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  <channel>
    <title>The Watts Blog</title>
    <link>http://www.tworags.com</link>
    <description>Tworags.com - poker guide for serious poker players who play Texas Holdem and Other Poker Games</description>
    <language>en-us</language>
    <lastBuildDate>Sun, 18 May 08 03:44:14 -0400</lastBuildDate>
    
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      <title>There might be hope for me yet...</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=2556]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[Hey hey! I've rebounded pretty nicely the last couple days. Let's take a look at the list of things that were going wrong in my last entry. First, I finally won a step 6 to the WSOP. I ended up playing my friend ch0ppy HU and of course the first time I play a good player I manage to luckbox the win. So I got my first WSOP seat at last. Next, I had a nice tournament score. I just finished 2nd in the Stars 100+rebuys for $24K. I got heads-up behind 3:1 in chips and started to mount a comeback before blowing up. I made two really stupid spazzy plays heads-up trying some new things at bad times. Once again on my bustout hand I ignored obvious bet sizing tells and made a stupid bluff when the guy hadn't played back at me in any way for probably 20 minutes. If I just folded like I always used to and kept grinding away at him there's a decent chance I may have made the comeback. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 14 May 08 04:38:57 -0400</pubDate>
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      <title>Brutal week...</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=2516]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[Well I haven't posted in a while, I guess i didn't really have much to write about because I've basically just been getting my ass kicked all week. I've started playing some 2/4-5/10 PLO full stacked to try to learn the game, and while I feel like I'm playing reasonably well the results just haven't been there so far. I might be running bad, but I don't really have the experience playing PLO to really be able to tell. I've even been taking a bit of a hit at Holdem cash games lately, though for the most part I'm pretty happy with my play in those and I think I've just been running bad. Here is an example in which I get "Matusowned" (when he made his little speech I thought he had AA for sure hence my chat).

[url=http://www.pokerhand.org/?2592084]http://www.pokerhand.org/?2592084[/url]

Even tournaments haven't been going that well. I've been playing a lot of the step 5 and step 6 WSOP satellites. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 11 May 08 00:17:35 -0400</pubDate>
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      <title>Epic Fail</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=2454]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[The PLO heater came to a crashing halt the last couple nights, as expected really. At my peak I was up around 100K but I lost most of that back. The thing is that PLO is such a sick high variance game and shortstacking it in particular is even swingier that winning/losing 12 buyins or whaetver is really not statistically significant in any way. It's a whole lot of money at these stakes though obviously. Anyways seems only fair I post some of the hands that led to my demise if I'm going to brag when I win. This time I will include some strategic musings for my benefit as much as yours.

 [url=http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551339]http://www.pokerhand.org/?2551339[/url]  - The flop is weird. I will often run into the straight, but I have a ton of equity against the straight and there is a lot of value in protecting my hand when it's best. I will also get called by worse hands sometimes (smaller sets especially) so there is definitely a lot of value in betting. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Fri, 02 May 08 01:50:08 -0400</pubDate>
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      <title> How to Tilt</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=2435]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[Well I had an interesting weekend from a poker perspective to say the least. There were some really big special tournaments this weekend so I played a fair bit. On Saturday there was the sickest tournament ever, the Pacific $1000 buy-in $3 Million guaranteed. It got 2200ish runners meaning around $800K was donated to the prize pool by the site. The payout structure was really top heavy to try to attract players: 1st = $1 million, 2nd = $400K, and then more gradual from there. Also, basically everyone on Pacific is terribad so it's really awesome. Sadly it wasn't my time as I held on for a while on the short stack before losing AA to JJ around 5 hours in but still short of the money. I also busted everything else I played including the PokerRoom/Mansion grand which is also awesome, and I was even down slightly at my 10/20 and 25/50 cash games after a decent number of hands. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Mon, 28 Apr 08 02:57:50 -0400</pubDate>
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      <title> Back Home!</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=2413]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[Update!: Checkout my poker commentating debut. TwoRags has posted a couple clips from the live $1000 sit and go we played in LA back in January. Check out the links at the top of the TwoRags main page.

Well I'm back home in St. John's for the next week. Saturday was my 24th birthday so between that and the fact I'd been on the road for 3 weeks already in Europe I decided to skip the WPT Championship 25K event. I'm actually not planning to play any more live events until the end of May when I'm making the move to Vegas for a month and a half again for the World Series of Poker. Last year I was extremely burnt out from poker by the end of the series so this year I'm going to try to do a few things different to avoid that including taking the next month off from live poker.

I haven't played much poker in the last week or so. I busted out of the 2K euro event in Monte Carlo pretty quickly and then spent most of the rest of the trip drinking in the player's lounge. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Tue, 22 Apr 08 11:47:52 -0400</pubDate>
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      <title>Busto (Updated with Details)</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=2376]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[OK let's do a quick recap of Day 2. I quickly chipped up to about 27K winning small pots and picking up the blinds, unfortunately most of the hands I picked up the blinds with were monsters that I definitely would have preferred to get action with. Then this hand happens to set me back where I started.

Hand 1: 300/600 a75 Folds to this Russian guy on my right in a PokerStars Supernova Elite shirt who shoves 7Kish. I reshove AQ and lose to 44. Back to 17K. From there I manage to chip back up to around 22K when this absurd hand happens.

Hand 2: This LAGgy French guy raises to 1500 in MP, and he basically does this a lot with likely all sorts of stupid hands, but raises bigger with legitimiate hands. He seemed but bad but I didn't realize what a complete nutcase he was until after this hand. I decide to just reraise and pick up the pot. I find A3o and make it 5K. He insta-calls. OK I still definitely think he has a weak hand. Flop T94r, I bet 7K, he instacalls. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Tue, 15 Apr 08 06:57:58 -0400</pubDate>
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      <title>16.7K on to Day 2</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=2368]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[It was a pretty frustrating day. I more than doubled my stack at my first table to 32K but then got moved to a new table that was pretty tough and didn't make any more hands. I bled down to 16.7K without losing any real substantial pot which was even less fun than it sounds. However blinds are still only 200/400 a50 when we return tomorrow so I have lots of time to pick up some hands. Hopefully I get a better table draw, there are so many bad players I definitely got extremely unlucky with table draws today. I don't feel like recounting all my hands, here's one that describes the 2nd half of my day:

150/300 a25 I raise AQs to 900 in EMP, one of the decent aggro players across the table calls. Flop JT5r, I bet 1600 he calls. Turn 7 chk/chk. River A. omg I finally made the top pair!!!! [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 13 Apr 08 21:10:33 -0400</pubDate>
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      <title>EPT Monte Carlo Day 1B</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=2362]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[So I play tomorrow (Sunday). Looks like there's going to be around 800 players so probably over 2 million euros for first. I'm not ready to tell you all about Monte Carlo yet because I didn't leave my room today. Last night was the PokerStars cocktail party which was a lot of fun. It seems like everyone is here, this tournament is just big. Anyways I ended up having a bit too much fun trying to take advantage of free drinks as opposed to $10+ drinks like anywhere else here. So today I just lied around and did nothing all afternoon. In the evening I played the Saturday afternoon EST tournaments to get my mind back on poker for tomorrow but had little luck. I also mixed in some cash games though and ran really well at those. I was up $22K at one point ($20K on one 25/50 table) but I lost a few big pots at the end to finish up only $13K. I haven't posted any cash hands in a while so here are some of the big pots from today:

[url=http://www.pokerhand.org/?2425185]http://www.pokerhand. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Sat, 12 Apr 08 20:21:31 -0400</pubDate>
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      <title> Pisa, Florence, and Monte Carlo!</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=2352]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[Hello, bonjour! I am now settled in the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel and Resort, and it is pretty much the best place ever. I'll have lots of time to rave about it in the coming week though once I've seen and done more here, for now I want to talk about the last few days doing the tourist thing in Italy. So timex, [url=http://www.cardplayer.com/online-poker/players/4?showbio=1]ch0ppy[/url]  (Matt), and I stayed in San Remo Sunday night and played online tournaments until 7am or whatever because of the time difference. Our plan was then to check out Pisa and Florence before heading to Monte Carlo for the EPT grand final, but at the last minute while we were looking for hotel/finalizing our plans before leaving timex dropped out and decided to just stay in San Remo and be a degenerate, so only ch0ppy and I ended up going. We decided to try to keep the trip cheap so we ended up booking a cheap hotel in Pisa for 3 nights. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Fri, 11 Apr 08 06:21:34 -0400</pubDate>
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      <title>Damn you Shaun Deeb</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=2301]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[Could have saved me 5K Euros by not getting sick but instead I had to play the EPT. It was a pretty short day, I doubled up with AKo 4-flushing AKs in a very skillful hand. Then I called a 4xBB shove with K7o and beat his A9o. Now at 36K blinds 600/1200 a100 I get moved to Schaefer's table. He raises UTG 7-handed to 3200, I call with JJ on the button and the BB makes it 11.2K. Schaefer folds, I'm not thrilled about it but shove and BB has QQ. I'd probably fold TT but I think JJ is just good enough I shouldn't be folding. Anyways the 2K Euro event is tomorrow so I'll get in that now I guess.

I haven't talked about San Remo at all, basically the whole area is gorgeous. When I flew into Nice the runway is right next to the sea so it's a pretty sick view of the Mediterranean as you land. The water is that beautiful bright blue rippling calmly. From Nice timex and I got a cab to San Remo, and the entire trip is winding through hills by the coast. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Fri, 04 Apr 08 03:21:41 -0400</pubDate>
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      <title>I got into the EPT!</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=2285]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[I was a last minute entry into EPT San Remo today when Shaun effing Deeb had to withdraw because he was really sick. I was able to buy-in and take his spot which was pretty awesome, though obviously I feel bad for Shaun and hope he's feeling better soon. I did my best to make the most of the opportunity though. I didn't run especially good today and it was an up and down session. I probably made some small mistakes but all-in-all I'm happy enough with how I played. I was pretty exhasusted all day because I woke up really early this morning and didn't bother trying to get back to sleep since I wasn't supposed to have to do anything today. I ended the day with 17K which is a bit short with blinds starting at 500/1000 tomorrow but it'll do. I was going to write a quick summary of key hands but I'm really just too tired. My stack basically went 10K ---->15K ----> 3K ----> 14K -----> 6K ----->17K throughout the day is the short version. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 02 Apr 08 21:04:45 -0400</pubDate>
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      <title>I won a donkament!!!....</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=2258]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[...and it was so much fun I went ahead and won another one. With no $100K sponsorship package and still a little pissed about the whole ordeal it was clear I had to take matters into my own hands and go get paid. Of course seeing as it was Sunday that meant trying to luckbox some donkaments. Unfortunately all the US-based sites tournaments start super late here and I have a flight at 8am so I didn't really want to bother playing all the late ones and risk having to miss my flight if I was at a final table or something (unless it was a really big final table). Fortunately there are a lot of Euro-donkaments that start at more Euro-friendly times so I just played everything that started from 12pm EST to 5pm EST (6pm-11pm here). Timex told me about a $550 tournament on Betfair that had a $100K guarantee so I made an account there and gave that a shot as well. Lucky he did, because that was where I finally broke my ~9 month slump. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 30 Mar 08 22:42:43 -0400</pubDate>
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      <title>Sigh.....</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=2246]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[Well I'm out of the Everest contest. I don't imagine I ever actually had a chance. The day went pretty well, we played a few sit n gos and I finished 4th and 2nd which is reasonably solid. The interview was two questions, one about Everest and one about poker in general. You get 5 minutes to prepare your thoughts then go in and do a 5 min interview. I got a couple tricky questions but I think I actually handled them pretty well. Anyways then they narrow it down to 20 people at the end of the day. I wasn't selected, but I kind of wasn't surprised. It seemed pretty obvious that their objective point system they claimed would be used was complete bs. Choose one/all of these reasons: I'm Canadian and they're concentrating on the European market. I only recently joined the site mainly for this contest and they wanted to reward their regulars more. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Sat, 29 Mar 08 20:08:08 -0400</pubDate>
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      <title>Everest Contest Preview </title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=2216]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[I didn't play at all this weekend hence the absence of blog updates. I spent Thursday-Sunday visiting family and friends in the area and enjoying that special holy weekend that comes but once a year: the first weekend of March Madness, when anything can and invariably does happen. Today I played a nice long session to make up for it a little bit though, and made two final tables. I finished 5th in Party Super Monday for ~$1700 and 2nd (siiiiiiiiiiiiiigh) in the iPoker (Titan) network $50 rebuy for ~$8K. So I finished up about $6K at tournaments but lost the same amount playing cash so the day was more or less a wash. I'm leaving for Europe on Thursday, with the first stop being Vienna for the Everest Poker live casting (March 28-31). I haven't really gone through what this involves on here yet so I'll take the time to do so now. The 200 players invited compete for 10 sponsorship packages. We are judged in 7 categories:

 [b]Blogging Skills: 10[/b] [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Tue, 25 Mar 08 01:45:32 -0400</pubDate>
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      <title>I'm Back!</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=2167]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[So the Everest competition ends this Friday and my position in the online popularity contest part is unlikely to change so I've decided to start cross-posting back here again. I'm sorry I was away for so long but the Everest competition is obviously a pretty big deal for me and even though I like my chances I have to take it seriously and do everything I can to try to win. On to the blog.

It might seem like this a copy/paste of last weekend's blog but I assure you that's not the case. I slept really poorly this weekend for some reason even though I was exhausted. Still, being the hard worker/addict that I am I just grabbed some caffeine and played the usual schedule. On Saturday I busted out of everything super fast except for the Absolute $500 tourney. Again this week I managed some key suckouts and survived pushbotting my shortstack for quite a while as we neared the final table (the structure gets really bad towards the end in this tournament). [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Mon, 17 Mar 08 17:57:21 -0400</pubDate>
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      <title>LAPC Day 5</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=2027]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[Hey I'm 6th/18 in LAPC Main Event heading into Day 5 with 987K chips. Just a spot for you to post your comments here since you can't on Everest's site afaik. Day by day recaps still over there at 
[url=http://www.everestpoker.com/video/user/?d=799]http://www.everestpoker.com/video/user/?d=799[/url] 

Mike]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=2027]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 27 Feb 08 12:37:59 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>Help me win a $100K Sponsorship!</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1990]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[Sorry to do this but a part of the competition for the Everest Poker sponsorship is getting a lot of hits over on my blogs and any videos I might post over on their website. So please go check out my profile and read my blogs over there for a while! (and tell all your friends!)

 [url=http://www.everestpoker.com/video/user/?d=799]http://www.everestpoker.com/video/user/?d=799[/url] ]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1990]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 22 Feb 08 22:20:55 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>Trip Report: Box Seats at the Lakers</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1960]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[First of all, huuuuuuuuge thanks to Scot and Kyle at TwoRags and Dave and everyone else at the [b]Commerce Casino[/b] for making this happen. It was a great time, and very much appreciated. One of my favorite parts of traveling for poker is going to different sporting events around the world. So the deal was that the Commerce had arranged for a limo to pick us up and drive us to and from the game, and we had VIP tickets for the Commerce's box. Myself, Thayer, Vivek, and Ray ended up going.

The limo was set to pick us up at 7 at the casino. We had a little trouble finding the driver but we still managed to get to the Staples Center in time for tipoff. As we're walking around the side of the stadium to the VIP entrance we get a little taste of Hollywood. Some perfect 10 blonde girl is walking up to the gate and paparazzi are going crazy snapping photos of her. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 20 Feb 08 03:18:01 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title> Another good day</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1952]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[I'm running so hot online since I arrived in LA. Today I played a tournament on Everest Poker. $100 freezeout and I finished 7th for $1100. So what you ask? Check this out:

[url=http://www.everestpoker.com/en/livethedream/]http://www.everestpoker.com/en/livethedream/[/url]

If you read through all the information on that page and then realize that most of the people that have qualified seem to be $5 satellite winners you'll understand why I think I should hopefully be a lock to sign a $100K sponsorship deal with Everest Poker at the end of March. I'm looking forward to hearing more details about the live casting from them. Strange as it seems this may very likely be my biggest tournament score ever.

Right after this tournament ended I met Scot from TwoRags and got a ride to the studio for the single table tournament. The lineup was me, Thayer, Deeb, Serge (adanthar), Nath, Vivek (psyduck), Shane (shaniac), Todd Brunson, Layne Flack, and Jose Canseco. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Tue, 19 Feb 08 03:47:25 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title> I must be the greatest!</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1940]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[This title would have worked a lot better if I was able to win a tournament today, but I'm going to use it anyways. I managed to save my Sunday with a 3rd place finish in the $150 tournament on Full Tilt for $11.6K. I was also chipleader in the $200 rebuy as we reached the money but I lost some small pots somehow and then lost a coinflip so I only cashed for $1800. Before those tournaments the day was going pretty terribly. I was busting every tournament I played in record time, which wasn't so bad because it's relatively painless compared to going deep in everything then bubbling. The biggest success of the weekend though was finally winning my EPT Monte Carlo package. I had finished 2nd in two of the Step 6 STT Monte Carlo satellites when only first gets the seat, including one where I lost A8o to A6s all-in preflop for almost all the chips. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1940]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 18 Feb 08 04:39:19 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>I must be the worst ever</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1914]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[OK not really but the stuff I do sometimes makes me wonder. I fucked up really bad today in the $2500 NL LAPC event. I'm not going to tell you the hand because it's too embarassing and you'd lose any respect you may happen to have for me as a poker player, but the cliffs notes is I made a terrible laydown preflop with 16 players left. To rub it in I obviously had the best hand and would have held up to give me an average stack which would be pretty sweet so deep in the tournament, espeically considering I'd been struggling on a shortstack for a while. Then I shoved TT over a raise 2 hands later and a guy behind me obv woke up with aces to punish me for my idiocy. So anyways I cashed for a bit under $6k or something. I guess fatigue probably was a factor playing for 11 hours but that's part of the game and no excuse. Seriously I'm really bad at poker stop reading this blog. Anyways tomorrow is the big $2500 FTOPS event which I get to play now at least. Hopefully I can sleep off my tilt. I mean seriously good players are supposed to capitalize on these few opportunities we get late in tournaments not do stupid shit and blow every chance at a 6-figure win. Sorry for the swearing mom. I'm done now.

Mike]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1914]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 16 Feb 08 06:35:03 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>I just won $42,500 and I'm incredibly disappointed</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1898]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[I know that's an enormous amount of money. To be able to win that much in a day I should be ecstatic. Lots of people probably don't make that in a year and just think I'm an asshole for not appreciating how lucky I am. I guess you'd have to be a poker player, in particular a tournament player, to really understand. That's just the game. I just finished 6th in the FTOPS Event #12, a $300 rebuy tournament with 6-handed tables and over 1300 players, for $42.5K. I played for 9 hours, generally getting very lucky, overcoming the few times I got unlucky, and for the most part playing some pretty damn good poker, especially towards the end. But then I ran into an unfortunate spot at the final table where I got put to a tough decision, and in retrospect, not because of the results of the hand but because of all the factors I failed to consider, I think I made a mistake which cost me tens of thousands of dollars in equity. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1898]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 14 Feb 08 07:19:42 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title> LA Days 1&amp;2</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1884]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[Hey hey, I got in safely yesterday in time to play Sunday tournaments online. No luck in the tournaments but I had a profitable day because of a good cash session. Cash has continued to go well overall. I've been playing a lot of 25/50 NL so the swings are pretty solid, I had a +$44k day and -$26K day last week, but overall I seem to be moving in the right direction. The games I've been playing have been really good, and I've been putting in a decent amount of hands lately, it kind of reminds of the good ol Cake Poker days of last summer. Anyways today I played my first event of the LAPC, a $2500 event with 167 players. It went a little something like this.H

Hand 1: A bunch of small pots have happened and I'im up to 6K from 5K starting stack. I've opened a few pots but nothing particularly exciting. In one hand I opened UTG to 200 at 25/50 with AKo, a donk calls, and the SB makes it 700, I reluctantly fold. Now in this hand I make it 300 UTG @ 50/100 with AKs. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1884]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 12 Feb 08 02:08:04 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>Timex is the sickest</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1819]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[He won EPT Dortmund yesterday for 933K Euro or just shy of $1.4M USD. He's just been on a tear to start the year. Sadly I didn't have any of his action this time. I'm taking a rare Sunday off today to go to a Superbowl party. I figure I'm probably saving around $6K this way anyways so it's all good. I guess there should be some kind of content in this post. Here is my January graph where I crush over an insignificant number of hands.

[img]http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s235/SirWatts/Jan2008.jpg[/img] 

Almost $8/hand, wish it was always that easy.

Mike]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 03 Feb 08 12:52:16 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>lol I lied</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1801]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[It all started when Scot from TwoRags IM'd me to ask if I was going to the LA Poker Classic. I explained to him, as I wrote 2 days ago in my last entry, that I most likely was not. He said that was too bad as TwoRags has some connections in the area with the Commerce etc (I'm pretty sure he lives in LA)... and he had some special events planned. This was somehwat enticing but I still wasn't too interested. Nonetheless I checked the schedule of events again on the CardPlayer website and it turned out it was much better than I remembered. I thought it was basically all $1000 buy-ins with one $2500 and one $1500 mixed in or something. It turns out there are three $2500 events though (one is limit holdem but that's ok), a couple $1500s, and then several smaller ones. Not so bad I thought....

Kyle (grafyx) had asked me if I was going since he needed a roommate. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1801]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 30 Jan 08 05:59:24 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>A decent little week capped off with some rare Sunday success</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1797]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[Hey everyone, I'm back safely in Toronto just chilling. Really it was a super lazy week. Anyways my plan for the next couple months is to really get back to griding online and putting in some hands. I've had a lot of fun lately travelling around, and while I play a lot of poker on those trips, if I really want to make some money I'm much more profitable online. Even though the games are tougher on average, being able to play 4-8 tables at once just lets me play so many more hands that live can't really compete. Also, being able to table select across multiple sites allows me to find the best games to help offset the generally tougher opponents. Also, it's important for me to play a lot more cash game hands since my hourly rate is much higher in those than in almost any tournament assuming I can find good games.

This week I put in a decent number of hours playing both tournaments and cash games, and was lucky to run pretty well so I turned a nice profit. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1797]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 28 Jan 08 04:28:31 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title> $5K HU and $2K 6-max</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1751]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[So I bubbled both of these. I played pretty well though, there were some sweet hands. In the first round of the HU I played Doug Lee. As far as I know he's basically a terrible spewbox, but I didn't play very well against him and didn't make many hands. Fortunately I luckboxed some coinflips to scrape by after losing the first game in the best of 3. In the next round I played Anna Wroblewski. I thought she was spewy aggro too but she was actually kind of solid but on the passive side. Anyways in this match I stopped being a pussy like I was against Lee and started trusting my hand reading to make some good river calls.

Hand 1: She limps and I check T3o in the BB. Flop J73 chk/chk. Turn Kc starting a possible flush draw. I check/call her bet. River K, I check, she bets and I figure enough draws and stuff missed that I should call and beat her 45.

Hand 2: She limps I check 96o. Flop 644, both check. Turn 5, I bet 3/4 pot she calls. River 2, I check and she bets some normal amount.  [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1751]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 19 Jan 08 11:43:28 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title> Sigh...</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1706]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[Yet another early bustout for me in a major tournament. Considering how conservative I tend to play this is getting kind of ridiculous. My table draw wasn't especially good even though there was only one good player and he busted very early (Brandon Adams). I had terrible relative position though, the two maniacs were on my left and three nits on my right. After the maniacs was an aggressive young Norwegian player so I was basically forced to play pretty ABC poker. Anyways I won and lost some small pots for the first 2 levels. Got up to 22K but then started bleeding off some chips when the maniacs on my left reraised me a few times or I missed flops and either gave up or fired once and then gave up.

I was down to about 15K in level 3, 100/200 a25, when I found QQ in the hijack and made it 600. The Norwegian kid made it 2000 from the SB. I considered my options and decided to just shove to make my hand look like AK or a frustrated bluff since he'd reraised me a few times before. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1706]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 14 Jan 08 00:56:30 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>Day 1A I guess?</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1700]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[Yoooooooooooo. So I was playing some drunk kickball with the rest of the poker nerds today. Team Goggles kicked some ass imo. After that great victory all hands headed to the Belgian beer garden to continue the good times. I don't think I should have to explain why drinking Belgian beer surrounded by gorgoeus landscape and Australian women with all my homies was one of the best times ever, but in case it's not obvious I loved that place. Then we went for a great meal at the Meat and Wine Co. After that we went to a bar where a seemingly low key night took a turn for the potentially epic when Mark Vos showed up. Several shots later we were headed to the infamous Spearmint Rhino, but they wouldn't let us some of us in due to our kickball attire. Despite our best efforts to bribe the bouncers several of us could not get in. The bouncers were being dicks, so I finally just told them to **** themselves and walked back to Crown by myself. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1700]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 13 Jan 08 10:59:41 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>$1k rebuy tournament report</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1684]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[I promised a tourney report and today had some interesting hands so it should make a decent one.

Rebuy period: I usually clown around a bit in live rebuy tournaments in the rebuy period. I kept my 4 $1K chips to rebuy with on the table, and then try to make a few "crazy" image plays. Most people in these tournaments aren't planning to really rebuy at all, maybe if they bust or something, so you can get away with a lot knowing you can always rebuy if something backfires. One of my favourites is to shove from the binds when a bunch of players limp with any two cards since they basically never have a hand to call. Then you show your rags and start setting up an image. So I did that a few times today which was ok. The best hand was when I limped 44 UTG and announced I was setting the trap. Mark Goodman raised my limp and he was the only guy who seemed to not be averse to gambling a little. The BB called his raise and he has nothing approximately always. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1684]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Wed, 09 Jan 08 10:03:48 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>Aussie Update</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1678]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[Hey, we're 4 events into the Aussie Millions now and I'm still having a blast. I haven't had too much success myself so far, but friends have already put up some good finishes. timex got 2nd in the opening $1K NL event after chopping for $90K. For some reason he thought it was a good idea to trade 10% with me for the entire series so that has me in good shape thus far. Also, Jimmy "gobboboy" Fricke won Event 3, the mixed stud tournament, for $17K. gobbo finished 2nd in the main event here last year for $1 million AUD, so he was definitely very pleased to come back and win an event this year. I had my first cash in the $1K limit holdem event today. I was min-betting along pretty well, but then I got caught making a move on the bubble which cut into my stack. After that I went card dead, and finally made a stand with ATo in my BB. Unfortunately I ran into the CO raiser's 93s, and that was that. I finished 15th for $1230. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1678]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 08 Jan 08 19:31:55 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>G'day from Melbourne</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1672]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[So I've arrived in Melbourne for the Aussie Millions. Today was the first event, a $1K NL event with 537 players. I just busted out after losing a flip, but I'll talk about that in a bit. The trip down here took much longer than any other I've been on. I believe it was around 22 hours in the air and close to 30 hours total. Despite not feeling well for most of the trip I managed to sleep a bit and arrive in relatively good shape. However, in the future I won't be booking any 14 hour flights with United, they just don't offer very much in terms of TV/movies and I can't sleep 14 hours straight on a plane. My bags arrived with no problems, however I was still missing a lot of stuff because Air Canada had lost my bag on my flight from St. John's to Toronto earlier in the week, and failed to deliver it before I left for Australia. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1672]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 08 Jan 08 10:08:16 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title> G'day from Melbourne</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1644]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[So I've arrived in Melbourne for the Aussie Millions. Today was the first event, a $1K NL event with 537 players. I just busted out after losing a flip, but I'll talk about that in a bit. The trip down here took much longer than any other I've been on. I believe it was around 22 hours in the air and close to 30 hours total. Despite not feeling well for most of the trip I managed to sleep a bit and arrive in relatively good shape. However, in the future I won't be booking any 14 hour flights with United, they just don't offer very much in terms of TV/movies and I can't sleep 14 hours straight on a plane. My bags arrived with no problems, however I was still missing a lot of stuff because Air Canada had lost my bag on my flight from St. John's to Toronto earlier in the week, and failed to deliver it before I left for Australia. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1644]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Sat, 05 Jan 08 07:43:50 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>Quick 2007 Year in Review </title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1614]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[I kind of don't feel like writing a big long year in review, so I'm going to do the cliffs notes version instead. I started the year with basically a $50K roll online not counting the money I won live over WSOP that I didn't want to touch, and a PCA seat. In 2006 I had pretty decent success at the bigger tournaments online and had started learning 3/6 and 5/10 NL cash games online with a lot of initial success. Enter 2007, here's a post I made from 2+2 in an end of year reflection thread with some grammar fixed and extra details added:

Man what a sick year I had.... I started the year playing most of the big online tournaments and having a lot of success learning cash games playing 3/6 and 5/10 NL on like a 50K roll. I continued to do well in those games and also started shortstacking 25/50 and killing it. I was running good and winning pretty big, and I also had a few 20-25K tournament scores. Then I began taking shots with timex shortstacking nosebleed cash games on Full Tilt. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1614]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 31 Dec 07 18:40:32 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>Sunday: $100K bubbles and Aussie sats</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1534]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[This week's Sunday heartbreak comes from a new source! Pokerstars added a $5K 20-player winner-take-all tournament which I decided to give a shot. I'm an idiot and haven't fixed my laptop so I couldn't play Party Poker, and I couldn't deposit money onto some of the European sites I've started playing on either since I was in the US. That left a lot of open screen space early in the day when I'd usually play Eurodonkaments so this seemed to fit in the schedule pretty well. The field didn't look too bad, it was definitely pretty tough but there were some soft spots and most of the real top tier players weren't in it. I got off to a very slow start but as we closed in on the final 10 players I started making some hands and picking up a lot of chips. I won a couple huge pots against JCarver (taknapotin) when I flopped big hands. In the first he mistimed a big bluff and in the 2nd he ended up folding the river after putting in a fair number of chips against my flopped set. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1534]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 17 Dec 07 20:43:51 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>Bellagio Tournament Voice Blog - Dec 17th 2007</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1532]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[ [url=http://www.tworags.com/files/sirwatts_bellagia1.wav]VBlog trip report from Bellagio[/url] ]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1532]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 17 Dec 07 20:09:16 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>Busto</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1509]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[Spent more time on the colour up to start the day than I actually played in the tournament. I folded a bit, moved in once, and was down to 7700 when the CO open shoved for 10K (still 400/800 a100). I called with AQo OTB and then the BB overcalled. CO had KQo, BB 99 and the nines held. Oh well I'm Vegas for the weekend, could be worse. I'll probably party a bit and play online. Home for Christmas soon!

Mike]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1509]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 14 Dec 07 22:17:09 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>Bellagio Five Diamond ME -- 12.3K for Day 2</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1500]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[Today was up and down, but overall pretty poor. I don't feel like running through all the hands again right now. My level by level chip count went 30K--->22K--->11K--->22K--->20K--->12K. I got dealt a ton of premium pairs but either got them beat or won small pots with them mostly, and I think every time I put chips in the pot preflop once the antes kicked in without a premium hand it got reraised behind me, it was really frustrating. I likely made several smallish mistakes throughout the day but avoided any outright blunders, so at least I still have some chips.

[url=http://www.tworags.com/files/sirwatts_bellagiomeb.wav]Here's the voice blog I left at the end of the day.[/url] 

Mike]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1500]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Fri, 14 Dec 07 05:26:04 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>Bellagio Five Diamond ME -- vBlog from Day 1, 2nd break</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1492]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[SirWatts reports in during second break in WPT Bellagio ME:

[url=http://www.tworags.com/files/sirwatts_bellagiomea.wav]Bellagio Five Diamond - ME - Day 1[/url] 


* Note: you need to have a music player like QuickTime or Windows Media player installed to hear this vBlog]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1492]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 13 Dec 07 18:43:21 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>&quot;No, we're brother and sister&quot;</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1490]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[I haven't played at all the last 3 days, my sister came down to visit me when she finished up with school for the term so I've just been hanging out with her. We saw a few shows, Wayne Brady on Monday night and KA by Cirque du Soleil on Tuesday. Wayne Brady was pretty good, if you're a fan of his you'd obviously like it, he did a lot of the usual stuff though, I wasn't overly impressed but it was fun. KA was great, the only other Cirque show I'd seen before was Love, the Beatles one, and I liked this one a lot more, I'm going to have to make sure to see the others when I get a chance. We also had some nice meals. Social House, the Japanese/sushi place at Treasure Island was the best meal we had by far. Unfortunately she left this evening so it's back to work for me with the $15K main event. I play Day 1B tomorrow.

In previous events I played the $5K tournament on Saturday. I grinded for 11 hours, never really getting much going. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1490]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 13 Dec 07 02:34:22 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>A Final Table and Another Cash</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1466]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[So I finished 2nd for $26.5K in one of the nightly $1K 2nd chance tournaments, and then 23rd in the $3K the next day for $5K. Let's see if I can remember how I managed to pull that off...

$1K 2nd Chance

Hand 1: I managed to double my stack to 10K by the first break. One hand that was sort of interesting was when I saw a flop with T9o in the SB at 25/50 after 2 limpers. Flop AJ8 2 spades, EP limper bets 200, button calls, and I call as well. Turn is a low spade and I lead for 500 and take it down.


Hand 2: I just got seated at a new table and arrive just in time to post my ante @ 100/200 a25. I'm still unracking my chips as it goes raise to 650 from EP, next to act calls, and I look at AA and make it 2050. Both call, the flop comes ten-high, original raiser bets 1K with 1100 behind (lol). Next guy folds I ship it and lose to his JJ that backdoors a flush to drop to 5800.

Hand 3: I open AJs in the CO to 1100 at 200/400 a25 with another 4K behind. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Sat, 08 Dec 07 15:38:32 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title> Quick Cliff Notes of last Couple Days</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1455]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[went semi-deep in the $2K NL event on Tuesday busting 37th when 27 paid. Then I played drunken 2/4 mixed games at TI for 12 hours straight which was a blast. I didn't want to play the $2500 on no sleep up for 24 hours already so I crashed for 5 hours and then played the $1K 2nd chance at 7:15. 11 hours later I finished second in that tournament for 28.5K, managed to get home and get a couple hours sleep, and now I'm off to play the $3K event today. There's only a senior's event tomorrow so drunken mixed games are likely to follow tonight, but I'll write a tourney report for these eventually.

Mike]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1455]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Thu, 06 Dec 07 14:19:41 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title> Venetian $15K Report</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1439]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[That was probably the worst 2 levels of poker ever. I didn't win a single pot that had anything in it. My table was actually pretty good. Other than Greenstein, Juanda and a couple good internet players, the other guys were awful. Here is what I can remember from the trainwreck, sorry if I leave out details I'm trying to do this quickly so I can move on to pretending today never happened.

Hand 1: 100/100 30K chips. I'm sure I've spewed off a bit already. Beth Shak limps in MP, I make it 500 with KQo and she calls. Flop KQT 2 spades, she leads for 1200 I call. Turn 2c making a backdoor flush draw, she bets 3K I call. River Ac, she bets 6K I fold. Given that she bet this river I'm guessing there's a pretty good chance she flopped the straight, either that or she had like KJ I guess. I didn't really feel like bloating the pot earlier since her line seemed strong and even she might fold a lot of worse hands to too much action. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Mon, 03 Dec 07 21:07:46 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>Bellagio $5K Report</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1424]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[Yo. My 0-for streak continues in $5k+ buy-in events. Here's how it went down.

Hand 1: I made the nuts against David Pham a few times and managed to basically win the minimum by trying to play way too fancy. Oops. Still chip up to 17K from 10K starting stack by first break.

Hand 2: I got moved from my original table with Greenstein, Pham, etc... to a new table with a bunch of good online players on my left but it didn't really matter because I never played a hand anyways. My 3rd table is awesome though and I win an ok pot here: 300/600 a50. Spewy guy on my right raises to 2K in MP, I call with KK and gigabet (darrell dicken) unfortunately does not squeeze, just making the call on the button. Flop is an ugly QQ2, and it checks around. Turn is a blank, raiser bets 3K, I call, and gigablocks calls. Turn blank, raiser now checks, I check, and gigablocks checks and shows 88, raiser has AJ and I win a decent pot, but not a great flop. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Sun, 02 Dec 07 04:25:45 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>Vegas in the winter is weird</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1420]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[Something just seems off here.... I have only ever been to Vegas in the summer during the WSOP. It's scorching hot every day, and the very thought of a cloud in the sky, let alone a raindrop falling from one, is laughable. While it's certainly much warmer here than Canada this time of the year, it's actually pretty cool out. Not only that, it rained all day today. I was in shock. However, one constant remains to let me know the world is allright. Me losing money in poker tournaments.

I was originally planning to play the $5K event at the Venetian today but their events have been getting basically no attendance. So instead I played the $3K tournament at the Bellagio. I still expect the $15K at Venetian to at least get a playable turnout on Monday, but that's the only tournament I'll be playing there now. The Bellagio tournament today attracted 220ish players iirc, so it was a pretty nice sized field. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Sat, 01 Dec 07 04:48:20 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>It feels like I've been kicked in the groin repeatedly</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1393]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[Today was the best Sunday I've had in a long time, I doubt I've ever gone deep in as many tournaments in one day as I did today. But it was the same story that's been happening every time to me lately, things just didn't go well when I got down to two tables. I final tabled the $530 tournament on Party but busted 9th for $1100. I went pretty deep in the $100 massive overlay $150K guaranteed tourney on Mansion before shoving all-in with 53o to win the blinds not realizing there was an UTG raise because the chip was almost the same colour as the felt in the interface, which is still a completely stupid thing to do, and I busted 35th when his AK sucked out on me. Next was the Full Tilt 750K Guaranteed, where I ran 88 into QQ to leave me with 400 chips at the 300/600 level. 90 mins later I had 50K, well above average in the money, but my cinderella run ended in 150th or so when I finally lost a race. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Tue, 27 Nov 07 20:58:39 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>It was a good week until Sunday</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1357]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[I'm just on such a cold streak in tournaments right now though. The live final table at Foxwoods was great but busting 7th really sucked and other than that I've just had no final tables lately. I've busted with two tables left so many times it's pretty frustrating. Anyways I made the money in the big FTOPS $2500 event just grinding on a short stack the entire tournament, then sucked out to double up and then got it in with 99 vs 88 and held to get an above average stack for the first time in the tournament. From there I got outflopped in basically every pot I played and probably paid off more than I had to. I then busted out on this attempted hero call against a guy who kept calling my raises with weak hands and flopping gin on me.

 [url=http://www.pokerhand.org/?1717346]http://www.pokerhand.org/?1717346[/url] [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Fri, 23 Nov 07 20:33:59 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>Back in TO, Sunday, FTOPS</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1307]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[On Thursday I played some live cash at Foxwoods, the big games were super tough so I mostly played 25/50 and lost around $5K. I didn't really make any hands and I made one bad river call for $2K. Steve busted on Day 1 also though so we left Friday morning. I crashed at his place in Kingston again after the long drive, and then I drove back to Toronto Saturday morning in time to play the FTOPS events on Saturday, and a full Sunday schedule. Saturday went pretty poorly for me, but Sunday was fairly successful. I made a bit playing cash, and then had several tournament cashes, unfortunately nothing really big though. Going deep in several of the major tournaments earned me the win in a sidebet I was in with 10 other people on 2+2 about who would do the best in the big tourneys on Stars/Full Tilt so I won like $3K from that on top of my cashes. Unfortunately I made a bad play deep in the 2nd Chance on Stars which cost me a chance at a big score and busted me in 15th. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Tue, 13 Nov 07 02:09:51 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>#$&amp;#$* Gutshots</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1273]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[I believe I was either the 4th or 5th person eliminated from the main event today. I played some really crazy hands in level 1 today, most involving someone hitting a gutshot. Gutshots have really been killing me lately. Rewind back to Niagara last week I lost a $22K pot to a gutshot.

I was playing 25/50 NL cash again and was up like $3K just playing aggressively and winning a lot of small pots by following up preflop raises with flop bets most of the time whether I hit or not. Standard stuff (but not to the live nits). So I raise QJo in MP to 200 and get called on the button by some guy who likes to call my raises and then fold when he misses. Effective stacks $11Kish. The flop comes Q95r, I bet 400 and he instacalls which I'm pretty confident is a sign of weakness. Turn is a J, I bet $1000 and he quickly makes it $4000. [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]]]></description>
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      <pubDate>Wed, 07 Nov 07 17:25:48 -0500</pubDate>
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      <title>Foxwoods $2k Final table Voice Blog report -- bust out in 7th place!</title>
      <link><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1250]]></link>
      <author>admin@tworags.com (SirWatts)</author>
      <description><![CDATA[Busted out in 7th place.  Here my vBlog below:

[url=http://www.tworags.com/files/sirwatts-11-4-07_b.mp3]Click here for voice blog[/url] 

]]></description>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[http://tworags.com/index.php?ACTION=blogs&todo=view&ID=1250]]></guid>
      <pubDate>Sun, 04 Nov 07 19:41:25 -0500</pubDate>
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