First of all i want to congradulate all those who did well over this series of the FTOPS whether it be min cashes, final tables or wins in any events (even non FTOPS events). Well Done!
This FTOPS (Full Tilt Online Poker Series) was a break even experience for me really. In the events only i had a 7th finish in the $300 6 max shootout and an 8th place finish in the $200c but for the rest of the series i pretty much had a run of min cashes and bubbles that wrapped up a very draining fortnight and i am ready for yet another break! I had a very dissappointing finish in the $2k 2-day event coming 129th when top 120 was the money so for that i am sorry to all those who bought shares of me on chipmeup.com but the decisions i make are the ones that got me where i am today sometimes it just hurts when a 50/50 decision send you to the rail!
For the next 3 weeks i will be putting lots of time into finally creating and maintaining my own website which will be www.brendooor.com and it will feature my blog, video blogs, intructional videos, etc. I originally wanted to have this ready and up and running by the start of this year but i have obviously underestimated the amount of work and time that needs to go into something like this. But the good news is that the more time i spend preparing it the better it is going to be. Once it is up and running i will let you all know and then this blog will no longer exist because it will be a hell of a lot more professional!
I also have my 21st Birthday coming up on March 13th so that is something i am looking forward to celebrating and enjoying within my time off. But other than my birthday and the website i will be chilling out untill my next set of tournaments which will be ANZPT (Aus and NZ Poker Tour) Perth on the 23rd of March.
Take care all and will hopefully be posting next from my new website!
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Wednesday Quarter Million! And the week leading up..
Incase you hadn't heard i have just won the weekly Wednesday Quarter Million $320 buy in on Pokerstars yesterday for $65k and i am feeling better than ever! Since my last post only 5 days ago i was feeling very miserable and exhausted from so much time, effort and near misses. I had about 3 final table bubbles including a very disappointing finish in the shootout FTOPS event falling just short yet again of the 6 max final table. So i have no doubt to say that even though things haven't been going that well i am still bringing my A game to each and every tournament i play. Now it has all turned around just like that!
Since Monday i had been really struggling with things. I had got myself to a stage where i had no choice but to ask a few friends for favours in staking me in a few events and after talking to a few of them none could help untill one friend did. He staked me in about 10 tourneys for the Monday and i didn't cash in a single one! The feeling of a friend helping you out and you unable to help him back is hard. But at this point there wasn't much i could do.
The following day i weighed up my options and realised that i had no options. Well no real options. The only thing i could do was punish myself and play the low limit games to build back my bankroll. So i got my grind on. Real Hard. I played every sng and 45 plyr sng on full tilt for hours on end and worked my roll up to enough to play a few decent tourneys (even though they still may be outside my bankroll i like to take shots here and there) and i had decided to play the FTOPS shootout for $320. I came 7th there just short of the final table which was super disappointing but still great cos i got paid a decent $6.5k for that which gives me even more room to improve the roll.
I then had put that money straight into good use by playing a bunch of bigger tourneys the next day including the WQM and every tourney went horribly except this one. I had started playing at 9am and found myself mono tabling this tourney from about 3pm onwards till the end at about 10pm. It takes a great deal of patience and focus to play one table for so long but it makes it so much more profitable because i have so much more time to make the best possible decision in every hand.
When we reached the money, which was top 120 or so, i had found myself to be the chip leader and cruising just fine. The structure is great so there was lots of room and time for patience.. if you have it. I did well to maintain my lead the whole way and grind away for the rest of the tourney untill there were about 18 of us left but then thats when i made an ill timed 4 bet shove with A9 and ran into AK and lost half my stack, then lost another pot and suddenly i was coming 15/15. I was real gutted that all it took was one or two misreads and then i only had about 20 BBs, which is still an ok short stack, there is still room.. i am not desperate just yet. I hit the short stack mathematics for the next hour and a few people got knocked out. There were now 12 left.
After a series of shoving and re-shoving i finally found myself all in with pocket 5s against KJ and held! Yeww.. time to get the ball rolling. I then played my game and built up a little more then lost a little. It was a sick roller coaster untill i got it in pre flop for about half my stack with AcQc but unfortunetly i ran into AA. It wasn't over yet as the flop peeled a promising 2c 4s 5c then no more sweat as the turn fell an easy 7c to lock in the win for me! Very lucky for me ofcourse but if anyone knows tournament poker they should realise that there are certain hands and situations that you will run into and you have to get all your chips in and hope for the best. We call them coolers.
So going into the final table i have about 900k in chips as chip leader and the total of chips in play were 3.6 million so i have 1/4 of the chips which means my position and equity to put pressure on the other players is amazing. With a 5 min break just as the FT started i took the opputunity to have a shower, reset and recharge the batteries as it is about 9pm now and i had been playing all day already for about 12 hours.
With the start of the FT i played pretty tight for about 2 orbits to get a feel for who is loose, who is tight and who is boss. After a few people got knocked out i then opened up my game and started putting pressure on when the money jumps started getting bigger. The whole FT was an easy glide as the tournament was one of the softer ones of the weekly schedule and i never dropped below the stack that i started on the FT with. I had a few decent hands too which is always the ideal way to win a tournament. There were lots of hands of interest there but i won't bore you with poker jargin.
After some time some people got suckered, some people bluffed off their stacks and some blinded away. I was now HU and had a 2.5:1 chip lead on the other guy, who wanted to do a deal but i denied.. respectfully. We played it out for about half an hour and i played a real small ball strategy of keeping pots small and taking bit by bit from him and watched his stack go from 1 million to 800k to 600k to 400k then eventually we got his remaining money in the middle on a 8c 9c 4d flop with my 7c 4c against his 9x 10x and he was safe on the 3x turn but not the golden 6c river! Boom!! Must be nice, i guess!!
It was a relieving feeling to finally put that nail in the coffin and take down a much, much needed win. I want to thank everyone watching for their support and kind words. It's always nice to know that you've got good friends and family behind you when you are doing well at what your heart is in.
I am going to be taking today off but putting those hours in for FTOPS over the next week so keep an eye out for me cos i'll be on those tables trying to build that roll again! Go to www.chipmeup.com and keep an eye out for my events there cos i will be selling some action in some tourneys coming up.
Take care people and good luck to those playing the FTOPS events!
Since Monday i had been really struggling with things. I had got myself to a stage where i had no choice but to ask a few friends for favours in staking me in a few events and after talking to a few of them none could help untill one friend did. He staked me in about 10 tourneys for the Monday and i didn't cash in a single one! The feeling of a friend helping you out and you unable to help him back is hard. But at this point there wasn't much i could do.
The following day i weighed up my options and realised that i had no options. Well no real options. The only thing i could do was punish myself and play the low limit games to build back my bankroll. So i got my grind on. Real Hard. I played every sng and 45 plyr sng on full tilt for hours on end and worked my roll up to enough to play a few decent tourneys (even though they still may be outside my bankroll i like to take shots here and there) and i had decided to play the FTOPS shootout for $320. I came 7th there just short of the final table which was super disappointing but still great cos i got paid a decent $6.5k for that which gives me even more room to improve the roll.
I then had put that money straight into good use by playing a bunch of bigger tourneys the next day including the WQM and every tourney went horribly except this one. I had started playing at 9am and found myself mono tabling this tourney from about 3pm onwards till the end at about 10pm. It takes a great deal of patience and focus to play one table for so long but it makes it so much more profitable because i have so much more time to make the best possible decision in every hand.
When we reached the money, which was top 120 or so, i had found myself to be the chip leader and cruising just fine. The structure is great so there was lots of room and time for patience.. if you have it. I did well to maintain my lead the whole way and grind away for the rest of the tourney untill there were about 18 of us left but then thats when i made an ill timed 4 bet shove with A9 and ran into AK and lost half my stack, then lost another pot and suddenly i was coming 15/15. I was real gutted that all it took was one or two misreads and then i only had about 20 BBs, which is still an ok short stack, there is still room.. i am not desperate just yet. I hit the short stack mathematics for the next hour and a few people got knocked out. There were now 12 left.
After a series of shoving and re-shoving i finally found myself all in with pocket 5s against KJ and held! Yeww.. time to get the ball rolling. I then played my game and built up a little more then lost a little. It was a sick roller coaster untill i got it in pre flop for about half my stack with AcQc but unfortunetly i ran into AA. It wasn't over yet as the flop peeled a promising 2c 4s 5c then no more sweat as the turn fell an easy 7c to lock in the win for me! Very lucky for me ofcourse but if anyone knows tournament poker they should realise that there are certain hands and situations that you will run into and you have to get all your chips in and hope for the best. We call them coolers.
So going into the final table i have about 900k in chips as chip leader and the total of chips in play were 3.6 million so i have 1/4 of the chips which means my position and equity to put pressure on the other players is amazing. With a 5 min break just as the FT started i took the opputunity to have a shower, reset and recharge the batteries as it is about 9pm now and i had been playing all day already for about 12 hours.
With the start of the FT i played pretty tight for about 2 orbits to get a feel for who is loose, who is tight and who is boss. After a few people got knocked out i then opened up my game and started putting pressure on when the money jumps started getting bigger. The whole FT was an easy glide as the tournament was one of the softer ones of the weekly schedule and i never dropped below the stack that i started on the FT with. I had a few decent hands too which is always the ideal way to win a tournament. There were lots of hands of interest there but i won't bore you with poker jargin.
After some time some people got suckered, some people bluffed off their stacks and some blinded away. I was now HU and had a 2.5:1 chip lead on the other guy, who wanted to do a deal but i denied.. respectfully. We played it out for about half an hour and i played a real small ball strategy of keeping pots small and taking bit by bit from him and watched his stack go from 1 million to 800k to 600k to 400k then eventually we got his remaining money in the middle on a 8c 9c 4d flop with my 7c 4c against his 9x 10x and he was safe on the 3x turn but not the golden 6c river! Boom!! Must be nice, i guess!!
It was a relieving feeling to finally put that nail in the coffin and take down a much, much needed win. I want to thank everyone watching for their support and kind words. It's always nice to know that you've got good friends and family behind you when you are doing well at what your heart is in.
I am going to be taking today off but putting those hours in for FTOPS over the next week so keep an eye out for me cos i'll be on those tables trying to build that roll again! Go to www.chipmeup.com and keep an eye out for my events there cos i will be selling some action in some tourneys coming up.
Take care people and good luck to those playing the FTOPS events!
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Radelaide!!
Currently as i am writing this i am on the plane flying home from Adelaide back to good old Sydney and its looking like i am leaving normal 22 degrees weather and am going to run into 40 degree heat. Not looking forward to the heat but definitely looking forward to being home. Adelaide was a not so successful trip. The only tournament i played was the Adelaide ANZPT (Aus and NZ Poker Tour) main event and i cruised through day 1 pretty sweet and finished with a struggling stack of about 25 big blinds but day 2 didn't go so well and i made a squeeze shove with KJ and ran into AK. I am happy with my spot and unfortunetly i could not catch up and win the all-in.
I wanted to go home as soon as i busted but i had a look at flights and, it being a Friday, they were super expensive at about $450 a flight or i could wait till the next day and get a flight for $120. I decided to stay and just relax with some friends and watch the soccer whilst having a few drinks. Unfortunetly for me the bet i lost on the soccer matches the difference in the flight anyway so i probably could've just headed home lol.
The past few weeks/months for me have been kind of hard with poker. I may seem to have been doing well with a few deep runs but my losses are outweighing my wins by very far. One thing i am very aware of is that Laraine and i are planning a big trip around America for about 2-3 months or so therefore i need to be very careful with my bankroll that i don't go broke between now and then. A lot can happen between now and then with poker for those who don't know the game well enough and i just really need to manage my money smart enough. I've decided to look into getting a backer again for a while to make sure that i can handle a decent downswing if it comes. I am happy to spend all my money in America and be broke when i come home but between now and then i am going to play it safe.
While i have the chance too i just want to throw a shout out to Jessie Mckenzie who is currently in the top 3 chip counts with roughly 20 or so players left to go in the Main Event in Adelaide. He is battling it out for a $150k first prize and he definitely deserves it. What i really admire about Jessie is that he is the most humble person within the poker community that i have met who is always generally happy for others to be doing well and winning tournaments. In this industry there is a lot of berating and jealousy going on that when you meet someone like Jessie you know he'll always be a good friend. I also know he puts alot of time and effort into his game and is very open to improvement and advice which is always going to be a winning strategy. I wish him the best of luck and skill as he plays out the remaining of the tournament.
That's it from me now and over the next few weeks i hope to have my head buckled down for the next series of the FTOPS (Full Tilt Online Poker Series) with some decent hours online and hopefully some juicy final tables. There's a good chance i will be selling some shares throughout the series in some of the bigger events and multi entry tournaments so keep and eye on my twitter (Brendooor) and Chip Me Up (chipmeup.com) accounts for advantages to share my future success with me!
Take care people!
I wanted to go home as soon as i busted but i had a look at flights and, it being a Friday, they were super expensive at about $450 a flight or i could wait till the next day and get a flight for $120. I decided to stay and just relax with some friends and watch the soccer whilst having a few drinks. Unfortunetly for me the bet i lost on the soccer matches the difference in the flight anyway so i probably could've just headed home lol.
The past few weeks/months for me have been kind of hard with poker. I may seem to have been doing well with a few deep runs but my losses are outweighing my wins by very far. One thing i am very aware of is that Laraine and i are planning a big trip around America for about 2-3 months or so therefore i need to be very careful with my bankroll that i don't go broke between now and then. A lot can happen between now and then with poker for those who don't know the game well enough and i just really need to manage my money smart enough. I've decided to look into getting a backer again for a while to make sure that i can handle a decent downswing if it comes. I am happy to spend all my money in America and be broke when i come home but between now and then i am going to play it safe.
While i have the chance too i just want to throw a shout out to Jessie Mckenzie who is currently in the top 3 chip counts with roughly 20 or so players left to go in the Main Event in Adelaide. He is battling it out for a $150k first prize and he definitely deserves it. What i really admire about Jessie is that he is the most humble person within the poker community that i have met who is always generally happy for others to be doing well and winning tournaments. In this industry there is a lot of berating and jealousy going on that when you meet someone like Jessie you know he'll always be a good friend. I also know he puts alot of time and effort into his game and is very open to improvement and advice which is always going to be a winning strategy. I wish him the best of luck and skill as he plays out the remaining of the tournament.
That's it from me now and over the next few weeks i hope to have my head buckled down for the next series of the FTOPS (Full Tilt Online Poker Series) with some decent hours online and hopefully some juicy final tables. There's a good chance i will be selling some shares throughout the series in some of the bigger events and multi entry tournaments so keep and eye on my twitter (Brendooor) and Chip Me Up (chipmeup.com) accounts for advantages to share my future success with me!
Take care people!
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Aussie Millions and My Brothers Wedding!!
Wow.. It's been a while since i have made a post and i apologize for my busyness and laziness as life and poker has grabbed me by the balls and dragged me down into a hole of darkness!!.. Ok so i admit that is a little extreme to be opening in a post but i have just been real snowed under with alot of things going on poker and family related.
To start with i took a road trip to Melbourne for the first time driving and played the first 4 events of the Aussie Millions and pretty much couldn't get the ball rolling in any of them so i spent most my time preparing for the events and then failing.. and preparing and failing etc. But the time i had outside of the game was spent going out to lunch, dinner with lots of friends because every poker player in the country was there so i knew alot of people. We also played a few games of tennis and made an attempt at going to the Aus Open to watch tennis but got there and realised that all courtside seats were sold out. So we walked around and just enjoyed the side show things in and around the event site.
I knew that i was going to miss playing the biggest main event in Aus that is the Aussie Millions $10k buy-in and more of the later side events and so because of this i had decided that i was going to make a real baller effort to play the $100k event. And so for about 4 days i was racing around and on the phone ringing and texting people to try and rack up the $100k buy in. After lots of work and last minute decisions from people i eventually got the $100k sorted and registered for the event 30 mins after it had already started and took my random pick at sitting at one of the 5 tables.. I picked the TV table.. BOOM! That's what i wanted. I had never played on a TV table where you have a pocket cam and stuff. Pretty exciting stuff.
I was pretty nervous as you could imagine but the first thing i did when i sat down was make calm friendly conversation to help relax me. I started talking with Tony G, Tom Dwan and a few others at the table. That definitely helped keep me relaxed, even though anything i said may go on tv! I couldn't really get the ball rolling for the first 2 hrs or so untill i finally had pocket 9s on the button with a little over 30 BBs and everone folded to me. I min raised to 4k on the button (60k effective stack) and it got to Gus Hansen in the big blind who then bumped it up to 11k. There's really no such thing as folding a pocket pair as strong as 9s here so i go ahead and stick the remaining of my stack in the middle and, while looking quite uncomfortable, he called off my shove with AQ offsuit. Before the cards were dealt i quickly accepted any outcome in my head to be prepare my emotions for whatever happened but before i knew it the flop killed any hope with a Q 3 6 flop crushing my pair. The turn and river bricked and i was on my way to the rail finishing dissapointly early in one of the biggest buy in tournaments in the world.
So that pretty much wrapped up my time in Melb with disappointing finishes everywhere and emotion exhaustion to the max. Although on the bright side i have learnt more and more valuable lessons whether it be about poker or life. That's all you can really do when things aren't going your way. Step back and re-assess everything you do whether it be negative or positive. So it was back on the road and time to head home to Sydney for my brothers wedding!
The week leading up to the wedding was full of stress and lots of work for the whole family in helping out with everything. The ceremony was held at Centennial Park which is just across the road from where we live so that was handy for the family to all stay at our house which means we had an apartment full of about 8 people for a few days! While i always say "the more the merrier" in this situation it makes it hard to relax. But that's alright because i always love to have family around, after all it's why we live right? For family and friends? That's how i see it anyway.
The whole day from the ceremony to the reception was a massive success with the weather being a perfect temperature and the rain holding off. My brother allocated certain jobs for everyone in the family to do to make the wedding a success and less stressful for everyone. Me and Jay (my other brother) were asked to be the MCs for the night and it was alot of fun and great for the both of us. It being our first time as MCs we were a little unsure of everything but by the end of the night we were super comfortable behind the mic and everyone seemed to enjoy our jokes and hospitality.. well my jokes at least!!
I can't express my love for family and family gatherings enough. The excitement and memories we all create together are just amazing and fulfilling. OK i better stop right there before you flood your keyboard with tears of joy.
At the moment i am mucking around with a website called chipmeup.com which allows players to buy and sell shares of each other in events both online and live. Head to it and look me up under Brendooor.. you can buy shares from as little as $3.20!! The only tourney i have up at the moment is Adelaide ANZPT but as the FTOPS come around on Full Tilt i will most likely be putting some of the events from there up too so you guys can muck around and have a bit of a gamble!
Well i will try and keep up to date on here but for now i am off to Radelaide!!
Take Care
To start with i took a road trip to Melbourne for the first time driving and played the first 4 events of the Aussie Millions and pretty much couldn't get the ball rolling in any of them so i spent most my time preparing for the events and then failing.. and preparing and failing etc. But the time i had outside of the game was spent going out to lunch, dinner with lots of friends because every poker player in the country was there so i knew alot of people. We also played a few games of tennis and made an attempt at going to the Aus Open to watch tennis but got there and realised that all courtside seats were sold out. So we walked around and just enjoyed the side show things in and around the event site.
I knew that i was going to miss playing the biggest main event in Aus that is the Aussie Millions $10k buy-in and more of the later side events and so because of this i had decided that i was going to make a real baller effort to play the $100k event. And so for about 4 days i was racing around and on the phone ringing and texting people to try and rack up the $100k buy in. After lots of work and last minute decisions from people i eventually got the $100k sorted and registered for the event 30 mins after it had already started and took my random pick at sitting at one of the 5 tables.. I picked the TV table.. BOOM! That's what i wanted. I had never played on a TV table where you have a pocket cam and stuff. Pretty exciting stuff.
I was pretty nervous as you could imagine but the first thing i did when i sat down was make calm friendly conversation to help relax me. I started talking with Tony G, Tom Dwan and a few others at the table. That definitely helped keep me relaxed, even though anything i said may go on tv! I couldn't really get the ball rolling for the first 2 hrs or so untill i finally had pocket 9s on the button with a little over 30 BBs and everone folded to me. I min raised to 4k on the button (60k effective stack) and it got to Gus Hansen in the big blind who then bumped it up to 11k. There's really no such thing as folding a pocket pair as strong as 9s here so i go ahead and stick the remaining of my stack in the middle and, while looking quite uncomfortable, he called off my shove with AQ offsuit. Before the cards were dealt i quickly accepted any outcome in my head to be prepare my emotions for whatever happened but before i knew it the flop killed any hope with a Q 3 6 flop crushing my pair. The turn and river bricked and i was on my way to the rail finishing dissapointly early in one of the biggest buy in tournaments in the world.
So that pretty much wrapped up my time in Melb with disappointing finishes everywhere and emotion exhaustion to the max. Although on the bright side i have learnt more and more valuable lessons whether it be about poker or life. That's all you can really do when things aren't going your way. Step back and re-assess everything you do whether it be negative or positive. So it was back on the road and time to head home to Sydney for my brothers wedding!
The week leading up to the wedding was full of stress and lots of work for the whole family in helping out with everything. The ceremony was held at Centennial Park which is just across the road from where we live so that was handy for the family to all stay at our house which means we had an apartment full of about 8 people for a few days! While i always say "the more the merrier" in this situation it makes it hard to relax. But that's alright because i always love to have family around, after all it's why we live right? For family and friends? That's how i see it anyway.
The whole day from the ceremony to the reception was a massive success with the weather being a perfect temperature and the rain holding off. My brother allocated certain jobs for everyone in the family to do to make the wedding a success and less stressful for everyone. Me and Jay (my other brother) were asked to be the MCs for the night and it was alot of fun and great for the both of us. It being our first time as MCs we were a little unsure of everything but by the end of the night we were super comfortable behind the mic and everyone seemed to enjoy our jokes and hospitality.. well my jokes at least!!
I can't express my love for family and family gatherings enough. The excitement and memories we all create together are just amazing and fulfilling. OK i better stop right there before you flood your keyboard with tears of joy.
At the moment i am mucking around with a website called chipmeup.com which allows players to buy and sell shares of each other in events both online and live. Head to it and look me up under Brendooor.. you can buy shares from as little as $3.20!! The only tourney i have up at the moment is Adelaide ANZPT but as the FTOPS come around on Full Tilt i will most likely be putting some of the events from there up too so you guys can muck around and have a bit of a gamble!
Well i will try and keep up to date on here but for now i am off to Radelaide!!
Take Care
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Christmas and New Years Break
My Christmas was most probably the best Christmas i've ever had. I don't know whether it's because i am so relaxed by capping off what's been an amazing year or whether it's because this is the first Christmas in about 7 years that my whole family of 8 (13 including partners) were all together in the same place to celebrate. Whatever the reason being it was by far the Christmas to beat.
I had a well deserved break of over a week and instead of being a zombie playing endless amounts of online poker i was instead slaying zombies till 4am with my brothers, Call of Duty style. I must say that it is an understatement that me and my bros were addicted to this Xbox game! We were linking two tv/xboxs to play it and also linking it to the world wide web and join forces with 10 year old pros to achieve higher levels. It is very unhealthy to play this game just before sleeping because i was then not sleeping well for a week because i was forever dreaming about being in the game, not just playing it. It felt like the Matrix because everytime Laraine would nudge me awake because i was tossing and turning i thought she was "reviving" me and then when i fell back asleep i was plugged back into what my mind thought was the Matrix. Crazy stuff huh.. but it was fun.
Anyway i will stop raving on about this game, but did i tell you that i was playing in 3D?? Yeah, with my new end of year present to myself in reflection of working with Jamie Glazier at www.dare2dream.com.au about rewarding yourself when you are achieving goals and milestones. I bought a Samsung Series 9 3D LED 55" TV to say the least, and it is a purchase i will never regret!
Back to my Christmas. It was full of great love, fun, games, food etc the list goes on. There was always something happening throughout the week in the Rubie household on the Central Coast. There was always a board game in progress, there was always delicious food being cooked up, the women were always to be found in the kitchen and the men were to be found comparing egos. We spent many days at the beach or taking the boat out in the Hawkesbury River either fishing or wakeboarding which is always great for a funfilled day, even though we never got a nibble and being in the jellyfish infected water is never a comfortable feeling. There wasn't much more that could be added to make things any more enjoyable for us Rubies.
In the week from Christmas leading to New Years i played one day online and i crushed it to take down the $100c on Full Tilt for $15k which was definitely a nice time to win a tourney when everything else in life is so relaxed and going well.
I spent New Years with Laraine and a few family members at a friends place in Pyrmont who has an exeptional view of the Harbour Bridge and the City. We stayed there all night drinking, playing cards, playing pool, eating good food and awaiting the highly anticipated fireworks that Sydney performs every year. The view we had was amazing and we could see every part of the show that was spread all over the city with fireworks exploding off several buildings across the city in synchronization. It was memorable New Years for sure.
So that caps my time off in a nutshell and I wouldn't change a thing about it. I hope you all had a great time off over the break too. On the 13th Laraine and i are jumping in the car and road tripping our way down to Melbourne for the Aussie Millions!! So keep in touch because i plan on making this trip a memorable one.
ciao for now..
I had a well deserved break of over a week and instead of being a zombie playing endless amounts of online poker i was instead slaying zombies till 4am with my brothers, Call of Duty style. I must say that it is an understatement that me and my bros were addicted to this Xbox game! We were linking two tv/xboxs to play it and also linking it to the world wide web and join forces with 10 year old pros to achieve higher levels. It is very unhealthy to play this game just before sleeping because i was then not sleeping well for a week because i was forever dreaming about being in the game, not just playing it. It felt like the Matrix because everytime Laraine would nudge me awake because i was tossing and turning i thought she was "reviving" me and then when i fell back asleep i was plugged back into what my mind thought was the Matrix. Crazy stuff huh.. but it was fun.
Anyway i will stop raving on about this game, but did i tell you that i was playing in 3D?? Yeah, with my new end of year present to myself in reflection of working with Jamie Glazier at www.dare2dream.com.au about rewarding yourself when you are achieving goals and milestones. I bought a Samsung Series 9 3D LED 55" TV to say the least, and it is a purchase i will never regret!
Back to my Christmas. It was full of great love, fun, games, food etc the list goes on. There was always something happening throughout the week in the Rubie household on the Central Coast. There was always a board game in progress, there was always delicious food being cooked up, the women were always to be found in the kitchen and the men were to be found comparing egos. We spent many days at the beach or taking the boat out in the Hawkesbury River either fishing or wakeboarding which is always great for a funfilled day, even though we never got a nibble and being in the jellyfish infected water is never a comfortable feeling. There wasn't much more that could be added to make things any more enjoyable for us Rubies.
In the week from Christmas leading to New Years i played one day online and i crushed it to take down the $100c on Full Tilt for $15k which was definitely a nice time to win a tourney when everything else in life is so relaxed and going well.
I spent New Years with Laraine and a few family members at a friends place in Pyrmont who has an exeptional view of the Harbour Bridge and the City. We stayed there all night drinking, playing cards, playing pool, eating good food and awaiting the highly anticipated fireworks that Sydney performs every year. The view we had was amazing and we could see every part of the show that was spread all over the city with fireworks exploding off several buildings across the city in synchronization. It was memorable New Years for sure.
So that caps my time off in a nutshell and I wouldn't change a thing about it. I hope you all had a great time off over the break too. On the 13th Laraine and i are jumping in the car and road tripping our way down to Melbourne for the Aussie Millions!! So keep in touch because i plan on making this trip a memorable one.
ciao for now..
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Balance and Laraine's surprise birthday!
Poker is a cruel game. At it's worst times it makes us greedy, selfish, tired and lonely. Too many poker players think that they are sooo unlucky because of all the bad beats and suckouts but what they don't realise is that they are, as a generalisation, lucky to be doing what they do for a living. It's very important to maintain healthy relationships with friends and family to make sure that the grind that poker is doesn't consume or control you. On the upside poker also gives us the freedom to work whenever we want and have time off whenever we want. Only problem is that there are not enough poker players out there who are taking advantage of this, at times i admit that i am one of them. I believe that we as poker players should use this freedom to make time for our loved ones and make their lives easier and more relaxing. By saying that i don't mean throwing your wads of cash at them, while it's always nice to receive a gift every now and then the best gift you can ever give is your time. So being aware of the dangerous swallowings of poker i have put my theory to practice by planning a full on surprise birthday for Laraine, my girlfriend...
OK, so Laraines birthday is the 23rd of December however she unfortunetly has work on that day and she was really disappointed that she couldn't celebrate her day to the fullest. So what i'd been planning all last week was a surprise whole day of things for her on Sunday 19th Dec because that would be the only day she had free up untill Christmas.
After losing sleep because i was so excited on saturday night i eventually woke up and told her that i was going upstairs to play some tourneys online, it's the only way to convince her to stay asleep so that i could buy some time and cook her breakfast. I came downstairs and put the breakfast on her bedside along with a birthday card and woke her up surprising her by telling her that today we will be celebrating her birthday! After she awoke properly from snapping out of her standard Ryan Reynolds dreams i then put out three wrapped presents for her to open. After some time deliberating which to open first she eventually opened all of them only to find the camera that she has been drooling over and a few accessories for it. Seeing her face so far i knew she was going to have a ball of a day!
I then took her over Bondi way to test out her new toy and then go to lunch that i had booked along the beachfront, little did she know was that i'd planned a little surprise for lunch! We walked along the beachfront for a bit and then rocked up to restaurant for Laraine's heart to stop when she saw our table full of her friends and family that had driven up from Wollongong for the day! And so we had lunch and enjoyed the company of our wollongongians then the next activity was in order!
We wrapped up lunch with embarrassing Laraine by singing happy birthday to her over a dozen of cupcakes with a candle in each. Then we drove over to EQ (Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park) and went to Strike Laser and Bowling for a few games of Laser Tag, something Laraine has been wanting to do for ages! We ran, we shot, we died, we conquered and the overall winner in the end was.... ME!!... ofcourse ;). After we sweated out a storm in that rave looking room we headed home to relax a bit before dinner and the after dinner plans.
A few hours had past and we refeshed ourselves ready for dinner. We headed out to a place on Crown St in Surry Hills called The White Horse and enjoyed a feast of steak, nachos and pasta! The weather outside began to rain heavily and that was a real shame because what i had planned was an outdoor thing and with the rain we couldn't go. So instead of the Moonlight cinemas out at Centennial Park we decided just to wind down and watch a movie at home instead. We threw on Prince of Persia untill our eyes couldn't stay awake any longer and we hit the hay and called it a day!
OK, so Laraines birthday is the 23rd of December however she unfortunetly has work on that day and she was really disappointed that she couldn't celebrate her day to the fullest. So what i'd been planning all last week was a surprise whole day of things for her on Sunday 19th Dec because that would be the only day she had free up untill Christmas.
After losing sleep because i was so excited on saturday night i eventually woke up and told her that i was going upstairs to play some tourneys online, it's the only way to convince her to stay asleep so that i could buy some time and cook her breakfast. I came downstairs and put the breakfast on her bedside along with a birthday card and woke her up surprising her by telling her that today we will be celebrating her birthday! After she awoke properly from snapping out of her standard Ryan Reynolds dreams i then put out three wrapped presents for her to open. After some time deliberating which to open first she eventually opened all of them only to find the camera that she has been drooling over and a few accessories for it. Seeing her face so far i knew she was going to have a ball of a day!
I then took her over Bondi way to test out her new toy and then go to lunch that i had booked along the beachfront, little did she know was that i'd planned a little surprise for lunch! We walked along the beachfront for a bit and then rocked up to restaurant for Laraine's heart to stop when she saw our table full of her friends and family that had driven up from Wollongong for the day! And so we had lunch and enjoyed the company of our wollongongians then the next activity was in order!
We wrapped up lunch with embarrassing Laraine by singing happy birthday to her over a dozen of cupcakes with a candle in each. Then we drove over to EQ (Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park) and went to Strike Laser and Bowling for a few games of Laser Tag, something Laraine has been wanting to do for ages! We ran, we shot, we died, we conquered and the overall winner in the end was.... ME!!... ofcourse ;). After we sweated out a storm in that rave looking room we headed home to relax a bit before dinner and the after dinner plans.
A few hours had past and we refeshed ourselves ready for dinner. We headed out to a place on Crown St in Surry Hills called The White Horse and enjoyed a feast of steak, nachos and pasta! The weather outside began to rain heavily and that was a real shame because what i had planned was an outdoor thing and with the rain we couldn't go. So instead of the Moonlight cinemas out at Centennial Park we decided just to wind down and watch a movie at home instead. We threw on Prince of Persia untill our eyes couldn't stay awake any longer and we hit the hay and called it a day!
First week off for the Christmas/New Years break!
This week has been an amazing week off the felt for me and i must say i am feeling great! We had Jamie and Jackie head home to Melbourne after a very busy fortnight that was the APPT Syd and our new residents at the Waterloo Inn (aka our home) are my brother and soon to be sister in-law Daniel and Amber.
I am now doing more work with mental sports coach and good friend Jamie Glazier on his website www.dare2dream.com.au and will be participating in his forums, so head over to his site and have a look around and if you don't already know of Jamie then get onto his stuff cos it's good stuff! I have been doing work with him for about 6 months now and am constantly seeing results with everything we've done together. One main thing Jamie and i talk about is things i do off the table that improve my game and so i put in the extra effort to make sure i am out there and getting active. So here is a blog of things i've been doing with my time off...
Last Wednesday a group of 5 of us including my brothers Jay, Josh and Daniel trekked on over to Homebush to see the almighty Linkin Park live at the Acer Arena and boy did they put on a show! I think i definitely speak for everyone when i say that i'm really not a fan at all of their new album, but because they are Linkin Park they did play for quite sometime so we got our moneys worth of over a decade of albums. A big disappointment for me was that they didn't play one of my favourites "Somewhere I Belong" but they made up for it with pretty much every other tune they performed. I would definitely recommend seeing them play if you ever get the option because they are just pure professionals on stage and you will never get bored throughout their whole set, unless ofcourse they play a song off their new album.
A few days of relaxation and freedom from that traproom of online poker had past and then came "No Sleep Till Sydney". No Sleep Till Sydney is a smaller music festival no different from Soundwave or Big Day Out with 3 stages and a mixture of bands from hardcore, punk, rock and metal genres. The band that i really was going to see was, and i've mentioned my love for them already, A Day To Remember. I had a look at the schedule before i went because Laraine had to work all day until 6:30pm so i wanted to make sure i didn't miss them. They didn't play until 8:45pm so that was great for us to not rush and grab some food n see a few other bands.
The festival was hosted at Entertainment Quarter over at the old Fox Studios which is great for us cos we live just across the road, it's a 15 min walk. I walked over at about 7pm to meet Laraine and there were people EVERYWHERE! Turns out that on the same night of this festival just in the stadium next door was one of the many Bon Jovi concerts! Only difference to both concerts was that the average age of the Bon Jovi concert was twice as much as No Sleep Till Sydney age lol.
The other main band that we watched was Parkway Drive and man do they put on a show! I really love watching hardcore bands play because the energy that you see between the band and the crowd is amazingly inspiring to me being the wannabe rockstar that i am. After Parkway finished their kickass set we rocked over to the stage that A Day To Remember are to be playing at and the crowd was building. We set up camp right next to the barrier at the sound desk so that we could get a good view of the stage. After a some time and anticipation waiting they came out on stage and put on a siikk show of breakdowns and melodic choruses. My favourite part of the show was when the singer instruction the crowd to make a massive circle around the sound tent that was in the middle and everyone must run around like a massive whirlpool! It was hectic and from the view we had it looked amazing. The only disappointment to their set was that their mix was terrible, the sound guys did a great job at stuffing that up.
So that was my first week chillin' out and getting some outside activities in. Feels great and i can't wait for even more of it over the next few weeks.
I am now doing more work with mental sports coach and good friend Jamie Glazier on his website www.dare2dream.com.au and will be participating in his forums, so head over to his site and have a look around and if you don't already know of Jamie then get onto his stuff cos it's good stuff! I have been doing work with him for about 6 months now and am constantly seeing results with everything we've done together. One main thing Jamie and i talk about is things i do off the table that improve my game and so i put in the extra effort to make sure i am out there and getting active. So here is a blog of things i've been doing with my time off...
Last Wednesday a group of 5 of us including my brothers Jay, Josh and Daniel trekked on over to Homebush to see the almighty Linkin Park live at the Acer Arena and boy did they put on a show! I think i definitely speak for everyone when i say that i'm really not a fan at all of their new album, but because they are Linkin Park they did play for quite sometime so we got our moneys worth of over a decade of albums. A big disappointment for me was that they didn't play one of my favourites "Somewhere I Belong" but they made up for it with pretty much every other tune they performed. I would definitely recommend seeing them play if you ever get the option because they are just pure professionals on stage and you will never get bored throughout their whole set, unless ofcourse they play a song off their new album.
A few days of relaxation and freedom from that traproom of online poker had past and then came "No Sleep Till Sydney". No Sleep Till Sydney is a smaller music festival no different from Soundwave or Big Day Out with 3 stages and a mixture of bands from hardcore, punk, rock and metal genres. The band that i really was going to see was, and i've mentioned my love for them already, A Day To Remember. I had a look at the schedule before i went because Laraine had to work all day until 6:30pm so i wanted to make sure i didn't miss them. They didn't play until 8:45pm so that was great for us to not rush and grab some food n see a few other bands.
The festival was hosted at Entertainment Quarter over at the old Fox Studios which is great for us cos we live just across the road, it's a 15 min walk. I walked over at about 7pm to meet Laraine and there were people EVERYWHERE! Turns out that on the same night of this festival just in the stadium next door was one of the many Bon Jovi concerts! Only difference to both concerts was that the average age of the Bon Jovi concert was twice as much as No Sleep Till Sydney age lol.
The other main band that we watched was Parkway Drive and man do they put on a show! I really love watching hardcore bands play because the energy that you see between the band and the crowd is amazingly inspiring to me being the wannabe rockstar that i am. After Parkway finished their kickass set we rocked over to the stage that A Day To Remember are to be playing at and the crowd was building. We set up camp right next to the barrier at the sound desk so that we could get a good view of the stage. After a some time and anticipation waiting they came out on stage and put on a siikk show of breakdowns and melodic choruses. My favourite part of the show was when the singer instruction the crowd to make a massive circle around the sound tent that was in the middle and everyone must run around like a massive whirlpool! It was hectic and from the view we had it looked amazing. The only disappointment to their set was that their mix was terrible, the sound guys did a great job at stuffing that up.
So that was my first week chillin' out and getting some outside activities in. Feels great and i can't wait for even more of it over the next few weeks.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)