I booked another five hour session at Bellagio the night before last. I won another "peanut" but it was just a frustrating session overall.

We were playing 12 games which I loved:

Hold’em
Omaha Hi-Lo
Stud
Razz
Stud Hi-Lo
Stud Hi-Lo Reg
Pot Limit Omaha
No Limit Hold’em
No Limit 2-7 Single Draw
2-7 Triple Draw
A-5 Triple Draw (Yummy! I love that game!)
Limit Omaha

In the third hand I was dealt we were playing 2-7 NL and I made it $10,000 to go drawing at 2-3-4-8. The button made it $40,000 which scared me a little bit, but I called anyway.

I squeezed out a 6 making a very powerful 8-6-4-3-2 and bet the cap. My opponent quickly called and was dealt a 7-6-5-4-2! Yikes, stuck $100,000 right out of the gate.

In the Stud 8 or better round I scooped a bunch of pots and got out of the hole and ahead about $100,000. Things went smoothly from there and I was really playing fantastic.

I did get caught on one bluff, which interestingly enough was a result of the blog! Eli read about that bluff that I pulled off against him in a recent blog and this time made a very close call with a weak hand in a spot where he might not have. Oh well, I thought it was pretty funny anyway and in the long run I don’t think it will cost me.

After about 4 hours I was ahead about $225,000 and it looked like the game was breaking down. It was three handed, with the other two players being stuck at the time so I felt like it was a good spot to continue playing.

In the next 30 minutes I lost every hand I played! I took some really tough beats that I won’t bore you with.

That anti-rush cost me all of my win, and I was now stuck $90,000 myself! "Oh brother," I thought to myself, "This is so frustrating."

Luckily the Stud 8 or better portion came back and once again I was able to scoop about three consecutive pots. The third player quit and I ended the session +$43,000 after 5 hours.

That’s kind of how my sessions have gone this year so far. It’s a small sample mind you, but I seem to be ahead a little or down a little most of the way. I haven’t had a monster rush at all, but at the same time, I’ve been fortunate to not lose a big number either.

It feels a little bit like a grind, but it could be worse I guess. I really wanted to put in a long session, but the games seem to be breaking up a little bit earlier than normal recently.

Unfortunately, it looks like the games will be going round the clock in the coming week but I’m on my way out of town.

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Yesterday, I was running around town doing errands. Had to go to the bank, had to go to the Geek Squad to fix my lap top, etc. While at Best Buy, I also decided to pick up s PSP for myself.

I’ve bought like 20 of them in my lifetime but those have always been gifts. On a recent flight with Carlos Mortensen, though, I noticed that he was playing this game called Exit. That game rocks! So I picked up a few games to go with it and while there I decided to add to my collection of X-BOX and X-BOX 360 games.

Uh oh, we are boarding right now… I will continue this blog when I get to Toronto.

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Ok, I’m at my brother’s house now in Toronto. Where was I…

Oh right, last night after running my errands my mother invited me over for dinner. She just bought a new dining room table that seats 12 comfortably. Actually, you could sit like 40 people at this table, but hey, my mother just loves it.

Her passion is cooking. Even more so, her passion is giving. She has a lot of love to give and she generally does that with food! Well last night, I felt very loved as she made all of my favorite dishes.

Not that I don’t always appreciate her, but man, she really is precious and last night it hit me how lucky I truly am to have her. Especially with so many horror stories I hear about people that don’t even talk to their mother. I couldn’t imagine?

My mother has been on TV a couple times during poker shows I’ve been on, so you may have a glimpse into the kind of person she is. Of course, those two minute vignettes couldn’t possibly do her justice. She can be the most stubborn person in the world sometimes, but I don’t know anyone that has more love in her heart than my mother.

I think my wife Lori is finally starting to really get to know her and that makes me a happy man. I know how important it is to my mother to have family and once again, I feel really like knowing that they seem to get along so well.

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It’s 11:00pm here on the east coast and luckily I’m pretty tired. Tomorrow is a long day for me as I’m heading down to the Red Hot Poker Tour’s version of the Tournament of Champions. The winner of the tournament will fill seat #10. That’ll leave just seats 7, 8, and 9 left to be won and fill out the live final table that’s scheduled to take place in late April.

Of course, the winner of that final table will earn 4 $10,000 buy in’s, $5000 in spending cash, as well as getting four months of poker lessons from yours truly. I’m really excited about the final table. So far we’ve have a pretty solid group of qualifiers and I’m looking forward to taking one of them to the next level.

The day after that, I’ll be flying to London, England to represent Canada in a “Football & Legends Cup” tournament, pitting three man teams consisting of two pros and one soccer player from 16 different countries. Playing on my team will be fellow Canadians Evelyn Ng and Canadian soccer player Jason de Vos. Here are the other countries involved and a list of participants:

England
Devilfish
Ian Fraser

USA
Mike Sexton
Kenna "Cowboy" James

Canada
Daniel Negreanu
Evelyn Ng

Australia
Tony G
Damon Rasheed

Republic of Ireland
Andy Black
Peter Roche

Russia
Alex Kuzmin
Olesya Kabbaj

Germany
Varahram Vardjavand
Lothar Landeau

France
Claude Cohen
David Benyamine

Italy
Michael Greco
Alen Rinson

Holland
Marcel Luske
Noah Boeken

Sweden
Ken Lennard
Erik Sagstrom

Denmark
Gus Hansen
Theo Jørgensen

Norway
Henning Granstead
Torsden Iversen
Northern Ireland
Connor Tate
Ivan Donoghue

Wales
Dave Colclough

Ewen Jones
Scotland

Tony Chessa
Dave Finney

Our first round match is against Australia and I think it should be pretty entertaining either way. Here is the list of soccer players scheduled to play:

England
Alan Ball

USA
Carlos Bocanegra

Canada
Jason De Vos

Australia
Mark Bosnich

Republic of Ireland
Tony Cascarino

Russia
Sergei Baltacha

Germany
Uli Stein

France
David Ginola

Italy
Wesley Garcia

Holland
Glen Helder

Sweden
Thomas Brolin

Denmark
Kim Christofe

Norway
Espen Baarsden

Northern Ireland
Norman Whiteside

Wales
Neville Southall

Scotland
Ray Stewart

After that tournament I plan on making a quick return to Foxwoods, just in time for the WPT stop there.