$5k at The Bike Results

It's been a jam packed last few days for me, but I have had a blast. To wrap up my progress on the $5k at the bike, I ended day 2 in fairly bad shape with 70,000 chips. Going into day 3, there were 70 left with 56 getting paid and I needed something good to happen simply to get into the money and lots of good things to happen to get back in the mix of the event title. I got my wish by winning an AQ vs AT all in match up to go to about 125,000 chips on the first orbit of day 3. I then picked up some smaller pots to chip up to about 180,000. I got into another all in situation with my A7 against my opponents QT and moved up to 300,000 chips. Now I was really back in things and well above average stacked.

Unfortunately with 58 left, I got the money in with AQ from the big blind against the button's 99 and his 99 held. This took me back down to 125,000 and now I was in serious danger of bubbling. That basically defined the tournament for me. I battled to stay alive for an hour or two after that and eventually busted in 40th place earning $9,000. All in all a fine showing, but I am really tiring of pretty much never running super well in a tournament, so I left the casino still waiting for the day when it will be my turn to run like God in one of these things.

The next day I played in the Live at the Bike which is a 25/50 deep stacked NL cash game that is televised on the internet as well as some small TV networks. They show all of the hole cards and have great commentators so it really is a pretty exciting event to compete in. I played on the show for 3 hours and not a whole lot happened at the tables for anyone really. I got dealt a ton of unplayable hands, but made the most of what I got dealt. I made a few good plays and mostly the hands played themselves and I won $3,000 for the session. I was pretty happy to walk away a winner, even though it would have been nice to play an exciting pot.

Yesterday I celebrated my 30th birthday with a bunch of friends. We played golf all day, went to a dinner with a large group and had a great time overall. I did get a new nickname out of the deal as well. My friend Lizzy went up to the band that was playing and asked them to do a little birthday song and apparently they misheard her when she was telling them my name. So they did this little make shift birth day song and they said, "Happy birthday to Jackie, Happy birthday to Jackie, Happy Birthday dear Jackie...." So for the rest of the night and probably for some time later, I am being called Jackie by my friends. You can always count on your friends to never let an opportunity to tease you slip by!

Today I am skipping the Poker Stars Sunday tournaments. I don't skip them often, but after basically partying for an entire day AND being an old man now, I just don't have it in me to grind tournaments for 12 hours today. It's just not in the cards. I am definitely enjoying a little break from poker especially since I have a lot coming up ahead of me. I have a lot of poker leading up to the WSOP and then of course it's not like things slow down at the WSOP of course. So at least for a few more days while I am in Laguna Beach on vacation, I won't be playing any poker other than maybe if I log on for an hour because I want to for some reason. Not likely though.

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I am going to keep posting this in my blogs for a little while since everyone is liking this so much. I am selling my books at dustyschmidt.net at 30% off for at least the rest of March. Clearly there must have been many people who wanted my books a little cheaper than they were being offered because I have never seen orders come through for my books quite like this. We may even have to do another print run soon if they keep selling at this pace because there has been an unbelievable rush on our e store since the sale began. Thanks so much to everyone who has decided to use my books as a way to improve their poker games! I am honored to be looked upon by so many as a valuable resource to improving. It really makes all of the hard work I put in to writing these books when you see so many people writing you and sharing the successes they are having using the advice in my books. Thanks again!