The work force

It has been almost 4 years since I have had any kind of job at all in the work force, and almost 10 years since I have worked steadily for a company.

Poker has certainly taken up a lot of good years of my work life. But I have no regrets as I got to do something I loved. Although there were many ups & downs in my poker career I cannot allow myself to believe that I made the wrong choices with regards to what I chose to do for a living.


One of my favorite lines in Rounders is when Mike McD asked his professor if he "had it to do all over again would he make the same choices?" He simply replied; "what choice" ...

Many times in life we go down certain paths and they may lead to places we did not intend to go to. However, if life truly is a journey then we cannot spend too much time in thoughts about past choices and what others may or may not think of us. I believe as Doctor Steven Covey says: "success is success with self". Ultimately we must answer to ourselves.

With that in mind I have decided that I will no longer play poker fulltime for my profession. I am going to re-enter the work force. I believe that I have much to contribute in terms of what I can accomplish in many areas of the work place.

I am intrigued by technology and specifically electronics. So for now I am going to look for trade schools to get started in the trades and then look to further my education and hopefully become an engineer. I know what I can do when I work hard and I look forward to all the challenges I will face which are many.

I will always play the game I love at the highest level I am capable and never cease to improve and learn/grow, it will now just be more part time and treated as such in terms of how much time and resources I will spend on the game. I plan to always participate in live series tournaments including a yearly sabbatical at the WSOP in Las Vegas:-)

I will continue to blog about my poker experiences, but I will also transform and add to this blog my new passion to return to work and the pursuit of my goals in the work place.

I wish everyone a great week on & off the felt and may God bless and protect us all in our everyday lives.

tough ending to WSOP

I missed out on 7 or 8 of my last tournaments at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas including the $10k Main Event due to some nagging Health issues. I had ran out of my Diabetic medication and along with my diet for 3 weeks in Vegas and a little too much beer I got really sick and according to my Doctor was in serious danger zone for a diabetic coma, kidney shutting down and some other very serious possibilities.

I spent the last 4 days before I left in bed. I tried to get my doctor to forward a prescription to Vegas but he refused and told me to report to him or go to the hospital. Since I have no current health insurance(one of the very serious drawbacks to playing poker for a living) my Mom and I decided it best for me to come home and see my family Doctor.

I had hoped to return for the Main Event but my health is more important so I decided to stay home and get myself straightened out and prepare for next year.

I want to thank Max Katz and Brad McFarland for investing in me this year and I apologize for not being able to follow through.

I may not blog for a while as there is no online poker for now obviously and my live game is going to be put on hold for a while while I focus on my health and getting myself back into really good shape in order to become even a better player longterm.

I may also have to find a regular job and rebuild financially as well as taking care of some debts. I view all this as a challenge and I am not afraid of some good old fashion hard work.

Have a great summer everyone and I will check in and blog something from time to time with some updates....

World series of poker

I have been in Vegas for 15 days. I am one small cash for 15 tournaments. I am playing well and I still have 10-12 more events including the Main Event so I am feeling good.

Vegas can pray on peoples weaknesses in terms of nightlife and of course gambling. I am and have been committed to being disciplined in my diet, taking daily walks and saying no to too much nightlife.


In 15 days I have went out late one night so I feel good about that. I'm going to keep on playing my best and focusing and I believe good things will happen.

I wish everyone a great week on & off the felt :-)

WSOP 2011

I am leaving Tuesday (6/7) going to Las Vegas for the annual World Series of Poker. I will arrive about 8pm and will be staying at the RIO from June 7th until the end of the Main Event sometime in mid July.

Here is the my base schedule that I will be playing(first group is my early/smaller tournaments I'll be playing for the first 2 weeks)

Wed June 8th- $125 + $10 NLHE @ Golden Nugget
Thursday June 9th - $225 + $10 NLHE @ Golden Nugget
Friday June 10th- $200 + $10 NLHE @ Binions
Saturday June 11th- $340 + $10 @ Venetian
Sunday June 12th- $340 + $10 @ Venetian
Monday June 13th- $225 + $10 @ Golden Nugget
Tuesday June 14th- $200 + $10 @ Binions
Wed June 15th- $125 + $10 @ Golden Nugget
Thursday June 16th- $340 + $10 @ Venetian
Friday June 17th- $200 + $10 @ Binions

(2nd group are the WSOP & Venetian Events including the $10k Main Event in July)

6/18 Venetian $550 NLHE
6/21 WSOP $2500 NLHE
6/22 WSOP $1500 NLHE
6/23 Venetian $1070 NLHE
6/24 Venetian $1590 NLHE
6/25 WSOP $1500 NLHE
6/26 WSOP $1000 NLHE
6/28 WSOP $1500 NLHE
6/30 Venetian $340 NLHE
7/1 Venetian $550 NLHE
7/2 WSOP $1000 NLHE
7/7 WSOP $10k MAIN EVENT

I will be updating my progress/chip counts/ etc throughout the day via www.twitter.com I am SamuraiPlaya on twitter

I will also post daily results on facebook and a complete win/loss results here on my Blog..

I want to thank my sponsors who have invested in me as well as my private backer and friend Brad McFarland, without these people I would not be able to travel and compete at these levels as a professional.

Wish me luck :-) and have a great week everone on & off the felt...

Vegas / conditioning

Heading to Vegas for WSOP 2011 in 2 weeeks :-) One thing that I have been doing is walking, eating right and working out and I will continue to do so throughout the summer and get myself back into shape.

The famous Jack Lalane pictured here inspires me too. He lived to be 97 and almost to his death was in great shape !

I believe that being physically fit will help me mentally at the tables as well... Have a great day ev1 and remember it is never too late to be in great shape !

FoxWoods Trip

General trip report:

I traveled via Bus from Akron, OH directly to FoxWoods Casino. Total Bus fare there and back was $220 plus 6 different cab fares to FoxWoods and back to the Days Inn in Mystic, CT costs about $150... including food, drinks, tips, hotel etc... my total expenses apart from buy-ins was approximately $600 for 4 days.

I was 0 for 3. I played the $600 $125k GTD, the $120 $10k GTD and the $300 $100k GTD..



I went deep playing almost 12 hours Saturday in the $600 falling short about 20 off the money bubble. My cripple hand was almost scripted, here is the hand history:

8 handed table, blinds 1500/3k 500 ante; 2 limpers and I over call $3k on the button with 8d-9d from a $87k stack. SB call and then the BB tank squeezes to $13k total. both limpers fold and the action is to me.

I literally tank for 1-2 mins trying to asses the situation. I know he has literal blade, so as long as I am getting the proper implied odds post flop I can profitably call and intending to get stacks in on favorable flops vs his range which consists of AK and QQ+

I glance from the corner of my eye attempting to make sure he has us covered and I cannot tell. In hindsight I should have asked for a count, because if I had I would not have called. He only had $62k behind which means even if we flop big he does not have enough chips to make our call profitable.

Incorrectly I call and the flop is just the 5d-7d-9c... He just leads for $50k (LOLz he obv has QQ+) and I obviously can never fold now. When I table my hand he insta stands up and walks away from the table after flipp his Kh-Ks lolz.... The board so eloquently bricks out Jc-2c and I so neatly am left crippled. 2 orbits later I reship AJdd and just run directly into KK again :( sigh

The other 2 events I never chipped up and busted fairly early with no key hands other than I got hero called @ 100/200 when I 3 barreled a flopped flush draw by a Euro crab drinking Johnny Walker shots with King hi how good are they lmao...

I would like to thank all the people who invested including Brad(my backer) who covered the expenses for me. It is Vegas in 3 weeks, see you there :-)

Have a great day on & off the felt ev1 ...

Heading to Fox Woods Casino Friday May 13th for 3-4 days to play the MegaStack Series.

Should be fun with a potential for big scores as well. Here is my schedule:







Saturday May 14th- (11am) $600 Megastack $125k GTD
Saturday May 14th- (6 pm) $120 Deepstack $10k GTD (will play if eliminated from 11am event)

Sunday May 15th- (11am) $200 Deepstack $15k GTD
Sunday May 15th- (6 pm) $120 Deepstack $10k GTD (will play if eliminated from 11am event)

Monday May 16th- (11am) $300 Megastack $100k GTD

I sold part of my action on 2+2 here is the link to the sales thread in the MarketPlace forum:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/184/staking-selling-shares-live/foxwoods-megastack-pckg-low-mu-sold-out-1033835/ (copy/paste link)

I will be blogging daily entries with updates/results... gl to us :-)