Where we last left off I was almost headed up to Commerce during LAPC main event. It was, as expected, quite the zoo.  I played some 100/200 in surprisingly good games before scrambling to find a place to sleep since Commerce was sold out. Thanks LA friends for sheltering me! After a nice 2 hour nap on my second night I woke at 4 am to get to the airport to head to Seattle and meet the DC boys. Seattle was freaking cold and raining the whole time, but nice to get some work done and almost see some authentic winter weather.

After two short days I headed back to LA, wishing I were headed straight home, but instead relegated to another day of gambling at Commerce because I had Lakers tickets the next night in LA and it didn't make sense to drive back to San Diego and head right back up. Tough life I know. I headed straight to Commerce, calling ahead to a friend who put me on the list for 400/800 triple draw. I get there just as I get a seat in the game, and I scramble to sell pieces of myself and get some cash together since its apparently a super good game. I sell off a bunch of action and buy in and as I'm sitting down someone at the table says "just so you know we are playing badugi" and I go "ORLY" and then notice the dealer is dealing out 5 cards. I say "haha good joke" and he goes "no really we are playing BADEUCI" which I mis-heard the first time.

For those that don't know Badeuci is a split pot game, played as 5 card triple draw but splitting the pot between the best badugi hand (2345r is the nuts) and the best triple draw hand. I had played it once prior in my life, at low stakes. I quickly go confer with main backer and tell him I am less confident in Badeuci than straight TDL but I figure no one else has a clue either (turns out I am near correct). We decide to probably just stop if we lose 20k instead of being prepared to go 40k deep like we were – sick life. I get started and immediately realize the game is great, a couple guys are straddling multiple times per orbit because normally the game can only be dealt 6 handed, so at this 8 handed table UTG and UTG+1 have to sit out, but we agree if either straddles we will deal them in and deal it 7 handed. Genius.

I run good and make a few hands and overall feel like I have a good grasp on the right hands to play and draw at, though its too soon to be sure, but I luck out with a nice 20kish win, which I promptly deliver to backers like Santa Claus – selling pieces of yourself is weird in that way but certainly I was glad to get the experience in the game and make my friends happy. The next day I just played some  more 100/200 and went to the basketball game before thankfully heading home to put an end to a long trip that spanned a few cities.

Upon getting home I found out my desktop computer committed suicide, and it took multiple days to recover the vital data off the hard drive and get my laptop up to speed with everything I need just to get through the day   Not fun.

Been home and back to "normal" mostly doing programming work ever since, and tomorrow I head back up to LA to fly directly to Austin for South by Southwest (www.sxsw.com), will report on that when I return!