WHAT happened to my boat??? October 31st. What a wild and crazy month it has been. It was a very good and profitable month for me. I brought in just over $25k. I took second in the best all-around player points for the Fall Classic in Canterbury Park. I crushed the live games both in Minnesota and Las Vegas. It’s a good day to be a professional poker player.

Here are some of the highlights of the month:

I placed third in an Omaha/8 or better tournament. This was only the second O8 tournament that I have ever played in. I was very proud of my play and have logged that as one of my best accomplishments recently.

I get a call while in Minnesota from my brother that says, “I have bad news…” He proceeds to tell me that our boat got wrecked. Images of the boat sinking to the bottom of Lake Mead flash through my mind as he gives me the story. The boat was parked on the street, on it’s trailer. We live on a cul de sac. The boat has never left it’s parking spot on the street except to go to the lake. Every neighbor knows that the boat sits there. So, it makes perfect sense that somebody crashed their truck into the boat. I couldn’t help myself when I heard the news. My 1971 24′ pontoon boat got totalled by a truck while parked on land. How white trash appropriate.

The good news was that we were pretty sure that insurance would be picking up the tab. And boy did they. The decided not to total the boat and give us $3400 for repairs. Now remember, we bought the boat six weeks ago for $2k cash. Good news already. The best news is that upon further inspection, there is no reason for the boat to still not float. It may be all banged and dented up, but it should still float.

So, Saturday when I got back from MN, everybody was on the lake. Aparrantly the boat was still floating. They got back at 10pm with no boat.

“Where’s the boat?”

“On the side of the highway.”

This time a rim basically fell apart. When I finally saw it I saw parts of rim and five lug nuts remaining. It was so bad that we could not fix it and had to have our boat towed back to our house. That required two regular flat bed tow trucks, one huge one, four guys and four hours. I couldn’t help but laugh my ass off while I watched them unload a 24′ old school boat off a flat bed tow truck in front of my house.

I finally put money back on-line in the past week. The games are actually quite good right now. I have finally re-commenced my vendetta against the game of no-limit hold’em. I really don’t want to fall behind the learning curve on this game because I still want to be an unemployed bastard in three years when it will be impossible to find a decent limit game. I’ve played over 10k hands in the past four days. I’ve pretty much been a couch potato machine. I actually have three games going right now while I’m typing this and sitting at my brother’s bar. I’m finally starting to actually get it , which is making me feel much better. I blew through $2000 in my first 6k hands and have since turned it around to about even. I’m playing the 2-4NL games online. It is really hard adjusting from a limit mentality and being a call-down monkey like I often am online. Also the strategy and set-up are so completely different. There is so much more creativity to this game that I never got before that ultimately sets up for the big stack busting bet. I also am getting that sense that I do not have to be as precise as I have to be in limit. I’m not sure how to apply that to NL yet, but I am constantly learning.

So, here’s the outlook for November. I’m headed to LA for the start of the Commerce Holiday Bonus tournament on Thursday. From there I’m headed up to Lucky Chances on monday or tuesday for a series of nickel and dime tournaments. From there it’s back to LA for more tournaments. I am thinking I will be in Foxwoods for the main event which starts late-mid November, like around the 17th I think? Dutch is headed up, Brandon and Jenn are going, and Poff is going… so, why not? Not sure if I will play.. 10k is more than 5% of my roll! Will definately be trying to satellite in. So, another 3 weeks on the road… but I’m excited about it.

It’s good to be back home in warm weather with my own truck with the people that I’ve missed. Thanks for reading.

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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Mike Pickett goes deep… So going into the final event I was tied for second in the best all-around points, but I had absolutely zero chance of catching the leader even if I won the event. Bummer, since that was my goal, but I’m still quite pleased with my play this past few weeks. I netted just over $12k after expenses, so I cannot complain about anything. For the main event I basically showed up and played really bad. I cannot even give you a bad beat story. I played like a complete donkey and did not even deserve to make it to level 5 like I did.

My friend Mike Pickett however, he played perfect poker.

He absolutely crushed the field on day one, finishing fifth in chips with 107k and 26 players remaining. The tournament re-started today at 1pm CST. By the time I arrived at 2pm they were down to 13 players. Gosh this structure is frustrating. Mike had a commanding chip lead with over 300k. When they were at the 3k-6k/1k level, right on the final table bubble (two five handed tables), Mike and the 2nd chip leader got in a huge hand together. Mike opened the cutoff to 20k, and the SB re-raised to 70k. Mike shoved, and the guy insta-called with the K K . Mike showed A A and we went nuts in the gallery. The flop came the grossest thing I have ever seen. K K 3x. At the same time another player busted on the other table, and whamo, Mike was down to 62k. ARRRRRRGGGH. Tournament poker is stupid. Once again the best player has the most chips and gets screwed by some stupid beat. Mike went bust shortly thereafter with a flopped nut flush draw vs. a JJ overpair. We were so disgusted. I am very proud of how Mike played and extremely disappointed at how the cards came down. Well done Mike, and I’m sorry for the bummer luck buddy.

At some point this weekend I will give a re-cap of the entire tournament. Then I will be at the Commerce by next weekend! Foxwoods has been given a back-seat because some of my friends from up here are headed out there, the juice is lower, and the action is better.

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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Final Table Report Arrrrrrrrgg. I am so sick of these “almost there” finishes. I ended up taking third for $7028 minus $351 each to Jay and Poker Bob. The three of us swapped 5% at the 2nd break when we all had huge stacks. At the final table all of my friends came out to cheer me on. There were so more awesome guys (and gals… thanks Mary and Abi!) that came out then I ever thought would be there. That in and of itself was one of the best highlights of my entire Fall Classic.

So, it came down to myself, Doug Dicken (Gigabet’s brother), and Justin Sellers who is the best all around points leader and has been having a hell of a tournament. Justin is on my right and Doug is on my left and we all have about the same amount of chips. These three hands basically crushed my tournament hopes.

First, I raise KK from the button. It gets called in both spots. The flop comes QT5. Doug checks, Justin bets, I raise, fold, and Justin calls. Turn comes 9, check, bet, call. River 8, Justin bets, I make crying call, he rolls over T8.

Later, I raise AJo form the button, Doug calls, Justin 3 bets, we both call. Flop A93, check, bet, just call, fold. Turn, Q. He bets, I call. River 3, he bets, I call, he rolls over 5 3 for trip threes. I thought about this hand for a while and if I should have raised the flop or the turn. Now, Justin was playing very wild, but he had only 3 bet in that spot twice, and with JJ and AJ. So, he obviously could be on something creative, but highly unlikely. Thus, I was either way ahead (of say KK, JJ, TT, etc) or way behind to almost anything else. AQ, AK, AA, QQ, 99, 33. If I gassed it I was either getting 3 bet or he would fold, and thus I saw no value in raising other than to protect my hand. But if I was ahead, he had no more than 5 outs, most likely 3 or 2. So even though I would have won the pot on the flop or the turn, I still think it was the best play in the long run.

So meanwhile Doug gets super lucky in two pots (all-in on both - rivered few outers) and wins a few others and Justin are down to just a couple chips. Also, Justin goes all in and rivers a 6 outer to stay alive. So, I raise J 7 from the SB, Doug calls, and we see the 7 5 3 flop. I bet, he raises, I 3-bet, he calls. Turn, K , I bet, he calls. River 8 , I bet my last 5k, he calls and shows the 89o. I have never been so frustrated at the end of the tournament than I was after this one. I only sucked out on the river ONCE, and that was in a spot where my hand was quite possibly the best hand anyways. OBV I caught several rushes to build the chips and make the final table, but it’s just so frustrating getting there, being the best player, having the spots to win all the chips and getting really unlucky to not finish. Lucky to be there, unlucky to go out how I did.

Something at the final table really frustrated me tonight. I have already ranted about the lack of a 300-600 level which is retarted, but they did the SAME thing at the final table! It went from 2k-4k/4k-8k and doubled! WTF! 4k-8k blinds, 8k-16k limits. That thing in and of itself made me unable to take the bad beat in that last level and still recover. It is the worst decision I have ever seen in a poker tournament to screw over the end game that bad when a few people have played 12 hours already and now have to put it all up to a crapshoot for tens of thousands of dollars. Jerry, the cardroom manager, really needs to fix these gaping holes in the structure to keep players happy in these tournaments. The juice was already upped 3%, can’t we get a structure without crapshoot levels?!?

Anyways, tied for second in best all around points. Really wanted to take that down, but Justin put a lock on it with his 2nd place finish tonight. Even if I win the main event I cannot win all-around. Main event tomorrow should be pretty great minus the two bad levels. 4k in starting chips, 50 min levels, big field due to satellite entries, and a two day format. The tournament will end tomorrow with 3 tables left and then reconvene on Friday. I want to make it to Friday.

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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Quick update It’s been a little while since I have written, and for that I apologize. I am on dinner break right now from the $500 +50 Limit Hold’em championship. Before I get into a discussion about tonight, let me catch you up on the happenings of this week.

Sunday we all drove up to Mille Lacs for the $1500+200 (sick juice!) Heartland Poker Tour event. I was super excited for this event, but then I got jacked in several ways. We started with 15k in chips, blinds of 100-200. Here’s how the structure went. 1-2, 2-4, 3-6, 4-8/1, 5-10/200, 1000-2000/300! What the? 500-1000 to 1000-2000? SICK! But, everybody had to deal with the same thing, and I know how to handle this, and the field was full of terrible players.

Going ino the 5-10 level I had 36k in chips and was feeling good. I was controlling my table and picking up about 40% of the pots and keeping them small. Then, the worst beat came when I got moved by the floorperson to balance a table. Bad beat. I was moved just to the left of Mike Carlson who was completely owning the table and I was placed right in his path. There wasn’t a dang thing I could do, I ended up giving him all my chips and he went on to win the thing.

Monday and Tuesday were pretty uneventful as far as the tournaments went. I never had a chance and went bust quickly in both. I did play a bunch in the live games Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday and won about $3400. Quote of the day goes to this guy who saw my buddy Dave’s cards at showdown and said after a long pause, “What’s that?” Dave had 8 high with the 8 3 after banging the whole way. That same guy won the award for biggest donk play too when he posted behind the button and said he’s getting all of his $300 in the pot blind. So, I look down at 72o, raise, he 3 bets blind, I call and we see the flop heads up. JJ7. We go all 7 bets to get him all in. He had KQo. 72 good. I love it.

So, I’m going to go win this tournament. I will tell you all about it later!

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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:YAWN:
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I don’t know how the hell this is but half a dozen of the best poker players that currently are in the midwest are awake today for the first time already. I woke up to an alarm clock for the first damn time in months. We are on our way to play in the Heartland Poker Tour’s current event at Grand Casino Mille Lacs with a direct buy-in of $1700 and a pretty strong structure. Most people (everybody else) enter the tournament through “qualifiers” earlier in the weekend or the weekend before. These qualifiers are basically top 20% satellites. Yeah the field is that juicy that we would be willing to wake up at five effing am and drive two hours into the middle of “Yoo betcha” land.

Yesterday’s event actually played like a real tournament. The levels were 50 minutes and we started with 3k in chips instead of the usual 2k. I am kinda glad that I didn’t make it to the 400-800 level though because that would have screwed things up and unless I prospered in that level I would have gotten pissed. I made it ten minutes shy of that level and was just fine. It’s kinda hard to get mad when you bust out of a tournament with ten-deuce offsuit. I had absolutely zero hands the entire 5 hours that I was in, and the only time I played a big pot before that hand I called an all-in with AQo in the blinds vs. K2s. I lost that one. I was pretty proud however of how I was proceeding, manufacturing chips in places that did not require cards that I did not have. I thought this was one of those spots where I pulled the ol’ squeeze play from the BB trying to pick up some weak money, but the guy called 65% of his stack with ATo. Oh well.

Ok, I’m sure you’ll get a report of tonight’s occurances. Thanks for reading.

Peace and good luck,

Devo

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Boooooring… Once again one of those not too exciting days. I doubled up to 2800 chips at one point and then never did anything else. My starting table was with Schneids, so that was fun. I love watching that guy do what he does and he’s just such a good guy. I played about 4 hours of 30-60, made $315, so lost a total of twenty-five bucks today. I’m crushed.

I’ve been pretty disappointed in the quality of the games so far. In fact every game I’ve played in has been tougher than any game I’ve played in in Las Vegas for quite a while. Perhaps it has been because I have been playing during the day and then all of us that are good are going out at night. Um, actually that’s quite probably accurate. Bummer.

Quote of the day came from e-mail today. Thanks to Larry for this hilarious bit.

” I can see a new episode. Seat 5 silent farts under the table. When the automatic shuffler delivers a new deck, it also delivers a plume of fresh ass gas. The dealer falls over backward, dealing cards in the air; 5 players bolt from the table. Only Devo, the Picketts, and an old dude with an oxygen bottle remain. Suddenly one of the Picketts yells for the floorman. As he approaches, Pickett asks for a reduced rake because they are now playing short-handed while holding their breaths. The floorman arrives at the table, immediately vomits, then approves 1/2 rake for the brave fart-tilt-boys. Play resumes .” - Larry Williamson via e-mail on FartTiltPoker.com

$500+50 NL tomorrow. We start with 3k in chips and the levels are 50 mins which I am happy about, however the 200-400 to 400-800 jump is going to jack things up again. Joys of bad structures…

Peace and good luck!

Devo

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Fun going bust and Omaha8 re-cap I had more fun going bust today than I have ever in a poker tournament before. The structure was faster than ever in the stud event with 2/3 of the field gone within 3 levels. When my first table broke I got moved to a very fun but very tough table containing my friends Blake Bohn, Mike Pickett, and Sam Pickett. There were also two other players that I recognized that were far from pushovers. Blake and Mike went bust pretty soon because the structure was accelerating quite rapidly. I took Mike out with a lucky 7th street card, and I was liking my chances more and more. Then, Mike’s seat was replaced with the biggest donk ever, Kirby Rogers. Unfortunately for my stud tournament Kirby is everything but the biggest donk ever. He’s one of the best players of an extremely talented pool of young professionals in Minnesota. Anyways, Sam’s stack dwindled and I had a couple of chances to bust him but he “Zing!”-ed me twice on 7th street. Gosh I wanted to bust two Picketts in one day. Wasn’t going to happen. My final hand came when Sam open raised to 600 and I put my last 525 in with (T9)T, and the player who brought it in called with a 3 showing. Sam had a 4 on the door and KK wired. Sam makes 3 pair, and the bring player makes Aces up with the A8 in the hole to bust both of us. Sam says, “Let the record show that I lasted longer than Bryan.” I love it. We both left the table laughing having a good ol time.

Sam and I had a hilarious moment when we were down to two tables yesterday in the Omaha8 event. A player busted in the 1 seat, I was in the two, and Sam was in the three. The crowd was getting pretty large by that point, and 30 seconds after the player was gone the most god-awful swamp butt stench assaulted my senses. “Oh my God who dropped ass!” I scremed. It was bad. We’re half laughing, half gagging. Sam says, “That’s a nice departing gift.” I say that I’m about to tilt, and Sam says, “He put you on fart tilt.” Hilarious. Sounds like a good parody site… FartTiltPoker.com. I should buy that domain name now.

So, other than that nothing exciting today. Made $115 in the 30 game before the tourney, lost $100 in a last longer bet.

So, 3rd in Omaha8, 259 entrants. The final two tables were said by Jan to be the youngest group she has ever seen at an Omaha8 event. God bless youthful aggression. That really was the key to the tournament as far as I am concerned. It was quite a tulmutous event for me. I ran my stack up big, then got pretty unlucky and dropped to 1600 at the end of the 2nd break. I came back UTG with the blinds at 400-800. I raised, scooped, and tripled up. Then, they pushed the button one spot too many and I was in the SB. Nice. I won that pot too. Within 20 minutes I was up to 22k. NICE. About twenty minutes after that, this hand came up. The really loose-aggressive 19 year-old internet professional open raised, and I re-raised the small blind with the A A Q 5 . The flop came K K 2 . I bet, he called. The turn came a 7 . I bet, and he raised. Now, I’m not folding this spot ever, but I was pretty sure that I was ahead. After some thought I 3-bet, and he just called. Good news. The river brought the 3 , I bet my last 1500 and he called and says, “I got there on the river.” Got what on the river?!? Good lord… He rolls over A348. No clubs. Oh… My… God. I now get half of MY 35k pot. Nice call on the flop. Nice raise on the turn. Arrrrgh. From there I ran my stack down to 9k when we made the money and broke for dinner.

In the money I ran like God. Check out this sequence of hands. I steadily build my stack to 19k, and then with the blinds at 1k-2k I am in the small blind, and the button open raises. I have A K 2×3x. I 3 bet, flop the nut flush, bet, get called, turn an A, bet, and he folds. Next hand, I’m on the button. Don’t remember the hand, he opens the cutoff, I 3 bet, he folds on the flop. Next hand, I open raise the cutoff, both blinds call, flop the nut-nut draw, turn the nut flush with no low out there, and river the nut low to get 3/4 of the pot. I love having a monster after several super aggressive non-showdown winners.

When we finally made the final 9 I had a little over 80k, and just could never really catch a break. I missed at least 4 20+ outers to scoops/chops in monster pots. I had to fight to keep the stack that I had. I took some tough ones and was left with literally one 5k chip left. I tripled that. Then I chopped one. Then I tripled again. Back up to 65k! Nice. Played a few more hands, and then this hand happened. Chip leader, who won the event in 04, open raised the button, and I 3 bet AA67 with nut spades all-in. The other short stack 4 bet in the BB with KK92, and the button 5 bet him all-in with 234T. Sick. I liked my chances. We both lost, and John won the event. I was quite frustrated with how everything went down at the final, and in the midst of my frustrations people saying “Congragulations!” just set me off even more. Not pissed by any means, but just frustrated. If you’ve ever been in that spot you understand. Then Sam said the best words that I could have heard, “You played well.” That’s what you want to say to your buddy in that situation. Thanks Sam.

I like the deal that we made 4 handed. Stacks were 165k in front of John who was solid, 155k to my right in front of a tight player, 132k in front of me, and 100+ish in front of Mark who I didn’t think was playing that well. Limits were 8k-16k, so there wasn’t much room for play. I proposed a 5k save and then re-distribute the prize pool 40/30/20/10, boosting 4th 2600, 3rd 2900, 2nd 600, and cutting first by 6100. I suppose taking 3rd I got the best of that one in hindsight! But I do think it was a wise deal considering chip stacks and fluctuation and John’s skill level. What do you think?

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Brandon Cantu took the sickest beat today in the $10k Festa al Lago Bellagio main event. He was actually fourth in chips and less than 15 minutes in he was busted by Joe Pelton (won the Legends main event this year). Brandon raised early with the 77 and Joe called with the 9{moscardsuit:cs} 7{moscardsuit:cs} . Flop T7x, Brandon bets, Joe calls. Turn 9, Brandon bets more, Joe calls. All the money goes in on the 9 ball river. Sick sick sick sick sick. I feel bad for the guy.

Ok. That’s all folks. Peace and good luck! $300+40 NL tomorrow.

Devo

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