What a summer! And August poker summary.

What can I say... life is really good.

My brother is engaged!!! To quote his fiancee, "After almost 7 years ... the time has come. We're engaged!" Can you tell she's excited? I am too. This will be my second honour as the best man, third time if you count being a co-bestman. Being the best man is like sleeping with the Queen of England. It's a great honour but nobody wants to do it.

Dragonboat was fun and is finally over for year 2006. We won a gold medal (or as my team liked to say, "bling bling") in the London race. We raced at Stratford and came a hair's breadth from winning another medal. It was oh so close!

Being on the dragonboat team has many folds of benefits. First, it's a physical activity and it's outdoor, both of which I love. Second, I get to meet new people or become better acquainted with familiar faces :). Third, it gives me a reason to hit the gym regularly and now I'm almost near the best shape of my life.

Those were a little tidbits of my life. Now onto poker for those who are curious about my progress. Recently, I spent one entire weekend plus two weekdays playing poker in Atlantic City. I went to The Borgata Casino and my goal was to try to qualify for a WPT seat. Spent $840 in 3 tourneys to qualify but that didn't happen. I also played two tourneys: $1000 NL hold'em, $1500 NL hold'em. I lost the $1500 NL one, but got in the money for the $1000 NL. I got 28th among 576 players, good for $1728. If I hung around for 27th, I would have gotten $2880. I was ecstatic not because I made a profit, but because that was my first time getting "in the money" for a live poker tourney. Now my name "Tuan Tran" is in some searchable poker database! It's a little progress, a confidence builder, a tiny stepping stone but I'll take it. I also played at the Tropicana for their highest limit game... $7.50/$15. It's so low it's kinda like a joke but I still played because I just wanted some live entertainment and a wad full of money when I leave. Everytime I sat down, I won $400, $250, $600. I also played online poker in my hotel room.. (lol talk about being excessive).. and I won too. Overall, despite losing the $840 qualifiers and the $1500 tourney, and paying for hotels, gas, food, and all that didn't cost me a penny and I still had leftover money to buy a couple of gifts for myself and a worthy adversary, and a donation to my dragonboat team. Fantastic trip!

August Poker Stats:
Limit Hold'em $10/20: +$3463.75, 45.41 hrs, $76.27/hr
MTT tourneys: +$36.4, 19.31 hrs, $1.88/hr
Overall: +$3500.15, 64.73 hrs, $54.07/hr

Again, anyone looking at these stats should really be paying attention to the Limit Hold'em stats. It's my bread and butter. The tourney results are very sporadic because you could be losing and breaking even for half a year, then boom, you are up $150k. I'm playing for that "boom"!

September Forecast:
I'm no longer worried about my online poker performance. I will look for ways to improve my limit hold'em rate and to play more often! There are 4 upcoming WPT poker tourneys I'm hoping to qualify, 2 of which are really nice!
North American Poker Championship, Fallsview Casino -- Oct 25-29
World Poker Finals, Foxwoods -- Nov 12-16
Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure, Atlantis Resort, Bahamas!!! -- Jan 6-13
Aussie Millions Poker Championship, Melbourne, Australia!!! -- Jan 14-19

If I could make it in either the Australia or the Bahamas one, I'll be killing two birds with one stone.