Slowly gearing up for the SCOOP

The SCOOP is coming ladies and gentlemen. I'll basically be in a one tracked mind the first two weeks of April. This series is the best series I've seen an online site put together because it has three different target audiences. Every main event for the SCOOP (on Pokerstars) has low, medium, and high buy in. If the low starts at 10, multiply it by 10 to get the medium event, and multiply that by 10 to get the high event. I plan on playing basically every low and medium event. I'm working on playing step sit n gos at the moment to win my way into the bigger events as I'd love to participate in them. Aside from that, I have some aunts and uncles and cousins coming into town which is always good. It's tough being far away from family a lot of the time.

The past few weeks, I've been playing a very small tournament schedule. I've played most Sundays and Wednesdays and a few days in between, but I want to be totally focused and in gear come time to play the SCOOP. The Bellagio has another series coming up, but I only plan on playing one or two smaller events unless I ship a monster tourney in the SCOOP. I'm feeling pretty good despite no notable results.

One thing I've really wanted to address lately is my emotional control. I've been reading a book called The Joy of Living and also following some of the meditation practices in it. The self-awareness of how my own mind works has been quite enlightening to say the least. I plan on continuing the practices in this book. Everyone knows that I've had an ability to get caught up way too emotionally in the game of poker to the point where it's probably not even good for my health as far as the stress goes. For the last 4 days or so after putting a lot of this into practice, I've understood what my mind does in situations and how it often resorts to negativity which then spirals out of control to the point where it almost always ruins my day. As a tournament player, most days end in disappointment, but they don't have to always affect me. I would recommend this book for basically anyone, but especially poker players.

I'm Zonked

14 hours later after about 20 tournaments, I bubbled both the Sunday Major HORSE Final Tables with a 10th and 11th. I'm playing that mix of games very well right now. I also ran fairly good in both to get that far, but just ran like absolute garbage near the final table bubble. I cashed in a couple of other tournaments and felt like all day I was just getting coolered hard and losing lots of races. It has been an absolutely long day. I'm a slight loser on the day, but I'm still fighting. It has been a rough few months, but despite all the bad that has come of it, I'm still not in too bad of shape for the year. It's probably likely I go on about a 120k heater in the next two months, so be prepared for good news.

Sit & Go Grind and some Cleveland talk

With the big tournaments not going quite as planned lately, I've sat back and started multi-tabling the 27-38 dollar sit & gos on Pokerstars. I actually got 5th in the high orbit leaderboard for an extra $200. YAY! In all reality though, I just wanted a new challenge and to free my mind from the pressure associated with always needing to win a tournament. So far, I've done fairly well. I almost got my second Full Tilt HORSE title as well last night coming in 3rd. It made me a $1200 winner on Sunday, which I can't complain about at all. My plan for March is to keep the tournament volume relatively low. I played a ton in January and February, and a change of scenery was definitely needed. With the SCOOP coming up on Pokerstars, I want to be ready to go every day for 2 weeks when April starts. Getting a huge cash in the SCOOP makes the WSOP and some of the April WPT events a lot easier to justify playing.


I just wanted to spit out a few sports observations.

Cleveland Cavs

I don't know how this team is going to beat Boston if Boston gets the one seed and we have to play 4 there. If we get the one seed, I still think it will be an epic series. To me, Boston is the best team in the NBA until someone else proves otherwise. We haven't done that yet. Lebron needs to stop Paul Pierce if we are going to win in June. So far, Lebron has failed to show up against Boston on the road. I still like our chances and think that we are one of the best run organizations in professional sports. Our front office actually gets it. No trades to do anything crazy at the deadline. Lebron is happy even though everyone thinks he is leaving. Let's just break the Cleveland curse and win one and he'll never leave.


Cleveland Indians

When does baseball start? It seems like forever since I rooted for a game, but it's a combination of the idiocy of that league that restrains my excitement I once had as a youth. Steroids, A Roids, no salary cap, corruption, and what else is new.... I still think the tribe has a chance every year.


Cleveland Browns

I already love our front office. I don't love the fact that we are basically in rebuild mode. We have only signed players that will give our team more depth in crucial positions. I loved Kellen Winslow as a player, but since he only played about half of the games, getting rid of him was kind of a wash for me. I don't think he really every fit into the system in Cleveland.

As far as Braylon Edwards is concerned, everyone wants to trade him, but I'm not on that bandwagon. He had an off year last year. I'm expecting him to return to his form next year with the discipline of the new staff and a new QB behind center. Trading him in a fire sale isn't going to get us anywhere. We also have some upside in keeping him because if he sucks, we will get picks for him when someone signs him based on how the NFL rules work. I'm not exactly sure of all the details, but I think the best case scenario is 1st and 3rd rounders in 2010. If he's good, our offense will be explosive again just like it was two years ago. He is that good when he plays at his best. I just hope he keeps his mouth shut and does his playing on the field.

I'm looking forward to the draft. We will take the best player available. It appears Aaron Curry will be gone by number 5. If he's gone, I like Orapko or Andre Smith. Either player builds one of the interior lines.

Shaun Rodgers, please just stay and stop complaining. Every fan in this city loves you.