Adam Junglen

Today Harrah’s announced WSOP events in Europe. I’m ecstatic about this, as I’ll have a chance to win a bracelet this September. The tournaments are going to be in London, with the 20k USD Main Event scheduled for September 10th. So sick.

I played the Sunday majors, but really didn’t play my A-game or cared too much. I’m really looking forward to playing live this week at Turning Stone. It’s been almost 2 months since I’ve played live, and I really miss it. I feel as though I’m a stronger live player (than online), and enjoy it more. Speaking of which, I’m all registered for EPT Monte Carlo which is March 28th – April 1st. I’m really looking forward to that trip.

After EPT Monte Carlo there’s WPT Paris in May. Although it’s still a bit down the line I’ve been talking with some friends about getting an apartment down in Paris for the month. There’s another 5k event shortly after the WPT that’s also in Paris, so I may find myself in Europe for awhile. We’ll see though, those plans are still tentative.

I think that’s all I have for now. I’ll be driving up to TS on time for the first event – $300 NLH on Thursday. Last time I drove in and chopped the first event after being awake for 30 hours straight. Lets hope I can repeat it!

Just got done with a grueling day of poker.

I ended up getting knocked out of some tournaments pretty early, so I ended up joining the 55k $10-1+R. I don’t normally play it, because it takes so long, and getting deep and not winning is incredibly frustrating (like 10th place for example).

Well, I ended up winning it for $12.7k+. I’m very exhausted right now, but it feels great to win it. My opponent had a 2.5:1 CL on me when HU play began, but about an hour later I came out on top. It was a pretty grueling match, and I’m thrilled to have won.

That pretty much sums up what I had to say. Sorry about the straight forward brag post

Sorry I haven’t updated in awhile. I’ve been busy with a few things, although nothing too major.

I recently upgraded my PC to Windows Vista. As of right now, I wouldn’t recommend the upgrade to the average consumer. There are several compatibility issues that Microsoft is still ironing out. The OS is decent, but I still haven’t found anything about it that really sets it apart from XP.

On Saturday I final tabled the Mansion 100k, but flamed out in 9th place. The difference between 9th (1.6k) and 1st (24k) was very significant, so that was incredibly frustrating. In general I’ve been running very poorly lately.

I’m friends with the owners/operators of sngicons.com (z32, bigjoe, fieryjustice), and am going to be making some MTT videos for them. The site is mainly geared for SNG specialists, so I doubt I’ll be making too many videos. Nonetheless it should be a fun experience.

That’s all for now. Looking forward to next week, when I leave for Turning Stone.

I haven’t been playing much poker lately. In fact, I skipped Sunday MTT’s. I felt like playing, but my internet hasn’t been too reliable lately, and my sleeping habits have been really awful. On Sunday at 7am I’d been awake the last 36 hours or so, so I decided to just sleep through.

During this short break I’ve been handling some stuff I needed to get done. Started doing my taxes, and have finally been approved for some health insurance. Hopefully I can be prescribed some sleep medicine soon to help with my sleeping issues. I’ve had a very difficult time falling asleep lately. I find myself thinking far too much.

Turning Stone’s released a new tournament series, which is happening March 1st-4th. It’s a fairly small series, but I’ll be there nonetheless. I’m waiting for a response from PokerStars to see if I’ll be going to EPT Dortmund. Right now the event’s sold out, so I’m doubting I’ll be able to buy-in with W$.

I’m hoping some sort of activity pops up in April. As far as I know, there’s nothing poker-related happening then. In May, there’s WPT Paris, which I’ll likely be playing, and in June, there’s another TS series. The June TS series is actually a Heartland Poker Tour event. The fact it’s televised is sorta neat, but I’m looking forward to it because it’s a week long series, and the main event is a $2.5k buy-in.

I guess that’s all I really have to say for now.

Yea, I admit it. At the moment I’m far too tired to think of a creative title. Also, the quality of my writing is probably going to be bad. I wonder if I’ll actually lose any readers after saying that. I doubt it, I’m posting attention-holding animated pictures!

My notable finishes today were 13th in a Full Tilt $75 18k Guarantee tournament, and 6th in the PS $162 100k Guarantee tournament. I was eliminated from nearly everything by 11:00pm and was ready to call it quits, with a 6k stack at 400/800. We were exactly one spot away from making the money (121 left, when 120 paid) when I doubled up with A6o in this hand.

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I pondered folding into the money as the button folded, but those thoughts didn’t last long. Anyways, I double up, and by the time the next hand was dealt we’re in the money.

Unfortunately, my new stack didn’t last long. The very next hand I was involved in a 3-way AIPF pot where I held AK vs AQ and KK. I was not lucky.

Afterwards I was left with 2k. I jammed my last 2k with K8o from MP and triped up 6.5k. Several hands later, blinds went up to 500/1000 and my stack doubled up to 14k after winning a race.

Once I had re-raise fold equity, I was very focused and playing great. I re-stole, doubled up once, and won some small pots to get my stack up to 56k. That’s when a very interesting happened vs #1PEN at 600/1200

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I had been aggressive, so I didn’t consider folding too much. I’m also taking into considering that #1Pen is an aggressive player, and is well aware of my recent activity. Cold-calling his raise puts him in an AWFUL spot. Postflop; he’s playing a re-raised pot (which 70% of his stack in the middle), out of position, and is playing vs. a player who has him covered, and who called a re-raise. I pondered whether to call for a good portion of time. I had just chipped up my stack a lot, and still had a lot of chips to play with. I could’ve folded there and still had a great stack at 600/1200.

After considering all the factors, I decided to call. His bet on the flop just reeked of overcards, and I was correct.

The next fun hand was during the 2,500/5,000 level. There were probably 3-4 tables left, and I had a very healthy stack.

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I pretty much decided my opponent had nothing. He’s an aggressive player, and if I fold to a flop check-raise then I think I should check behind. He’s that aggressive. Either way, a decent player hardly ever check-raises this kind of flop vs. an EP raiser with a good hand. In most cases, I have the best hand.

Although there were many interesting hands between the AQ hand, and the hand that ended my tournament, I’m ending my summary with the hand that eliminated me.

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It’s fairly frustrating, being able to induce a player into moving in, making the call, and then losing. It certainly wasn’t an easy call, but it was very obvious my opponents in the blinds were getting tired of my button raises. I had raised the button 3-4 times beforehand with success, and I decided A8 was enough to make the call.

I was correct.

I lost.

Feels good to finally just make some money on PS. I’ve been losing on there lately, with all of my profits coming from UB and FTP. I really dislike their structure, and generally I think they have better players. To elaborate, their starting chip stacks are a joke, and apparently what they consider an “ante” greatly differs from what I believe an “ante” to be. (The ante in the Sunday million is 1/20th the BB. In most live events and other sites the ante is 1/6th – 12th the BB). However, they do have fantastic support – I trust them more than any other website.

I was also very satisfied with my play. I was incredibly focused, and almost always knew where I was at. In poker, as in life, all you can do is make good decisions. It’s unfortunate when you get unlucky along the way, but if you make good decisions, good things will happen. (/end cliche)

That’s all for now. The FTOPS III (Full Tilt Online Poker Series) started up today, so hopefully I’ll have some updates later with final table results.

Sunday’s are, without a doubt, the biggest day of the week for online poker. I’ve been waking up earlier lately (12:45pm EST), as opposed to 4:00pm, enabling me to play the Sunday Warm-up, 2:00pm $109r, and a few others as well.

Well, between 1pm and 4pm my internet connection was very inconsistent. I disconnected 4-5 times an hour for about 60 seconds each time.

First of all, I’m an absolute idiot for not having a backup internet connection. The amount of money that a back-up DSL line costs is completely irrelevant compared to the amount of money I’m playing for online. I paid more rake on Sunday than the cost of most high-speed internet providers charge per year.

At around 4:15pm, I decided to ask some local friends if I could use their internet. My friend Andy Linden was kind enough to let me play in his room, while his family watched the Super Bowl. I arrived to Andy’s and finally had a stable internet connection at around 5:00pm. Unfortunately, I was on my laptop, and therefore my monitor space was greatly reduced. This most certainly had an adverse effect on my play, and ability to join tournaments.

Results-wise, Sunday was no joyride. I continue to run amazingly bad in the 109r. I can confidently say I have never won an all-in preflop race in the 109r, granted I haven’t played it much. Regardless, it’s incredibly frustrating.

I was able to double my stack in each of the PS 10k starting stack tournaments (Warm-up, and Million), but didn’t progress much from there.

With about 80 left in the 9:00pm PS $22r I had a 50k stack at 300/600, and two lost significant AIPF pots in a row, both where I had my opponents at a considerable disadvantage. (QQ < A9 AIPF for 70k, and AK < QT for 70k). Either pot would’ve put me near the chip lead.

Full Tilt Poker crashed late in the evening, right as the $300k Guarantee (their biggest weekly tournament) was getting down to the final 3 tables. At the time, I was still in their $200-16 Sunday Horse event, and had already busted out of the $300k, and $40k – both of which were still in progress. If I’m comprehending the refund policy correct, I will be receiving a refund for each tournament I’d already busted in (and was still in progress), and a refund + the original payout, as according to my chipstack in the tournament I was still in.

For now, we’ll just have to wait for a response from FTP. They’ve had crashes before, and each time they’ve correctly compensated their players.

So, was Sunday a swing and a miss? Nah, not quite. The UB $30r 15k Guarantee ended up being my only final table on Sunday. I placed 3rd for $2,025. After I receive refunds from FTP, the $2k score about breaks me even for Sunday.

Because of the Super Bowl, a fair amount of people were expecting some overlays in the tournaments, but there wasn’t anything too outrageous. The biggest tournaments still easily reached their guarantees, but a few smaller ones had decent overlay. The Bodog 100k has only reached their guaranteed prize pool a few times. It only had 747 entrants, which was about average 3 months ago. Ultimate Bet’s 200k also rarely reaches the guarantee, this week it had a 27% overlay with only 729 entrants. A fairly significant drop from last weeks 977 player field.

Ultimate Bet recently lowered some of their guarantees. Funny enough those were the tournaments with the largest percent of overlay. The $120-9 30k guarantee bounty tournament, and $33r 15k guarantee. The $120-9, is basically just a standard $100-9 freezeout. Each time you eliminate a player, you win $20. Yesterday, it had 129 entrants, meaning UB had to cover the other $17,100 (57%) of the prize pool. Percentage wise, the $33r I took 3rd yesterday also had an enormous overlay. I linked the lobby above, but the math is pretty basic.

76 entrants + 136 rebuys + 73 addons = 285*30 = $8550, which only covered 57% of the prize pool. Had the tournament not guaranteed a $15k prize pool, the money I won for 3rd would’ve been near the standard 1st place payout. Thank you, UB.

UB didn’t lose quite as much as it seems. Super Bowl Sunday wasn’t friendly to them, but they still rake all of the tournaments, and it is possible for a site to profit in a tournament that offers an overlay (although that wasn’t the case in the above examples).

Considering running bad, and the fact I struggled to find a stable internet connection, I’m satisfied I didn’t air-ball Sunday.