As promised to myself earlier, I'm temporarily done with MTT's except on Sundays (for the record, yesterday was pretty ugly, but mostly unavoidable - a lot of second best 2 pair/set hands were involved.) What I *have* been doing is playing a bunch of PLO on Cake with a propping deal I set up for myself (increased rakeback). The main downside is that I can't play a lot of tables as I have to start games, and playing > 2/3 tables of HU and shorthanded PLO while still learning the game is probably a bad idea. However, the actual results have been very good. I have a decent sense of when to get it in, and except for a lack of turn aggression (mostly because Cake players don't ever fold 2 pair or raise less than the nuts, so value betting them thin is not really a great idea), I'm much better aware of close plays. About the only thing I want to do is play more tables, probably on FTP (where I do have rakeback), and to understand how the cross-site increase in aggression changes turn and river play.

I'm also playing a bunch of 6max SNG's on Cake, as well. Those are more mixed; I find I don't have the best pushbot sense with 8-13 BB anymore, plus the Cake regs call a "proper" unexploitable strategy too light and decrease both their and my ROI's in the process. I'm still up a decent amount of money doing that, but I think I'm going to have to buy SNG Power Tools or some other utility and quiz myself for a bit before I play too many more of those.

The calendar in the next two weeks: a trip to Fresno to go play in Kyle's tournaments ;), a collaboration to be named later, and, at some point next month, the long awaited 60M interview/Washington Post photo shoot (I think you guys get to see me and dlpnyc21 play online on laptops or something - not too sure what they're doing with that.) By then, UB should just about be done naming the 19 cheaters and their 88 accounts, by which I mean they won't have named anybody but will be busy stonewalling until the end of time. I should really be done hoping they'll come to their senses by now...

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Offtopic: My wife and I got a Wii Fit game last week. So far, we've both spent 30 minutes (actually an hour once you factor in the downtime between games) a day on it 6 of the 7 days we've had it, and it pretty much beats a gym membership hands down. I totally recommend this thing and I'm sure it'll help me lose those 10-15 extra poker pounds in a hurry. Since when has exercise actually been fun?

For the last week, I've definitely been feeling the after-effects of the WSOP - namely, a lethargy and inability to play anything poker-related, especially after Watts' win (mostly unhappy that I wasn't at the Bellagio for it. I really have the best timing this year.) On top of that, I also managed to completely destroy my foot in an ill-timed encounter with the wet floor/bathroom countertop at 4 AM - no stitches, but I've been more or less hobbling around the whole time and don't expect to walk 100% pain-free for a few more days. Oddly, I wasn't even drunk; surely my chances to cripple myself were higher had I stayed for the Bellagio?

At any rate, there's nothing about poker I really want to put here. The little I've played this week has been a bunch of bad beats, including a hilarious 3/6 PLO spot where I ran top set into a guy who decided to bet/call the bottom end of a gutshot with no redraws and got there. Okay, whatever, but does he really have to leave the game 5 minutes later before I've won his bankroll that night? Dammit.

What I do have on tap are a couple of side projects I won't talk about yet, a trip to Fresno to see EdmondDantes (kinda following in Bond's footsteps; expect hilarious drunken pics and random Celebrity Donkament bustouts), 60 Minutes/the Washington Post at <whenever they feel like>, a couple of CR vids [these should be decent] and playing a lot more on Cake as opposed to everywhere else. Everyone else has 27 free TV's, videogame consoles and Ipods from poker per year; why shouldn't I?

Resolution: the next update is going to have some actual poker in it.

I'll be on the Pokercast discussing the UB scandal (special guest: Freddy Deeb) at 12:30 AM EST - check it out.

My flight from Vegas was overnight, so I got back home at around 10 AM EST (7 PST) after not being able to sleep at all on the plane. My wife had just gotten back from Korea the day before, so both of our circadian rhythms were extremely screwed up and we spent most of Saturday napping.

On Sunday, I woke up more or less okay and decided to play the usual half dozen tournaments I couldn't bring myself to skip. Final tally: 4/6 cashes, four extremely deep runs, a final 2 table on Bodog, a final 50 on UB (yeah, I know; I have $2000 there I'm too lazy to cash out and play one donkament a week with) and Cake, and 80/14000-odd in the Stars (2) Million. I ran white hot in all four for the first 4-5 hours of each, then lost the usual several late flips and quickly bustoed in all four to net a combined 5K. While I can't really complain because there was certainly a lot of getting there involved in those results to begin with, I'm still tired of not winning those late flips and have not been regretting the switch after the fact.

On the other hand, hey, a free 5 thousand bucks doesn't hurt, either. I'll probably at least come back to MTT's for the FTOPS/WCOOP.

Other news: I'm probably going to be on the 2+2 pokercast tonight discussing the UB scandal and Freddy Deeb. Check it out when it airs; I think I'm coming on shortly after midnight EST, but can't be too sure right now.

WSOP ME recap still coming up later today when I have a bit more free time than this entry (still haven't seen my parents in > 6 weeks).

Short update - I was planning to do a recap of the ME (all 2.5 hours of it), but my laptop is pretty busto at the moment/there's a significant chance that it'll crash if it takes longer than 15 minutes to write the entry. Therefore, I'll be putting that off till I get back, on Saturday or so.

I feel pretty decent about my game overall and will still be playing a few MTT's on Sunday and other times, but I have ~3 other things to play that I think are more fun - not to mention Cake, from where I should theoretically never leave. As such, from now on, expect a lot more cash game hands and maybe even some nice 6 max SNG's; the less variance and more rakeback, the better.