Scott Diamond

It has been a good start for the the month of March for me. As my birthday is in March it is one of my favorite months of the year. The winter is behind us and here in California everything is green from the winter rains. In a months time the hillsides will be brown from all the heat and our yards will have to be watered every day to stay green.

While I am on the subject of green, I should talk about the "Winning of the Green" tournament series going on at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens.

Sunday was event #12 a NL Holdem Tournament with a $335.00 buy in. I wasn't going to play in this event because I had been up until midnight the night before with the Xterminators Poker Crew March qualifying tournament at fellow members house, Paul Valencia. I made the final table there and took 4th after a runner runner Full house beat my flush. So I left for home right after because the clocks were being moved up an hour for daylight savings time and I had to be in briefing at 5am. This gave me only 2 1/2 hours sleep.

I was pretty tired and another Xterminators member Josh Nichols called me as I was leaving work and said 5 of the Crew would be playing in todays event and I should join them. Jon,Bryan,Josh,Paul and Dave were already there and I should come. I told Josh how tired I was and started heading home. My wife called and told me she was going to take the girls and go visit her Mom so the house would be nice a and quiet for me to take a nap.

I turned the radio off in my truck and was enjoying the peace and quiet. I listen to a Police radio all day,drive with my windows down so I can hear whats going on around me when I am in my patrol car and it is nice to be able to have some peace and quiet while driving home.

As I came up on the 710 freeway,where you need to go towards the Bike. I made a last minute turn and decided to go down and see how the guys were doing. I arrived about ten minutes before the start of the tournament and for some unknown reason I bought in. There were 277 players entered and first place was going to be around $30,000 plus it was kind of cool to see 5 other crew members playing.

The Le family (Nam Le) were all there today and I was with his brother Leroy most of the evening. It seemed every time the table I was at broke Leroy and I got assigned to the same table. I have to tell you, I gave Leroy a new nickname this weekend,"Nine Lives Leroy" he survived some tough beats all day and when we got down to the money he was left with ONE 500 chip and turned it into 14,000 chips within a few minutes. All of the Le family I have met and have had the privilege to play poker with are quality people. They are very personable and have a quality in them every family tries to instill in their children.

The top 27 made the money in this event and my fellow Xterminators Bryan and Jon finished 22nd and 24th. Bryan was knocked out when his AA lost to 88 when an 8 hit the flop. It was a great showing and they both are extremely good poker players.

I had a little more luck then they did. I layed down some big hands during this tournament and I played a little bit different then normal. My reading ability seemed to be right on today and I also played my position a lot tougher today. I had the opportunity to cripple the eventual winner of this tournament. Charles Dolin a 21 year old cousin of Nams Family and Tim Pham's nephew. I had 10-10 in early position and instead of limping with it like a normally do out of position I fired in a raise of three times the big blind plus a little more,2500 chips. Charles ended up re raising me 8500 chips as he is a very very aggressive player. He tried staring me down before making the raise,but one of my abilities do to my job is I can stare you down and not blink an eye. Its something I learned over my years of being a cop. Criminals like to try and stare you down in order to intimidate you. It's some sort of ego thing with them. I never look away in a stare down!

Another aggressive player to the left of Charles was an Asian women who decided to put her last 5500 chips in the pot. I folded my 10-10 after showing it to Charles. I pulled some reverse psychology on him by showing him the cards and telling him Next time I will not lay a hand down against him. Well he turns over AK and the Asian lady turns over A-6 and the flop is 3-10-7. Charles just looked at me and I smiled and winked at him. This hand would of crippled Charles stack if I had played it and given me a pretty good size stack also.

Eventually Charles and I ended up at the final table together and he was very aggressive with his huge chip stack. But he stayed away from my raises and I was card dead at the final table after coming in 4th in chips with about 58,000. The blinds were 6,000-3,000 with a 1000 ante and I look down at KK on the button and go all in. The pot had about 30,000 chips in it and I only had 36,000 left. Well the big blind had AA and with 3 spades on the flop and I having the only spade I had more outs then AA,but no spade or King came and I finished in 6th place.

It was 3:50 am and I had to be at work at 5am again. The fatigue was setting in just thinking about having to go to work with no sleep. I only had to work 6 hours today because of a Dental appointment but I made it and went to the Dentist for 2 1/2 hours of work and was in bed by 6:00pm Monday night. I slept 11 hours and am recharged now.

It was a good weekend for a change and the style of poker I played this weekend I hope continues. I may go play the $545.00 event today since I won $2,820.00 the other night. I will play one satellite possibly,but I want to see how many entries there are before deciding to play. If not, I am playing Saturdays $335.00 buy in for Sure.

Its nice to make the money and final tables in events. I have learned though not to let this affect my game. Some individuals get a little big headed when they go deep in tourneys and think they have to every event they play.

Just as getting beat and having to forget about it as you enter the next one,you have to enter the next event fresh. Its nice to have some confidence in yourself after a good showing but I keep it within myself and take each new event on whether I cashed or lost in the previous one I played. You are only as good of a poker player if you can keep your ego in check because as we all know the swings in Poker are enormous and for me I am just blessed to be able to play with some great people day in and day out.

Take care and Be Safe!!