Massey: 2011 - The Year of My Life
This is Aaron @nevermissmassey Massey's last blog post of 2011. Thank you, Aaron, for sharing your journey with us this year. - editorWow…. What a wild ride that was.
I’m sitting here, looking back on the last 12 months and I’ve got to tell you, I’ve come a long way. This time last year I spent every single day sitting in my apartment, at my desk, with my computer and my 2 monitors, playing 10 tables at once for 12 hours a day. I would wake up around noon and go to the gym, get home at 2:30pm, order food for the entire day, and play online until like 3am. I was working my ass off when online was around and was 100% dedicated to learning, winning and working as hard as possible. I watched players who I knew were better than me and it motivated me to catch up to them. It was during this period that I took my game to the next level. I played so many hands and discussed poker relentlessly. I also had the privilege of having an unbelievable mentor.
During the period where I played online every day, I was able to watch, play and discuss poker with Kevin “Bel0wab0ve” Saul for hundreds of hours. He is among the greatest online poker players of all time and he took me under his wing. I have always been a live player, I’ve been playing in casinos since I was 19. I would drive to Indiana twice a day with Ralph’s ID to go play. However, it was the online fundamentals that brought my game to where it is today. To be honest, I wish I had started playing online 5 years ago. If I had, who knows where I would be right now.
Anyways, something pretty crazy happened… Online poker in the US got all screwed up. And guess what? It was time to play live again. This ended up being great for me because it forced everyone to have to play me in my arena, where I thrive. Live poker is what I was meant to do; I honestly know and believe that it is my calling in life. It’s kind of exhausting to explain but if you know me or have seen me play, then you know what I mean.
With live poker comes a lot of travel, and I have been to quite a few places this year. It started with Tunica, St. Louis, and New Orleans. I took a train cross country with my close friends to Vegas for the World Series. We stopped at a few places along the way including the Grand Canyon. We hiked all the way to the bottom of the Canyon, slept there overnight, and climbed out. When we got to Vegas we stayed at the Golden Nugget on Fremont Street in old Vegas for a week. Then I moved over and stayed at the Gold Coast, next to the Rio where the World Series is held. I lived there for over 6 weeks. During that summer a lot of crazy shit happened and I had a lot of experiences. I took part in some of the best partying I’ve ever been around in my life. Cabanas, clubs, bottles and bullshit... All of it. I never really spent money at any of them either.
Windy City Poker Championship TV Weekend Results
Pros & Amateurs Charge the Felt. Who will Celebrate when Last Cards are Dealt?
Another TV series is in the books (and in the can) for Windy City Poker Championship (WCPC), with new episodes premiering in the fall. Stay tuned for broadcast schedule and details. If you want to be surprised in early-2012, you can stop reading here.
SPOILER ALERT END
Poker Pros Jerry Yang, Chad Brown, Nick Brancato, Amanda Musumeci, and Faraz Jaka headed out, as did Rick Rahim, and local celebs Richard Roeper and David Kaplan (who guest hosted last year's WCPC season finale).
Thursday featured the Ante Up Magazine Chicago Poker Championship, a $150 event, which left two McDermott's standing when they were head's up. David McDermott Sr, lawyer, entertainment representative, and co-creator of WCPC lost his head's up bid to his eldest offspring - David McDermott Jr. Here they're shown later in the weekend:
McDermott Jr. sported a Johnny Cash-esque studded black shirt for the weekend, which drew some comments, mostly complimentary. I had the opportunity to play with the young rounder, who had just busted his second live tournament ever (the first being the one he won, and the second you'll hear about in our next post, but involves a final table finish in the Main Event.) The younger David was a surprising pleasure to play with at the cash table, fending off barbs from "The King" (a local ego... er... player), handling himself with maturity and decorum. End diversion...
Friday brought Day 1 of the Main Event, a $400 deep stack event that allowed multiple entries. This author busted the aforementioned McDermott Sr. in Level 3 of the event in a triple up hand. (He promptly re-entered for another deep run) I then played 80% of the hands for the next level to accumulate almost t90,000, from the t25,000 start. I was chip leader for the next several hours, continuing to play 70%+ of all hands, and eventually doubling up David "The Fish" Backstrom when my flopped top two (Aces and Kings) ran into his flopped set of Kings, as the case King came in the door.
Day 1 ended with only 15 or so players remaining to come back for an abbreviated Day 2 to set the final table for Sunday's TV table.
East Coast Swing and a Break
I'm laying on my couch after a long weekend, and this place is a mess. Ralph is passed out on the other side of the couch with his mouth open and his right hand down his pants (standard). I swear he plays with it in his sleep. The last 3 days/nights have been a blur. Everyone came home for Thanksgiving and all my friends were able to reunite this weekend. In typical fashion, and without divulging too much, it was a shit show. When u put all of us animals together, AND we all haven’t seen each other in a long time, it makes for some laughable nights and some big boy stories. Anyways, it was short lived. I was in Atlantic City for a few weeks and am now heading back to AC tomorrow for more poker tournaments. My last trip there was a good one.
I had taken a full 2 weeks off from poker when I rolled into AC on Nov. 8th. I was fresh and was ready to play. The 1st event was a $450 reentry tourney where u can rebuy as many times as u want during the earlier stages if you bust out. This makes for a huge prizepool bc many players are in for more than 1 buyin. There were around 1000 players in this tourney and I was making a deep run. At one point during this tournament I pulled off the most ridiculous bluff for most of my chips, with 4 of my friends standing behind me AND having seen my cards. Throughout the hand I was telling my opponent that I was bluffing him, that I was only playing this hand bc my friends were watching, and that I am going to try and impress them by bluffing him in this hand. I was also acting a fool, use every false tell I had in my arsenal to throw this guy off and make him fold. Long story very short, I get this guy to fold the 2nd nuts FACE UP while saying, if your acting like you are bluffing that much u must have it, you’ve got to have it… here I fold, throwing away a King High Club Flush. My friends erupt and beg me to show….. so I turn over something like 35 offsuit, stare at this man who just made the worse fold ever, and laugh at him in the most annoying way ever… yep yep yep yep yep yep! He turns bright red and looks like his head was going to explode. I mean, how does this guy not call me… ME. I never have it. Idiot. Oh well, I end up cashing the tourney and getting something like 55th place for roughly 3x my buyin.{jcomments on}