A Busy Month

October is usually a pretty busy time for me. The kids have lots of school stuff and soccer games. Halloween comes. I have UW Husky season tickets (football). I hunt with my family. I travel to play poker, usually just to the commerce in LA for cash games. This year, I was also working on writing our next course. So I have been pretty busy.
I only ended up making two short trips to LA to play. Both times I booked modest wins for the games I was playing in. Both times I spent a decent amount of the time working on the next course.
We filmed our Limit Hold’em Cash Game Course with Ian Johns as a guest instructor the first week in November. It went exceedingly well. Ian and I have been good friends for a decade now. We often talk poker and poker strategy. Limit Hold’em is special to me because it was the first poker game I was ever good at. Ian is an expert, with really strong results across the board. He used to play a lot online when it was legal. He has had tremendous tournament success with 4 WSOP final tables, including winning a bracelet. Now he regularly plays at the Bellagio and makes the occasional journey to Commerce to play as well.
He and I both enjoyed talking about how to present the material and debating the finer points of Limit Hold’em. For many years, we played 3 days a week in the same 100/200 game in Seattle. We haven’t played as much poker together in recent years, as our lives have gone in different directions. The game in Seattle is no more. 20/40 is the biggest limit game you can find on a regular basis. I have spent more time playing mixed games and tournaments, while Ian has moved to Las Vegas with his family and still plays hold’em on a regular basis.
I am looking forward to the completion of the course.  The writing and filming process is probably about half the work. There is a lot of editing and graphic work. Then we also have to produce the course guide and modify the web site to be able to handle a second course. I am guessing that we will get all of this done and be ready to launch the course in the middle of the first quarter.
But for now, as Ron and Rick start the editing process, I am free to play a little more poker. Last week I spent 4 days in LA, playing 200/400 Limit Hold’em and 300/600 and 400/800 mixed games. I had a decent trip overall. I expect to get in 3 more 4-6 day poker trips this year. I may even play a tournament or two. The commerce has a $1650 NL coming up this weekend and the Bicycle Casino has a circuit event at the start of December.
If I don’t play either, the PCA in January will be my next big tournament. I have one last hunting trip with my father-in-law the second week in December and it overlaps the start of the WPT at the Bellagio. So that one is off the table…
If I play either of the tournaments in LA, I will write about any interesting hands and post it in my blog.
-Rep