Adam Junglen

Last night, I flew back home from Vegas. There was actually an interesting/somewhat humorous story that goes along with it.

I purchased a 1st class, one way, direct flight from Las Vegas to Cleveland Hopkins (standard). I boarded the aircraft and got comfortable when I was informed we’d have to stop in Denver to refuel the plane. Apparently the Vegas weather (well over 100 degrees F) evaporated the bulk of our fuel supply. It wasn’t too big of a deal, thankfully I had some good sleeping pills to help make the experience a blur.

Moving on…

I ended up having a real great time in Vegas. As I said in a previous post, it’s not too fun being around all the action when you’re underage. Once I moved into the house with a host of my good friends I really enjoyed myself. Next year I’ll plan out my Vegas trip better and get more involved in renting a house.

Poker-wise there aren’t any live events I can play in July, so I’m just gonna relax and enjoy the summer. I’ll still play a fair amount online, but I don’t feel pressured to grind out 5-6 days a week. I’m more looking forward to just spending time with friends, getting outside a little, work on some business deals, and rest up for a hectic fall/winter.

There’s a tournament series in August at TS that I’ll attend. Shortly after, all hell breaks loose as far as live tournaments.

European Poker Tour Schedule

World Poker Tour Schedule

World Series of Poker Europe

2007 Aruba Classic

2008 Aussie Millions

I can only play a few of the WPT tournaments (most notable Niagara and Barcelona), but it looks like I’m gonna be doing a hell of a lot of traveling this fall/winter. I obviously won’t be playing ALL of the tournaments I linked above, but I plan on playing most of them. I’m really looking forward to the WSOP Europe Main Event.

As much as I enjoy traveling to Europe, Australia, etc, I’m fairly confident this will be my last year doing a lot of international traveling. I’m not saying I won’t travel at all next year, but I turn 21 next fall (2008). I think I’ll likely relax a bit and settle down in Vegas for awhile. There are a lot of great tournaments in the US and I’m heavily anticipating being able to play major 10k events without leaving the US.

That basically sums up my schedule. I’m sure I’ll have more detailed plans as the dates near, but this should give a rough idea of what I’ll be up to in the coming months.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading, and good luck to everyone in the WSOP ME.

The last few days I’ve been real busy, which hopefully justifies the fact I haven’t updated in a week.

On the 20th I flew out to Vegas to spend some time with friends. I met up with my friend Tony (bond18), and stayed with him at the Rio.

It’s crazy how “fast” things happen in this town. I landed around 10pm and figured I’d just go back to the Rio and sleep off the jet-lag. Roughly 6 hours, one house party, and one late-night Korean BBQ dinner later, I’m asleep at the Rio. Pretty hectic.

The following few days I just hung around the Rio. I went out to eat at some great restaurants and visited various parts of Vegas (nothing too exciting though).

I’m not going to say I wasn’t having fun, but I was considering catching a flight home on Saturday. It’s pretty discouraging being 19 in a 21+ city. Believe it or not, it’s NOT fun being 5 floors above the World Series of Poker when you’re a young professional. I found some possible flight info, but then decided I’d stick it out for a few days….

Well, it ended up being a great decision.

Saturday night I slept at Aaron and Kush’s place in Panorama Towers, which is where I stayed on my last trip to Vegas. I slept there so I could wake up, and play Sundays, without leaving the Rio. West Coast time is pretty great for online tournaments, the Sunday Million started at 1:30pm here (as opposed to 4:30pm).

It was a special week for some of my friends. Matt and Thayer both FT’d the Sunday Million on PokerStars. 1st place was a staggering 315k ~ one of the biggest 1st place payouts in the history of PS. It was really awesome seeing some of my better friends I’ve met through poker do well. It was even better to see Matt won the whole thing, unchopped, outright, etc. Congrats to Matt (1st – 315k) and Thayer (4th – 88k) on playing a great tournament, and winning a ton of money.

I went to the house where Gobbo and Matt were staying, along with a slew of poker friends and celebrated Matt’s big win. I also brought my luggage, because staying at a house full of friends > staying in an empty hotel room, surrounded by stuff I can’t do.

I woke up the next morning feeling very motivated by my friends successes. It felt great to wake up with some sort of drive. The past few weeks I haven’t been very motivated, as a result my attitude likely suffered….well, the entire room from Vancouver had just won a ton of money (Matt, Gobbo and Thayer). I can’t let that go by without putting up some numbers myself =)

I’d been running fairly badly online, despite being incredibly confident in my game. The variance involved in tournaments can really take a toll on the player. I came to Vegas with no intentions to play online poker, but there I was playing 2 days in a row.

Monday ended up going better than Sunday, and I took 3rd in the FTP $1k Monday for $33,875.

I ended up getting pretty unlucky during the shorthanded play and lost some crucial pots as a favorite. That being said, it’s difficult to be disappointed when you’re surrounded by great friends in a house in Vegas. I think if I played at home and took 3rd (after running bad at the end) I’d be somewhat distraught, but I’m pretty content at the moment.

Oh yea, $34k doesn’t hurt either.

…and leaving for Vegas very soon. Not sure on exact dates, but will prob be flying out of Cleveland in the next few days.

Today was the TV table of the HPT 1k.

I ended up finishing 4th for $13k. I spewed a little bit, but lost some crucial pots (AK < AT), and ended up getting coolered in a blind v. blind situation where we both made 2 pair.

Words cannot describe how disappointing/pissed off/frustrated I am right now. All I want is to win a live tournament and I just run insanely awful in the endgame.

I’ve built stacks/made final tables in like 3 different countries and just never run good at the end. This doesn’t come at a good time as last Sunday was suicide-inducing as well.

End Post

Day 2 of the $1k tournament here at TS couldn’t have gone better.

Play started at noon with 21 players, and it only took 3 hours to play down to the TV table (final 6 players). I managed to run hot/play well and built my stack up to 260k, giving me the chiplead going into TV FT.

The HPT isn’t my ideal TV debut, but it’ll be fun to use hole-card camera’s, and of course it’s a big goal of mine to win a decent sized live tournament.

The payouts are (roughly):

1st: 50k
2nd: 30k
3rd: 20k
4th: 15k
5th: 9k
6th: 7k

Here’s to hoping I take it down on Saturday night.

Sorry I haven’t updated recently. I’ve been hangin out at Turning Stone Casino the last few days.

I decided to skip the small tournaments and hang out and play some of the cash games for a change. Although I’m not a cash game player, I’m most certainly +EV in most of live games here. I’ve profited a few thousand playing 1/2NL – 5/5NL, and 20/40 LHE.

Today was Day 1 of the $1070 Heartland Poker Tour tournament, and I ended day 1 with 81k, which puts me in the top 3 in chips. I woke up this morning and was late to register….I almost slept through the tournament. I honestly didn’t feel like playing for the first few hours.

I ended up playing a number of interesting pots, but never really got into a “rhythm,” as I often do when playing live.

The biggest pot of the day was when my J3 > QQ AIPF for about 40k near the end of the day. I opened from the SB to 1800 (300/600/75) after folding for an orbit with J3, my opponent (good young aggressive player) 3-bet me to 5800. I feel as though his re-raise range here is fairly wide, and his frequency of calling a 4-bet all-in by me was slim. He had around 20k after raising me, so I certainly had fold equity. I was incredibly fortunate to take down that pot, and my big stack helped pick up a few extra pots near the end of the day.

I played many more interesting hands I could write about, but I’m not usually a fan of posting hand histories on my blog. I prefer to write about tournament results/summaries, good times with friends, and my general lifestyle. If there’s a demand for more strategy posts, perhaps I’ll post more.

Most of my table draws have included some online professional poker players (friends of mine), the fields are honestly quite tough for a $1k live tourney.

There are currently 21 players left, 15 players make the money, and 1st pays over $50k.

Tomorrow we play until 6 players remain, then there will be a day off, and the televised final table will take place on Saturday at 7:00pm EST. The Heartland Poker Tour isn’t a big deal at all, but it’d still be pretty cool to be on TV….even if it is only broad casted on certain networks.