Poker and March Madness as I like to call it Mattster Madness

On the poker front, haven't played since last Monday night. I decided to play tonight and it looked like it would be an impressive night, but it ended ugly. First tourney I played was the Tilt 163 in which I lost a big pot with KK vs 33 all in pre flop and never got anything going after that. I busted there against a manaic with KK vs AT all in on a flop of AQJ. Anyone else at the table I lay it down but he was playing super aggresive. In the stars 162 I lost AA vs 66 all in preflop and the flop came Q86....turn A.....river you guessed it the 6 ball. That is something you don't see everyday. In the stars 22 rebuy I got KT vs 88 all in preflop in a blind battle for a huge stack and the board ran off KJx....turn x....river 8. The Full tilt 33 rebuy was the tourney I was cruising in, winning a couple of key flips and got AQ all in vs A4 on a AJT flop for a monster 2-1 chiplead with 30 left or so. From there I kind of went card dead but was still chipleader with 10 left. Thats when I raised A9o on the button and the BB who I believe was second in chips called. The flop came out 942 with 2 diamonds. He checked, and I led into the pot and he instantly raises me, I end up shoving in and he snaps with AT of diamonds and he hits the flush on the turn. I only ended up with 7 BB and shoved Q9o and ran into his QQ. That tourney was 7700+ to win and 10th paid a whopping 371. So not a good day on the poker front.

March Madness as you all know started up last Thursday. I like to call it Mattster Madness as his setup is the best I've ever seen. He has a 50 inch(I believe) screen as his main TV, than has 4 32 inch TVs above it. So you get to watch all 4 games plus have the most exciting game on the big screen. I ended up getting drilled this weekend betting games and losing 900 in 3 days. Not a very good weekend and I doubt I bet anymore games. Also, I drank way too much this weekend and it was all a blur. I don't remember anything that happened in the IU/Arkansas game at all basically. The weekend was pretty fun though nontheless and can't wait for this time of the year to come again.

On a side note, me and mattster are not going to be moving to vegas for the summer as we were talking about which is fine with me. I think I'm going to go out for about a 2 week span though and play some of the venetian events. Also, I just found out last week I'm going to Alabama for a week to play golf. It's going to be a week after WSOP Indiana and I could use the relaxation part of it, until I shank my driver off the tee on the first hole of the trip. Also, I have decided to take time off from online poker until after WSOP Indiana. I just think I need to have my mind cleared for the live play. WSOP Indiana starts on April 1st and I'll keep ya updated after each tournament I play. Hopefully I'll be bringing back some hardware. Well it's getting late, cya later.

Poker and Basketball

Well I was writing a blog last night and my internet disconnected. I was just about done as I was writing my last sentence, so yeah that sucked. Anyways I decided to play last night and it paid off with a 3rd place finish in the full tilt 33 rebuy which paid right at 3k. I was very disappointed though as I was chipleader with 5 left with a pretty good lead. I lost a coinflip to the guy who ended up winning the tourney. He also won 87o vs my QQ all in preflop 11 handed to stay alive. I played in a couple of other tournies last night but nothing good happened. I also played tonight and built some monster stacks and took some pretty sick beats. I lost AA vs KK all in preflop in the stars 109 where I would of been double average. I also lost AK vs K6 all in on a J97 where guy had flush draw and he got there in the 69 at full tilt. I cashed one tourney tonight where it didn't pay much at all and that was the stars 50k where I busted out 30th. That tourney was over 10k to win tonight. I lost AJ vs TT all in preflop for around 38 BB. I will probably play some more tommorow and take the rest of the week off for NCAA tournament. I also have an NCAA auction to go to on wednesday night so I won't be playing than either.

I don't know what the NCAA selection committee is smoking but geezus what are they thinking. Not sure how you put Arizona at a 10 seed let alone even making the tournament. They have a 19-14 record with an 8-10 record in their conference. I don't see how you can give a team an at large big with a losing record in your conference. Also, really not sure how Miami(fla) is a 7 seed and IU is an 8 seed. Also, Wisconsin gets hosed by somehow getting a 3 seed where I thought they should of gotten the 2 seed over Texas or Duke. But the NCAA loves Duke more than Dick Vitale. I hope they make the run and dominate the tournament as they get no respect. Guess winning the big ten conference and the big ten tournament doesn't mean anything. They put Xavier at a 3 seed also, who can't even win the A-10 tournament. Well it's getting late, cya later.

Belterra Live Tourney

I woke up today around noon after 5 hours of sleep. I woke up and took a shower and just decided to watch NCAA basketball today. I also watched the movie Bachelor Party 2. I thought it was alright, and I'll probably never watch it again. It had a couple of funny parts where I laughed pretty hard, but other than that it's the type of movie you thought it would be. Had lots of nudity(which is always a plus lol) and some parts that were pretty stupid. The plan for the day was to hang out and than play online all night. Well around 4 Joby messages me on AIM and asks if I want to go to Belterra to play in there Thursday tourney which is a 55+10+5 buyin. I usually would instantly say no, but I had nothing else to do and was not in the mood to grind online all night so I ended up going. The extra 5 to the buyin is a bonus type thing there doing for there WSOP Main Event Freeroll in June(which I had no idea it was). I believe it's a 60 or 70 person freeroll and there giving 2 seats away to the Main Event this year. The winner of tonights tourney gets a seat into the freeroll so that was some extra incentive to go.

We got there around 6:30 just in time for me to sign up for a players card and to register for the tournament. The tourney ended up getting 43 players which I guess that is considered a good turnout. First place was only $645. I was really disappointed as Joby had told me it would be around 1k to win. Joby, Jeff(another guy who went with us), and I all started out at the same table. I think I played around the first 20 pots to try to get a big stack early or bust. Well I never got anything going in the first stage of the tourney and was left with 2300 at 1st break out of the 4k in which you start with. Blinds were going to 100-200 and I figured I would be out in the first 10 minutes after break. Well I stacked that 2300 up to 5500 without ever seeing a turn card. I ended up getting moved to another table. The blind structure by the way was maybe the worst I have ever seen, but what do you expect when you play in a 55 buyin. I had around 5200 in chips when I pick up KK utg+1 and decide to limp as I wanted to get paid. The BB ends up raising it up to 1600 and I instantly shove it in, he snaps me with AQ and I get it to hold. Not much really happened after that and the blinds got up really fast. I blinded down to 7k at the start of the 1k-2k level with around 14 players left, top 5 paid. That is when I started my run. I went from 7k to 30k without ever looking at my cards. The table was so tight and everyone was just trying to cash. I was shoving blind the whole time, but made it look like I was looking at them. Well we got to the final table with me still having around 30k which was a good stack as there was only 172k chips in play. Blinds still at 1k-2k, I open 88 in mp and get called in 2 spots. Flop comes 982 with 2 clubs, and the BB checks and I instantly snap shove, making it look like I didn't want action. First caller mucks and the BB snaps me with J9 with the J clubs, turn comes club to bring him flush draw but fortunately he bricked. This boosted me up to 70k with only 8 left. I started raising and shoving every hand until the bubble bursted. I couldn't believe how noone would play back at me. We finally got into the money and pretty much cruised to the win. Big payday of $645.00 lol. The whole time I was like oh well, I'll get to come back and play in that freeroll. Well the guy told me the date of the freeroll and I'll miss it if I move to Vegas for the summer with Matt. Oh well, It was pretty fun nonetheless and it could of been worse. This will probably be my last post until Monday as I don't plan on playing any poker at all and relaxing this weekend. But there is still a good chance I might play on Sunday night after my fantasy baseball draft. I'll let ya know how my team turns out. Well I'm starting to ramble now, cya later.

Poker and Golf

I started out playing some tournies today at 2. Nothing went real well at all. I built some stacks again to only see them disappear late. I bricked every tourney I played in the afternoon. The weather was beatiful outside compared to what is has been, so me and sterling decided to hit the links. We ended up playing about 5 holes and I don't think I hit the ball too bad for the first time out, but Matt dominated and had 3 pars out of the 5 holes we played. Good thing we weren't betting anything because I would of gotten crushed. After golf, I came home and got some dinner and decided to fire up some tournies this evening. Started off pretty bad, and than all of a sudden I built a huge stack in the full tilt 163. I was sitting top 10 basically from 100 down to around 30. Then a guy open shoves 17.5 BB from the cutoff and I wake up with AK in the sb and call. He flips up 22 and it holds vs me. Very sickening. I ended up chipping back up before I got all in with 64 aka the k-rock vs AQ on a A32 flop with 2 of my suit. I didn't get there and I couldn't beleive it as 64 as really never let me down. I ended up busting 19th basically doubling my money and 1st place was 21k tonight. I also busted in the money in the 11pm 109 buyin with JJ vs.AK all in preflop but not a very big cash. Well as I was deep in that I built up a pretty good stack in the 22 rebuy. I ran pretty good deep in this and got lucky a couple of times. I ended up getting heads up vs the guy who had over a 3-1 advantage. We probably played for 30-45 minutes and I could never get anything going. That 2nd place finish was good for 5.3k though, as first was 8.6k. So what turned out to be a bad day ended up being a really good day for me.

I ended up renting No Country for Old Men and Bachelor Party 2. I watched No Country for Old Men last night, but haven't gotten the opportunity to watch Bachelor Party 2 yet. No Country for Old Men was a pretty good movie, except I couldn't figure out why it ended the way it did. It was very strange and I have to say I didn't like the ending as most people would probably agree. But for the most part I recommend you watching it. I'm a big Tommy Lee Jones fan even though he wasn't in it as much as I thought he would be, he played a great role. I also watched the movie Chaos which probably had more twists in it than any movie I've ever watched. I thought it had poor acting and speical effects though. But this movie kept you guessing on who did what or why this was happening. I'll probably watch Bachelor Party 2 during the day tommorow as I plan on playing poker tommorow night.

My favorite 4 day stretch is almost there. March Madness tips off next Tuesday night, but the real tournament starts on Thursday. I'll probably be doing some betting on some games and I'll post on here who I will pick and what amounts. Sports betting is really interesting to me and I love to study it. I can't remember the last time I actually placed a bet. I just like to study lines and see who I would pick in certain games that I like and see how it turns out. But hopefully I can make some extra cash during the tournament. Also, found out yesterday I'll be going to the Kentucky Oaks and the Derby this year. I went to the Oaks last year and it was an amazing time. Anyone who has never been for these two events should really go, you won't regret it. If you have never been to Churchill downs, than your missing out there too. Well its gettin late, cya later

Long Day, no good results

I woke up around 12 today and was feeling pretty good. I took a shower and got ready to start my tournies up at 2. I started out with some good stacks it seemed like in every tourney. I went really deep again in the stars 50k, which I ended up bustin 28th. The bad thing about this tourney though was that I gave away my chips on a misclick. My first ever misclick that deep into a tourney and it might of ended up being over an 11k mistake. The tourney was 11.7k to win and I only ended up cashing for less than 200 bucks. I also ran QQ into AA deep into the 22 single rebuy single addon at pokerstars and busted out around 25th I believe. I ended up cashing 3 tournaments in the afternoon but none of them worth mentioning as they were all small cashes. I kept playing through the night schedule and bricked out until I played the 11 rebuy 55k starting at 10pm which I just busted out. I ran JJ into QQ with 36 left for the chiplead and only ended up gettin around 120 bucks back for the cash, when that tournament was over 11k to win. I put in over 12 hours today and didn't make any money. Kind of frustrating to have the stacks I had today but couldn't get the big score. Also, today ended my non final table streak, as I had made a final table the last 3 times I played. Tommorow is a new day of poker though, but I probably won't put in near the day that I did today. There is a couple of movies coming out tommorow that I really want to see. I'll be renting No Country for Old Men and Bachelor Party 2 I think it is. I'll let ya know if they are any good or not. Well it's gettin late, cya later.

Late night last night leads to little poker today.

A couple of friends and I went out to eat and to drink a few beers at Chilis last night. The beer went down pretty good so I got the brilliant idea of talking them into going to another place after we left there, which ended up being bubbas. Stayed there and watched the UNC/Duke game and was joined by another friend. After the game, we decided to head to Crossroads, such a bad idea, lol. I can't remember how long we stayed as I was out of it. It was a pretty good time, just sucks waking up with the massive headache. Ended up sleeping til 4 and really didn't want to wake up at that time.

After taking a shower, eating, and taking some advil I fired up some tournies on stars and tilt. I bricked my first four tournies and ended up gettin 8th in the 22 rebuy for like $668. I got AJ all in preflop vs K7 for 32BB and couldn't get it to hold. The last 3 final tables I've been at I cannot win a coinflip or a 60/40. That would of put me in pretty good shape to possibly win the tourney. Oh well, I guess there is always more tournies starting up every minute anymore.

Thank god I didn't wake up in time to see Indiana get beat by Penn St. This game is going to hurt them so much when the tournament seedings are out, unless maybe they can win the big ten tourney, but the way there playing I don't see that happening at all. I'm hoping the hoosiers can nab rick pitino for there next head coach. Well just have to wait and see.

I plan on putting in a good amount of volume this week. I say that to myself everyweek but I really would like to play a ton this week and really the rest of the month as Indiana wsop is the first of April. I'm going to try to start playing at 2 tommorow and play through the night. Also, I talked to mattster about the possibility of renting a house in vegas for wsop this summer. I think it would be a good expierence for me. I would probably play the venetian events everyday while out there, which I've heard attract pretty good prizepools. Well it's gettin late, cya later

First Blog, A little about myself

Hi everyone, My name is Karec "K-Rock" Terrell. I'm a 24 year old professional poker player from Brownstown, IN. I have been playing poker for over 10 years now, only 2 full-time. It really has its pros and cons, but I think the pros outwheigh the cons. I've been traveling quite a bit over the last 6 months, which is really nice to get away from Indiana during the winter time. I play online at pokerstars and full tilt where my username is K-Rock2525 at both sites. I'm usually on there up to 3-5 days and up to 40 hours a week. I'm trying to get myself into a routine where I know what hours of each day I'll play. I'm also going to try to update this blog after every daily session that I play. Well that about wraps it up, cya around.