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 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.

Before I continue with my live tournament adventures, adding onto my "How I got into Poker (blogs)," I'm going to address the amputation questions that many people have asked, especially after my last entry when I didn't go into detail.

Well, here we go.

I was born with an issue called clubbed feet, and amniotic banding. Amniotic banding result = I have 7 fingers. Not a big deal at all. However, clubbed feet manages to haunt me, still today. It didn't affect my left leg nearly as bad as it affected my right leg. When I was 1, I was adopted to the Junglen family from South Korea. It ended up being one of the best things to ever happen to me. I was adopted to a very loving family, and the doctors in the US were much better than the doctors in Korea. If I were still in Korea, there's a good chance I wouldn't be walking at all.

I could talk about this subject for quite awhile, but I'll try to give you guys a good summary, without taking it too far.

From ages 1 - 16 I had around 17 surgeries correcting my right foot, along with minor ear and finger surgeries. Totaling around 20 surgeries at age 16.

When I was 17 I was told that amputation was the best route to take. While contemplating this life changing decision, I'll never forget what my doctor said. Dr. Ian Alexander looked at me in the face confidently and told me "Adam, you'll be running track in 6 weeks." It sounded great. I'd be able to walk without wearing awkward orthopedic shoes, and wouldn't need my "yearly leg tune-up surgery." He also told me I was very young so I'd recover very quickly....Well....F**K that guy. Seriously.

I went through with the surgery and it was awful. Mentally and physically I was an absolute wreck. It didn't take 6 weeks for me to recover like my doctor suggested. It took 6 f**king month's.

6 Months of being tortured on crutches, hobbling my way through Stow High School
There was no way I could make it to dances or other high school festivities on crutches.
Every week I'd goto my doctor to see if my limb was healed to the point where I could get a prosthetic leg.

Again, this processes DID NOT take 6 weeks as said by my doctor. The healing took 6 of the worst month's of my life. You can only imagine what was going through my mind during this time.

Alright, so he finally tells me I'm healed and can learn to walk again. This was during the time I was interning at Alltel. I was walking, but with incredible pain. It was just awful. Eventually I had an X-Ray done at the doctor's....

Yea...

There were bone chips floating around my limb. I needed to have another surgery.

F**k my doctor. What a joke. Seriously, I have absolutely no idea how I didn't sue him.

Ok, enough of that. The 2nd surgery (which took up my senior year) ended up being "successful."

I can walk, but it's still painful...just not as painful as it used to be. I can get around and have traveled on my leg, but it's still painful. After sitting for 9-12hrs in big live events for example, I'm in extreme pain. On breaks, I quickly walk to my room just so I can take off my leg and relax for a few minutes. I'm far too insecure to take my leg off at the table. it's just something I gotta deal with.

I'm desperately hoping they can come up with some sort of cure. Last I heard they might do something with my nerves so I wouldn't feel the pain. I don't know, I really feel like it's practically ruined my life. People jokingly tell me all the time "Oh I'd give you my leg if I could," well, I know they're just trying to be nice, but I almost take that as an insult.

Nobody deserves the pain that I had to go through.

Sorry for getting off-track. My next blog I'll write up my memories of my first live major events in January of 07.

I'll close this blog with this simple statement that should get the point across.




I would give my net worth for 2 legs in a heartbeat.


Sorry if this ended up being a rant, just a major part of my life I thought I'd include. It was just too big to ignore.

Thanks for reading.

-Adam Junglen

During May of 2006 there was an MTT competition on 2+2. It was based on the TLB formula on PokerStars. At the time I had mostly posted in the SNG forum and wasn't too well known in the MTT community. I basically decided I was going to take the competition very seriously, and that by the end of the month, everyone would know who I was.

I ended up having multiple 1-3k scores while playing $5 to $50 MTT's. I was very involved in the competition and by the end of the month I had made a lot of new friends. I got to know some friends on the forums including Exitonly, gobbo, Rizen, and more.

I was (still) on crutches as my High School years winded down, recovering from my amputation fix. I missed all of the notable HS events, like Senior Banquet, Prom, even missed graduation. Come to think of it, I still don't physically possess my diploma. *shrug* I ended up going to Turning Stone during the last week of class. It was my first poker trip, I roomed with Exitonly (Ray Coburn), and met a lot of new friends that I'd met online. I had a great time, despite not cashing in any of the tournaments.

After High School ended most of my friends either moved or were too busy with class/working to hang out or play poker. I decided not to attend college based on several factors:

- I was still recovering from my recent leg amputation
- I had zero motivation to attend school
- I was denied the funding for school that was seemingly a lock-in (considering my condition)
- Poker

At this point it was Fall and was the first time in my life I wasn't going to school. Instead I was busy discussing poker theory and really focusing on my game. Part of me thought I'd end up attending college in the winter, once I was fully recovered, but I really thought I could make it as a poker player. Either way, I really needed time off from school and wasn't motivated to get into a career after interning at Alltel.

In October/November I flew to Ray's house in New Jersey. It was the first time I had been on a plane since I was adopted as a child. Heh, I don't think I expected to be around airports as much as I have been then. I flew to NJ to meet up with Ray, because he won an EPT Dublin Package. At that point I didn't have the resources to play in the event, so I just went to have fun. It was my first time in Europe, and I had a good time. I met ActionJeff, Kush, Carl Olson and more talented players. I remember discussing poker and life with Jeff and Carl, and they really changed the way I thought about the game. I flew back to NJ with Ray, equipped with new poker knowledge and a hell of a lot of motivation.

I only stayed in NJ for a few more days, but not before I took care of some business. I was very motivated after talking poker with my new friends in Dublin. The last Sunday before I flew home to Ohio I had my first 5-figure cash, taking 4th in the PokerStars 2nd Chance for around $13.5k. It was a huge confidence boost, as well as a nice pad to my bankroll.

It's hard to believe that my first 5 figure cash was about a year ago at the time of this writing. So much has happened since.

Later in December I went back to Turning Stone for another tournament series. I ended up making my first decent sized live final table, chopping a $200 event, 4-handed for $7,500 each. I was starting to feel more and more comfortable at the table and was beginning to get more respect. While at TS I met Aaron Been, Shaun Deeb, mlagoo, and many more new friends. Jeff and Ray were also there, it was a great trip.

At that point in time I intended on playing the PCA in January, but after talking with Aaron Been, who had won a seat to the Aussie Millions, both gobboboy and I decided to join him. I had a travel agent look into flights from Cleveland to Nassau to Melbourne, back home. I ended up spending around $2.5k on that flight....and to think it was only a month ago that I was on my first plane ride since I came to America.

To end the year I took 6th in the FTP Monthly $535 for $23k. It was a very devastating experience for me, as I felt in control most of the tournament and entered the final table as the chipleader. It really felt like a loss. When I look back at that tournament I view it as a major learning experience. It was the first time I was close to a six figure cash, and I knew it would not be my last. As corny as it sounds, I "wasn't ready" for a 100k+ score at that point in my career.


Next up would be my first major events. The WPT PCA and Aussie Millions in January of 2007.


Hope you guys are enjoying this,

-Adam Junglen

I guess I'll continue where I left off when I started writing about how I first got into poker.

After I won the tournament at AJ's I went to Border's Books to find some reading material on my newest hobby. I started playing homegames every weekend with friends and had a decent amount of success. It was a lot of fun, every weekend we'd play a tournament or two, usually 2 tables with a buy-in between $10-$15. I ended up making a lot of great friends, and actually quit my job at Gametrader partly due to the money I was making at homegame tournaments. It really wasn't too difficult to make more in those games than $5.50/hr at Gametrader.

Eventually I took my game online. I would have my friend transfer me $50 or $100 at a time on Party. I was underage at the time, so I couldn't deposit myself. For quite awhile I just broke even or lost at the $5 and $10 SNG levels. Poker wasn't my #1 priority at the time, I was interning at Alltel Data Center, and worked for my HS helping teachers with computers, and maintaining the network infrastructure.

Eventually I decided that the computer world just wasn't for me. I didn't like working with the people I was around, and the idea of maintaining computers as a career was very unappealing. Meanwhile I was getting better at SNG's after reading some guides on 2+2. I moved to PokerStars and moved up from the $6.50's to $105+9's during my Junior-Senior year, when I was 18.

Eventually I got bored of SNG's and decided to take on MTT's.


And that's where this entry ends. More to come soon.


-Adam

This entry will have two distinct subjects. My newest business project, and then I’m going to respond to some user feedback and answer how I got into poker. First, the newest project I’ll be apart of.

About a month ago I was contacted by my agent, (who also works with Negreanu). He told me about Daniel’s new project, a poker instructional site called PokerVT (Poker Virtual Training). Negreanu picked out a few pro’s (so far others signed include Paul Wasicka, Boosted J, JC Alverado, with ActionJeff and Annette_15 pending) and he asked me to join. After about a month of reviewing the contract, consideration, negotiation, and phone calls with Daniel I decided to accept his proposal and join the team.

The site’s target release is in February next year, and it really sounds like a great training site, as well as a great opportunity. I’m very confident that Daniel will do a great job and that the PokerVT will be one of the premier training sites out there. Daniel’s assembled some of the best poker players in the world - both online and live, and it’s a massive compliment for him to ask me to be a part of it. I'm sure you'll hear more from me as I begin working on the project and as the launch date approaches.

————–

Next up, I’ll go ahead and respond to some of the feedback I’ve been getting. One specific question I’ve gotten for the last few months is, “Adam, how did you get into poker.”

I could sit here and type it all out, but it’d take a few hours and be a very long read. Instead I’ll just split it up into a series. I have no clue how long this’ll take, but since I’m not doing much traveling anytime soon this’ll give me something to write about. I’m also unsure of how much detail I’ll go into, but I guess we’ll just see as it progresses.

I played my very first No-Limit Hold’em tournament when I was 15, a sophomore at Stow-Munroe Fals High School. When I was 13-14 I had played a lot of Magic: The Gathering at Gametrader in Cuyahoga Falls. I took the game fairly seriously, but I never went on the Pro Tour or anything. I’m guessing I managed to profit a few thousand, which is obviously a lot of money to a young teenager.

I quit playing when I was around 15 and started working at the game store - my first job. Looking back, I’d have to say it was one of the better jobs someone my age could’ve had. The customers were my friends, and my bosses were flexible and let me watch movies during downtime. The only bad part was the pay - $5.50/hr.

Anyways, back then I was also pretty good with computers. My friend AJ had me over to install a drive in his PC. Afterwards, he had some friends over to play poker, and instead of leaving I stayed and decided I’d play. Poker was growing in our school and I heard people talk about games a lot, so I wanted to see what it was all about. After quitting Magic I was getting bored of working on computers all day, and was anxious to find another hobby to take up seriously.

I somehow managed to win the tournament at AJ’s. It was just a single table tournament and about 8-9 people played. I knew the rank of hands, but that’s about it. I really don’t remember anything specific about it, except I played really tight. I forget if it was a $5 or $10 buy-in, but I ended up winning around $40 and was immediately hooked.


That's it for now. In the future the segments will be longer, but I took up a lot of time talking about the PokerVT.

Thanks for reading,


-Adam

I've only been home for a few days now, but as usual I've been pretty busy.

About 3 days ago my agent called me about a poker radio show that wanted me to guest star. Although I'll have to wake up pretty early, I'm still gonna do it. It's called the Poker Power Hour, I'm told it airs in St Louis, and you'll also be able to download it online.

Besides that, I bought all the DVD sets of "The Office" and have been enjoying them. I'm starting an apartment search around the area, still busy with various business things, have a new bed to setup, some doctor appointments...yup, keepin busy.

Well, I'm just about to goto sleep, but I'm going to give a quick update before I play tomorrow.

I really didn't do much of anything today - which is very standard for me. I usually just have a nice dinner and relax the day before big events. I ended up going out to dinner with some friends, but that's about it. As usual I'll be getting a good night's rest tonight. I feel really great going into this event, as opposed to WSOPE, where I felt like crap, but still managed to play well and make it fairly deep.

Tworags recently started a new voicemail service. I can call in and leave a message and it will be posted to the site. Well, imagine how useful this will be for live updates during big events. I'm not sure how much or if I'll be using it, but I might give it a test run during this WPT event.

Before I end this post I wanted to say that CardPlayer (not pokernews) will be doing the best coverage for this event.


And....I'm off to sleep,

Later