Adam Junglen

Well, another year in the books. To say it’s been a year of ups and downs would be an understatement on so many levels. Suppose that’s life though. I hope I’ve at least grown a little as a human and learned some things about life through it all.

Sadly, my Grandma (my father’s mother) passed away recently – just two days after Christmas. I’ve been extremely lucky to have had both sides of my grandparents alive for so long. She had been under hospice care for a couple of days. They were able to bring a hospital bed to her house, which was nice and our whole family was in town to share her last days together. Cancer claims another life, although she did live a very long and happy life. When I was in grade school, I used to ride my bike with my old neighbor friends to her house and go swimming in her backyard pool. Some of my earliest happy memories involve my grandma and she will be missed.

2011 wasn’t all bad by any means. I do sometimes find it difficult not to be pesimistic about the future of poker, especially after black friday and everything that came with it. But it appears as though there’s finally reason to be optimistic about the future of poker. I haven’t been keeping up to date with all the news as much as I was a couple months ago (I find reading about FTP too often to be overwhelmingly depressing), but it sounds like we’re making legitimate legislative progress and maybe we’ll get our FTP funds by next Christmas.

Partly out of laziness & disorganization and partly out of just not feeling up for traveling, I’m leaning towards passing on the PCA this year. As I’ve said before, I don’t like playing when I’m not feeling close to 100%. We’ll see though, it’s still a week away. The next series I do plan on playing is the Fallsview Classic $5k in February. I’m planning on moving back to LV a month or two before the WSOP this year and get back into playing more live.

Well that’s all for now. Happy Holidays everyone!

Adam

Sometime in August I went to Turning Stone, played their $1.5k and busted. I told myself that’d be the last hand of poker I play til I’m setup online. After giving PokerStars my life story and blood sample, they finally let me back on; Monday morning. Tragically, I missed “double million/warmup day, but I guess that’s my fault. Oh well, it’s just nice to be back on for now.

So far Toronto’s nice, although I’m sort of kicking myself for not going to WSOP-E (after seeing the big turn out). I was pretty over live poker in August though, and don’t feel too bad for taking a two month break between hands. I’ve probably taken longer breaks.

I turn 24 in a few hours….and I’m still playing cards.

adam

There are moments in life where you question everything. Whether you’re religious or not, tragic things completely out of our control happen everyday that make us question our very being. In this case, it’s very difficult, if not impossible to logically explain the passing of my dear friend Thuy Doan. The last post I wrote mentioning Thuy was titled “Lucky Accident,” about a year ago. She became an amputee to remove the cancer and was getting around well, and always with a smile. If you read the old post, you’ll know that cancer was found in her system – discovered after she fell and fractured her hip.

How can the inevitable be so tragic? Sometime in the winter I believe she was given “one year.” Someday we’re all going to die, but her days were literally numbered. I’ve learned this past week that no matter what you simply cannot brace yourself for death. Thuy Doan beamed of positivity and fought like hell for her life. She left an incredibly positive impact on everyone she interacted with and it’s truley a tradgey that she’s no longer with us.

Goodbye Thuy, I’ll never forget you

Adam

The mid-summer daily grind that is the World Series of Poker has come to an end for me. I wound up only playing 15 tourneys over the summer. Final tally is 4 cashes and 2 final tables. The last two cashes came in the mixed $2.5k PLH/PLO event (took 25th) and then I busted the main event on Day 4 in 623rd place (6,850 entered, so mincashed).

For the third year in a row I comfortably cruised to day 3 in the WSOPME with above average chips. In 09 I gave them all away on day 3, and last year I gave them all away on Day 4, with around 100 players away from the money. It’s very difficult to play your A-game and have a lot of hidden luck go your way for a 8 days, let alone 4 (when the field makes the money).

I managed not to punt my stack this year, and considering I ran QQ into KK (allin-pre) early on Day 4 to knock me down to 20bb’s, I guess I was fortunate not to bubble. On day 3 I was moved to the ESPN feature table and for the third time this summer, I got to play under the lights in the Thunderdome. If you missed the live broadcast, it’s on youtube. Here’s a link to the Youtube Channel. I’m in the Day 3 episodes. The pot I played vs Daniel where the camera only caught the Qh in my hand, the other card was the Jh. There’s a couple interesting hands, check’em out. I also did some ESPN interviews for when the edited broadcast airs.

Lastly, I just recently did an interview with Joe Stapleton for the PokerVT podcast. Subscribe to it on the itunes store. Or just download it here - pokervt.com/2011/podcast/e…

I just finished driving back to Ohio with my old roommate Ray Coburn. It’s nice to be back home. Now time to relax and figure out wtf I’m gonna do with myself. [edited]. Maybe I’ll toss a dart at a map and move there for awhile.

Anyways, thanks everyone for all the support and nice messages from over the summer.

- Adam

The last six days have been an absolute whirlwind. I took 5th in the $5k WSOP NLH Shootout, which began on the 14th and started at noon. Playing 10 handed at one of the tougher tournament tables I’d played in (lineup wise, I had a good seat though) I managed to scoop all the chips, ending with a 3hour heads up match vs. David Singer. The rest of the table was like…, Ike Haxton, Gboro, Sam Trickett, Jared hamby, David Singer, and some other cash players who all played a very strong game. I was lucky to have David’s top pair dominated on J72cc with KJo vs his QJo on the final hand.

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Day 2 of the shootout was a crazy format. We started with 150k stacks and 1k/2k/300 blinds/antes…. Playing 4 handed. As you could imagine action was really fast. In fact, within the first two hours Maxim Lykov and Chris DeMaci had busted and I was heads up against Alan Gohering. Alan’s definitely got game and he was much tougher than David. Luckily I began heads up with a 4:1 lead or so. After about 2.5 hours I was on the right side of a cooler with KK > T8o. He check called 3 streets at 2k/4k blinds. I made it 8k pf, c-bet 12k on flop of Kd8s6s. Turn Td, he check/called 22k with 120k behind. River was the Ts. Seemed like a good card to overbet shove for his stack…he snapped (and was planning on c/ring, so either way it was ul)

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The final table on the other hand was a complete roller coaster. First, I was very lucky to win a race early on with AK vs KingDan’s QQ, so it’s tough to complain about losing  a pot 5 handed with AJ vs A2o all in pre….tho I would’ve had 1/2 the chips in play with 4 left. Oh well, I battled hard and wound up taking 5th place for a small six figure score.

The very next day I figured I’d catch up on sleep, but instead I saw there almost 700 players for the $3k PLO. I showed up in sweatpants, barely asleep and luckboxed my 9k starting to day 2 with 54k. And then to finish day 2 I wound up with an average stack with 25 left. Since that tournament started at 6pm, we again played until 4am. Been pretty sleep deprived, but I guess it’s a good problem to have when you’re making two final tables in less than a week. After battling hard and exchanging the chiplead several times with Charder, Sam Stein, and Benba I got it in as basically a coinflip vs Sam Stein and lost to bust out in 5th again.

So far this series I’ve played in 11 events. In every 1.5k and under I’ve never been above 10k in chips…but in everything higher I’ve built to at least 100k with two bubbles and now two final tables. That’s variance for you.

We’re on the home stretch of the series now, but still some good events left, including mixed pot limit holdem/plo (one of my favorite events, missed it last year, won’t happen again). Another $5k NLH, $10k NLH 6 handed and some more. Thanks to everyone for all the nice messages on the various social networking sites. Feels great to finally put up some WSOP results after the last two disappointing years (big losing year, then a breakeven stretch). Disappointing not to be able to take home to jewelry, but I’m confident it’ll happen.

Thanks again everyone for all the support,

- Adam Junglen

I’ve been really busy since my last update. Actually, I’d been without cable or internet for about a week until recently. I found it refreshing to “disconnect” during my recent cross-country drive. One of my best friends, Jeff Klemm, who I grew up with, helped drive me out. It’s about 30-35hrs of driving from Stow, OH to Las Vegas, NV and somehow my plan of starting Monday morning and arriving Wednesday night (doing about 10-12hrs a day, in time for the $5k on Thursday at noon) worked out perfectly. We were even able to visit Jeff’s aunt and uncle in Colorado on the way.

So far I’m 5 events in at the WSOP and have yet to cash. I’m not discouraged at all by these early results and feel like I’m playing good. I made a semi-deep run in the $5k, busting out about 30 away from the money. There’s still a lot of poker to be played and I honestly feel like my game’s changed a lot for the better and by the end of the summer I’ll have at least a final table under my belt. I also feel like I have a much better idea of what to prepare for and what I’m getting into at the WSOP. Hopefully this third year is the charm.

That’s all for now, later

- Adam