Secret Project

I have been secretly working hard on a huge project for the last year and I am excited to finally be able to share it with you. A few years ago, I realized that the best poker players have a huge edge that amateurs will almost certainly never experience. Professional poker players have the ability to discuss high level concepts with other pros on a regular basis. While amateurs struggle to figure out the game by talking to other amateurs and watching other amateurs play, pros get insights from the best in the world and experience high-level poker on a daily basis. This accelerates the speed at which pros learn such that the amateurs will have a nearly impossible time catching up.

While I routinely give my followers access to my poker strategies and thoughts, I wanted to do more. I decided to give everyone a look into the minds of some of the best players and thinkers in the game by writing a book with 17 other top professionals and poker instructors. Together we produced what I am confident will be the most impactful poker book that has been released in a long time.

I present to you Excelling at No-Limit Hold’em.

I gave each author the freedom to write about whatever topic he or she wanted to because I know when I am passionate about something, I produce amazing content. The authors did not disappoint. Here is a list of everyone involved:

Phil Hellmuth

Mike Sexton

Olivier Busquet

Liv Boeree

Chris Moneymaker

Scott Clements

Bernard Lee

Ed Miller

Alex Fitzgerald

Evan Jarvis

Matt Affleck

Chad Holloway

Will Tipton

Jared Tendler

Patricia Cardner

Elliot Roe

Zach Elwood

Jonathan Little

Excelling at No-Limit Hold’em (which will be roughly 500 pages long!) will be available for pre-order on 3/6/2015 wherever you buy your books and will be released on 6/13/2015 during the WSOP. We are going to have a launch event at some point, although I not exactly sure when.

I learned a ton about all aspects of poker while collaborating with the other authors of this book and I am confident you will too. If you are excited about this book, please share this post with your friends.

Two Blatantly Opposite Hands

Please visit Jonathan Little's official site, where this content originated from.  Go here.

In this blog post I am going to reveal to you a flaw I currently have in my game. I am also going to explain the actions I am taking to fix it. I hope you enjoy this candid look into my mind.

Borgata!

I recently had the pleasure of playing the $3,500 Borgata Poker Open World Poker Tour event. I must admit, Borgata has done an excellent job of cultivating their poker community and constantly growing their games. They were one of the first casinos to lower the buy-in of their main events to $3,500, which made it much easier weak players satellite into the main event, making the event quite profitable for professional poker players, despite the decreased buy-in.

(As a brief aside for those who do not know, Expected Profit = ((Return on Investment x Buy-in) – Rake))

On both Day 1a and 1b, I got lots of money in good and only a bit in bad, so I am happy with that. Believe it or not, I somehow got all-in with a set on BOTH days and lost to a draw. Fun times!

I think this event was one of my best tournament showings to date. I focused well and generally made accurate reads. However, there is one hand I butchered, which I will discuss later in this posts.

I have been focusing hard on trusting my reads. In a recent webinar I hosted with perhaps the best people-reader in poker, Phil Hellmuth, he discussed how he trusts his reads entirely. In the past, I have been a bit afraid to blindly trust my reads, especially when they didn’t make logical sense. Below are two hands where I had overly strong reads. On the first, I trusted them and on the second, I let my analytical brain control my actions, leading to devastating results.

A Big Call

Check out this video from ShareMyPair of the first hand:

Hand 1

I raised to 525 at 100/200 from  2^nd position with As-Kc out of my 61,000 chip stack. A 40 year old guy who was perhaps on tilt reraised to 1,500 out of his 21,000 chip stack from the lojack seat. I reraised to 3,500 and he instantly called.

The flop came 7c-5c-4s. I bet 4,000 and he instantly went all-in for 13,500 more.  I didn’t think too long before calling. I had his Ad-Td in bad shape. He failed to improve and I scooped a nice pot.

Math is fun!

Everyone at the table told me what an amazing call it was, but in my mind, it was fairly easy. I needed to win around 32% of the time to break even based on the pot odds. If my opponent had a strong hand, such as Q-Q or 6-6, I have somewhere between 23% and 30% equity, making my call a small loser. If he had a set, I am drawing nearly dead, which would be a disaster. However, I thought he would tend to slow play a set most of the time. If he had any unpaired draw, I have between 45% and 60%, meaning I should call. If he was losing his mind with a random unpaired hand, I have between 75% and 85% equity.

Of course, you cannot simply average these numbers and see where you stand. You have to figure out how much of his range is made up of each type of hand. For example, if he only has overpairs in his range, I have an easy fold. If he has overpairs and draws, I have to reluctantly call. If he is running a lot of bluffs, I have an easy call.  That being said, it is difficult to know if your opponent is capable of running an insane bluff for all of his chips for no good reason.

Luckily for me, I had developed fairly strong reads on my opponent. First off, he was clearly tilty. He seemed like someone who was capable of thinking, meaning I thought he at least somewhat knew what he looked like to me. After I continuation bet the flop, he instantly went all-in. This made me think he either had a premium hand, a draw, or nothing. Since I am in fine shape against both nothing and a draw and it is very difficult for him to actually have a premium hand on this board, his quick all-in made me think my hand was in at least marginal shape.

I am sure I also picked up on some subconscious tells I am not even aware of. You will find that after you play poker every day for around five years, you simply “know”. This is one of those spots where I was about as confident as I could be that he was bluffing.

(Almost) A Big Fold

This next hand was my bust-out hand from the tournament.

Despite a nice start to the day, getting to 100,000 chips, I found myself back with a short stack after making trips and losing to a full house then losing with 5-5 versus A-K.

Check out this video from ShareMyPair of the second hand, although be sure to read my analysis below as the video does not do the hand justice:

Hand 2

In this hand, I raised to 2,200 out of my 23,000 stack at 500/1,000+100 with Kh-9c from the hijack seat. A super splashy LAG 40 year old called from the small blind and a kid who was clearly an amateur who played a relatively tight, passive style called from the big blind.

The flop came Ks-Qd-4c. The Small Blind checked. The Big Blind thought for a few seconds before checking. I got the drift that he wanted to bet but elected to check instead. I decided to bet 2,600 to hopefully induce the Small Blind to lose his mind and raise me with air, which he was certainly capable of. The Small Blind quickly folded and the Big Blind thought for around a minute before saying “Raise” and putting in a 5,000 chip. He was told he had to put in 5,200, which he did. I elected to call.

The turn was the (Ks-Qd-4c)-8c. My opponent thought for a while before asking me how much I had left in my stack. After that, he went all-in. I called and lost to his Kd-Qc.

Where Did I Go Wrong?

While checking back the flop would have saved the most money, I think betting the flop for value, protection, and perhaps to get the Small Blind to spaz out is mandatory. However, once the tight passive amateur in the big blind check-raised, I think I should have found an easy fold.

His weird flop check plus his misclick min-raise should have made it blatantly clear to me that he was not messing around. If you are unaware, when someone tries to raise and is so excited that he cannot figure out 2,600 x 2 in his head, he usually has a premium hand.

I somehow convinced myself that he might take this line with A-Q, Q-J, J-T, or perhaps and K. Obviously my thought process was awful. This specific opponent was simply NEVER messing around in this spot.

Given my flop call, I do think calling off on the river is somewhat mandatory. I don’t like it, but I think it is the only play that makes sense as I expected him to go all-in with his entire flop check-raising range, which I thought contained some worse made hands that I beat. It is worth mentioning that when someone asks you how much you have left before going all-in, he usually has a premium hand. K-9 loses to all premium hands. Maybe I could have saved my last 13 big blinds.

Before I conclude this post, I want to mention that it takes an incredibly high amount of skill at any game to accurately figure out the difference between bad luck and bad play. While my bust-out hand could be simply viewed as a cooler where most players go broke every time, I do not see it that way. I view my bust-out hand as a purely avoidable situation. Although folding the flop would have only saved me a paltry 18 big blind stack, I should have folded and tried to run up my stub.

I want to make it perfectly clear that I am not looking back at this hand and thinking “I clearly played it wrong because I lost.” I do not care in the least bit whether or not I lose a poker hand, regardless of the stakes. All I care about is making good decisions that win equity in the long run. While I feel like I do a good job of that most of the time, the K-9 hand was a clear mistake. I have to make a point to not commit the same error twice.

What can I learn from this?

Throughout this tournament I made numerous good calls and what I believe to be a few good folds. However, it is obvious to me that, especially when stacks start to shrink, I become much more inclined to make decisions based purely on the math I learned many years ago as an online player. When you have almost no reads on your opponent, all you have to rely on is math. That is not the case with live poker.

When you have a 23 big blind stack, you should rarely be looking to fold top pair. Since I knew my opponent was not messing around, I should have made the disciplined fold. Online, except in the rarest circumstances, knowing my opponent was not messing around would be impossible. Live, it should have been crystal clear.

Given I have worked hard to develop fairly strong reading abilities which seem to be accurate way more often than they are not, I should rely more heavily on them.

In the future, I will work harder on making big folds. The problem with being good at folding is that you usually need your folds to be right a huge percentage of the time whereas your calls rarely need to be correct in order for them to be profit, due to pod odds. This problem leads me to often call off a bit too wide, especially against reasonably active players.

There you have it! I need to put more trust in my reads, especially when it comes to folding.

Now that I have put this out there for everyone to read, expect me to never fold again!

If you enjoyed this type of hand analysis and want more, I strongly suggest you check out my book The Main Event with Jonathan Little. 

Thank you for reading. Good luck in your games.

Face Palms

I can’t believe I have to post this in 2014, given all of the excellent poker educational material available, but during a few recent tournaments, I was shocked and amazed to witness countless mediocre (possibly) professional poker players say “nice hand” in a condescending way to amateurs after they got lucky, taking the pro’s money.

I want to make it perfectly clear that this sort of behavior is unacceptable in every possible way. You make money because the weak players show up to play. If you make them uncomfortable or bring it to their attention that they played poorly, they could quite realistically stop playing or improve their skills, killing your edge.

Forrest has a great stare.

Whenever I see this type of behavior, I make a point to stare at the pro and give them a look that says “What are you doing? Are you a blatant idiot?” Sometimes they quickly get the point, if they are smart, and other times they continue to grumble, if they are dumb. I continue staring at them hard because they are clearly in the wrong and because I want poker to last forever. While I certainly don’t want to spend my time being a nanny to an immature poker player, you have to do what you have to do.

Whenever you experience a bad beat, you should simply sit there and do nothing. Don’t throw a fit in any way. You are not a baby. Elliot Roe, a poker mindset coach who does absolutely amazing work, mentions that most of this behavior originates from being able to get your way as a child by throwing fits. Some people learn that if they cry and complain, they will get their way. Obviously, this is not how poker works, even though it appears that this type of behavior does work decently well in the real world. If you have this sort of tilt issue, I strongly suggest you seek Elliot’s help at http://www.poker-hypnosis.co.uk/

While I understand that losing a large pot by getting unlucky is never fun, you must accept it as an integral part of the game. If the best player won every time, the game would quickly die. Notice that in chess, where the best player wins almost every time, no one plays for significant money whereas you can get 6,683 people to happily show up with $10,000 to play poker for a few days.

Do your part to keep the game profitable. If you are not generally nice, kind, and friendly at the poker table, you are not playing well.

Lots of Changes..

Quite a bit has happened since I last posted a blog here. As many of you can tell, I post numerous per times per day on twitter, which has almost taken place of this blog. Despite that, I would still like to give everyone a little summary of what I have been up to.

As everyone now knows, online poker has taken a huge hit in America. I was really lucky that I only had around $15,000 online, most of which was on pokerstars, which is the only site that has allowed players to cash out. Most of my play was in the live poker arena, which basically means Black Friday will have little impact on my actual poker play.

As for FloatTheTurn.com, it will have an effect on the videos we provide at the site. I currently have two coaches, Jeremy Yip and Alex Tipper, which isn�t American, so they will continue to make live videos. Most of the other coaches will be making either review or concept videos in the near future. I actually think review and concept videos are better than live sweat videos to help you develop as a poker player.

Seeing as most Americans can no longer play online, I suggest everyone use this time to learn the game, as you won�t be distracted by actually playing poker. There are around 500 hours of content on FloatTheTurn.com, which I suggest you all go through. If you study hard while everyone else is taking a vacation, you will be well ahead of the curve when online poker comes back to America.

I firmly believe online poker will be back in America sometime in the future. I can�t really give any sort of time table, but it simply has to happen. When it does, we will see a poker boom similar to 2003, when Moneymaker won the wsop as poker will be 100% legal. Sure, it may be taxed or raked higher, but it will be legal, which is what most amateurs care about. If you study now, you will be able to crush them.

Speaking of studying, my book, Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker: Volume 1, is now available on Amazon and most major book stores. I firmly believe the book is the best information about how to crush tournaments on the market. Use this down time from online poker to pick up the book and study hard. In Volume 1, I will teach you the fundamentals of the game as well as how to play with numerous different stack sizes.

I will teach the fairly loose and aggressive style I play on a day to day basis. Volume 2, which will be out sometime later this year, will discuss how to play in each stage of a tournament, how to learn to improve your game over time, which tells I think are most important, proper tournament behavior, how to control your emotions, and how to be a professional poker player. I suggest everyone order both volumes and study hard.

About three weeks before Black Friday, I took 2nd in a huge $1,000 buyin event on Full Tilt, cashing for around $317,000. Something in my mind told me to cash out asap, so I did. This was an extreme case of running hot, as I have very little of it currently locked up. I will be putting the video out somewhere in the future. Please make sure you are on my mailing list by emailing support@jonathanlittlesecrets.com or support@floattheturn.com and asking to be included.

My upcoming plans include the $5,000 and $25,000 events at Bellagio in a week, being best man in by best friend�s, from high school, wedding, and a ton of events at the wsop. Seeing as I can�t play online, I plan to grind either the satellites or cash games a lot when I am not playing in the tournaments. I have to make the most of the wsop, which I haven�t done in the past. I suggest every professional poker player get out there and grind up a bankroll. Good luck!!

Poker for a Good Cause...

I’ve heard that poker players should have empathy, but not necessarily sympathy. It makes sense at the Texas Hold'em poker table because you’re trying to take your opponents’ money. But away from the Holdem poker table, it’s good to have both. And if that’s the case with you, then hopefully this blog post will resonate with you.

My girlfriend Amie got inspired to run the NYC Half Marathon in March to raise $1,500 for the ASPCA. The ASPCA is a great organization that works to prevent cruelty to animals.

Watch this short clip to see the bad beat that our society has imposed on these poor animals:

DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK IN THE VIDEO! SEE DONATION INSTRUCTIONS BELOW!



DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK IN THE VIDEO! SEE DONATION INSTRUCTIONS BELOW!

I want to help Amie DOUBLE her goal and raise $3,000 for the ASPCA! To do that, I’m going to do 2 things:

First, I’m going to run the half marathon with her!

Second, I want to help you with your poker game by inviting you to take part in a Video Watching Marathon if you make a donation to the ASPCA.

NOTE: If you want to help, but don’t wish to make a donation at this time, you can tweet or post on Facebook and I’ll invite you to play in a private tourney on Poker Stars where you can win some cool prizes. See below for details.

Here are the 5 ways I can help you with your poker game:

Option 1:

Donate $25 to the ASPCA, and you’ll be invited to take part in the Weekend Watchathon, where you’ll be able to watch all the videos from Jonathan Little Secrets 1 and Jonathan Little Secrets 2 over a period of 48 hours.

Date of the Weekend Watchathon: Saturday February 12 – Sunday February 13.

Option 2:
Donate $50 to the ASPCA, and you’ll be invited to take part in the 9-Day Watchathon, where you’ll be able to watch all the videos from Jonathan Little Secrets 1, Jonathan Little Secrets 2, and my Poker Video Vault.

As a bonus, you’ll also get invited to play in a $1 private tournament on Poker Stars to win some cool prizes (see below).

Date of the 9-Day Watchathon: Saturday February 12 – Sunday February 20.

Option 3:

Donate $100 to the ASPCA, and you can own Jonathan Little Secrets 1, Jonathan Little Secrets 2, and my Poker Video Vault. Watch the videos anytime you want or download them for later. If you were to buy these video courses separately, it would cost you $455.

As a bonus, you’ll also get invited to play in a $1 private tournament on Poker Stars to win some cool prizes (see below).

Option 4:

Donate $250 to the ASPCA, and you’ll get to own Jonathan Little Secrets 1, Jonathan Little Secrets 2, my Poker Video Vault, and my Extreme Video Vault. If you were to buy these video courses separately, it would cost you $652.

Plus, you’ll get a 2GB MP3 player loaded with the MP3s from the first 3 video courses. That’s 36 MP3s! Please allow 2-4 weeks for delivery.

As a bonus, you’ll also get invited to play in a $1 private tourney on Poker Stars to win some cool prizes (see below).

Actual MP3 player may differ from MP3 player shown.

Option 5:

Donate $500 to the ASPCA, and you’ll get to own Jonathan Little Secrets 1, Jonathan Little Secrets 2, my Poker Video Vault, and my Extreme Video Vault. If you were to buy these video courses separately, it would cost you $652.

Plus, you’ll get a 4GB MP3 player loaded with the MP3s from all of these video courses. That’s 116 MP3s! Please allow 2-4 weeks for delivery.

Finally, you’ll get a hand history review from me. This can be a hand history from a sit n go, multitable tournament, or a cash game session. This is one of the best ways to identify your biggest leaks so you can eliminate them from your game once and for all.

As a bonus, you’ll also get invited to play in a $1 private tourney on Poker Stars to win some cool prizes (see below).

Actual MP3 player may differ from MP3 player shown.

If you’re not familiar with my video training courses, here’s a short description of each:

Jonathan Little Secrets 1 – 9-video series where I play a marathon online session of $11 180-person sngs, as well as some heads up games. I play for just over 6 hours and cash for over $1700.

Jonathan Little Secrets 2 – 7-video series where I play in 2 deep stacked multitable tournaments. The first mtt shows how I played through a field of over 32,000 players all the way down to 22nd place. The second mtt shows me making the final table in a $11 rebuy tournament.

Poker Video Vault – 20-video series where I coach my students 1 on 1.

Extreme Video Vault – 80-video series where I coach my students 1 on 1.

Private $1 Tournament on Poker Stars (Great Prizes Added)

Date: Saturday February 5, 2011

Time: 11:00am PT

Tournament ID: 358036750

Anyone who donates $50 or more will also be invited to play in a private $1 tourney on Poker Stars. There are some great prizes up for grabs, including:

1st Place Prize: – 4GB MP3 player loaded with audio library + 1 month free access to my poker training website, FloatTheTurn.com, where you can watch hundreds of poker training videos. Please allow 2-4 weeks for delivery of the MP3 player.

2nd Place Prize: – A hand history review from me + 1 month free access to my poker training website, FloatTheTurn.com, where you can watch hundreds of poker training videos.

3rd Place Prize: – 1 month free access to my poker training website, FloatTheTurn.com, where you can watch hundreds of poker training videos.

To play in this private $1 tourney, you must donate $50 or more to the ASPCA. Then, reply to this blog post by Thursday February 3 with the following information:

Your name

How much you donated

Your Poker Stars name

Your Twitter name (if you tweeted a link to this page)

Your Facebook name (if you posted a link to this page on Facebook)

All donations will be verified, and invitations will be emailed out on Thursday February 3. If you haven’t received your email invitation by Friday February 4, email support [at] jonathanlittlesecrets.com.

Twitter/Facebook $1 Tournament on Poker Stars (No Donation Necessary!)

Date: Saturday February 12, 2011

Time: 3:00pm PT

Tournament ID: 358037501

I am running a separate $1 private tournament on Poker Stars and adding some great prizes… and you don’t even have to make a donation to be invited to play in this tourney!

Simply tweet or post on Facebook a link to this blog post, I will invite you to play in this tourney!

Here is a shortened link you can use in your tweet or Facebook post: http://bit.ly/pokerASPCA

Here are the prizes up for grabs:

1st Place Prize: – 4GB MP3 player loaded with audio library + 1 month free access to my poker training website, FloatTheTurn.com, where you can watch hundreds of poker training videos. Please allow 2-4 weeks for delivery of the MP3 player.

2nd Place Prize: – A hand history review from me + 1 month free access to my poker training website, FloatTheTurn.com, where you can watch hundreds of poker training videos.

3rd Place Prize: – 1 month free access to my poker training website, FloatTheTurn.com, where you can watch hundreds of poker training videos.

To play in this bonus private $1 tourney, simply tweet a link to this page, or post a link to this page on Facebook by Thursday February 3.

Here is a shortened link you can use in your tweet or Facebook post: http://bit.ly/pokerASPCA

Then, reply to this blog post by Thursday February 3 with the following information:

Your name

How much you donated (if any)

Your Poker Stars name

Your Twitter name (if you tweeted a link to this page)

Your Facebook name (if you posted a link to this page on Facebook)

Your tweet or Facebook post will be verified, and invitations will be emailed out on Thursday February 3. If you haven’t received your email invitation by Friday February 4, email support [at] jonathanlittlesecrets.com.

How To Donate

Go here to make your donation to the ASPCA: http://bit.ly/h3Ju33

Click on “SUPPORT ME!”.

On the option that says “Do you want to donate anonymously”, choose “No” so I can verify your donation.

After you make your donation, reply to this blog post with the following information:

Your name

How much you donated

Your Poker Stars name (if you will be playing in either of the private tourneys on Poker Stars)

Your Twitter name (if you tweeted a link to this page)

Your Facebook name (if you posted a link to this page on Facebook)

I will email everyone with instructions on how to participate in the “Watchathons” or access your videos if you donate enough to own them. I will also email instructions on how to register for the private tourneys to the people who should be invited to play in them.

If you haven’t received your email by Friday February 4, email support [at] jonathanlittlesecrets.com.

We are raising money for a great cause, and I hope you’ll be a part of it.

Thank you very much for your support, and good luck if you’re playing in the private tournaments!

I won the 5k MTT for 150k

Life has been swingy lately. I chopped the $1,000 PLO rebuy tournament at Bellagio for $18,000, which was nice. It only had around 25 people I think but a win is a win. I bricked off the rest of the tournaments, including the main event.

I decided to gamble and play some semi high stakes cash games on Victory Poker and did poorly, losing $8,000 in one night, which is a decent amount for me, as I have been playing fairly small online lately. I was feeling a little depressed about it and alllmost decided to skip the last $5000 Texas Holdem poker event at Bellagio. Good thing I didn�t.

I sat around most of day 1 with no chips. After around 6 hours of the poker tournament, I picked up AA when there was a raise, call, and reraise in front of me. I pushed and the small blind cold called with AK. I won that and from there won 4 more coin flips to end the day as the chip leader with 18 people left out of the 90 or so that started. Only 9 people got paid, so we would finish the tournament the next day.

Today, I ran pretty hot right out of the gate, knocking out a few short stacks. I had one lucky hand where a tight aggressive opponent raised and I called in late position with QsJs. The flop came JcTs8s. We got it all in and he was drawing almost dead with 7s6s. From there I ran over everyone for a while before we got down to 10 players.

There were around 4 online guys and 4 older amateurs left in the tournament. Oddly enough, 4 online guys were on my left and 4 amateurs were on my right. The online guys were going nuts trying to outplay each other so I just say around for waited for good hands. It was kinda funny because two of the online guys went on monster tilt for no reason at all.

I got up to around 500,000 chips out of the 1.6 million in play when we were down to 7 people when I lost a pretty big flip. I raised to 9000, one of the lag kids reraised to 26000 and I went all in for 270k or so. He snap called with AQ to knock me back to average. Personally, I think his call was terrible, but what can you do. Lucky for him, I had the bottom of my range.

From there I won with JJ vs AT when one of the other tilters pushed over me. Once we got 3 handed, the short stack, who is a high stake cash game regular, pushed for 15bbs, around 165k, the other player, a very good amateur from Europe called and I picked up AK. I pushed and the amateur folded. I beat hid A5 to enter heads up with 1.3 million to 300k. From there, I won a flip and the $150,000 first prize.

I decided to celebrate by eating Chipotle, one of my favorite meals, and playing Fallout New Vegas. I actually haven�t started eating or playing yet, as I just walked in the door. Im excited about both. All in all, this has been the nut day.

I am learning more and more about myself that I hate losing much more than I like winning. I feel so much more pain about losing the $8,000 online than I feel joy from winning the tournament today.

I realize this makes no sense at all. Clearly this is something I need to work at. I think I am also going to make a point to just grind mid stake cash games online for a while and not take any shots. I hhaaattttteeeee losing online. Life is ok for some reason.

I am going hiking with Hoyt Corkins and Tony Grappo tomorrow here in Vegas, which is always fun. A few days from now, I am heading to Chicago to play the $10,000 WSOP circuit event. They are getting large turn outs, so hopefully it will be a good tournament. Ok, video game time. Thanks for reading. Be sure to follow me, JonathanLittle on twitter.

Check out more of Jonathan's interests here:

http://www.jonathanlittle.net

http://www.FloatTheTurn.com

http://www.sngicons.com

A (poker free) Week in Utah (Part 2 of 2)

Gulf Coast Poker.NET blogger Jonathan Little discusses his week away from Texas Hold em poker
in this second of two posts. Course he went maybe 12 days away from the game but on the last day of his trip couldn't resist the urge to get back into things. The next day promised a Pot Limit Omaha tournament. But back to...

Day 5: We drove to Capitol Reef National Park, which is basically a big fold in the earth�s crust. We went on a 2 mile hike then a 4 mile hike. They were both just ok. We stayed at the Lodge at Red River Ranch. It is a super nice giant log cabin a few miles from the park. It was the nuts. Every room had a fire place, which we used later that night. We went to eat at Caf� Diablo, which is the stone nuts. It is a southwestern restaurant that has loads of delicious food. I would for sure go back. This place rivals places like Mesa Grill. It was delicious.

Day 6: We drove to Zion National Park to do the Angel�s Landing trail. Amie got scared because the last .5 miles of the 2.5 mile trail are up a very steep mountain with drop offs on both sides. They actually had to put a chain throughout most of the hike because it was so steep. I thought it was awesome. I was surprised to find a mixed bag of people at the top of the hike. There were all sorts of people, including photographers and a tiny 65 year old Asian lady.

It was fun. I was quite proud of Amie because she is a little afraid of heights. She made it with no problems. We went to our campground and decided to eat at a place called Whiptail grill. A review online said it was Asian food so I was looking forward to some noodles. It turned out to be Mexican food. While the food was delicious, the service was terrible. Not just the standard bad service, but terrible service. Ohhh well. By the time we were finished eating, it was dark and very cold. Amie jokingly said we should sleep in the car and it sounded like a good idea to me, so we sleeped in the car.

Day 7: I woke up at 4am probably because my car wasn�t built to be slept in and decdided to drive back to Vegas. Amie wanted to see the sun rise all trip and we had yet to make it happen so I figured I would make it to Vegas in time to see it. I drove all around trying to find a great place to watch it and finally stumbled on a place on the outskirts of town near the 515 and the mountains. It was great.
All in all, this was by far one of the best trips of my life.

Interestingly , this enough might have been longest stretch of time I have gone since going pro without playing poker. I am pretty sure it was a solid 12 days. Because of this, I decided to play a $500 tournament at Bellagio today, electing to skip the Sunday mtts. I lasted around 6 hours before 3betting A6s to 1/3 of my 27bb stack and then pushing on a T62 board. I lost to T7. The fields in Vegas are still alive and well. There is a $1000 PLO rebuy tournament tomorrow, so that should be fun.

I am pretty convinced very few people know how to play PLO tournaments so I try to play every one I can. Hopefully I can be in for the minimum of $4,000 and don�t go off for $16,000. That is never fun. I put in a short $5/10 session on Victory Poker tonight and won $2,000 in an hour, so that�s nice.

I am going to make a point to play a little more for my bankrollbuilder challenge soon, which if you haven�t checked out can be viewed at bankrollbuilderseries.com. I have played around 14 hours so far and am up 8 buyins, which is right around where I expected to be. Some players are commenting that it will take a while to build a bankroll at this rate. All I can say to that is poker is a slow game. If you only play one hour per week, things will go slow. Luckily for everyone, you can play much more than one hour per week!

Life has been fun. I am looking forward to more of it