After 20+ hours of either being in an airport, or in the air, I've finally made it to the Crown Casino in Melbourne Australia.

Several of my good friends have already put up some good results in the prelim's, including a chop in the $1k by Timex (I believe he won around $110k), and gobboboy won the $500 Stud/Stud8/Razz event for around $15k.

Congratulations to both.

At the moment I'm registered for the $1,500 event (tomorrow) and the $10k Main Event. There's a few other prelim's in between, I'll be sure to let you guys know if I play any of the other one's. I think I might get some cash sessions in as well.

That's about all I've got for now - it's great to be back in Melbourne.

-Adam Junglen

It could’ve been a better Sunday, but I certainly can’t complain.

Just skimming through my blog I really haven’t played much online poker the last few months. Most of the entries past September (WSOPE) are just about how I got into poker, and my life away from poker. I’ve played a few Sundays and cash sessions, but not anywhere close to the volume I did earlier this year.

Well, as I mentioned in my previous post, I did play the Sunday major’s. I wanted to get in the poker mindset to prepare for Australia, plus it was the $1k Sunday Million. I ended up playing the 2:30PM EST $5k, 20 man (2 tables), winner-take-all tournament on Stars, and that ended up being the highlight of my day.

When we were 3 handed we agreed on a chop. With 100k in the prize pool, you have to leave 25k to the winner, so with 3 left (ADZ124, Dariominieri, and myself) we agreed on splitting the remaining 75k based on chip count. I believe the amounts were roughly:

Dario: $36k

Me:$25k

ADZ: $14k

Dario eliminated ADZ, and I went into heads-up play down 2.5:1. I still felt my chances of winning were reasonable, since I was fairly deep and have played with Dario a fair bit. I ended up getting close to even with him, but shortly after I played a hand pretty poorly and dropping back down 2:1. The final hand involved me turning three of a kind, and then Dario making a fullhouse on the river. He shoved over my river bet, and I honestly should’ve just folded, but if my hand was good then I was back to even against him. If I had folded I would’ve been down 10:1 in chips. I made the crying call and lost. Oh well, still managed to win $25k from the tournament.

The $5k on PS is a new event, and the entire final table’s holecard’s will be exposed in a replay on PokerStars. I definitely played a few hands poorly, 2-3 right off the top of my head, specifically during the start of the FT. During the middle/later stages I thought I played well though.

I didn’t have much luck in any of the other tournaments. I took 56th in the UB major for $600, but that’s it. After concentrating on the $5k for so long I was already burnt out when it ended, and I still had 4 tournaments going. Next time I play it, I’ll probably just single table it or play the Million with it. Certainly not $109’s, lol.

Well that’s all for now. You can expect a lot more poker content/trip reports once I get to Melbourne.

Happy New Year everyone,

Adam Junglen

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I feel somewhat obligated to update since it’s been so long since my last post.

I had a nice Christmas, spending time with my growing family. I’ve also been spending time with my friends that are home from school for the holidays.

I plan on playing the Sunday majors unless something big comes up. It’s the quarterly $1k Sunday Million, meaning a better structure and much larger first place. I’d also like to get some play in before the Aussie Millions. Speaking of which, I’ll be flying to LA with my good friend Ryan on the 6th, be staying over at his place for the night, and then I’ll be catching the FTP flight from LAX to Melbourne around 11pm on the 7th. I know I’ve said it before, but I’m really looking forward to finally playing some live tournaments.

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas, and has a great New Year. I’ll probably give an update after Sunday, and once I’m on the road again I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to write about.

The most recent batch of Sunday tourney’s was pretty sick. UB had their UBOC final, a $1k with a 750k guarantee, and FTP had their monthly million guarantee ($535 buyin). That’s in addition to the standard PS Sunday Million, 2nd chance/mulligan’s, 100r’s, etc.

Well, it simply wasn’t my day. The tournament I went the deepest in was the Bodog $109 30k guarantee. I took 19th (ITM). Funny side note, I ran into AA (in an AIPF situation) FIVE times during this tournament. I cracked them once, but I’m not going to win a tournament anytime soon if I’m running into AA each time I resteal.

Well, I’m not going to continue explaining every single cooler/bad beat I encountered over the course of the day, but needless to say it was an extremely frustrating session.

The weather here in Ohio is really starting to get crappy. I hate the snow, it’s all the more reason to head to Melbourne in January, where it’s nice and sunny. Last year the weather was beautiful pretty much everyday, I’m hoping for more of the same this year.

The other day I had a check-up to see how my eyes were doing. I just had lasik done 2 weeks ago. They said my eyes appear to be “right on track,” and that it’s just a slow process before my eyes are completely healed. I’m still not 100% used to not wearing glasses. Sometimes I’ll be scratching my head and try to adjust my glasses….except that they’re not there, haha. I’m real happy with the result of the operation so far.

I Hope everyone’s Sunday was better than mine,

-Adam

Edit: I just listened to Daniel's interview on Poker Road Radio Show, and he gives me a shout out. It's around the 40min mark, check it out. Radio Link

Hey guys,

My new blog is up at my main site: AdamJunglen.com, so I forgot to cross-post here. Anyways, here's my latest post:

"I really haven’t been doing anything too productive lately. I need to finish some paper work and other end of the year errands, but besides that I’m mostly just looking forward to the Aussie Millions.

It’ll be really nice to finally play some live tournaments again. If you can’t tell by now, I definitely enjoy playing live more than online. I plan on playing a few of the preliminary events, and am really looking forward to the main event. I also really enjoyed my time in Melbourne when I visited last year. It’s one of my favorite cities and I’m looking forward to having a lot of fun away from the tables, as well.

After the Aussie Millions, in February I’ll be moving out. I found a nice, brand new, “Apartment Home,” that’s close to home. Ray is going to be moving in with me, so that’ll be a good time. Since I still have about a year to go until I turn 21 I figure I’ll just rent for awhile and then reevaluate things once I’m “officially legal.” I’ll be sure to post some pictures once I have it all arranged, but that won’t be for a little while.

That pretty much sums up my plans for the beginning of 2008. Until then I’ll probably play a few online tournaments, finish up the paperwork I need to get done, and enjoy the holidays. It’ll also be nice to hang out with my friends that are home from school for the holidays.

-Adam Junglen"

Well, yesterday I had my Lasik procedure and it ended up being a bit more of a hassle than I thought it'd be, but it ended up working out fine.

At the moment I'm recovering, so my vision isn't 100% - but I can see pretty well considering I just had the procedure done. I can do most things (after all, I am typing this blog), but things are (expectedly) a little blurry. I should be 100% recovered within a few days. It's very weird not using glasses after having to use them for so many years. There was a moment where I put on my glasses, just by habit, and they made my vision much worse, then I took them off and my vision was much better. Reminded me of the scene in Spiderman when Parker firsts wakes up after getting bitten by the spider and did the same thing.

Anyways, the procedure itself was somewhat of a struggle. I have some eye-twitches and other subconscious movements that I tend to make with my eyes, which ended up messing up the procedure in the post op room. It actually took 3 tries, but I ended up just fell asleep the third time in the post op room, allowing the flaps of my cornea to heal and for me to go home and rest.

The actual Lasik wasn't a big deal at all. It was frustrating to have to repeatedly go into the operating room to seal the cornea, but the actual Lasik wasn't too painful. I'd say it was similar to getting a cavity done. Once you have the shot to numb your mouth a cavity is a breeze.....well, once they setup the clamp on your face so you can't close your eyes, it's easy.

The last few days I've gotten some goodies in the mail from PokerStars. First, I got the Sunday Million jacket:





Then, I got a cool medallion type of thing they give to those who final table EPT's. This is the first year they started giving these out. This comes from my 6th place finish at EPT Barcelona of course.





That's all I got for now.

Later,

Adam Junglen

Well, Thanksgiving, my Grandmother's 80th Birthday, as well as some poker has been taking place since my last update.

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there. I know it's late, and everyone is already thinking about Christmas, but we all have a great deal to be thankful for. I was extremely lucky to be adopted into my wonderful loving family. My entire family has been extremely supportive as I've developed as a poker player and grown into an adult. They've been behind me my entire life, good times, and bad.

Thank you so much.


For Thanksgiving dinner, we had my mom's side of the family over. After dinner we visited with my Dad's side of the family at my Aunt's.

Let me tell you something, it's a lot of fun to play in the major live events and get recognized. Being asked for a picture, interview, or signing an autograph is pretty cool, but I'll tell you what - It's great to be able to come home to my family and friends and just be Adam Junglen. I'm really lucky to be surrounded by a great family as well as a ton of friends, whom I managed to visit over the weekend.

Also this weekend we celebrated my Grandma Marty's 80th Birthday. I can't possibly imagine ever being that old, it's quite a milestone. I'm also happy to report she's in great health and she's still with her husband, (my grandpa) by her side. In fact, both sides of my grandparents are still with us, which is very rare considering my age, and something I certainly do not take for granted.

Happy 80th Birthday Grandma!



Now, onto other things. I got my new desktop in the mail and it's just....huge. Right now I'm running on a 30in monitor, and another 20in beside in on portrait mode (flipped vertical). it's capable of running more monitors, and I have a spare 20in I'll be using once I move into my new apartment/office.

Several days ago I couldn't sleep, so I decided to play some cash. Usually I play HU SNG's when I'm bored or can't sleep, but I decided to play some 25/50NL. I certainly don't claim to be a long-term winner in the game. I probably should've just played 10/20, but I guess I just felt like gambling.

My opponent and I went back and forth a bit, he was up around a grand for awhile, then I won it back, got even, and then proceeded to stack him in this $10k pot. Pretty sick cold deck, glad I was on the right end of it. Afterwards I ended up playing a few more orbits, but basically ended up hitting and running since I saw Shaun sitting at 25/50 capped, which I'm much more comfortable playing.

Deeb (tedsfishfry) was sitting at the 25/50 capped game and I decided to sit to joke around. Well, he posted immediately and it was quite clear he was willing to play. I obliged and took just under $5k off of him, which is quite a bit when you're playing capped pots.

At 25/50 capped the most you can bet in a single hand is 30bb's, or $1,500 - so he was stacked quite a few times. I believe we broke even in races (my AK < QQ and my 77 > AQ), I managed to get lucky once with A8 > JJ on the 78T flop, but besides that I just straight owned Shaun. I'm not really big on posting HH's, but some of these are just funny, and I know he won't mind. I actually hope he chimes in on some of these.

As I put it, it was a "friendly game."

Remember, they're capped NL hands.

88 > A7


KT > JT - Check/Capping on this board is pretty standard since it's so draw heavy. I was expecting to get called by middle pair.


LOL - This isn't as god-awful as it looks. Shaun raised preflop, made a pair on the turn, called my bet, and then the Ace on the river was just a good card for me to bluff at. Shaun probably thought I was floating OOP with absolute air, or had a King. "The nuts or nothing," and obviously I only play the nuts.


KK > A8s - I guess Shaun thought I had a small pair or weaker Ace....or more likely was just tilting - because I knew he'd call a full capped bet. Shootin fish in a barrel =)


No brag would be complete without a sicko graph, posted below. Trust me, I'll be the first one to tell you I ran hot (specifically vs neverA).

I think Shaun just wanted to pay for my Lasik I'm having on Friday...so, thanks for the new eyes Shaun!

I'm pretty much done saying how I got into poker. This entry's going to be a review of my "breakout" summer.

In the spring I had won the $200 HU MTT on PS for $14k or so, and the $10r 55k for about $13k. I was very satisfied with my online results, but one major thing still eluded me. A major live win. In May I was in Vancouver for the Johnny Chan Poker Classic. KalenSC won the first $500 NLH event, then Jeff won the $1k 6max event. The next event was PLH and I final tabled, but ended up losing a critical race at the final table and placed 5th, if I recall correctly for around $13k.

Then later in June I made my first televised final table - a $1k Heartland Poker Tour event at Turning Stone. It wasn't a big deal media wise, but I desperately wanted to win a live tournament. I went into the TV table (final 6) as the chipleader, and played worse than I'm capable of and got coolered out of it to place 4th for ...I don't even remember. Around $12k.

That was a very devastating experience for me. I was a decent favorite to win, was feeling confident, and came up short. When you're as hyper-competitive as me, nothing short of a victory will suffice. I went home and was massively depressed at my failure.

About a day after I got home I bought a plane ticket to Las Vegas. The WSOP was going on and I figured it'd be a good idea to take a trip out and see some friends and clear my mind. I was taking the TS tournament too hard, which is something I've worked on. I don't get as heartbroken anymore over tournaments (although they can still be extremely frustrating). At that time I was really frustrated though. I'd taken 8th in a previous TS 1k, 5th in the PLH $1k, and now 4th in the TS Televised $1k. My motivation was hurting and was ready to just take an extended break.

Anyways, I stayed with Bond18 and then stayed at "The Gobbo House" with Gobbo, JCarver, EC10, Kalen, Mlagoo, and I'm sure others that I'm missing. Not to mention there were many visitors every night. It was nice to see all of my poker friends outside of the poker element.

One night my friend, and fellow two ragger Matt (mlagoo) won the $1k Sunday Million for around $315k. Words cannot describe how happy I was for my friend. Without a single iota of jealousy we all celebrated his win. I remember the next day I was incredibly motivated. I said to myself "Matt can do this, I know I can!"

It was Monday and I decided I was going to win the biggest tournament - the FTP $1k. As some of you may recall, I didn't end up winning, but took 3rd place for $33k - my biggest cash at the time.

I was not satisfied.

I wanted to win. I wanted it more than anything. I wanted to experience the feeling of winning a huge tournament, whether it be online or live.

I didn't take 3rd place too hard, after all, it was my biggest cash. My friends were around me to help give moral support, but I was fine. I hung out in LV for another few days, but I had a mission. I couldn't concentrate on the online majors while playing on a laptop too well, so I flew home a few days after my FTP cash to play the majors.

I believe it was the next week at home that my mission continued. I had to win a tournament....and I was in a great position to. I was heads-up in the Sunday $100+R, first was around $36k, and I had a gigantic chiplead heads-up. Well, I somehow managed to lose every single hand during HU play and took 2nd for 23k or so.

It was horrible. I still can't believe I lost that. Don't get me wrong, $23k is a hell of a lot of money - I still know the value of money.....but I set the bar very high for myself and when I lost that match I was just in shock.

The next Sunday arrived and I was ready to play. I was incredibly determined to take down a major. Perhaps the devastating $100r disappointment turned out to be a blessing, because I was firing on all cylinders. After 12 grueling hours of intense concentration I did it.

I DID IT!

I won the PokerStars Sunday Million for $200k.


This was by far my greatest poker accomplishment. It was such a relief to finally take one down. I still wake up sometimes and just think to myself, "Damn...that was awesome. I reached my goal, I did it."

My local friends were at a friends house, watching me play on a laptop. They were all drinking and having a great time. I woke up my mom and told her I "finally did it." She knew how badly I wanted a victory and was very happy for me. Later that night I went with my friends to Steak N' Shake, a 24/7 diner to celebrate. I'll never forget it.

Just writing about this brings back the amazing indescribable feeling of finally achieving a major goal.



I'd won the biggest Sunday tournament. Now it was time for me to put up a big live result.

I haven't decided yet if I'm going to continue writing about how I got into poker. For the most part I think I covered most of the real questions of how I first got started, and it's getting to the point where I'm just re-blogging stuff that's simply in my archives. Regardless, I may continue to write about what's happened this year from my current perspective. We'll see though.

Lately I've been pretty busy. First, some fairly big news. I went in for my Lasik consultation, and the doctor told me I had terrible eyes, and that he could fix them forever. Just hearing that sounded great. My surgery will be on the 30th, and I'm looking forward to it.

On to other news, I'll be getting a computer in from the PokerVT to start playing more online. Not only that, but I also just purchased the Dell 30in monitor, and it is a beast. Here's a picture of it sitting on my desk:




I'll soon be running on a tri-monitor setup with two 20.1in's and the 30in. Of course, I won't have that fully setup until I move out. I'll probably just be running the 30in and maybe one 20in if I can fit it until I move out and buy a new desk.

Speaking of moving out, it looks as though I'll be moving into a new apartment complex early next year. I'm pretty confident it'll be in February, when I get back from the Aussie Milions. The place is close to home, and very nice. I don't have a problem living at home or anything - I just feel it's about time I moved out. It'll be a great experience and a lot of fun. I plan on living there until I turn 21, and then basically reevaluate my situation. An awful lot of things could happen in that time frame, so we'll just have to see what happens.


Well, that about finishes up with what's new around here.

After finishing 2006 with my first 5 figure cashes and live tournament success I was ready to take my game to the "big leagues."

After some last minute planning I found myself holding an itinerary with flights from Cleveland to Miami to the Bahamas (WPT-PCA), to Miami, to LAX, to Auckland NZ, to Melbourne for the Aussie Millions (then from Melbourne to LAX to Phoenix to Cleveland...ugh).

Talk about jumping out of the gate head-first, it was a hell of a trip.

Ray won a package to the PCA and was nice enough to let me stay in his room, while I bought in directly. Obviously I didn't have the roll for an $8k event, so I wound up selling around half of my action, same for the Aussie Millions.

The PCA is many poker players favorite stop on the circuit. PokerStars runs a TON of satellites to the event, which is held in the luxurious Atlantis Resort. While the resort was very beautiful, I found the service to be somewhat shady and pretty much everything was overpriced. The surrounding area was fairly poor, and I didn't feel very safe leaving the resort. Some of my friends went outside the resort and apparently one of them was threatened by a man with a gun. Nothing ended up happening, but after hearing that story I decided I wasn't going to leave the resort. There was plenty to do there anyways.

The tournament was a great experience, but ended in a very disappointing way. I built my stack up from 20k to around 45k when the last level of the day came, 400/800/100. I was moved to one of the toughest tables in the room, including Ray, bigjoe2003, Issac Haxton, and some other decent players. The seating order was Ray, then to his left was Joey, then me, then Issac on my left. Heh, Joe was bitching about his seat the whole time - he really did have the worst seat in the entire tournament.

My bustout hand was brutal. I was very focused and playing well all day and was ready for Day 1 to end and Day 2 to bring a new table draw. Unfortunately I busted out with about 2 hands left in the day.

400/800/100, I'm sitting on 45k in the SB, Haxton in the BB with 90k or so.

Folds to me in the SB, I open 3.5x to 2,800 with AKo. Issac re-raises to 10k, and I shove for 35k more.

He snap-called and showed 44.

Whaaaaa

The board bricked out, and I lost a 100k pot with 2 hands left in the day. Sigh.

I was pretty devastated. For what it's worth, Isaac is a very talented player, although I still think his call with 44 was marginal at best. He would go on to finish 2nd to Ryan Daut, and gobbo took 29th I believe.

After getting over busting out I ended up having a pretty good time hanging out with people. I met a lot of new friends and it was a good experience. That being said, I was ready for Australia. I thought I played really well at the PCA and wanted to have a good showing in Australia.

I roomed with Gobboboy (Jimmy Fricke), Aaron Been and Cameron White at the Crown Casino in Melbourne. Nassau to Melbourne is one of the longest flights in the world, and it was easily the worst travel experience I've ever had. It was such a relief when I got there.

The Crown Casino was one of the nicest casino's I've ever been to, and Melbourne was one of the coolest cities I've ever been to. I enjoyed the atmosphere significantly more than the Bahamas, but I'm much more of a city guy than a beach person, so take that for what it's worth.

I entered Day 3 18th in chips out of 80, and Jimmy was in the top 3 or so. it was pretty awesome. Unfortunately Day 3 didn't go so well for me. I ended up playing worse than I'm capable of, ran bad, and eventally I found myself all-in preflop with AQ vs AK for about 500k. I failed to suck out and placed 55th for $20,000 Australian Dollars (16.5k USD), my first major event cash.

As I'm sure most of you know, Gobbo ended up taking 2nd for $1mil Australian. It was an awesome time. I also recall winning the $30r on UB while in Australia for $5.4k.

My game was developing at a very fast rate and I was gaining confidence. Tough to believe this all occurred less than a year ago.


Well, that's it for now. I haven't decided if I'll continue this series of blogs, simply because a lot of the stuff wasn't even that long ago. We'll see though. Thanks for reading.