RAAAAAAR

Compared to past and future UFC cards, this event is pretty lousy. Still, there are some pretty interesting fights.

GSP vs Matt Serra:

While GSP should be the favorite here and their first fight was something of a fluke, there's no denying serra is a very difficult matchup for GSP. GSP wins his fights because of his tremendous wrestling, something he can't take advantage of vs serra because of how great serra is all around on the ground. GSP is going to have to be very patient and look to pick serra apart from distance, taking advantage of serra's height...this just isn't the kind of guy GSP should look to run over. For serra, he'll need to keep the distance close to negate any striking advantage GSP has, and look to setup any takedowns he can muster. If serra can get GSP respecting his hands enough he should be able to get a takedown or two. Even though GSP probably wins, if you can get serra at +380 or better that would be a great bet.

Rich Franklin vs Travis Lutter:

This is a matchup that Rich usually dominates. he has superior wrestling and athleticism than lutter with a huge advantage in the striking dept. I think Rich wins this fight 9 times out of 10 or more so even though he's sitting at -350 on most sites i think it is a good bet. For Lutter, somehow he's going to need to get rich on the ground, I don't think it happens in the clinch and if he tries to strike with rich he's going to be KO'd so I think his best bet may be to shoot in and try to switch through Rich's sprawl or even just pull a high guard or pull guard and look for a sweep. Even then, Rich has a good ground game so getting top position isn't going to give him the win...he's going to need to fight the perfect fight and really concentrate on winning rounds rather than risking losing position by forcing a sub.

Kalib Starnes vs Nate Quarry:

I'm not too sure why, but it looks like Kalib is a pretty big dog in this fight. I don't know if I missed the boat on what Nate is capable of but this fight seems very close to me and I'm inclined to give a slight edge to Kalib. Nate has a slight advantage with strikes and wrestling but I think Kalib's edge on the ground is pretty big...mix that in with the fact that Nate is very weak with his standup defense and I think it should be relatively easy for Kalib to set up his takedowns with some good striking. Nate has heavy hands though so if Kalib starts to struggle to get the fight on the ground he'll be in a whole lot of trouble. Another big factor in this fight is the fact that Nate has fought one single time in the past 2 1/2 years...potential cage rust makes me like Kalib even more. If the odds were even on this fight I'd probably recommend staying away but right now Kalib is over +200 on every site (with his highest being +271 on pinnacle) so i think this should be an autobet.

Charles McCarthy vs Michael Bisping:

Bisping was one of the most overhyped fighters in the UFC but after his controversial win over Hammill and loss to evans it's died down quite a bit. on the other hand McCarthy really hasn't ever done anything and while his ground game is good, he isn't solid at all in other facets. Bisping is superior to McCarthy in pretty much every way and will likely TKO him so even though I don't like putting money on overhyped unproven fighters this just isn't a fight bisping is going to lose very often at all. If you can somehow find Bisping better than -300 then it's probably a pretty good bet.

Mark Bocek vs Mac Danzig:

I don't know much about Bocek but Danzig is a very solid all around fighter. It seems likely to me that Bocek is going to try to shoot in or takedown mac down, fail, and probably end up TKO'd or subbed for his troubles. Danzig is also coming into this fight as an overwhelming favorite so I'd avoid putting money on him, if you have some reason to think Bocek has a good chance in this fight then he's probably a good bet just based on the odds you'll be getting.


That's it for the main card fights, next up is the undercard guys which I don't have any odds for so I'll go strictly on how I think the outcome will be.


Joe Doerkson vs Jason MacDonald:

Why this is an undercard fight I have no idea at all. These two guys are very similar to eachother in how they like to fight and I expect it to be a war on the ground. Because MacDonald is the stronger of the two, I expect him to find himself in top position more often than not so I give the edge to him but Doerkson is more than capable off of his back and can easily give MacDonald fits, if not sub him. This fight may come down to who can control the standup, in which case again I give a slight edge to the taller and stronger MacDonald.

Jason Day vs Alan Belcher:

I don't know who Jason Day is, apparently this is his first profession mma fight? I don't know where he comes from so I can't really comment on how I see the fight going down except I don't recognize the name from any major bjj or grappling events. Alan belcher isn't really the type to take advantage of that though, so all I can really say is Belcher probably wins because of experience alone.

Ed Herman vs Demian Maia:

Another fight that should be on the main card. Maia happens to be one of the top 10 best bjj practitioners in the world, regardless of weight class, so at 185 unless your name happens to be Ronaldo de Souza if you're on the ground with maia, whether you're on top or he's on top, you're in some trouble. Herman's advantage in wrestling is going to be both a good and bad thing. Good because he has the tools to keep Maia from taking the fight to the ground but bad because it will be easy for him to get sucked into a ground fight if Maia pulls guard. For herman, the more boring he can make this fight the better. If I were his trainer I'd have him watch andrei vs werdum over and over again so he knows to do everything he possibly can to keep maia from getting close even if that means running halfway across the cage to avoid him. If Maia shows competence with his striking it's going to be an ugly night for Herman. Those that know me know what I'm going to pick, Maia by sub rd 1.

Rich Clementi vs Sam Stout:

This should be a very fun fight. Stout has the clear advantage in standup, especially where technique is concerned while Clementi has the clear advantage on the ground. As Stout hasn't shown me a great TD defense I give the edge to Clementi but if Stout is game on the ground and can keep himself from being subbed this could end up being the fight of the night.

Brad Morris vs Cain Velasquez:

I don't really know either of these two guys but because of his name I'm going to pick Cain by chokeslam from hell. Especially cause he's repping AZ :D!

Kuniyoshi Hironaka vs Jonathon Goulet:

Hironaka has had a rough start to his UFC career due mostly to two of his first 3 fights being against legit top 5 170 pounders in alves and fitch but this should be a good fight for him to begin establishing his place in the UFC WW division. Goulet is a very solid all around fighter with a lot of experience but I feel like Hironaka has a much better ground game and is the superior athlete. Look for a solid decision win from Hironaka, possibly a sub if goulet makes a bad mistake.



The event really lacks a strong main card, GSP vs serra is going to be fun but other than that I really don't see much. In fact, I would bump Kalib vs nate, McCarthy vs Bisping, and Bocek vs Danzig all to the Undercard and move Maia vs Herman, Doerkson vs MacDonald, and either Hironaka vs Goulet or Clementi vs Stout all to the main card. In any case, it could very easily turn into a great event so I'll be watching it.

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start the new month out with a tourney win in a $20 deepstacked tournament



not a huge score or anything but it's nice to start the month off this way. i feel like i've made enormous improvements in my tourney game over the past few months. i really hope i can develop into a great all around tourney player so i don't have to worry about taking extended breaks from cash games.

anyway, two funnest hands from the FT:

http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/420205
http://www.liquidpoker.net/h/420223

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Very good card, especially for a free card. Unfortunately, I think a couple terrible stoppage's overshadowed an otherwise great event. Both times it was Steve Mazzagatti jumping in early too, if I were Joe Silva I'd have a good talking with the guy. I understand the whole logic of erring on the side of caution but these guys are fighters, part of being a fighter is having these difficult struggles and overcoming them...not giving the chance to overcome is a tremendous disrespect to them. I really feel for both houston and karo. Anyway, I'm gonna comment on the fights I saw.


James Irvin vs Houston Alexander: Irvin by KO 1st round.

personally I felt houston was gonna wreck irvin but right at the gong irvin comes in with a superman punch that floors alexander. irvin follows up with a couple shots on the ground and mazzagatti jumps in. in terms of early stoppage's this one wasn't that bad but even still alexander might have been rocked but he wasn't out, give him an extra couple seconds and see if he can recover or at least tie irvin up long enough to recover. this stoppage annoyed me not because alexander was alright, but because he wasn't given a chance to recover...he hit the ground and irvin manages to get off 3 punches, only 1 of which landing relatively cleanly, and the fight was over.

Kurt Pellegrino vs Nathan Diaz: Diaz by sub 2nd round

to me, this was a very interesting fight. Pellegrino is the superior all around grappler of the two, but diaz has the superior all around submission game. the blueprint for pellegrino winning this fight was obvious, get the takedowns and control nate on the ground. look to force superior positions and punish nate when you get into those positions...and above all else, don't take any unnecessary risks. i really felt if pellegrino would do that he would pick up a very dominating win and in the first round thats exactly what he did. i don't know if it was the pressure of the fight or just bad gameplanning, but he abandoned that in the second round, capped off when he had a single leg on nate diaz and instead of dragging him to the ground while controlling that hip or even transitioning into a double leg he decides to pick him up and slam him. that lead immediately into a triangle from diaz and pellegrino losing another fight he easily could have won.

Tim Boetsch vs Matt Hamill: Hamill by TKO 2nd round

I don't really know much about boetsch except for the fact he dominated the biggest can in the ufc today: david heath. The two are very similar with hamill being the superior wrestler and superior athlete while boetsch has the superior striking. I thought boetsch was doing exceptionally well exploiting the fact that hamill likes to put his head down in close quarters, not only with knees but also with uppercuts...i think had one of those uppercuts from boetsch hit clean hamill would still be asleep. One of those knees practically tore half of hamill's lip off, one of my biggest fears when i got my lip pierced was getting into a fight with some guy and him ripping it out and man it did not look pretty in this fight. In any case, after such a great first round from Boetsch, he decides to pull a pellegrino and do the exact opposite thing he should have done. why would anyone would shoot in on someone as powerful, technical, and overwhelming as matt hamill? hamill stuffs it, pins boetsch against the cage, and just mauls him until the ref stops it.

Thiago Alves vs Karo Parisyan: Alves by TKO 2nd round

anyone that's a fan of mma was really looking forward to this fight. both guys are very exciting, very good all around, and very young. first round saw alves fighting pretty tentatively while karo fought aggressively landing with some good strikes and taking the fight to the ground. was definitely a good round for karo but he really never managed to do any significant damage on Alves. Alves came out in the second round much more aggressively and his superior striking started to take over. karo made a mistake in ducking his head and ate a knee for his troubles. he was floored but not out and honestly i don't know which person jumped on him first, mazzagatti or alves. he was definitely hurt but he wasn't out, and alves wasn't even able to land any clean follow up shots before mazzagatti stopped the fight. this stoppage was just terrible as not only was karo not given a chance to recover, but he wasn't even that rocked to begin with...right after the stoppage he hopped right up. very very unlucky for karo and i do think he would have been able to pull guard and recover, as fans we were deprived of probably another round or so of a very good matchup.

Anthony Johnson vs Tommy Spear: Johnson by utter annihilation 1st round

This fight started innocently enough, both fighters feeling eachother out with spear looking for opportunities to take the fight to the ground. then, as spear shoots in, he eats a kick from johnson and boy did the shit hit the fan for the country boy spear. every time spear did anything he was eating strikes for it. stand up? here's some punches. close in? here's some knees. try a takedown? here's some more punches. eventually the accumulated damage had spear all but out and against the cage and then johnson hit him with an absolutely brutal cross that knocked spear out cold. just complete domination from johnson, really impressive.

Frankie Edgar vs Gray Maynard: Maynard by UD (30-27x3)

two fighters, four first names. I think this fight can be summed up pretty easily by maynards post fight comments. maynard was just so much bigger than edgar that maynard was able to bully edgar and control the fight from start to finish. otherwise, it was a very close fight despite what the judges scores may suggest. as is typical for an edgar fight, the wrestling displays were top notch and the striking wasn't bad either. in the end it was just maynard's size and power that enabled him to control the fight.

Joe Lauzon vs Kenny Florian: Florian by TKO 2nd round

Excellent first round! both came out blazing and lauzon was able to secure the first takedown. there, florian landed some vicious elbows that dean thought weren't legal as one of the elbows opened up a cut on the back of lauzons head. lauzon would get it treated and the fight would be restarted standing for some reason -- i thought after the genki sudo bang ludwig fiasco that any time a doctors stoppage occurs the fight has to be restarted in the same position. in any case after the restart they would both both again come out full of energy with lauzon finding himself on top again but made a pretty huge mistake in going for a kneebar, then a heelhook. as a general rule, don't try to force a leg lock on a bjj practitioner...they have so much strength and flexibility in their legs that even a perfectly sunk sub isn't always going to get the tap (memories of barnetts kneebar on nog comes to mind. a 260 pound man that has been practicing subs for most of his life wasn't able to get a tap from a bjj practitioner in nog even despite it being perfectly locked in). this ended up burning lauzon out and florian took advantage in the second round maintaining mount and raining down punches for a full minute before the fight was finally stopped. steve mazzagatti may want to take a look at herb dean's reffing in this fight, lauzon was in a bad situation and was hurt and very winded but dean gave him every chance in the world to try and struggle out of the situation and only when it was clear that lauzon was not able to make it back did he finally stop the fight. did he die in the ring? or suffer tremendous brain damage or some career ending injury? no. but even though he was still fine and fully cognizant, he had no complaints. he was given a chance to succeed through the struggle and even though he wasn't able to, it's all he can ask for. neither karo nor houston was given that same chance which is both a tremendous disrespect to the fighters and also a huge loss for us as fans.



my write up is probably pretty shitty because im still a little drunk, but oh well, it was a great event and a lot of fun matchups.

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Comments (11)

ended the month on a -12bi downswing, that makes the second 10bi or more downswing i had in the month.



all in all, my play was extremely erratic. some days I'll be at the top of my game and doing great, other days I'll play like a complete idiot. Despite it being a reasonably decent month (around $5.5k including tourneys) I feel like my overall play was just horrible. Because of this, I've decided to take a week off and concentrate on other things to clear my head...I've also got a pretty severe case of life tilt that I need to get corrected as well. I'm in a rut when it comes to hobbies so I feel like I need to make a lot of changes. It's very possible this week off could turn into months...I'm just not happy right now, and while poker isn't to blame I do need to make some life style changes and if that bumps poker off the map then oh well.

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Comments (4)

the fluffier the better. generally stuff i can grab off of netflix so i don't have to hunt them down on torrent sites.

oh and just so this isn't a completely empty post, some poker thoughts.

this month has been going pretty good. im running slightly above expectation (a few buyins, although i think this is countered by the amount of coolers i've taken) and have made a little over $5k on the month for a 6.5ptbb/100 winrate. one thing i've really been working hard on this month is working with various forms of pot control and scaling bet sizes to induce certain things. i've found this works unbelievably well vs fish, stacking a 60bb fish with an overpair vs his 4th pair after minraising multiple times in the hand is so great.

i think i need to start mixing it up with regs a lot more often, im getting back up to the point where i can start taking NL400 and NL600 on again but i really need to get more consistent vs multiple types of opponents.

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Comments (7)

small # of hands and my play has been very shaky, the big downswing in the middle of the graph is pretty close to 100% me being a huge idiot. my lines are in love though, they can't stay away from eachother

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my biggest leak by far is my lack of discipline. if i make a stupid play i have the tendency to dwell on it and this screws up my concentration and rhythm sometimes for the rest of the session, this often causes a single bad play to cost me multiple buyins. i also lack the discipline to make myself play as much as i should, thus far this month i've put in a grand total of 4k hands...not exactly the type of pace someone should be keeping when supporting himself on poker.

unfortunately, unlike other leaks, i can't just tweak something in my game and expect to fix it or cover it up. needless to say, im lost. i'd like to hear some advice from people in improving discipline.

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haven't done this in a while but fox has me pumped for picks. here goes:

Anderson Silva vs Dan Henderson: silva by KO rd 4.

This might be the greatest matchup ever in terms of clinches and while I feel for hendo to win he has to win the clinch, I don't feel the same for silva. Hendo loves to strike and he's not too bad at it either, but silva is on a whole nother level. if hendo chooses to strike with silva it'll be over quick. Hendo also isn't one to shoot in much and given his greco background he really doesn't need to, but what this all means is that hendo needs to get inside and dominate the clinch. if he can regularly get takedowns on silva and punish silva when given the opportunity in transitions he can either grind out a decision or get a TKO but I really don't see this happening. I do think hendo gets takedowns but silva's bjj (along with his length) is tremendous at neutralizing his opponents top game and I think it'll be silva punishing hendo in between. While Hendo has shown in many fights he gasses in the last round I've never seen silva even breathe hard much less gas, I think hendo gets sloppy when tired and silva finishes him off.

Heath Herring vs Cheick Kongo: Herring by TKO rd 1.

Kongo looks like a beast and in standup he is, unfortunately he doesn't know what a sprawl is and I'm pretty sure even I could beat him on the ground. This match lasts as long as it takes herring to take kongo down, and I'm pretty sure herring is intelligent enough to do so asap.

Alessio sakara vs Chris leben: Leben by UD.

This should actually end up being a pretty competitive (although slow paced) fight. I think sakara is the superior technical striker while leben does much better inside and in the clinch. I think leben will control the pace a lot in the clinch and Sakara won't be able to do enough while they're split so leben by UD.

Yushin Okami vs Evan Tanner: Okami by UD.

Really happy to see tanner back in the ufc but man this is a horrible matchup for him. okami is pretty much a 3x stronger version of tanner. given tanners strong bjj and toughness I don't think okami subs him (and likely won't maul him or anything) but this'll be a pretty one sided UD.

Chris Wilson vs Jon Fitch: Fitch by TKO rd2.

UFC debut vs fitch eh? pretty rough. Fitch is probably the 2nd most well rounded fighter at 170 in the world (behind gsp of course) and his ground game is extremely solid. gonna be a lot of gnp and a bloody wilson.

Jake O'Brien vs Andrei Arlovski: Arlovski by KO rd1.

One of two things happens when arlovski fights guys like this. Either scaredy I-don't-wanna-lose arlovski shows up and he grinds out a close and boring decision or manly I'm-going-to-tear-his-face-off arlovski shows up and he devours his opponent. Either way Andrei wins, and I'm thinking with how much grief andrei has gotten for his previous fights we'll see manly andrei come out and tear O'Briens face off in the first round.

Luigi Fioravanti vs Luke Cummo: Fioravanti by TKO rd1.

Cummo makes me giggle and he's not a bad fighter but it's just a gut feeling that Fioravanti is gonna catch him. Fioravanti is a good fighter and he's training with (arguably) the best gym in the US in ATT. Cummo has a tendency to leave himself open in standup and luigi is good enough and has the right trainers to show him how to take advantage.



Don't feel like writing up the others, but fwiw I got the 3 TuFers beating their opponents. Really looking forward to the event, very strong card with an amazing headliner.

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haven't really played much poker, and when I have I've generally lost. Had to cash out a lot more money again to help my mom out with bills. Supporting myself with poker isn't too difficult but supporting myself and a family living in a different house is pretty rough.

Bahamas trip was alright, would have been a lot better if I wasn't sick the whole time. I made it to the second day and was about 150 people from the money but I blew it because I'm bad at tourneys. Meeting Khan was cool, very friendly guy. Also met daut but didn't have a chance to talk to him; only thing that sticks out is he's got a huge head, like tito ortiz huge, must be why he's so smart. Met a few other guys I've played with a lot (VicTree, who's a cool guy and I believe made the money, and Redargoe, who struck me as something of a dick but maybe he was just sidetracked when I met him).

First day was great. Started the day playing tight and scared but Monkey001 (or something, don't remember) sat to my right and me and him were bullshitting the whole day. We started buying rounds of beer for eachother and on breaks I'd go get a beer and a shot, by the end of the day I was pretty drunk and playing the best poker I can ever remember playing. At one point a guy at our table (playaplease or something) said he'd buy our next round if we wouldn't raise the next hand. Ended the day about 2x the average stack.

Second day I sat next to Frank something (I guess he's a somewhat famous tourney player, didn't recognize him though. he seemed cool) and a professional hockey player. I wasn't playing very well at all and not paying attention to some obvious things. Biggest example was when I had pocket tens on a 589 board after raising preflop. I had already made up my mind when I lead the flop I should push my opponent in if he raises me cause I thought he was short stacked. well, he raised really small and something about the situation felt weird but I already had my plan and I felt like 88 or 99 would be reraised preflop because of his stack size. I might have been right because he beat me with 55, point was he had about 2x as much chips as I thought he did and it crippled me...retrospect I think by pushing him I sacrificed what was a stable and strong position on my table for relatively unnecessary chips, but then again I am bad at tourneys so maybe my reasoning is skewed and I did the right thing I dunno. survived for about 3 hours before a guy limps from mp and I check bb with 53, flop comes 853 and I bet, he raises his obv limped aces and I push all in, he counterfeits on turn.

Didn't really like the atlantis and I really hated all the solicitors. Everything at the atlantis was about 4x as much as it should be ($120 for a bottle of black label WHAT THE FUCK) and native Bahamians pretty much wouldn't do shit for you unless you were buying something from them. If the venue isn't moved next year I'm not going to bother trying to go.

never the less, the beach was really nice. At one point I put a chair down and just chilled there and tanned for a few hours, was pretty awesome. Had I not been so sick I would have done a lot more and probably had a great time.

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So after a nice couple weeks of profiling and me still passportless and pokerstars unwilling to grant me credit for the APPT Sydney ticket I won, I sent them another email to try and convince them to salvage something from the trip. For your reading pleasure:

"Thank you for your email,

I have been in constant contact with the agency I'm
going through to get my passport expedited and
processing of my passport is continuously being
suspended. I sincerely wanted to attend this event as
I've wanted to visit Australia for a long time but
after talking with the agency this morning it does not
seem like that is possible. After submitting every
possible piece of identification I could the US
passport agency is now requesting I submit a scan of
the cover of my high school year book and a scan of
the page in the year book where my picture is. This
simply is not something I can get within the next day
or two. I will have to wait until next week at the
earliest to get a copy of the yearbook which will be
too late.

I am extremely disappointed in your decision to not
compensate me with w$. I won the package less than 3
weeks ago, yet the processing of a passport without
expedited service takes 4-6 weeks. Infact, to cash out
of pokerstars using a check so that I could get the
money to get my passport as well as my plane ticket
takes 3 weeks. Epassporte, which I normally use to
process cashouts -- and is my only other option --
froze my account because it had over $5,000 in it and
they are taking an unbearably long time to unfreeze
it. I am telling you this because I want to make it
clear just how difficult it is to attain everything
that is needed, especially when multiple problems
occurs.

I have been a long time contributor to PokerStars and
have even managed to attain the second highest VIP
level you offer, Supernova. Poker is a very big part
of my life and PokerStars has always been a good
client for me but I simply cannot have $7,000 in value
lost like this, especially when I'm being perfectly
reasonable and requesting w$ in it's place -- money
that can only be used in big PokerStars events anyway.

I would greatly appreciate it if you would reconsider
your decision from my point of view. I am not being
unreasonable nor am I insincere, it has been a very
frustrating month for me in trying to prepare for this
trip and unfortunately everything that could go wrong
has gone wrong.

Thank you,
Mehdi Martin
aka KeanuReaver"

And today I just got their reply.

"Hello Mehdi,

We have reviewed your situation again and determined that we will allow
you to defer your package to next year. A note will be added to your
account that you have a W$7,000 credit that can be used only for future
APPT events.

We will announce the dates for Season Two of the APPT in March. When you
have determined what events you wish to participate in, please e-mail
registrations@pokerstars.com and they will help you with registration. If
the event you choose costs more than $7,000 you will be expected to pay
the difference.

We are sorry you could not join us in Sydney, but look forward to seeing
you at our events next year.

Regards,

JeffreyH
PokerStars APPT Support"

Aw yeah, how2play hardball.

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