WSOP-2013: Week #25

It's Sunday, so time for a recap of this past week's progress for the 2013 WSOP:

• Strategy Books Read:
• WPT: OHaaT. Continue reading these excellent books. Also blogged twice this week on one hand from V1 here and here. If I can sum the lessons of many of the hands in one word, it would be: Prunes!
• Picked up a couple of poker books at my local used bookstore. One is Phil Gordon's Little Blue Book, with advice on MTT play. The other is Negreanu's Hold'em Wisdom For All Players. While I'm not really a fan of Neagreanu's writing, this one actually didn't look half bad when I thumbed through it. Plus I had a lot of trade credit with the store, so it essentially cost me zero. I'll put this latter book on the shelf for now, but I'll probably take a few hours and read through Gordon's book for the hell of it.
• Videos Watched:
• Broko's Hand Reading #3: Good material. Very amateurish production. He screwed up a hand-made hand history in the replayer; the customer is supposed to just ignore the wrong graphics and imagine what happened in the hand. Does Brokos not realize that guys like me actually paid money for these videos? Spend five extra minutes and fix the damn thing, already. But, like I said, very meaty material and good info. Just frustrating as hell to watch.
• Fitness:
• Diet: Mostly a good boy this week, though the wife and I did go out yesterday afternoon for some Five Guys Burgers and fries, then came home and watched a bunch of videos on the couch, eating chips and chocolate. Back on the wagon today, however... but it's going to be tough, as I'm jetting off this morning on a week-long biz trip.
• Exercise: Most of the week was still spent recovering from the creeping crud flu/cold/nastiness, so I wasn't super motivated to exercise. Did walk a couple of days (while listening to poker podcasts, of course), did a few minutes on the elliptical machine one day, and yesterday morning I did a light free weight routine. 
• Tournament/SnG Results:
• Online: Played some SnGs, and made just a few bucks. Nothing to blog home about, however.
• Live: Played in my monthly local tournament. Twenty-five runners started, and I finished in seventh, three from the money. My bust out hand was a really stupid play on my part. (I clearly forgot the mantra of, "Prunes!") We're at the final table. I had about 12 big blinds, Q9s on button, and I open raised on a semi-steel. BigBlind/BigStack called. Flop was AAQ. Check check. Turn is a blank. He leads for min bet. I shove. He snap calls with A-2. Don't know what I was thinking; he's only going to call with better here. Dumb. Otherwise played very good poker. I did win the last-longer bet with I was in with the crew, which helped offset some of sting of near-bubbling.
• Other: Damn biz trip this week to Pasadena, then across the Pacific next week. Gotta find time to exercise, eat right, and play some serious poker... but I'm not holding my breath.

Summary: Holy crap, this is already week #25 of prep. That's essentially half a year. Some weeks have been definitely worse than others on this journey, but I do feel that overall my technique and skills have improved. I think the two biggest factors for this are: a) the book series Winning Poker Tournaments: One Hand at a Time; and b) MTT Hand History videos. Yes, playing has helped, but I don't feel I've gotten enough direct seat time to really make a big difference on that front; definitely an area that needs improvement in this last few months leading up to the big event.

On to the next entry in this WSOP journey journal...

All-in for now...
-Bug