Can't sleep, so I guess I'll blog...

Today was an awesome day, I took down the $100 1R1A turbo tournament on PokerStars for ~$25K, and best of all was I beat JohnnyBax heads up for the win! I have been on a bit of a tear lately, done some different things to revamp my game a bit, and, I didn't realize this at first, but I took away so much from hanging around the poker players I stayed with in Las Vegas. Picking up little pieces of each player's style and game and using that to tweak my own--and to punish them when they're at my table ;)--has made a tremendous impact on my recent success.

I went to visit my sister in San Francisco after she recently returned from Thailand! She was still pretty jetlagged, so the first night I was there I went to play poker at Lucky Chances cardroom. There was a long list for the $5/$10 and there was a super soft looking $20/$40 NL game, so I decided to take a shot. I played very straightforward most of the night, but I manipulated my image well and got some clutch folds. I made one questionable call where there were two flush draws on board, and I suspected the player who bet the river had the flush draw that missed, not the one that got there, and I was wrong. I don't mind the way I reasoned through the hand, but what I should have done--and what I did on a later hand--was talked to him to see if he'd give me any information. One thing that I have always struggled with in live poker is coming from an online background where I don't take much time at all to make my decisions, and not taking advantage of all the extra opportunity and information up for grabs.

I have planned a trip to Europe to play some big buyin MTTs in Barcelona, London, Paris, and Amsterdam, all across the span of 2-3 months. I'm getting really excited, and I have a lot to do to prepare before the trip. This is similar to my year last year where I busted my ass to prepare for some international travel, and I think having that on the horizon not only gives me a lot to look forward to, but it also forces me to make sure I have all my ducks in a row.

Last big thing on my plate at the moment is a really exciting job opportunity as a poker coach with a new training site that will unveil in September. I'm so flattered to be offered this job because, afterall, the way I got good at online poker was watching a training video, and here I am getting ready to produce my own videos!. I'm just generally excited to get my name out there in a legitimate way. I'll also have the opportunity to do some private coaching, which is great because I have always loved teaching/coaching and it has not been a part of my life as of late.