Today I went car shopping, and hung out with some friends.

I went to the Honda dealership to check out the Civic's. Turns out the 2007 models were basically the same price as the 08's so I test drove a 2008 2 door Civic Coupe EX. I pretty much immediately fell in love with it, and decided it was the car for me. So, I went back to the dealership and started the process of haggling. After adding a body kit, rear spoiler and some nicer interior lightning they offered 25k, which was very close to what most websites said it'd cost with the accessories I added.

Well, of course I'm not going to just let them run me over. I notified them that I would be paying in cash and offered to buy it for $22k. They counter offered $24k. I told them I was insulted by the offer and got up and left. I expected a phone call within a day or so telling me they'd offer $23k or something. Well, I ended up going straight from the dealership to Olive Garden to have dinner. About 30 minutes had past, and I got a call...ship it, Brand new Honda Civic for $22k w/accessories. Easiest $3k I've ever saved in my life.

Anyways, I don't have the car in my driveway yet. I wanted it in black, so they have to order it, then they have to add the custom accessories I requested. It'll take about 3-4 days until I have it, no biggie. I'm very excited about getting a new car. I absolutely loved it when I drove it, and I'm very confident in Honda's reliability. I'm thrilled that when I go to pick it up it'll have exactly zero miles on it =).

Now all I gotta do is come up with a cool custom license plate. I believe it's seven letters/numbers. So far I've had the suggestions:

"REBUY"
"IAM NLHE"
"PLUS EV"
"TY EPT"

Any suggestions are welcome, but for now that's all I got.

The last week I haven't played much poker, but have still been very busy.

I've been spending time with my family and doing some relaxing, but have also started working on my taxes and doing other chores. I bought a new Tempurpedic mattress, booked a suite in Niagara, scheduled a consultation for Lasik, and recently decided to buy a car.

Sorry, I'm not buying anything ridiculous - but it'll be nice and reliable. Currently looking at the 2007 Honda Civic Si as well as the 2007 Acura TL. I'm looking to spend around 20-30k for a new car, but again - I don't need a Porsche or anything. Some of my friends have spent over 100k and for a car and I kinda think that's silly and unpractical.

That's pretty much it for now. Thanks for reading

Well, it’s been a few days and the WCOOP ME has past us, so I think it’d be appropriate to update.

Sunday was the WCOOP Main Event, unfortunately I really wasn’t feeling too great when I woke up. I had to set an alarm since my sleep schedule was horrible after playing a late night during the triple shootout, so I was pretty tired. Regardless, I still felt really obligated to play since it’s only once a year. I ended up donating my stack after playing a hand pretty horribly and was eliminated in the first 3 hours or so.

Oh well

Tomorrow my friend Ray (Exitonly) is going to be visiting. He has to pick up a car for his Dad in St. Louis, so he’s going to fly there and stop by on his way back home. I haven’t seen Ray in awhile, it’ll be good to see him.

With the exception of WPT Niagara, I don’t have any travel plans for October though December. The poker lifestyle is far more stressful than it appears, and I’m really looking forward to just taking it easy for awhile. I haven’t seen a lot of my old friends from back home in a long time so I’m going to try to fix that.

I played the PLO and Triple Shoot-out WCOOP events on PokerStars today. I was looking forward to both.

In the Pot-Limit Omaha tournament I busted fairly quickly. The structure was such that it forced players to gamble early. I ended getting my money in with Aces and the nut flush draw vs. a set. I missed my draw and was busto within an hour. Oh well.

Over at my shootout table it looked like it was going to be a very tough table. BelowAbove, Andy McLeod, Twisted Echo, and myself were all at the same table.

The shootout format is pretty fun.

This tournament was capped at 742 entrants, so it started with 81 tables of 9 players each. Once each table yielded a winner the remaining 81 players were divided into 9 players at the 9 remaining tables. Then of course once each of the 9 tables had a winner they merged to create the final table.

I managed to win my first table, despite it featuring several players with great results.

My 2nd table was VERY soft. Despite the table being very weak, it was still no lock for me to win. Remember, in a shootout you must win in order to advance. I played a very patient game and picked good spots to accumulate chips without risk and found myself heads-up facing a roughly 3.5:1 deficit in chips (my 6k to his 21k).

My strategy was to get heads-up and the structure allowed a lot of play - so I felt confident about my chances once I reached that goal.

I chipped up to around 8k vs 19k, then this hand came up.

Link to Hand

Once again I had made a great "hero call" vs my opponent. After this hand I had a marginal lead, and all the momentum. I ended up finishing my opponent off when he stacked off with an overpair vs my top two pair.

On to the final table!

The final table started off very well for me. I was picking up some hands and quickly built up my starting stack of 3k to 3.6k. Players generally played VERY tight (rightly so) because of the ridiculous payout jumps. 9th place paid around $3.5k and 1st place paid $75k. Tell me that's not ridiculous?

Anyways, I ended up flopping a set and doubled up, which gave me the chiplead. With 5 players left I was the clear favorite and very confident in my chances of winning the bracelet.

To be honest, this was the first time the title truly meant more to me than the money. 1st was "only" $75k but winning a World Championship of Online Poker Event is recognized feat. I have enough money....but lack any major titles.

At any rate I ended up losing a sizeable pot when my opponent outflopped me with his AQ vs my AK. After that I just couldn't get anything going. I still had a playabe stack, but the opponent to my right would constantly out-flop me. Whenever I'd pick up a big hand I'd open the pot and everyone would fold.

Once with Kings I raised the pot, BB called and the flop was QT9. Not exactly a dream flop, as it was obviously draw heavy. BB checked, I c-bet 825 or so into the pot of 1150 and he called. Turn was an 8 completing a straight for any jack. BB checked, I checked behind. River a was T, making the board QT98T. BB checked, and with no value in betting I checked behind.

He tabled J7 for a straight and I lost the minimum - but it's obviously frustrating when your opponent runs like god when we're playing for top 3 prize money and a WCOOP title.

I ended up busting out in 3rd place, getting it AIPF with A9 vs TT. I'm pretty pissed off at myself with how I played the last 30 minutes or so of this tournament. Having both of my opponents 3 handed catch every flop and run insane vs. me resulted in my demise. In retrospect I certainly could've played better, but I really couldn't catch a break 3 handed. My last hand was the one and only time that I was all-in (without the nuts) at risk for elimination. Again, I failed to get lucky in this kind of situation.

3rd Place Paid $36,500


Still a nice finish, and after taking a month off of playing online MTT's it's nice to know I can still crank out a big score when I'm focused.

Thanks for the support everybody.


-Adam Junglen

Hey All,

My new blog is finally up, it can be found at www.AdamJunglen.com.

As far as continuing writing for tworags, I'm not quite sure what I'm going to be doing. I originally intended tworags to simply be a temporary solution until my blog was fixed. However, it's become quite obvious the community here is interested in my life and writing. I believe I'll likely cross-post most of my material from AdamJunglen.com here, but will likely have some exclusive content here as well.

That's all for now,

-Adam Junglen