I’ve been in Los Angeles for about a week, I’ve been and doing fairly well in satellites, although a little unlucky in the main events. I’ve lived in LA and do have a few friends here, so it’s nice to see a few familiar faces. I had dinner with Erbloore (UltimateBet) at Steven’s Steakhouse and he seems like a nice dude. We both killed our respective $200 NL max/min buy-in games and enjoyed a few drinks and a hearty meal. The $200 NL games are pretty easy out here, and I’m seeing a lot of the good players win way too much it seems (for a $200 NL game); $3000 stacks are not uncommon on that table. Another friend of mine from Lucky Chances casino won four racks in about 8 hours.

I played the $1k PL HE (1000 chips 2 optional 1000 chip rebuys) event yesterday and made it to about 60th out of 227 (I think). My starting table had some names, Charlie Shoten, Rafe Furst, Chris Grigorian, but they all busted out pretty quick. I got a few chips when I made a small raise with 67 (250) at the 50-100 level and the flop brought a 248. The player bet a little less than the pot, and I raised all in. 9 turn, 9 river to give me the flush vs. his K8 in this heads up hand. I didn’t make any poor decisions, just got bad cards on a fairly loose and agressive table. I was widdled down to about 1400 chips, with the average around 4500, and I had to make a decision with A5, based on the fact that it was
1) the last hand at that blind level,
2) my table was being broken after the hand, and I could be moved right into a big blind,
3) the raiser was a fairly loose player, and
4) it was the first ace I’d seen in about a century.
So, I looked at his 1050 pot sized raise from my button position and decided to throw it all in. He called the small difference and he showed AQ. To my delight, the first card I saw off the flop was a 5! The flop was A25, a great flop for me. Turn 8, river………… Q, uggggggggggggggggggh! Oh well…

Today, there is a $1k NL shootout, which I will play if I win a satelite beforehand. I played a satellite yesterday with some very volatile dude, who I made a deal with that I’m regretting. This guy broke every single rule you can break in a satellite: F word, bad language, phone calls, moving around, throwing cards; I nicknamed him MR. INFRACTION. Anyhow, there are 5k chips in play and we get heads up. We are at 700 for me and 4300 for him. We play for a while, and I’m making some good moves (blinds are 100-200 when we start), and I get up to about 2000. The prize pool is a grand total of $1000 in chips and $80 in cash for the winner. I offer to take $400, and he says $300 (he’s also won a $300 last longer with some of his buddies). I say no and we play on.

I’m playing very well and get to about a 3700 stack, and I offer that I’ll take $400 and 15% of him in the PL HE event, and he goes nuts on me, thinking I’m trying to screw him. Blinds are 300-600 at this point, and 1 or 2 hands will win it. I don’t know why, but I offered this jerk an even chop and he took it, end of story. I don’t feel good about it, but oh well. I won’t purposely try and bust this guy if I run into him again, but I’ll feel good if I do.

I’ve not been online because my fantastic Compaq computer has not been working. If anyone is at the commerce, please come by and say hello. BTW, I saw John Murphy and he mentioned he’d never played PL HE before, and when I busted, he had a mountain of chips. He seems to be the real deal, and a nice guy ta boot.

EDK