Packed my bags....

Hey everyone....I have moved my blog! 

You can find me at http://www.talonchick.com so come on over and check it out!!!

Happy January!

Happy New Year everyone! 

May 2012 bring you so much love, happiness and success in whatever matters most to you!

December Blues

Up here, December can be an awful month, the days get really short and the temperature starts to plummet.  Despite the forecast of a brutal winter up here, we appear to have been saved for the short term.  It is almost balmy here, some days getting above zero, but the sun goes down near 4:30pm.  It is easy to see why bears hibernate!

To avoid hibernation myself, I allowed my schedule to get packed full of activities, which has led to me not getting around to blogging in the last few weeks.  I signed up for an unlimited month of yoga just up the road, keep my joints from freezing up!  This probably saved me yesterday, we decided to hit up a community league and go curling for a couple hours.  My friend Jakz came up from the US on Monday, it seemed appropriate to immediately grace him with a cup of Tim Horton's coffee and a broom.  We had a blast, I will try to post some videos later into this post.  Worth a laugh for sure!  It was a bit nerve racking at first to start firing the stones into the house (ha...where can you do that??) while the league players watched on.  No bones were broken and even without helmets, there were no concussions.

 With regards to poker, I have another 12,099.54 VPPs to go to hit my last milestone bonus of 2011, then I will be focusing all my energy into tournament strategy and preparation for PCA.   It's hard to believe that in 3 weeks I will be packed up and headed to the airport!  Come join me!

Oh yes...Gibson won an 'elder pet' photo competition earlier in the month, getting him a bag of goodies.  I decided that this year, I would get his picture taken with 'Santa/Grinch' for the first time, seeing as they were fundraising for a good cause!  He was not impressed....

Preparedness is Key

Earlier this month, I was able to get away on a vacation.  My first real vacation in a long time, where I haven't had to concern myself with OT work and well I couldn't play online poker.  It has often seemed like I take time off to escape to the WSOP, or Vegas or make sure I drag my laptop along to get a few hands in.  So off I headed to the beautiful beaches of Florida for a bit of relaxation. 

I was thinking about making some videos detailing how I was going to prepare for the PCA Canada Cup final table, and while chatting about it, the idea came up to consider making a bit of a spoof, probably sometime after we saw Kevin Nealon in Ybor. 

Hans and Talon

 The video took a bit more work than I initially expected (don't they all), but it is hard to complain when you are in paradise!  I can't wait for the Bahamas, and hope that many of you can make it out also!

So with as much cheese as possible...allow me to present to you...PCA Canada Cup preparations! 

Video Release Day: Poker, Slo-pitch & the "Fat Cat"

The day my slo-pitch team has been waiting for is here!

Earlier this year, I was presented with the opportunity to have my ‘story’ filmed and published for the poker world (and I suppose, anyone else who may randomly happen upon my video).  I was super excited and equally nervous at the thought of being interviewed and being recorded.  Some people are naturals when it comes to being in the public eye and expressing themselves, but I am not sure I belong in that group.  

So you can imagine, that my nerves weren’t settled too much as the crew set up their gear in my living room.  

Thankfully, the guys were wonderful, and kept me laughing.  The sound guy even wound up making a bit of a cameo...can you spot him?  A special thanks to Ryan, Greg and Mike for all their work!  It certainly wasn’t the nicest weekend to visit Edmonton.  This video will give you a glimpse into my life, from poker, to working as an Occupational Therapist, to after hours fun!

Here it is...the moment many have been waiting for....drum roll please!  

So after watching the video, I hope you have had a good laugh or two, even if it was at my expense.  I think it is important not to take yourself too seriously! 

....Get Set....

The VPP race continues for me from now until the end of the year.  Last updated October 10th.  As I sign out for the night tonight, I have 166,628.08 VPPs....33,371.92 to go to get my next Milestone Cash Credit. 

Brag:  Will be great to get, just in time for the Bahamas baby!  :)

Canada Cup, Januar-eh Nine and Bonus Brags

Woke up early (10am) yesterday morning and got to a yoga class as quickly as I could.  I had been during the week but other than that, very neglectful.  Class ended at 1140, giving me just enough time to get home, showered and ready to start my tournaments.  I have really tried to focus more on cash games, but the weekend tournaments are such good value and hard to stay away from.  Quickly registered in the Women's Sunday, the Sunday Million, the Daily Bigs and some PCA/Canada Cup satellites.  Things did not go well.  It felt like I had a bounty on my head in each (of course in the Women's I did...), which is a good thing, but I was falling prey to two and three outers galore. 

The Canada Cup opened up....and I tried to leave everything else behind me.  As always, easier said than done, but a double up KK vs QQ put me in a better mood.  I will have to review my hand histories, but after that I didn't have many show downs that stick out in my memory.  Just tried to gather small amounts of chips whenever other players were leaving them lying around.  I especially got to make my move at the cash bubble, chipping up from 28k to almost 60k without a showdown, it was a great hour or so.  Once in the money, there was no question....final table was where I needed to be. 

The rest is history...

The incentives offered by PokerStars are awesome.  Hotel, flight, spending money in the Bahamas, not to mention....whoever ships this tournament gets to freeroll the 25k high roller tournament.  I get really excited just thinking about potential! I slept only for an hour or so last night, will have to get over that ASAP. 

So, now I have the "Januar-eh Nine" in my sights, and have some fun preparation work to do because I have every intention of showing this field how an Edmonton girl plays poker.  I will dust off a spot on my mantle for the trophy.  Stay tuned....I will show you how I train!

Then....as if I wasn't already pumped, Ryan shipped the last WSOP Circuit even in Hammond!  Now he has a big old ring to show off!

He was there today, in large part because our favorite....Eric was working at shipping the Main Event, unfortunately, it wasn't to be today, but 4th prize and a six figure score will be a decent consolation!

These guys have set the bar high...but I am so pumped and ready to crush my own final table....just a few more months...

Hopefully, I get some sleep tonight.  

Tick Tock Tick Tock....

Every so often, PokerStars will run a tournament on a trial basis and a few weeks ago I found myself playing one of them to give it a try as the concept really appealed to me.  It was a $2 turbo that lasted only 30 minutes.  I have fun in tournaments that employ different strategies, whether it is the game type (split pot, 8 game, etc.), the structure (turbos, deep stack, etc.) or now the hard stop of a tournament.  In these timed tournaments, you could see many different styles of play coming together, including the player who was quickly gambling and trying to amass all the chips for the impending chop (these tournaments pay out according to the size of each players stack), the player who was taking their time for every decision (trying to hang on to min cash) and the player who was playing a bit more cautiously recognizing that building a table image had less value.  

In my opinion, one of the greatest drawbacks of tournaments can be the uncertainty of when it will end.  Grinding tournaments can be tough on your social life, it is hard to commit to a set time for anything, whether dinner, a movie, or a sporting event!  These Time Tourneys give you the fun of a big multi table tournament, without having to commit your whole evening to poker.  It is also nice to be able to get a good nights sleep before heading off to work in the morning!  Needless to say, I am happy that the trial of this style of tournament was a success and that Time Tourneys will now be in the regular schedule at PokerStars.  

Look for these tournaments in the lobby, they will run for a varied amount of time (from a minimum of 15 minutes to a maximum of 180 minutes) at which time the payouts are established based on stack size of the remaining players.  You can give this tournament a try, for as little as $1, they are most easily found by looking under the “Tourney” tab, they have a little stop watch icon, or you can use the Tourney Filter at the bottom to find them.  

If you can, make a deposit of $30 or more and use the code “TIME” until October 21rst and PokerStars will give you one ticket for a $5.50 Time Tourney Ticket that can be used until 23:59 EST on October 21rst.  

These tournaments are a perfect addition to the lineup, and will suit so many recreational players, or in general people who lead busy lives that want to play tournaments, but can’t commit 8 hours (or longer) to a session.  If you are allotted two hours to play some poker on a weekend....be sure to look at the newest addititon to the Saturday Line-Up, it’s a $22 Time Tourney (two hours total) that will fire up every Saturday starting at 13:00 EST.   The prize pool is a guaranteed $10,000 (check it out on the 22nd...for a DOUBLE guarantee)...so come get whatever piece your stack is worth after two hours!  

As always, if you have any questions get in touch with support@pokerstars.

Supernova Dinner - Edmonton style

Something happened last week.  I had heard of it happening before, just never had the opportunity to partake in the fun!

I opened my email in September and there it was, an email from a man named Rich, the VIP representative for PokerStars in western Canada.  He was coming into town in early October and wanted to know if I would like to join him and other Supernova players on PokerStars for an evening out....on PokerStars (of course).  

As a member of Team Online as well as Supernova, Rich allowed me to pick where we would eat.  This gave me some trouble, there are some great places to eat in Edmonton, but would what appealed to me be suitable for the other Supernova guests??  So I went with the safe choice of Ruth's Chris.  In Alberta, a steak house has to appeal to most!  

We arrived and were escorted down to a private meeting room, with vault type doors.  The table composition was interesting, the players who had been able to join us for the night were a multi table tournament player (with affinity for the turbos and hyper-turbos), a heads up sit and go player, a limit hold em player and myself.  

With a table like this, Rich had his work cut out for him, but he kept the conversation going and it was really interesting to hear how each player got their start in poker, WSOP adventures, plans for PCA, thoughts on Black Friday, 2+2 and other sites.  

Rich asked us each what we thought PokerStars could do to be a better site and what kinds of promotions attracted us.  It was nice to know that our opinions counted as he wrote down every suggestion/comment and even talked a bit about the ideas that came out of the dinner he hosted earlier that week in Calgary.  

I didn't take any pictures that night....protect the identities of these Superheroes, but I did catch a few screen names.  So in lieu of pictures, I figured I would attach some pictures of the foods we sampled.  Everything was really incredible!

 

Stuffed mushroom caps, onion rings....

 

Soups and salads...oh my!

Followed my entrees of steaks with decadent sides....

Who could then resist chocolate pieces of heaven?

If this isn't incentive enough for you to work towards Supernova....I am not sure what would be!

Oh yes....by the way Rich, thanks for letting me pick the bottle of wine, and for not cringing when the waitress said "Oh wow....you picked a really good bottle of wine", it was wonderful down to the last drop!

On your marks....

I was reviewing my VPPs for the year and trying to examine how quickly I am accumulating them.

I will make a push for 200,000 VPPs this year.  As of today at 11:40 MST (lol) I have 145,579.77 VPPs, so will have my work cut out for me....but there is a bonus of $2,600 at the VIP store waiting for me when I get there! 

:)

Team Online Freerolls!

For any friends or family that don't have PokerStars accounts, they are running a great promo at the moment.  If you sign up under me, you get a chance at a free tournament every month (the first Sunday at 10 am MST) where there is a bounty on my head and free money added to the prize pool by PokerStars. 

So come support me and my new adventures in Pokerland!

World Championship of Online Poker...Events 30 & 31

Wednesday morning my alarm goes off (at 3:30am)....and like every other morning I somehow manage to hit snooze without actually regaining consciousness.  I am a proficient sleeper.  I eventually half waken to my boyfriend asking me what time it is.

4:45am

Shit.  I have been getting blinded out for 45 minutes.  Grab my laptop and open both eyes.  I was so excited for this event, the $265 NL Omaha H/L.  In the last year, I have really become fascinated with NL O8 (you can usually find me playing the $33 NLO8 at 5pm locally, or the $51 hyper turbos later in the evening).

The event did not go as planned, my stack was crippled when I shoved with two pair (no low on the board) vs a player I am familiar with, who had aces.  The river paired the board and it wasn't one of mine.  I busted shortly thereafter, not sure if I made the end of late registration. 

I was extremely disappointed. Not to mention feeling sorry for myself. 

I sulked upstairs and got ready to head to work.   As I was coming back down the stairs, I heard the PokerStars alerts ringing.  I forgot that I had played a ~500 fpp round 1 satellite (for the 8 game) and had advanced to round 2 where the buy in was 2400 fpps.

I love playing these fpp satellites both for the value and for the practice at each of the games, they are an inexpensive warm up and get you thinking about the game you are about to play. I also really like 8 game, my first exposure to it was a WSOP event in 2010.  In my first 2-7 TD hand, I made the nuts, and I was hooked. 

Winning the round 2 sent me into the $107+$9 satellite which then advanced me into Event 31.  (As it turns out, I registered for a 2k fpp satellite to the event, and won that also).    The $320 8 Game tournament was already well under way and I couldn't unregister....so I picked up my phone and sheepishly called work to see if they needed me to come in at all.  Thankfully my coworkers had everything managed and I got the green light to play on.

Thanks girls, it was well worth it! 

This certainly wasn't how I had imagined my day going, but it ended up working out in the end. While I would have loved to take down the bracelet, it felt very satisfying to make my first major final table as a member of Poker Stars Team Online. I hadn't quite realized how much extra pressure I had been putting on myself since I signed this deal.

Being an 8 game event meant that there was not a lack of interesting spots. I will review some hand histories from the tournament, either in video or text format sometime in the next few days.

It's Almost WCOOP Time!!!

In the poker world, August is one of my least favorite months. It can often be a struggle for me to get back to the reality of a day job after the WSOP. This year, the WCOOP is on the horizon with the promise of 62 events and at least $30 million dollars in prize pool money. This makes my shift back to reality less of a burden.

I have always been a dreamer, and WCOOP certainly gives me room to imagine...so many players will have their lives changed over the course of a day (or two) in ways they may have only fantasized about. You don't even have to get out of your pajamas!

Read the rest of this post on the Poker Stars Blog

Summer Fun!

For August long weekend, we packed into my car and drove 10 hours to Peachland (just outside of Kelowna, BC).  It is by far one of the most beautiful places to visit and home to some of my best friends.  The weekend was perfect and relaxing, great food, boating, wine and sun. 

To end our water day on the Saturday (we had swam, surfed, wakeboarded, and enjoyed some sodas), we headed to a 'sweet jumping spot'.  Heights are definitely not something I enjoy, but I do love the water.  Fueled by liquid courage, peer pressure and perhaps some sun stroke, I joined my friends in the climb up the cliff - at least it will make a good video right?  The toughest thing about the climb was avoiding the cacti - they were vicious!

After that climb, there was no way I was walking back down....here's the video of the jump (rated M for language and heavy breathing).

The next day was the Red Spade Open on PokerStars, so got my laptop fired up, the hookah fired up and some wine.  A few others in the house jumped into the tournament also to see if they could get my bounty...would have been a great story but another random player got it that time. 

 Was a great weekend, can't imagine much better....I love summer.

A transition?

I got word today that my request to go part time at the hospital was approved....effective September 12th, I will be working less...well 20% less.  I am really excited!  Just in time for the WCOOP on PokerStars too...player of the series sounds good to me!  It means that I will hopefully have more time to travel and fulfill more of my 2011 goals.

With the signing of my contract, I have found myself to be insanely busy between poker, work and life.   I want to dedicate more time to working on and playing poker. 

Also....stay tuned for some sweet videos and pictures from my weekend in Peachland.  I'll slowly get the hang of this technology thing!

:)

Home Invasion.... (nm they were invited)

Along with having me join Team Online, PokerStars is having a mini video documentary made of me.  The filming took place this week, thankfully I was done with with post WSOP blues!  People who are regularly in front of the camera make it look so easy!  I wasn't nervous until I saw all the gear come out, then I became fidgety and anxious. 

The video will give you a peek in to my life, my work and most importantly my fun!  The highlight of my day (and when I felt most at east) was in the evening at my slo-pitch game.  They were able to interview my best friend and some of my teammates, about poker and life.  I think the crew will have their hands full editing the evening portion with my ball team.  We know how to party and usually can play ball fairly proficiently, but it looked mostly like a blooper reel until the cameras went away! 

Some of the team...

Either way....the video should give you a glimpse of what my life is like and the balance between working at poker and a 'real' job!

The crew was terrific (thanks Ryan, Mike and Greg) and now it is in their hands to polish up all my rough edges!

Here is a sample of some of their work...my teammate Nanonoko...somehow I think our videos will be a bit different, both for poker and leisure!

Stay tuned....this week is the photo shoot!!

Video Blogging

Yikes....posted a video blog last night, first one ever.  A bit strange but hopefully will get better as time goes by!

July 7, 2011....What a day!

 Cheese!

So...I had a secret.  It was a big one.  I am not great at keeping my secrets as my friends know.  But finally, it was announced that I was to be the newest member of Team Online at PokerStars. 

This is really a culmination of a dream I have been dreaming for a number of years, since I started playing online poker.   Then, at the beginning of 2011, I realized that I was coasting in poker, it has always been a game that I have been good at and at times have just played on auto pilot.   So, I focused and here we are.

I look forward to the opportunities and the challenges that I will face this year as a poker player and as a representative on PokerStars team.  I love meeting players, and am just back from WSOP, so on a total high.  I met Omaha/8b players that I only knew from online before, I met and re-met poker reporters, got to party at the 2+2 Pokercast party with the Pokercast guys and many 2+2 members, some that I had met before and others that were new faces.  Heading to the WSOP is always a highlight of my summer, like going back to a summer camp for adults!

As a member of Team Online, I want to show people (both existing and new players) that poker can be worked into an awesome and healthy lifestyle.  I have made the choice to work outside of poker since 2002, while this isn't for everyone, it has been the nuts for me.  Poker has given me many opportunities and benefits over the last nine years and I look forward to my 10th year in the game. 

Take care everyone and come find me at the tables!!!!

Links about the signing and my bio:
http://bit.ly/talonchick
http://bit.ly/rowsome

WSOP 2011 - round 2

I hate packing.

So I have found the time to write a quick note!  I am headed back to Las Vegas tomorrow afternoon.  On my slate is Event 51 $1500 plo8 and if that doesn't go well the ladies event (Event 53).  I plan to play as much cash as possible in between and potentially the 5k plo8 (Event 57).  I am stoked to find out that the Rio has yoga at the spa on weekends....so much nicer than going to find a center. 

I hope to go see the Price is Right game show and have time for some great dinners.  Then also the 2+2 pokercast party at the Wynn on July 7th.  I am sure this trip will fly by as they all do, hopefully I get to see my name in lights, and maybe....hear the Canadian anthem played just for me. 

Namaste. 

Time flies...

Today marks my 9th anniversary at my current job.  Officially, the longest time I have worked somewhere.  I get the luxury of truly meaning it when I tell you that I love my job.  Parts of it make me want to scream and shake people, but that happens in every day life too I guess!  Ultimately, nothing can replace the feeling I get when I help a patient or a family through a life changing event, whether it is a trauma, an illness or a loss. 

I have the best crew that I work with and it makes all the difference.  I have traveled with coworkers (to the Caribbean, taken some to Vegas, to NY and DC) and often spend time away from work with them, hell even my slo pitch team stems from the hospital.

Here's a cheezy little OT rap...had some fun checking out youtube for all the OT vs PT and OT vs nursing videos...but I already argued with one nurse today so I thought I would put something non offensive! :)

Despite all this, I feel a change is coming...it would be too easy to just coast along for the next 10 years.  I submitted a request to go part time for now, to see if with the extra time I can pursue a bit more poker travel or another adventure in Occupational Therapy...we'll see if that gets approved!! Fingers crossed!

Have a great weekend everyone!