So a little over a month ago I went to Saint Louis for the HPT with some of my friends. We're all in a Skype group together and one of them lives in Saint Louis so we stayed at his place for the duration of the series. There was actually less playing going on than I originally thought, he lived about 45 minutes away from Ameristar so I didn't put in that much volume, however, I did play a decent amount of cash as well as a few tournaments. For the majority of the trip things weren't going that great, I only had one decent cash session and had bricked the tournaments and sattys I played. The very last day of the HPT they had a $350 survivor as well as an $85 satty to that. There was some confusion over transportation there and the satty is pretty turbo, I ended up taking my friends car with 45 minutes until late reg ended going around 110 down the interstate. I barely made it to the satty and sat down with around 11bb, 1 in 5 got a seat. I was able to win a few crucial all ins and eventually got a seat to the survivor which had just started. There wasnt a very big turnout for the survivor, almost as many people entered that as they did the satty to it. 47 to 42 or something like that, but since it didn't effect the payouts really it didn't matter that much. I ended up winning a pretty big pot when AA held against JT on KQ7 for 70bb and after that I made my way to the final table where technically 6 paid but 6th was only $300 and 1-5 $1500, it was some pretty sick bubble play where you really needed a good knowledge of ICM in order to know if you should take what would normally be a good shove spot. I think I ended up cashing with 7bb after 6 got eliminated getting aces cracked against QT, flop T85, jam, call, turn 4, river T. That felt really good to not only turn a -$500 trip into +1k but to have turned $85 into $1500 by "winning" two tournaments, a good confidence boost.

After that it was off to FL for a week for my buddys bachelor party where we went up to Gatlinburg for a few days. I won't go too much into that, or actually, maybe I will there's a few intersting bits in here. We ended up hiking part of the Appalachian trail which I had never done before. That was a lot of fun, during this time we met a guy working for the AT called a "ridge runner." He was hired for 3 months to maintain a 70 mile section of the AT, 5 days on camping and hiking, 2 off, making around $500 a week. This really peaked my interest, I've always really enjoyed nature and had even considered pursuing being a park ranger before, this seemed like a really cool job where you could just take a few months off, hike and camp and bank away a few grand in the meantime as you dont really have too many expenses. So I got some information from him and once I got home proceeded to update my resume and compose a cover letter. This was the first time I've had "professional poker player" on my resume but I think I worded it fairly well and I was really pleased with how the cover letter came out as well. Typically they will do interviews in November and hiring in December so I should know in the near future if I got the job or not. I have no idea how many applicants they get nor how "hike crazy" you have to be to get the job, but I feel like I have a fair shot, we'll see.

Another interesting thing that happened on the way back we were travelling through Columbia, SC. It was night and raining, traffic wasn't that bad probably medium. I'm riding shotgun in a Toyota Tacoma with my friend driving and two others in the back. We're travelling along in the left when suddenly we see the cars in front of us slam on the brakes. We slam on ours and proceed to slide at 65 mph, it became clear rather quickly that we were about to smash the crap out of the Tahoe in front us. We slammed into them and hit them 3 times until we eventually came to a stop. Nobody moved at first unsure if we too would get hit from behind, but after a few seconds we all piled out. Amazingly everyone involved was OK, every airbag in the truck went off instantly and altough the bottom frame of the truck was within inches of the rear tire of the Tahoe, there was no buckling inside the cab. What happened was a cadillac sedan had lost control when accelerating on the on-ramp and spun around in the left lane, we hit the Tahoe in front of us which in turn hit the car in front of them. God was definetely watching over us, and this continued to show itself as I called my sister who happens to live in Columbia and we had crashed 5 minutes away from her. She had also just had a baby and my parents became grandparents for the first time and I was the only one who hadn't gotten to see him, so that was a cool little bonus even if we went a roundabout way to do it. Long story short my friends insurance covered the truck, we stayed with my sister that night and got a rental car the next day and drove the rest of the way home.

And finally the last part which will bring you completely up to speed. Not even before I leave FL to go back to Vegas I'm browsing around on Facebook and I see a post on one of the poker groups I'm a part of. It's from a long time pro which a 1.6 million hendon mob and impressive online results, he details that he won a package to the Punta Cana Poker Classic coming up on the 24th but isn't really interested in going and rather than selling it he'd rather give it away. So he gave his email and said simply email him why you thought you should go. So I did, I didn't even put all that much time and effort into it really, just recapped my story, linked my VLOG and pokernews articles and sent him it. A few days later he tags me in a post saying I won the package and emails me all the proper forms. Air travel was not included in the package but he said to email him the receipts for the flights and he would ACR me the money, which he did. So if you're unaware of the PCPC it's about a week series with a $1650 500k main event. The package included 6 nights at a 5 star all inclusive resort as well as a gift bag and entry into the main. The resort was pretty astounding and I captured some awesome footage for the vlog, I'm excited to put it togtether. A lot of my friends in the skype group were going as well as several other people from poker, Jeff Gross, Bill Perkins, Kristy Arnett, as well as a few pros that stream on twitch. I got to go snorkeling, deep sea fishing catching some mahi mahi, it was an absoulute blast, easily the best freeroll of my life lol. As far as the main went, ended up busting day 1a pretty gross. Called off a 5bet jam with AA, villian has JJ and it's a jack high flop for a 108bb pot late into day 1, so that would have been a pretty easy day 2 with a real chance at making a run, but poker doesn't give a damn about you or your goals lol. Staying in Punta Cana though is not bad when you bust, there's not really a downside there especially if you played well which I feel like I did. I'm about to board the bus back to the airport to fly to FL. My friend who had the bachelor party is now having his wedding and it didn't make much sense to fly back to Vegas on Tuesday and then fly out Saturday for a wedding in FL. I plan on probably playing some cash in FL, I was just looking at my calendar and other than the main event here it's been about a month since I've actually really played, everything has just been pretty crazily busy the past two months with much more travel than I ever thought I'd be doing as a 1/2 player lol. Well that should get you caught up on where I'm at currently and what's been happening, once I get back to Vegas I plan on creating a schedule so I have some semblance of structure in my life, I think it will definetly help me to be more productive in many areas I've been lacking.

that sucks about the accident but it reminded me of a couple weeks ago while driving home from PA to NY in the rain, someone must have cut off a truck. He swerved into the car in front of me and I was able to swerve and maneuver away but I was going in between cars that were getting hit by the truck with debris flying all over. I heard loud crashes and I was convinced I was in an accident, but somehow I got lucky and was able to drive right out from in between all those cars without getting hit.

With my flashers still on, I slowed down into the right lane as I was saying to myself "I had to have gotten hit". So I pulled over to check but there was nothing. I narrowly escaped that accident.

Went to the airshow last Sunday:


Cool Vegas Strong jet:


Sunrise in Punta Cana:


Main event buyin ticket:


Cashing the survivor tournament at HPT:


My first Nephew I got to see, literally by accident:


Hanging out hiking on the Appalachian trial:


Not on top of the world but close:


Truck accident coming back from TN:


Wondering how I'll get down: