The second half of my Italy bus tour was just as amazing as the first half. Of course, after the 5000th church and the 200th castle I was certainly looking forward to a little scenery change, so coming to London was nice. People speak English here! Who knew? Fsho. Well, I drank great wine and walked through some of the oldest structures in existence while learning of the most famous artists and thinkers of all time, so that was important. But now down to the real important stuff, POKA.

The first of the three preliminary tournaments ended rather quickly. I felt very good and was playing well, and had a little above the starting stack of 6k in the second or third level. Then a hand came up where I raised in mid puzzish with QQ. Going well so far. Two players called the 275 chip bet and when it got to the big blind, he thought for a moment and pushed his entire 8k stack in the pot! Wtf. He wasn't a very good player so I didn't really know what he was doing, but I don' really see me folding very often? I dunno. You could argue that he probably isn't bluffing outright so I don't necessarily have to gamble, but QQ is just a lil too strong in that spot. I would fold JJ and AK almost every time and of course call with KK every time, so QQ was right on the cusp i guess.

I called, and he flipped AA. Usually you assume people will try to get value out of AA! I guess he knew what I had.. lol.

The second tournament was the 5k HORSE. I love horse tournaments, but they can be frustrating. This one I had a dominating start, scooping pots left and right.. it was fun. Then of course the last level of the day, after frustrating hours of no cards and bad spots, I finally busted. It seems I tend to bust near the end of the day a lot, I don't have many quick bustouts as of late... besides that first tourney. That one was really frustrating.

The third tournament was the 10K PLO, which is also such a fun kind of tournament. We started with 10k chips with a rebuy chip that could be exchanged for another 10k at any time. My starting table was pretty active as there were some big online guys, Durrr, Sorel Mizzi, JJ prodigy, Adam Junglen all at my table. After two levels, I was already at 45k without using the rebuy chip! Felt pretty nice.

Things went fairly smooth but I was up and down from 25k up to 70k for many levels... when again the end of the day approached. Phil Ivey and Devilfish both came and went, and eventually David Williams was moved to my table. Earlier me and Durr ro-sham-bo'ed to see who would have to go to David's table and knock over his massive castle of chips. I won so Durr went over and did it.. hilarious. As David finally restacked all his chips, I decided to sneak up and do it again... lol. He pouted like a lil baby after that one.

So obviously now he was at my table and the gloves were off. With about 65k I raised it up with AAJ6, two callers, then David who was now short stacked after losing with AA decided to ship it all in for like 30k. I called obv and he had KKQx. A guy who folded then said he had QQKx. Great, I knew I was doomed when he said that. The flop came KQx!! Gah.

Steaming a bit, I raised the next hand with 4589 ds, one caller, then David raised the pot. I called, knowing he had aces obv, and so did the other guy. Long story short the flop came 238 with 2 spades and that was a good flop to ship it so I led out all-in. The second guy called which I didn't really like, then David called and flipped up AAQJ with the spade flush draw. Was hoping he didnt have the spades.

The first caller had 9965 with spades which was pretty awful for my hand as he had all my outs. DW rivered a flush and I was gone. This was all fine and everything but DW was of course acting like a dick in both pots when obviously I wasnt happy. I hadn't said anything earlier when he lost a big pot with aces, as I know its not fun to be losing in 10k tournaments. DW was of course just trying to get to me in response to me knocking his chips over earlier, but its just a different story when your talking about a joke and about actually being a dick while raking in my chips. Childish, really.

Aaaanyway I'll be winning the main event which starts tomorrow and rejoicing merrily. I feel good. Politics wise, I continue to do all my truth-seeking research etc and there is truly just so much interesting stuff to be learned out there about our world. I came upon this lecture which is enormously great and important and really just amazing. Its 3 hours long but I just recommend eventually watching the whole thing. It helps put many things in perspective.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8545585184878490822

or search the same title on youtube to watch it in segments, 1-19.