Adam Junglen

I’m pretty much done saying how I got into poker. This entry’s going to be a review of my “breakout” summer.

In the spring I had won the $200 HU MTT on PS for $14k or so, and the $10r 55k for about $13k. I was very satisfied with my online results, but one major thing still eluded me. A major live win. In May I was in Vancouver for the Johnny Chan Poker Classic. KalenSC won the first $500 NLH event, then Jeff won the $1k 6max event. The next event was PLH and I final tabled, but ended up losing a critical race at the final table and placed 5th, if I recall correctly for around $13k.

Then later in June I made my first televised final table – a $1k Heartland Poker Tour event at Turning Stone. It wasn’t a big deal media wise, but I desperately wanted to win a live tournament. I went into the TV table (final 6) as the chipleader, and played worse than I’m capable of and got coolered out of it to place 4th for …I don’t even remember. Around $12k.

That was a very devastating experience for me. I was a decent favorite to win, was feeling confident, and came up short. When you’re as hyper-competitive as me, nothing short of a victory will suffice. I went home and was massively depressed at my failure.

About a day after I got home I bought a plane ticket to Las Vegas. The WSOP was going on and I figured it’d be a good idea to take a trip out and see some friends and clear my mind. I was taking the TS tournament too hard, which is something I’ve worked on. I don’t get as heartbroken anymore over tournaments (although they can still be extremely frustrating). At that time I was really frustrated though. I’d taken 8th in a previous TS 1k, 5th in the PLH $1k, and now 4th in the TS Televised $1k. My motivation was hurting and was ready to just take an extended break.

Anyways, I stayed with Bond18 and then stayed at “The Gobbo House” with Gobbo, JCarver, EC10, Kalen, Mlagoo, and I’m sure others that I’m missing. Not to mention there were many visitors every night. It was nice to see all of my poker friends outside of the poker element.

One night my friend, Matt (mlagoo) won the $1k Sunday Million for around $315k. Words cannot describe how happy I was for my friend. Without a single iota of jealousy we all celebrated his win. I remember the next day I was incredibly motivated. I said to myself “Matt can do this, I know I can!”

It was Monday and I decided I was going to win the biggest tournament – the FTP $1k. As some of you may recall, I didn’t end up winning, but took 3rd place for $33k – my biggest cash at the time.

I was not satisfied.

I wanted to win. I wanted it more than anything. I wanted to experience the feeling of winning a huge tournament, whether it be online or live.

I didn’t take 3rd place too hard, after all, it was my biggest cash. My friends were around me to help give moral support, but I was fine. I hung out in LV for another few days, but I had a mission. I couldn’t concentrate on the online majors while playing on a laptop too well, so I flew home a few days after my FTP cash to play the majors.

I believe it was the next week at home that my mission continued. I had to win a tournament….and I was in a great position to. I was heads-up in the Sunday $100+R, first was around $36k, and I had a gigantic chiplead heads-up. Well, I somehow managed to lose every single hand during HU play and took 2nd for 23k or so.

It was horrible. I still can’t believe I lost that. Don’t get me wrong, $23k is a hell of a lot of money – I still know the value of money…..but I set the bar very high for myself and when I lost that match I was just in shock.

The next Sunday arrived and I was ready to play. I was incredibly determined to take down a major. Perhaps the devastating $100r disappointment turned out to be a blessing, because I was firing on all cylinders. After 12 grueling hours of intense concentration I did it.

I DID IT!

I won the PokerStars Sunday Million for $200k.

This was by far my greatest poker accomplishment. It was such a relief to finally take one down. I still wake up sometimes and just think to myself, “Damn…that was awesome. I reached my goal, I did it.”

My local friends were at a friends house, watching me play on a laptop. They were all drinking and having a great time. I woke up my mom and told her I “finally did it.” She knew how badly I wanted a victory and was very happy for me. Later that night I went with my friends to Steak N’ Shake, a 24/7 diner to celebrate. I’ll never forget it.

Just writing about this brings back the amazing indescribable feeling of finally achieving a major goal.

I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to continue writing about how I got into poker. For the most part I think I covered most of the real questions of how I first got started, and it’s getting to the point where I’m just re-blogging stuff that’s simply in my archives. Regardless, I may continue to write about what’s happened this year from my current perspective. We’ll see though.

Lately I’ve been pretty busy. First, some fairly big news. I went in for my Lasik consultation, and the doctor told me I had terrible eyes, and that he could fix them forever. Just hearing that sounded great. My surgery will be on the 30th, and I’m looking forward to it.

On to other news, I’ll be getting a computer in from the PokerVT to start playing more online. Not only that, but I also just purchased the Dell 30in monitor, and it is a beast. Here’s a picture of it sitting on my desk:

I’ll soon be running on a tri-monitor setup with two 20.1in’s and the 30in. Of course, I won’t have that fully setup until I move out. I’ll probably just be running the 30in and maybe one 20in if I can fit it until I move out and buy a new desk.

Speaking of moving out, it looks as though I’ll be moving into a new apartment complex early next year. I’m pretty confident it’ll be in February, when I get back from the Aussie Milions. The place is close to home, and very nice. I don’t have a problem living at home or anything – I just feel it’s about time I moved out. It’ll be a great experience and a lot of fun. I plan on living there until I turn 21, and then basically reevaluate my situation. An awful lot of things could happen in that time frame, so we’ll just have to see what happens.

Well, that about finishes up with what’s new around here.

After finishing 2006 with my first 5 figure cashes and live tournament success I was ready to take my game to the “big leagues.”

After some last minute planning I found myself holding an itinerary with flights from Cleveland to Miami to the Bahamas (WPT-PCA), to Miami, to LAX, to Auckland NZ, to Melbourne for the Aussie Millions (then from Melbourne to LAX to Phoenix to Cleveland…ugh).

Talk about jumping out of the gate head-first, it was a hell of a trip.

Ray won a package to the PCA and was nice enough to let me stay in his room, while I bought in directly. Obviously I didn’t have the roll for an $8k event, so I wound up selling around half of my action, same for the Aussie Millions.

The PCA is many poker players favorite stop on the circuit. PokerStars runs a TON of satellites to the event, which is held in the luxurious Atlantis Resort. While the resort was very beautiful, I found the service to be somewhat shady and pretty much everything was overpriced. The surrounding area was fairly poor, and I didn’t feel very safe leaving the resort. Some of my friends went outside the resort and apparently one of them was threatened by a man with a gun. Nothing ended up happening, but after hearing that story I decided I wasn’t going to leave the resort. There was plenty to do there anyways.

The tournament was a great experience, but ended in a very disappointing way. I built my stack up from 20k to around 45k when the last level of the day came, 400/800/100. I was moved to one of the toughest tables in the room, including Ray, bigjoe2003, Issac Haxton, and some other decent players. The seating order was Ray, then to his left was Joey, then me, then Issac on my left. Heh, Joe was bitching about his seat the whole time – he really did have the worst seat in the entire tournament.

My bustout hand was brutal. I was very focused and playing well all day and was ready for Day 1 to end and Day 2 to bring a new table draw. Unfortunately I busted out with about 2 hands left in the day.

400/800/100, I’m sitting on 45k in the SB, Haxton in the BB with 90k or so.

Folds to me in the SB, I open 3.5x to 2,800 with AKo. Issac re-raises to 10k, and I shove for 35k more.

He snap-called and showed 44.

Whaaaaa

The board bricked out, and I lost a 100k pot with 2 hands left in the day. Sigh.

I was pretty devastated. For what it’s worth, Isaac is a very talented player, although I still think his call with 44 was marginal at best. He would go on to finish 2nd to Ryan Daut, and gobbo took 29th I believe.

After getting over busting out I ended up having a pretty good time hanging out with people. I met a lot of new friends and it was a good experience. That being said, I was ready for Australia. I thought I played really well at the PCA and wanted to have a good showing in Australia.

I roomed with Gobboboy (Jimmy Fricke), Aaron Been and Cameron White at the Crown Casino in Melbourne. Nassau to Melbourne is one of the longest flights in the world, and it was easily the worst travel experience I’ve ever had. It was such a relief when I got there.

The Crown Casino was one of the nicest casino’s I’ve ever been to, and Melbourne was one of the coolest cities I’ve ever been to. I enjoyed the atmosphere significantly more than the Bahamas, but I’m much more of a city guy than a beach person, so take that for what it’s worth.

I entered Day 3 18th in chips out of 80, and Jimmy was in the top 3 or so. it was pretty awesome. Unfortunately Day 3 didn’t go so well for me. I ended up playing worse than I’m capable of, ran bad, and eventally I found myself all-in preflop with AQ vs AK for about 500k. I failed to suck out and placed 55th for $20,000 Australian Dollars (16.5k USD), my first major event cash.

As I’m sure most of you know, Gobbo ended up taking 2nd for $1mil Australian. It was an awesome time. I also recall winning the $30r on UB while in Australia for $5.4k.

My game was developing at a very fast rate and I was gaining confidence. Tough to believe this all occurred less than a year ago.

Well, that’s it for now. I haven’t decided if I’ll continue this series of blogs, simply because a lot of the stuff wasn’t even that long ago. We’ll see though. Thanks for reading.

Before I continue with my live tournament adventures, adding onto my “How I got into Poker (blogs),” I’m going to address the amputation questions that many people have asked, especially after my last entry when I didn’t go into detail.

Well, here we go.

I was born with an issue called clubbed feet, and amniotic banding. Amniotic banding result = I have 7 fingers. Not a big deal at all. However, clubbed feet manages to haunt me, still today. It didn’t affect my left leg nearly as bad as it affected my right leg. When I was 1, I was adopted to the Junglen family from South Korea. It ended up being one of the best things to ever happen to me. I was adopted to a very loving family, and the doctors in the US were much better than the doctors in Korea. If I were still in Korea, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t be walking at all.

I could talk about this subject for quite awhile, but I’ll try to give you guys a good summary, without taking it too far.

From ages 1 – 16 I had around 17 surgeries correcting my right foot, along with minor ear and finger surgeries. Totaling around 20 surgeries at age 16.

When I was 17 I was told that amputation was the best route to take. While contemplating this life changing decision, I’ll never forget what my doctor said. Dr. Ian Alexander looked at me in the face confidently and told me “Adam, you’ll be running track in 6 weeks.” It sounded great. I’d be able to walk without wearing awkward orthopedic shoes, and wouldn’t need my “yearly leg tune-up surgery.” He also told me I was very young so I’d recover very quickly….Well….F**K that guy. Seriously.

I went through with the surgery and it was awful. Mentally and physically I was an absolute wreck. It didn’t take 6 weeks for me to recover like my doctor suggested. It took 6 f**king month’s.

6 Months of being tortured on crutches, hobbling my way through Stow High School
There was no way I could make it to dances or other high school festivities on crutches.
Every week I’d goto my doctor to see if my limb was healed to the point where I could get a prosthetic leg.

Again, this processes DID NOT take 6 weeks as said by my doctor. The healing took 6 of the worst month’s of my life. You can only imagine what was going through my mind during this time.

Alright, so he finally tells me I’m healed and can learn to walk again. This was during the time I was interning at Alltel. I was walking, but with incredible pain. It was just awful. Eventually I had an X-Ray done at the doctor’s….

Yea…

There were bone chips floating around my limb. I needed to have another surgery.

F**k my doctor. What a joke. Seriously, I have absolutely no idea how I didn’t sue him.

Ok, enough of that. The 2nd surgery (which took up my senior year) ended up being “successful.”

I can walk, but it’s still painful…just not as painful as it used to be. I can get around and have traveled on my leg, but it’s still painful. After sitting for 9-12hrs in big live events for example, I’m in extreme pain. On breaks, I quickly walk to my room just so I can take off my leg and relax for a few minutes. I’m far too insecure to take my leg off at the table. it’s just something I gotta deal with.

I’m desperately hoping they can come up with some sort of cure. Last I heard they might do something with my nerves so I wouldn’t feel the pain. I don’t know, I really feel like it’s practically ruined my life. People jokingly tell me all the time “Oh I’d give you my leg if I could,” well, I know they’re just trying to be nice, but I almost take that as an insult.

Nobody deserves the pain that I had to go through.

Sorry for getting off-track. My next blog I’ll write up my memories of my first live major events in January of 07.

I’ll close this blog with this simple statement that should get the point across.

I would give my net worth for 2 legs in a heartbeat.

Sorry if this ended up being a rant, just a major part of my life I thought I’d include. It was just too big to ignore.

Thanks for reading.

-Adam Junglen

During May of 2006 there was an MTT competition on 2+2. It was based on the TLB formula on PokerStars. At the time I had mostly posted in the SNG forum and wasn’t too well known in the MTT community. I basically decided I was going to take the competition very seriously, and that by the end of the month, everyone would know who I was.

I ended up having multiple 1-3k scores while playing $5 to $50 MTT’s. I was very involved in the competition and by the end of the month I had made a lot of new friends. I got to know some friends on the forums including Exitonly, gobbo, Rizen, and more.

I was (still) on crutches as my High School years winded down, recovering from my amputation fix. I missed all of the notable HS events, like Senior Banquet, Prom, even missed graduation. Come to think of it, I still don’t physically possess my diploma. *shrug* I ended up going to Turning Stone during the last week of class. It was my first poker trip, I roomed with Exitonly (Ray Coburn), and met a lot of new friends that I’d met online. I had a great time, despite not cashing in any of the tournaments.

After High School ended most of my friends either moved or were too busy with class/working to hang out or play poker. I decided not to attend college based on several factors:

- I was still recovering from my recent leg amputation
- I had zero motivation to attend school
- I was denied the funding for school that was seemingly a lock-in (considering my condition)
- Poker

At this point it was Fall and was the first time in my life I wasn’t going to school. Instead I was busy discussing poker theory and really focusing on my game. Part of me thought I’d end up attending college in the winter, once I was fully recovered, but I really thought I could make it as a poker player. Either way, I really needed time off from school and wasn’t motivated to get into a career after interning at Alltel.

In October/November I flew to Ray’s house in New Jersey. It was the first time I had been on a plane since I was adopted as a child. Heh, I don’t think I expected to be around airports as much as I have been then. I flew to NJ to meet up with Ray, because he won an EPT Dublin Package. At that point I didn’t have the resources to play in the event, so I just went to have fun. It was my first time in Europe, and I had a good time. I met ActionJeff, Kush, Carl Olson and more talented players. I remember discussing poker and life with Jeff and Carl, and they really changed the way I thought about the game. I flew back to NJ with Ray, equipped with new poker knowledge and a hell of a lot of motivation.

I only stayed in NJ for a few more days, but not before I took care of some business. I was very motivated after talking poker with my new friends in Dublin. The last Sunday before I flew home to Ohio I had my first 5-figure cash, taking 4th in the PokerStars 2nd Chance for around $13.5k. It was a huge confidence boost, as well as a nice pad to my bankroll.

It’s hard to believe that my first 5 figure cash was about a year ago at the time of this writing. So much has happened since.

Later in December I went back to Turning Stone for another tournament series. I ended up making my first decent sized live final table, chopping a $200 event, 4-handed for $7,500 each. I was starting to feel more and more comfortable at the table and was beginning to get more respect. While at TS I met Aaron Been, Shaun Deeb, mlagoo, and many more new friends. Jeff and Ray were also there, it was a great trip.

At that point in time I intended on playing the PCA in January, but after talking with Aaron Been, who had won a seat to the Aussie Millions, both gobboboy and I decided to join him. I had a travel agent look into flights from Cleveland to Nassau to Melbourne, back home. I ended up spending around $2.5k on that flight….and to think it was only a month ago that I was on my first plane ride since I came to America.

To end the year I took 6th in the FTP Monthly $535 for $23k. It was a very devastating experience for me, as I felt in control most of the tournament and entered the final table as the chipleader. It really felt like a loss. When I look back at that tournament I view it as a major learning experience. It was the first time I was close to a six figure cash, and I knew it would not be my last. As corny as it sounds, I “wasn’t ready” for a 100k+ score at that point in my career.

Next up would be my first major events. The WPT PCA and Aussie Millions in January of 2007.

Hope you guys are enjoying this,

-Adam Junglen

I guess I’ll continue where I left off when I started writing about how I first got into poker.

After I won the tournament at AJ’s I went to Border’s Books to find some reading material on my newest hobby. I started playing homegames every weekend with friends and had a decent amount of success. It was a lot of fun, every weekend we’d play a tournament or two, usually 2 tables with a buy-in between $10-$15. I ended up making a lot of great friends, and actually quit my job at Gametrader partly due to the money I was making at homegame tournaments. It really wasn’t too difficult to make more in those games than $5.50/hr at Gametrader.

Eventually I took my game online. I would have my friend transfer me $50 or $100 at a time on Party. I was underage at the time, so I couldn’t deposit myself. For quite awhile I just broke even or lost at the $5 and $10 SNG levels. Poker wasn’t my #1 priority at the time, I was interning at Alltel Data Center, and worked for my HS helping teachers with computers, and maintaining the network infrastructure.

Eventually I decided that the computer world just wasn’t for me. I didn’t like working with the people I was around, and the idea of maintaining computers as a career was very unappealing. Meanwhile I was getting better at SNG’s after reading some guides on 2+2. I moved to PokerStars and moved up from the $6.50′s to $105+9′s during my Junior-Senior year, when I was 18.

Eventually I got bored of SNG’s and decided to take on MTT’s.

And that’s where this entry ends. More to come soon.

-Adam