT’s higher than a $109 buy in is that I get anxious about the buy in and make mistakes that I know better than to make.

I guess you could say what makes me different then the rest of pocket five members, well I am currently deployed as a civilian contractor to Iraq, helping our military with the fight on terror, I am a prior Marine with 5 years served and got out in 2006.

In my blogs, I hope to post my results, when I have the chance to play, I also hope to write about other hot topics in the poker world that listen or hear about on pokerroad.com or other sites. I plan on eventually posting hand histories of interesting spots I get myself into, as well as maybe some training videos, after I get them reviewed by some of my bigger named poker buddies. Finally I will post sites I come across that I think will help other growing poker players, and finally I plan on having some fun with this being I am in Iraq I do get to do some cool stuff so I will throw some sick brags about events in my life.

Thank you all and I hope to develop some readers over time.

Rick Allen

Nothing new has really been going on in the life of Rick "chexraisen" Allen the last few weeks. Been getting killed in the hyper turbos on pokerstars, its sick how bad you can run in them; however it is my own fault alot of the tournies i try to hyper turbo into it would be alot cheaper to just by into them on a daily basis. So I am taking a break from online poker till probably the 17th of May then I will be on a business trip in Maine. I come back from that trip and then its time to head off to vegas for the WSOP, kinda pumped for it this year, after a disappointment last year, it just seems both the past two years my cash game play has been outstanding leading up to the series but my tourny play has been lackluster. I did FT a 10 doller rebuy like 50 person tourny last week however it was a donkoment and I had no intention on playing just dicked around till the cash game started and sold 40 percent of my action and turned it into a free roll for me, and i played well and 810 off called my all in 5 handed i had 44 and they hit quad 10s lol so sick but oh well its what you get when you play with a bunch of idiots that shouldnt be at the final table to begin with . I am for sure playing the 1k stimulious event even tho that is going to be a huge donkoment i do believe alot of people are going to be playing abnormaly tight because they are getting a chance to play a wsop for cheap. So that means I will be playing hyper aggressive and trying to accumulate alot of chips early in day one then i will settle down, or i will bust early because again it is only a 1k event. I just found out i am goign on another business trip june 8th - 13th so that eliminates the 3k horse another 1500 nl event i wanted to play. so basically my wsop is going to based on when i have time to get to vegas or just play the one event.

The NBA playoffs have been awesome thus far, if you look back to my only blog post before this i say the NBA hasnt been this good since the Jordan Era and I think the actions of the bulls/celts in round 1 is enought to justify that statement. I am a NJ Nets fan but i just love sports in general, and as a basketball fan I would love to see Kobe vs Lebron in the finals, but i wouldnt be sad to see JJ redick and the Magic to alright as well.

I met this girl from up in tucson, and im seeing where it goes, nothing serious has come of it tho, but were taking things one day at a time, I hope it goes well its nice having a steady girl back in my life, she has almost became my mediun to balance out poker and my life. She is in finals right now at u of a so i dont get to see her much this past week but she is going to vegas withi me for the wsop 1k simulious so who knows maybe she will bring me some luck against all the donks that will be playing that event.

Also I am thinking in july/August to take a vacation somewhere I have plans and flights to fly back to jersey in August but I mean a real vacation some where tropical, no casinos just some booze an island maybe some water sports and alot of relaxing.

chex