Salzburg

Quick note: Salzburg is awesome. We found a small, back roads, hotel that looks like it came right out of the 18th century, but is really nice. Yesterday there was a Austrian Olympian celebration about 3 blocks from our hotel. It was really cool to see all the Austrian winter Olympics athletes, plus the atmosphere was electric, these Austrians love their winter sports. Today we visited Motzart's birth place, which was really interesting and this afternoon we took a tour of a castle/fortress on this hill overlooking the city. I wish I could attach pictures but I am at a public computer. I'll put some up tomorrow when we get to our hotel in Vienna. Poker in two days, I'm psyched.

Vienna

Wow, 48 hours of travel can really wear you out. We just arrived in Vienna, found a nice, cozy, small hotel (or pension), and I walked a couple blocks to this internet cafe. I was hoping that I would be able to pick up someone's wireless signal from the hotel since this is the city center, but all the connections I picked up were secured, so I would need a network code to access them. No worries, this internet cafe reminds me of my 3 months traveling europe, which are definatly good memories. I think our plan is to take a train to Salzburg tomorrow and spend two nights there before heading back here for the tournament on wednesday. I'll leave this post short because I know I will be writing much more once the poker actually starts.

Quick Session

Well, after waking up from a great nights sleep at the Hilton I felt the desire to play a few hands of poker as a warm up for Austria. So, I grabbed a couple pieces of cold pizza and logged onto Pacific Poker to find a table. I looked down the list and was really tempted to sit down at a soft looking $50/100 table, but decided I didn't want to lose 3k and get cranky so I sat down at an even softer looking $15/30 table. First hand I post the blind and get the holy grail of all hands, AA. I three bet it heads up and my opponent caps the pot, I do a double fist pump and let out a "WOOT WOOT", the session starts off nicely with me picking up the first pot. I kind of go on a mini-rush and win about $500 in my first 10 minutes. My mom is watching "Tremors" in the back ground and is still giving me grief for spending $35 on a room service pizza so I lean back and say; "Mom, it's easy for me to spend $30 on a pizza when I wake up the next morning and make $500 in 10 minutes" :) She doesn't mind the jab and uses the opportunity to get me to agree to buy her a new dress in Salzburg. She's smarter than me and knows when to take advantage of my arrogance. Well, needless to say I immediately lose the next couple hands and am humbled once again. I fight back and forth for another 15 minutes before calling it quits up about $400. I need to get packed and head over to the United counter in O'Hare so I can change my return flight ticket. The trip starts off on a good note, poker-wise, sometimes everything comes up roses.

Chi-town

Alright, I don't want to rant about airlines because I have never missed a connection before, but today was very bizarre. We took off from Omaha 20 minutes late for an unknown reason and were still scheduled to land in Chicago over an hour before our connecting flight to London. Everything was going as planned until we landed in Chicago at 8:20 p.m. Upon landing we were informed that our gate was occupied and we would have to wait a few minutes until it cleared up or another gate opened. No worries, our flight for London doesn't take off until 9:15 so everything is still looking like we are going to have fish n' chips tomorrow in England. So we wait, and wait, and wait, and wait. Apparently at one of the largest airports in the U.S. there wasn't one gate that opened from 8:20 to 9:30, so we sat on the runway as everyone got frustrated about missing their connections.

To make a long story short we missed our flight, got re-booked on a flight tomorrow afternoon to Frankfurt, and are staying at the Hilton right next to the airport. United did put us up in the hotel at no charge, but otherwise it was kind of a frustrating night. You win some and lose some I guess.

Well, if you are wondering why I have not written about any poker playing for the last few days it is basically because I just haven't played at all. Since Tuesday my attention has been focused on getting my school work in line and preparing for the trip. I don't mind taking a few days off once and a while to re-wet my poker appetite. I'm pretty excited to get to Vienna and play some real cards though. Hopefully the side action will be good and I'll be able to take home a profit before the tournament even starts.

I'm meeting Shannon (who I met in the Bahamas) in Vienna and one of his friends who is a SNG (sit'n go or single table tournament) specialist on-line. His friend is quite a player and is always hanging around the top of the PartyPoker tournament leader board. I'm anxious to meet up with both of them and maybe have a few good, deep talks about big-stack tournament strategy. They are both great players who I feel like I can learn a lot from, and that's what is really most important right now.

Alright, I'll hopefully update again when I arrive in Vienna.

Taking off

Alright, I'm about to leave for the Omaha airport to meet up with my mom and catch out flight to Vienna. The good news is that she talked to my Grandma yesterday and found out that she was doing much better. Thank you to everyone for the concern and prayers.

We are ariving in Austria 5 days before the tournament starts and are going to travel to Salzburg for a couple days and maybe Budapest as well. It should be fun and I'm really glad that I have to opportunity to take my mom along with me on these trips.

I am going to take my laptop along with me and plan on updating my progress during the tournament so everyone who wants to see how I am doing can check in on me. I'll probably update daily but if I get down to the final few tables I'll update every break I get.

That's all for now, I have to pack....

Priorities First

While I intend to keep these posts fairly poker related there are going to be some things that happen in my life that I will write about. Unfortunately this first one is not good news. I found out yesterday that my Grandmother, who has been having health problems for the last couple years, was taken into the emergency room at a hospital in Denver. I don't know the full extent of her problems but understand that it has something to do with the dialysis that she has been going through over the past months. It would be greatly appreciated by myself and my whole family if you could keep her in your prayers.

My mother, who I asked to accompany me to Austria, is understandably torn. I have told her that if she wants to stay and be with her mother then that is what she needs to do. However, tonight she told me that she will still plan on going to Austria with me as long as my worst fears don't come true, that my grandmother passes away. If that is the case, then I also would stay here and be with my mom and family during this time.

As of right now I am still planning on flying out on Friday, but will have a lot more on my mind then I had hoped.

On a lighter note, I should address a question that I have received while I am writing this post. A couple friends have asked me "what is trip 12's?” Well, technically there are no "trip 12's", but in poker "trips" means three of a kind and I guess if you count numerically up from 10, 11 (jack), 12 (queen), then it would mean trip queens. However, as it applies to me, Trip12's is just my screen-name or "handle" on the on-line poker sites that I play. I chose the name because a good friend of mine used the handle "trip5's" and I wanted to chose something similar but unique. Henceforth the mystery is solved.

A little explaining

Alright, since I just sent out the mass e-mail about the site to all my family and friends I supose that I had better explain some things. Firstly, most everyone knows, I am pretty certain, that I have become fairly involved with poker over the last 2-3 years. Some of you might not know that, as of right now, I do plan on trying to make my living as a professional poker player after I graduate college in May. I have thought about this decision for a countless number of hours and have come to my decision for three major reasons:

1. I love playing poker. I love the psychological, analytical, and sometimes even physical challenges that the game presents.

2. I have studied, prayed, and talked to alot of people about the ethical and moral issues that surround this type of a career choice. After all my thoughts I have come to the conclusion that I can lead a God-pleasing life as a professional poker player. Many people have argued against my stance and I respect their opinions, I just don't share their same thoughts. It's a personal choice that I hope everyone can accept.

3. There is really no better career opportunity for me right now. When looking at this choice from a financial perspective it is really a no brainer. The expected profits and return are just to large to ignore. Poker is booming right now and the opportunities have never been greater. Also this career will allow me to meet and become connected with many very successful people who could help me get involved in the business side of the game after I am done as a professional player.


Since coming to this decision my life has never been more uncertain. I have no idea where I will be 5 years from now and I have to accept the posibilty of anything. I know that through my faith I have nothing to worry about because everything will happen for a reason, good or bad.

Alright, back to the basics of the site. For those of you who don't know much about the game of poker there will be alot of terminology thrown around that will seem fairly confusing. I'll add a link to a VERY basic overview of how Texas Hold'em is played. Without at least a basic knowledge of the game it will be fairly futile to read some of the posts.

http://boardgames.about.com/cs/poker/a/texas_rules.htm

Okay, hopefully you will enjoy the posts and if you have any comments feel free to post them, or if you want to get ahold of me, you probably have my e-mail address and if not then it's lucidclairvoyance@hotmail.com

Thanks for checking out the site

Short Sessions

Ahh, it feels like all I really ever have time for during the week is short sessions. After class today I decided to log onto pokerfantasy and play some 15/30 before I had to go meet a friend of mine to do some homework. The table was 5 handed and I got off to a nightmare start. I was playing my normal loose aggressive style and was hitting strong hands, but the problem was that I was almost always heads up and my opponent outdrew me 5 out of my first 6 pots. So 15 minutes into my session I am down $1,000 and getting a little unerved. Everything is going wrong, another very strong player is at the table with me, my image is bad, I'm now not hitting and getting called down.... it sucks. I sit there and think about my two options; One, I can get up from the table put my laptop down and take the 1k loss. Or two, I can put my head down, take this as a challenge to bear down and play my best poker through the adversity and get my money back. If you know me well at all you can probably guess that I'm not the type of guy who would choose #1 because as Achillies said in the epic movie Troy "that is why no one will remember your name". So I put my head down and I ground it out one pot at a time. Eventually a couple guys left and I busted one other so I found myself heads-up with the good player I mentioned before. I usually don't like to play heads-up against other solid players because there just isn't enough of an advantage after the rake is taken. But I had been playing this particular player heads-up several times over the last few weeks and was enjoying the challenge, even though he was slightly ahead in our matches. When we started playing he shifted gears way down and I had to adjust accordingly, playing super aggresive from my button and very tight from the BB. I think at one point in time we went 10 hands in a row without seeing a flop. Eventually I started to catch some cards and play them for optimum value and fought all the way back to even for the session. I ended the session after about 90 minutes at +$4.50 and it felt like a huge win after the start to the day.

Only 3 days till I take off for Vienna, Austria for the EWSOP, which I heard is also called the Austrian Poker Championships. PartyPoker is sending a large number of entries so hopefully there will be over 500 players. I really didn't like the small field at the CPC simply for the fact that there wasn't ever much side action, and when there was it was usually NL cash games (not my strong suit). So, hopefully I will be able to grind out a few more thousand before friday and leave for Austria on a good note.

Lazy Sunday

Okay this is the 2nd week in a row that I have played the sunday "majors" online and not even sniffed the money in any of them. While this is frustrating I know that it will happen sometimes and just have to keep pushing through it. I literally only won 3 pots in the whole 4 tournaments I played today, and it is hard to make it very far if you can't win any pots. Alex and I both played the 750k on PokerStars ($200 buy-in), the 500k on PartyPoker ($210), the 150k on Paradise ($200), and the 50k on Pacific ($65). We have final tabled the 50k on pac five times in the last two months but haven't even made the money these last two weeks. Fortunatly I have played $15/30 for a few hours after busting out of the tournaments and have been making more than enough to cover my buy-ins. Not cashing in any tournaments and still showing a profit for the day keeps me somewhat optimistic.

Recap of the Bahamas

Bahamas Day 2

Okay, so I limped into day 2 of the CPC with around $13,000 in chips. Having such a short stack is a huge disadvantage and really doesn't allow me to play the loose aggressive style of poker that I love to play. So everyone was re-seated and I sat down at my table with the 2nd shortest stack. I came out pretty slow, stealing blinds when I needed to and basically hanging around even for the day. After about an hour our table broke and I got moved to a really good table. The new players at my table were the weakest that I had played with so far. I started my new table hoping to double up quickly off a weak play that I knew would eventually come. There was one player in particular (let's call him Beginner Bill) who was showing down some hands that were a little more than questionable. He would re-raise preflop and eventually show down a hand like K 10 off suit. About 20 minutes after I start at my new table I find the hand I am looking for KK, unfortunatly I am in 2nd position, but I won't get too picky and just enjoy the Cowboys. The blinds at this point are $400/800 and I make a faily standard raise to $2,200. I definatly want action on this hand and am looking to double up through someone. It folds to Beginner Bill and he looks at his chips and eventually calls the raise. I wish i could have had someone re-raise me but it just didn't work out like that and everyone else folded leaving me and Bill heads up. The dealer flops down a beautiful 4 A 5 which is exactly not what I was hoping to see. I look up at Bill and see that his eyes have lit up a little and he looks down at his chips right after seeing the flop. This is definatly a tell that indicates he likes the flop and is wanting to bet. Discouraged but still alive I check and Bill reaches for $3,000 chips and throws them in the pot. I don't really have to think about it long and I toss mine in the muck pretty quickly. That pot drops me down to about $9,000 in chips and I am quickly approching emergency mode. A couple more rounds pass and My chip satck has increased a little bit due to smoe steals and I am sitting right around $11,000. The dealer throws me AQ off suit on the button and I start getting excited, I know it's bad when AQ off gets me excited. Anyways, Beginner Bill is in middle position and raises to $3,300, a bit larger than the standard raise. This is usually a sign that someone doesn't want a calla and has a medium strength hand. Analyze my chip stack and announce a re-raise of $4,500 more leaving me with around $3,500 behind me. I didn't push all in because I actually thought I wanted Bill to call because I though there was a very good chance he help a hand like AJ or KQ. Beginner Bill immediatly asks me how much I have left and after I tell him he announces that he's all in. Now I am sick but I don't really have a choice, I am pretty sure he's got me in trouble but am way to comitted to fold the hand. I shove my chips in the pot and he flips over AA and I am sent to the rail. The tournament was pretty cool because they filmed every all-in and did an exit interview with me. I'm sure none of it will make TV but it will give me some good experience for next time.

Overall the trip was a blast, I know the poker didn't go quite as I had planned but it rarely works out perfectly. I had a great time with my friends and made a few new friends as well. One in particular is a really good player who ended up getting 2nd in the tournament and should have won. His name is Shannon Shorr, he's from Alabama and he plays alot like I do. He also just got 4th in the Aussie Millions for almost a 1/4 Mill and I'm going to meet him over in Austria next week for the EWSOP. Hopefully I will outlast him this time and he'll get 2nd again. Overall the trip was a great experience with two of my really good friends and my older sister even came down for a couple days and cheered me on. I'm definatly going to have to qualify for another tournament at the Atlantis and go down there again.

Recap of the Bahamas

Paradise Island

Let me start this post off by saying that if you ever get a chance to visit the Bahamas, I'd take it. I just got back from a week at the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island where I played in the Canadian Poker Championships. Yea, I also found it kind of ironic that they played the "Canadian" championship in the Bahamas.

The CPC was a tournament set up by Party Poker and endorsed by TJ Cloutier and actually ended up not being much of a Canadian tournament at all. I think when they announced the numbers there were only about 10 canadians in the whole event. Getting back on track, I actually ended up going to the tournament only because my good friend Nate qualified for it on Party Poker a few months ago. I initally was going to just tag along, take some cash and play in the juicy side games that usually accompany large tournaments. But, by the time we got down there I was already trying to figure out a way to get into the tournament. So it ends up that with the help on Nate's credit card we rounded up some cash and I got myself entered in the $5,000 buy-in main event. It is probably a good thing that I did too because there really wasn't much action in the side games. The tournament only ended up having about 125 entrants, so there weren't alot of side games that got started. The activities leading up to the tournament were fun and helped create a really comfortable atmosphere for the players. Since the numbers were so small the whole week had a really intimate feeling and I got to meet some really nice guys (and great players) who I'll tell you about later.

Day 1: The tournament started off two days after we arrived so we had a chance to get over any jet lag and get into our best frame of mind for the tournament. Everyone was kind of suprised at the low number of players and that 95% of the entrants were on-line qualifiers. I started off at a pretty unfavorable table, there was only one other really good player with me there (who was also a direct buy-in), but the other seven players played a very interesting style. About 15 minutes into the tournament I realized that accumulating alot of chips early on was going to be very difficult. The weaker players at my table were playing fairly tight and for me to get their chips without catching some cards was going to be a long a risky process. I played loose aggressive right off the bat, seeing some flops with marginal hands but I just couldn't seem to connect with anything. During the first 3 hours I slowly lost some chips and going into the 3rd break I was down to about $6,200 in chips (we started with $10,000), it was not going like I had hoped. The last hand before the 3rd break was my first notable hand. I was in the small blind (blinds were 100/200) and it folded around to the button who made a min raise to 300 chips. I looked down and had 89 suited and thought that this would be a good spot to pick off the pot if I flopped some big hand or draw. So I came into the pot and the BB followed. The flop comes down J 10 4 rainbow, a decent flop for me if I can see a cheap turn card so I check and the BB follows while the button bets out $400. I see this as a possible continuation bet and think that I may be able to take the pot down with a substantial raise but this flop may have hit the BB huge and I don't want to have to fold if he or the button push all in after I raise. So I make the smooth call and so does the BB, which I'm not crazy about. So we see the turn with $2,100 in the pot and the turn card is the Q of clubs making me a Q high straight and putting a club flush draw on the board. I am not thrilled about this card because I realize that it may knock me out of the tournament so I check quickly to see what the BB and button want to do. The BB checks with no indication of even thinking of betting, which eases my mind a bit, and to my suprise the button fires out $2,000. I actually feel very good about my hand right now because I don't believe that he would have bet so much if he had AK for the nut straight, so the hand I am only really worried about is K9, which I'm not sure he would have bet on the flop. I think it is most likely that he hit the Queen and probably with two pair, I'm guessing QJ. So I count my chips, I have around $5,600 left, and take a deep breath and push them all into the middle. The BB quickly folds and the button starts cursing himself under his breath saying he knows I have a straight but he still has outs. This has me a little worried and at this point I would be more than happy to take down the $9,500 or so that is in the pot without having to see the river. Well, to make a long story short he eventually mumbles something about pot odds (the most over used term in tournament poker) and calls my all in while flipping over Q 10. I don't like his cards because I know he still has 4 outs to make a full house and knock me out, but the river card is the 9 of diamonds and I take the pot down with my straight. That pot takes me up to about $13,000 chips and I feel alot better as I go on break.

After returning from the break my run of unplayable cards continues for a couple of hours and I slowly build my chips without ever having to show down a hand. 11:00 starts to roll around and I have worked my stack up to about $19,000 while literally getting only a couple decent hands. We a scheduled to stop for the night at around midnight. Unfortunatly my friend Nate got knocked out a little before the dinner break and he had to sit and watch from the rail, which I know sucks. But, right after 11:00 I get moved to a new table, awesome right? Wrong. I get to my new table and look around at all the other stacks and realize that the slow play from my first table is going to hurt me. While my table was playing small pots and dancing around the blinds, this table was knocking people out left and right. I left my first table as one of the chip leaders but when I got to my new table I was the 2nd shortest stack. Well, I decide that I need to make a statement early so I don't get pushed around all night and I raise maybe 4 out of the first 5 pots after I sit down. I am taking down some small ones then about a $5,000 pot on the flop and I'm feeling good at around $25,000 in chips. Then I make a piviotal mistake. I'm in the cutoff seat and the BB has left the table so there is a dead $600 in the pot (Blinds 300/600) the guy right next to me min raises to $1200 and I look down at 67 suited. I probably should have re-raised it myself, but I decide to call instead and see what his action will be on the flop. Much to my dismay the button (who has about $9,000 in chips) re-raises $3,300 straight so a raise of $2,100 to me. The initial raiser folds, which kind of suprised me since I was somewhat worried that he had a monster and was just trying to get action, and I all of the sudden am put in an opportunity to take down a nice pot. I look at the young kid next to me for about 2 solid minutes and watch his pulse racing from the vein in his neck. This is a very useful tell and almost always indictaes a bluff. Knowing this I should have just put all my chips in the middle but I didn't and that was my biggest mistake. I decide to just call and then put him all in on the flop if it looks like he misses it. So I smooth call and the flop comes A 4 5 two diamonds. THIRD MISTAKE I check waiting for him to bet so I can re-raise all in, I KNOW he doesn't have a big ace and suspect a hand like 99 or 10 J. Unfortunatly he checks behind me and I am kind of mad about it. The turn comes the 7 of diamonds which i think is probably a good card for me, not wanting to let him see any more cards without commiting his chips I push $6,000 into the pot setting him all in. To my ultimate suprise his INSTANTLY calls and I know that he hit a flush and I am drawing dead. He flips over Q 10 of diamonds and I push him $9,000 in chips. Although I lost this hand and didn't execute it well, I am happy about my read and my ability to follow my read in a big tournament situation. That was pretty much the end on the day for me and I limped into day two with about $13,000 in chips.

I'll tell you about my super donk move to get knocked out of the tournament tomorrow.

Let's give it a shot

Alright, after seeing some of my other friends starting a blog in order to keep their family, friends, and fans updated on the ups and downs of being a professional poker player I decided to give it a shot myself. So, since this is a public site and anyone can come and check out my postings I have also decided to limit the sites content to mainly my poker escapades. I don't think I will include very much personal information with the exception of major life events.

I think everyone who will be checking out this site will know alot about me, but I think I still should give a little background information just in case. My name is David Anderson, and I am a 23 year old college senior at Concordia University in Seward, Nebraska. I have been playing poker since my freshman year of college, but only seriously for the last 2 years. I am attracted to poker because of the combination of luck and skill that is involved in the game. It creates a competitive battle between players that doesn't always go your way. Never being able to master the game is what continually drives me to work harder. I am attracted to the lifestyle of a professional poker player for the obvious reason. The financial freedom, traveling opportunities, and the "no boss" factor are the biggest benefits. There really is NO better job that I could have as a 23 year old kid and I truly feel blessed to be in the position I am today. I have struggled with the moral and ethical issues of being a professional poker player and as a Christian I can see some of the arguments against this life. The personal choice that I have made at this time, however, is to pursue my dream career for the time being. I know that I don't want to be solely a professional poker player my whole life, I do want to get involved in other business aspects of the game and evetually just player poker because I love to.

Hopefully this site will keep you all updated on my travels, wins, losses (yes I will even post them), highlights, and struggles. Thanks for reading