ShannonShorr.com

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Nice Tuesday + last post at blogspot

This is the last post I'll be making at this address. Starting tomorrow I'm going to be blogging at www.shannonshorr.com. This is my official website, and it's officially launched as of right now. It was a little bit cooler of an idea when I was final tabling every main event in sight, but I still like the idea of it.

Today was nice. I woke up around noon and started getting some stuff together for school registration. I had to go and officially get re-admitted. There is a 24 hour waiting process before I can register, so I should be able to sign up for classes tomorrow. I'm either going to take 13 or 16 hours. 13 hours would allow for me to have a lot more free time, obviously, but if I take 13 hours I'm NEVER going to finish school. So, I'll sleep on that and then make a decision. After that I came home and went for a run and then played some poker. Poker went well. I played 350 hands at +$1757. It was really hot outside when I ran though, and I think I almost died. Finally, Anthony, Matt and I smoked a Romeo y Julietta cigar and went bowling.
We got 9 games in the "all-you-can-bowl session," and I averaged about 130 over those 9 games. I came home and got 650 more hands of poker in and lost 81 bucks.

Poker totals:
1000 hands...+$1676

Thanks to everyone for your support while I posted here at Blogspot. Also, a special thanks to Grant Summerlin of Hixson, TN for doing my webpage at shannonshorr.com. He did a great job, and if anyone needs help with a page let me know, and I'll put you through to him.

Memorial day weekend wrap up

First...Here's a cool interview I did with a University of Alabama student named Tricia Masucci. The interview was for Alabama Public Radio. The opening lines is a recording of my thoughts as I played a set of SnGs while she was present...
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wual/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=898166


The weekend was nice. It was very relaxing to spend some time on the lake and great to spend some time with my mom. I feel asleep on a float on the lake though and got pretty sunburned :( I finally made it back to Tuscaloosa around 10 pm. It's so nice to be back at the apartment. I haven't been here in about 3 weeks. I played 1000 hands at 3/6 tonight for a relatively even -$765. Over 20 hours at 3/6 NL I'm making about $200/hour. I guess that is pretty decent for a beginner at that level. The month of May has gone pretty well for me. The only real dark spot was blanking the Paradise $5k event. I'm just shy of +5 figures on the month, and I will definitely get there by the end of the month. It's 2 am right now, and I'm trying to decide if I want to play 500 more hands or not.

Some congratulations:

a) Congratulations to Isaac Moyales de Vega. Moyales upended me in the round of 16 at the WHUPC and went on to win the whole thing for 125000Euros ($170,000 USD). I knew he was going to be very tough to beat. The 25 year old was an outstanding H/U player.

b) Congratulations to Ramzi "Karolina23" Jelassi. My good friend went on to win the 1000E freezeout the night that I bubbled. Officially, the winner of that event would make 56200E, but they most likely made a deal at the final table. Hopefully he pocketed $52000+ USD. I'll update after I talk to him.

c) Finally, Congratulations to 22 year old U of Alabama grad student Tracy Bumpus. Tracy finished second in the $500 Ladies Event at the WSOP circuit event in New Orleans last week. For her efforts, she banked about $8,000.

I'm going to try to get 8-10,000 hands in at 3/6 this week. I'm continuing to learn things every session I play. The main focus for me this week isn't going to be poker though. I'm going on a huge diet/fitness binge. 5 months of drinking 70% of the nights, eating huge meals, and playing lots of poker can take a toll on the body :(

EDIT: I played 500 more hands at +$623.

Hangin' out

So, it's Sunday morning. I had a little change of plans for the weekend. I decided to come down to our lake house with my mom in Clanton, AL. My mom and her brothers and sisters just bought some new property, so I'm going to help them with some preparatory things. It's a bit of a 180 degree change to go from big city life in Barcelona, Spain to the calm, relaxing Clanton, Alabama.

I'm staying here until Monday (Memorial Day), so I won't be playing any poker until then. The internet connection here is dial-up, and it probably would be best not to play on it. I lost about $1800 Saturday night after I got home :(

Sidenote:
I've made a huge decision that has been one of the toughest I've faced in my life. I've decided to re-enroll in school for the Fall of 2006 at The University of Alabama as a civil engineering student. There is only one condition that will prevent that: If I win $500,000+ at Lake Tahoe or Vegas I won't return. I plan on registering for classes as early as Tuesday or Wednesday when I get back to Tuscaloosa. It is undoubtedly a bad short term financial decision for me to re-enroll in school, as I have no intention of using my degree. It's not about that though. I actually miss school and I feel like you get a lot more respect in life if you have a degree. Also, it will give me a chance to get back into some of my other interests, and it will return some normalcy to my life. I'm just going to chip away at my final four semesters. I definitely will not be in school in the Spring or Summer of '07 because there are tons of great events those semesters. I'm still going to consider myself a poker player by trade. I'm looking forward to it though. I'll post my 2006 Fall schedule upon receiving it.

I'd be interested in hearing some of your opinions, good or bad, about my decision to re-enroll. Please comment or email me shorr002@bama.ua.edu. I'm not sure I'm going to be easily swayed, however.

BHM

Well it's Friday night, and I made it safely home to Birmingham. I may or may not play some poker tonight. I'm pretty tired and am probably just going to go to bed.

The flight back from BAR to ATL was ok. I was seated next to a lovely 20 year old girl from Monterrey, Mexico. We talked the majority of the marathon flight. She was in BAR studying abroad for the entire semester. When we got to ATL it took like an hour to get through the 57 security checkpoints. Finally, I learned my flight to BHM was going to be delayed 30 minutes, so I got 200 hands of 3/6 in for +$200. One hand was pretty funny. I got all-in with AA after a flop of Ah Th 5s for like a $1200 pot and the other guy had QJhh. He blanked out, but called me something to the extent of "a lucky F*@#." I was unaware getting in with the nuts after the flop and then holding makes you lucky :)

I'm looking forward to relaxing and making a feeble attempt to do some physical activity this weekend and next week.

Thanks for everyone for offering his or her support via my blog while I was competing in Barcelona.

SS

Bubbled the $1000 event

It's hard for me to put in words the pain I'm feeling after I just finished 22nd in the 144 person 1000 Euro event. The top 18 got paid and would play tomorrow, giving me an extra day in Barcelona. There were lots of interesting hands, but I'm in no mood to talk about them. As always, I'm playing to win the tournament. I could give a damn about squeaking into 18th place and making 700 Euros. I'm playing to win the 50000 Euros. I had right at average stack as we came back from the break after level 12. I had 32,000 and blinds were 1/2000 (200). I was playing on one of the two 7-handed tables. I made it 5200 to go UTG with KcQh. The button looked at his cards and called fairly quickly, and the blinds folded. The flop was golden, Qc9c7c. I move in instantly for 26,500 into the 15k pot. He calls me even faster with T8cc. I'm absolutely in shock. Talk about getting cold-decked. So, I had 7 outs at first glance. I noticed that he had 2 of my outs blocked though because the Jc or 6c would give him a straight flush. Thus, I had 5 outs. The Ac,2c,3c,4c, or 5c. The turn gave me more outs. The Queen of diamonds. I missed the 15 outter though and just like that I'm out after the 5d rolls off the river. Marcel Luske and my Swedish friends Karolina23 and LittleM0lly both were in the final 21.

So, instead of being happy and changing my flight to Saturday I'm headed back tomorrow night. I'll be in Birmingham around 8 p.m. central.

This place is great, and I really enjoyed hanging out with Adam and Dave. Also, we met tons of cool Swedish kids and got to do a lot of cool stuff.

Final numbers on the trip:
May 17: +$3218 online
May 18: +$1676 online, +$140 live
May 19: +$2900 live (Satellite into main event)
May 20: -$1400 live
May 21: +$ 480 live, -$1200 online
May 22: -$726 online, -3333 live, also playing WHUPC
May 23: EVEN (playing WHUPC)
May 24: +$3200 live (WHUPC)
May 25: -$1400 live

Total: +$3557 (+2970 online, +587 live)
Hours of work: 45.5
Hourly rate: $78/hour

After the $1200 plane tickets and $1200 or so in hotel rooms the trip amounted to a fun time with a tiny bit of profit.

Not great, but I'll take it.

I fly out in just a few hours at 1:05 pm. I'll probably sleep the entire weekend in Birmingham and then go back to Tuscaloosa to work next week. My 21st Birthday is the following Wednesday, and we plan on heading out to lake Tahoe for the WSOP circuit event on that Thursday.

Goodbye Barcelona,
SS

Out of the WHUPC in round of 16

I'm out of The Worlds Heads-Up Championship in the round of 16. I got paid 5000€ for my efforts. That amounts to about $6750 USD. In my first round match I disposed of Juris Bonders in 100 minutes exactly. He jumped out to an early 25k-15k lead after I bluffed off some chips. I flopped a set of 3s on a 36J board though and took a 24/16 lead. On the last hand of level 2 I picked up another nice pot with KT on a final board T6834. Juris called on the end and showed me a ten, so it turns out I could've gotten more chips, not that it mattered...
I took a 33/7 lead into the 10 minute break and finished him off 40 minutes later all-in preflop with 22 vs his A8o. I flopped him almost dead with 266 and that was that.

This clinched atleast 5000€. The next match would be against Isaac Mayolas de Vega. Isaac put his opponent away in the round of 32 on the first hand of the match. I'd seen him play a little bit previously and knew he was a very good H/U player. We got underway and he quickly grinded me down to about 13,000. He was very aggressive and rarely folded to my preflop raises. My hat is off to him. He is outstanding, and I'm willing to admit he outplayed me H/U. At blinds 150/300 I limped from the button with J2dd. The flop came AdKcJs. Isaac led for 400 and I called. The turn was a 5d. Isaac checked to me, and I quickly bet 1000. He called. The river was great, the Td. Isaac checked and I finally decided to bet 3700. He pondered and finally called and showed me the Qs after I showed. Later, I picked up AKo on the button and made it 1100 at blinds 2/400. Isaac called and the flop came A56 rainbow. He checked to me and I bet 1600. He checkraised it to 3600 and after an acting-job I finally made it 7200. He folded fairly quickly. I stole some more pots and had as much as a 30/10 chip lead at one point. Here is where things start to go wrong though...
In the last couple minutes at 200/400 I raised to 1300 with K2hh. He called. The flop came QhQs2s. Isaac checked to me and I bet 1900. He fairly quickly moved all-in for 8200. I pondered for almost 5 minutes and finally decided to call. He showed me TT :( I was about 90% certain he didn't have a pair. He had been reraising me a lot preflop, so I assumed he would reraise me with any pair. I thought he most likely had a hand like T2 or an Ace-x flush draw. I also knew he was very capable of moving it all-in with just something like A8 on that board. It became very evident that he was planning on trapping preflop though after the hands were flipped over. I was certain of one thing, he didn't have a Q. I blank out and he doubles through to 20k. 5 minutes into the 3/600 blinds I called a raise with T7dd and the flop comes AdTs6d. I check called the flop and check called the turn when the 8c came off. The river was an offsuit 2 and after much deliberation by both of us, it finally went check-check and he showed me A4 :( I was down to about 10k. On the final hand I found 2 red tens on the button. I limped in and he made it 1700. I made it 5800 and he set me in for my last 4200 which I obviously called off. I get colddecked and he has JJ :( I blank out and am out of the tournament. Mayolas de Vega is going to be very, very tough to beat in this tournament. It's frustrating to make it so deep in the tournament and just come away with 5000, but it was a great tournament and an even greater experience. I'm pretty sure if I get through the Spaniard I would have a good shot at making it to the finals to play, possibly, Carlos Mortensen. After the $150 tip I left for the staff, I ended up profiting 4430€ after my investment in the satellite. Tomorrow night at 18:00 there is a $1000 freezeout tournament which we plan on playing. We're going to get some sleep and probably go to the beach tomorrow. Unless I make the final table of the 1000€ event (2 day event), I leave here on Friday afternoon. This is a very neat city, and I'm happy to atleast take some momentum of cashing in another main event into the WSOP.

Shannon