How you been Tony? I haven't been in Vegas much lately, I'll be mostly on the road for the next monthbut I'm planning to be back in town for a decent chunk in April and again for the entire WSOP.

_________________
Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/sdaviespoker

I'm out in California for the next stop on my quest for a WSOP Circuit ring! This stop is at Harrah's Rincon, which is out in the middle of nowhere, in between San Diego and LA. It's about 30-40 minutes from Temecula if you know your California geography. While it's in the middle of nowhere, it's actually a nice venue for me. It's a beautiful part of the country, and the weather is perfect here. It's also a pretty easy trip for me to make, since I can make the drive over from Vegas. Probably the only negative thing about Rincon is that while hotel rates are very reasonable during the week at Harrah's($39/night), the price skyrockets over $200+ on the weekends. I was able to get a decent place off of priceline for under $60/night on the weekends, but the closest reasonably priced(and nice) hotels are 30-45 minutes away. While it's a bit of a hassle, at least I drove a car out here so I can manage.

Turnouts at Rincon seem to be much lower than I am accustomed to on the WSOPc, as I've been to stops at the Bicycle Casino, Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and Tunica. All of the previous stops i've been to tend to get very large numbers, so it's going to be a different experience playing in smaller fields. i don't mind playing the smaller fields for a change, since they will allow me a better chance to pick up a large number of player of the year points, but last night the side action was almost non-existent. There were just 3 1/3NL games and a crappy 2/5NL(I knew everyone in the game, not good!). I guess I'll have to do some driving maybe out to Pechanga or Ocean's 11 if I want to seek out the good cash games, otherwise I'll likely play more of the second chance tournaments than I usually do. Worst case I'll have some time to kill in San Diego, which is a nice problem to have .

My trip to Atlantic City didn't really wrap up the way I would have liked it to, and I'm glad to have that trip behind me. I had a rather frustrating trip back east. I had the incident at the Borgata(see previous post) and also had to miss a few events because I came down with some sort of a stomach bug/food poisoning that forced me to skip 2 events. The last event I played in AC was the limit Omaha/8 event and I wound up making day 2 of that, which forced me to skip the $1k. I ended up going out during the first level of day 2, outside the money. It's frustrating, but it happens. I have been riding a nice heater through the last few months so i guess it was inevitable that variance would come back and get me!

This next month is going to be very critical for me and how my summer is going to shape up at the WSOP. I've had a backing agreement in place for some time, and it's been really nice to not have to worry about the financial side of poker so much and just go out and play. I've been selling off half of my action to a friend of mine for all the events I played this year(with markup). By selling off action, it allowed me to extend my bankroll into bigger buy in events and reduce my variance in the smaller events. I've always had a good relationship with my backer and we've been making good money together. However, I just learned yesterday that we are putting our agreement on hold for the time being. My backer has other business interests besides our backing arrangement(which I guess aren't going well, not my business i guess), and was unable to send me the money for the tournament series in Rincon . I actually went ahead and fronted some of the buyins for Atlantic City which also have not yet been reimbursed. My backer now is unable to reimburse me for the buyins(not a lot, just under $1k) at this time. This really put me in a bad place and came as a complete surprise, especially since I just made a large payout to him 3 weeks ago. Also the timing is really bad for me because I currently have all of these trips planned and am in the thick of the National Championships point race.

My plan going forward is to back myself fully into all of the upcoming $350 WSOPc events, plus play cash games, satellites, and smaller second chance tourney's. I'll also probably take a chance or 2 and play the $565's since there are only a few of them coming up and there is so much added value for me in the points race(since the points could net me a $10k seat). My bankroll is a little bit thin to be doing this, but I have over 70 buy ins in my roll(I'd prefer 100+) so I should be able to manage, at least for now. I also won't let my roll get too far down. If I have a bad month on my own, I'll have to look for new backing or take a break from MTT's to rebuild in the cash games. Or, and this is what I am hoping for, I can have a great month, win myself a ring, and never look back! I've been really hot right this year, so I guess now is as good a time as any to take a shot and make a run!

I skipped the $565 ring event today in the interests of bankroll management since there is a $355 ring event at 5PM today that I can play instead. The ring event tonight is a $355 HORSE, which should be a lot of fun. The field should also be fairly small, so that should give me a great chance to pickup some player of the year points! As always i'll be posting updates on twitter if I get deep in something.

_________________
Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/sdaviespoker

Thought news on the backer but maybe this is the break you've been waiting for so you can grab a ring without any backers

I mean your backer made a lot of money off you lately right?

_________________
- pls excuse my typos... I'm prob on my iPhone

Play online with me, check out my other blog: http://vookenmeister.blogspot.com

Sorry about your backer news. Keep your head up and move forward. I like have told your before good things happen to people that put in the work. Things happen for a reason.

_________________
Hookem Horns

Yes he has made some money, with the bulk of it coming lately so this really came out of nowhere for me. Luckily I've made a lot of money lately as well though so hour puts me in a position where putting myself in is a viable option.

Who knows, if I wind up winning a ring this week(and winning double since i keep it all) then I'll look at it as the best thing that ever happened to me!

_________________
Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/sdaviespoker

Thanks zin. Im trying to remain positive. I'm confident that I can play through this!

_________________
Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/sdaviespoker

Good luck!

I think I'm having trouble with my PM's I'm not sure though. my PM's are showing as going to my outbox instead of being sent, not sure if they were actually sent or are sitting in Limbo.....

Anyway I sent(or attempted and failed) PM's to K9dr and turdferguson. If either of you didn't get them let me know and I'll send them again.

I've got to make this a quick post because I have to run downstairs to register for today's ring event. So far I've had some mixed results here in Rincon. I've made 3 deep runs and cashed in 2 events so far, but both have been small cashes. I finished in 18th in a ring event on Monday, then came back and finished in 16th in the 6 max event on Tuesday. I wound up losing a race to Devo aipf with KQ v 44 that would have brought be back above average with 16 players remaining so I was oh so close to being a major factor deep in the money. Then yesterday in the $565 I went really deep and had an above average stack with 24 players remaining(paying 15). I got involved in a huge pot against a tilted reg who tried to punt his stack to me with 46o just 3 hands after he had punted the first half of his stack to me aipf with A10o v. my KK. I had him right where I wanted him, but he got bailed out when he rivered a gutterball to stack me. I was supposed to have over 10% of the chips in play with 24 remaining which would have given me a great shot at making a deep run to the final table. It's very frustrating when you get somebody to spazz out and hand you their stack for no reason only to watch them get lucky and become tournament chip leader. But that's the way things go in MTT's!

The 2 cashes have now brought my total in the money finishes this season to 9, which I am quite pleased with especially since I really haven't played all that many events this season compared to most of the circuit regs. The leader for the season has 10 cashes, so I actually have a decent chance at being the overall leader in total number of cashes if I keep grinding away. Of course I'd trade most of them for 1 ring!

Also I'm proud to say that if the season ended today, I would qualify for a seat to the $10k National Championship WSOP bracelet event! For the first time this year my name is in red(denoting players in qualifying position). I'm up to 82.5 points for the year, but I still have some work to do if I want to hold on to the seat. Here's a link to the player of the year leaderboard: http://www.wsop.com/circuit/2011-leaderboard.asp

_________________
Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/sdaviespoker

I never received the PM so try sending again.

_________________
"Be who you are, and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." - Dr Seuss

hmmmm i'm still having trouble with it. I contacted one of the mods to see what's up. hopefully we can get to the bottom of this. Are you on 2plus2? I could send you the message there instead, or if you PM me your email address I'll just send you an email instead.

_________________
Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/sdaviespoker