Scott Diamond

I know I said i was not going back to Commerce Casino. I still had 2 satellite chips to use and it was Friday here in Los Angeles and the traffic on the freeway is horrendous. Coupled with my family going to the opening day of the LA County Fair,I stopped off at Commerce which is 5 minutes from my station and decided to enter the $225.00 NL event.

I sat down at table 5 seat 6 and a 2 time bracelet winner, Frankie Odell and another established pro,Mickey "Mouse" Mills were at my table.

Again I am down to 875 chips after another player chased a straight to the river,risking his tournament, after I flopped a set of sixes. Mickey raises the next hand to 300 when the blinds were at 50-25 and I have 99. I put the rest of my chips in and Micky calls with AK. The flop has a King and I get up out of my chair and extend my hand to Micky who is one of the "Gentleman" of Poker as the dealer puts a 9 on the turn.

So from here I go on a rush of cards flopping a Full House in two hands that double me up both times and I flop Quad sevens in Level 4 and one player chased a flush and now I am up to 8500 chips.

I as usual go card dead and in level 9 with only 5700 in chips I have AK. Under the gun raises to 3000 and I go all in. Two other players go all in and the original raiser calls.

Original raiser.AJ second all in, QJ third all in QQ and me AK.The pot is 27,000 and the flop is A-K-J turn is a 7 and the river is a 4.This was a great pot for me and I had AA as my only playable hand for two more levels.

The blinds are now 3000-1500 and a 500 ante and I only have 16,000 chips left.My Big Blind and I have JJ and the button raises to 9,000 and I go all in. He calls me with 8-4 because he only has 6,000 in chips left. The flop was 9-8-4, he flopped two pair and won the pot. I had one chip left over for an ante and I was out in 23rd place.

There were 395 players last night and we started with only 2000 chips and the Commerce Demons must have been out of town because it was a good tournament for me until the last hand.

I made no mistakes caught some cards early and just could not get over the hump late in the tournament.

I would like to thank all my friends who called me and told me to continue the grind and forget about the last tournament. Its a new day and a new tournament and go have fun.

I am getting closer and closer to taken one of these events down, again thank you for the support.

Take Care...Be Safe...

It's 12:45 am and I have just arrived home after a 60 mile ride from the Commerce Casino. It was a very long ride tonight as the Poker Demons of Commerce struck again.

We started with 2000 in chips at 6:00 pm sharp after the Tournament Director, Cheri Dokken gave out the instructions for this $335.00 NL event.

I was card dead the first two levels and played some suited connectors out of frustration and it took my stack down to 900. A table change did me very good as I had AA 4 times in an hour span and only once did I get someone to go over the top of my initial raise with an All-In. He had KK and my aces held up.

I worked my way up to 8500 chips by level 6 and then went card dead and was down to 2200 chips after losing 6000 in a span of 20 minutes with my sets getting busted by flushes.

I grind and play great Poker to build my stack up to 12,500 chips when the blinds go to 800-400 and a 75 ante.

This was quite an accomplishment as there were two very aggressive players at my table. They raised All-In every time in position and protected their blinds very aggressively.

There were 45 people left out of the original 299 that started the evening and the pay outs started at 27 players. A table was broken and we got two new players to fill the empty seats and every table was now 9 handed.

I look down at JJ and raise to 1975 and it folds to one of the new players at the table. He looks at his hole cards and hesitates and then declares All-In!!!

He has me covered by 700 chips and I really believe he is just trying to steal the 4000 chip pot.

We were both just below average in chips and I feel really good about my hand so I say,"I guess this is it,I am All-In"

He turns over 77 and when he see's my JJ he cringes. Then we have the Commerce Poker Demons come after me and the flop is 9-7-6. He hits his SET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So hence the long drive home and my promising night and 6 hours worth of hard work is over in a flash and I leave the Commerce dejected once again.

Yes I satellited into this event, yes this is another bad beat story, but one can only take so much when you are determined as I am to become a respected and profitable player.

The Bicycle Casino has the Big Poker October starting in 3 weeks, so until then........

Take Care...Be Safe

P.S. To take some of the pain away...I played a $60.00 tournament on Poker Stars with 45 entries..To upset to sleep..anyway I won it and first place was $762.00...I guess i can play poker..Just not at Commerce..

It's 12:45 am and I have just arrived home after a 60 mile ride from the Commerce Casino. It was a very long ride tonight as the Poker Demons of Commerce struck again.

We started with 2000 in chips at 6:00 pm sharp after the Tournament Director, Cheri Dokken gave out the instructions for this $335.00 NL event.

I was card dead the first two levels and played some suited connectors out of frustration and it took my stack down to 900. A table change did me very good as I had AA 4 times in an hour span and only once did I get someone to go over the top of my initial raise with an All-In. He had KK and my aces held up.

I worked my way up to 8500 chips by level 6 and then went card dead and was down to 2200 chips after losing 6000 in a span of 20 minutes with my sets getting busted by flushes.

I grind and play great Poker to build my stack up to 12,500 chips when the blinds go to 800-400 and a 75 ante.

This was quite an accomplishment as there were two very aggressive players at my table. They raised All-In every time in position and protected their blinds very aggressively.

There were 45 people left out of the original 299 that started the evening and the pay outs started at 27 players. A table was broken and we got two new players to fill the empty seats and every table was now 9 handed.

I look down at JJ and raise to 1975 and it folds to one of the new players at the table. He looks at his hole cards and hesitates and then declares All-In!!!

He has me covered by 700 chips and I really believe he is just trying to steal the 4000 chip pot.

We were both just below average in chips and I feel really good about my hand so I say,"I guess this is it,I am All-In"

He turns over 77 and when he see's my JJ he cringes. Then we have the Commerce Poker Demons come after me and the flop is 9-7-6. He hits his SET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So hence the long drive home and my promising night and 6 hours worth of hard work is over in a flash and I leave the Commerce dejected once again.

Yes I satellited into this event, yes this is another bad beat story, but one can only take so much when you are determined as I am to become a respected and profitable player.

The Bicycle Casino has the Big Poker October starting in 3 weeks, so until then........

Take Care...Be Safe

I decided to go play the opening event at Commerce Casino 's California State Poker Championship last night.

It was a $225.00 buy in for the No Limit Event and since I won $700.00 in tournament chips and have been playing so well lately, I decided to go last minute....Turned out to be a mistake.

If you have read my blogs the past year or so I have told you about hoe tough Commerce is on me. In 2007 I played my first big tournament there, a $545.00 NL event at the LA Poker classic after winning a satellite by default, when two guys started to fight and it left me the winner.

There were 797 players and when we were down to 17 I lost a big pot with QJ diamonds in the BB to 9-3 and went out on the next hand with a flush draw. I then played the second $545.00 event with 690 entries and busted 30th. I was disappointed in my 17th place finish and my AQ lost to 65 in the second and I have never recovered.

I have played probably 15 tournaments at Commerce since 2007 with the majority of them satellite entries. I have not finished in the money in any of them since and last night was no different.

I told you the first level I would not play anything but AA-KK and QQ. Queens i would make only a small raise with because people tend to play a weak ACE anytime here in Southern Cal in these small buy in events.

I have taken some pretty rough beats at Commerce and I keep going back to attack those Poker Demons who lurk in the walls and wait for me to sit down and tease me for awhile and then take it all away with some unbelievable runner runner cards.

I imagine them laughing and high fiving each other as I leave the tournament room and as I get out of their view I can hear them yell,"Sucka"

I sat down at table 39 seat 5 last night and there were 4 players I knew and to my left was Minh Nguyen, the runner up to Daniel Negreanu in the 2004 WSOP player of the year award.

I know Minh and he was at my fallen heroes Tournament in February this year and he is a gentleman during the game and away from the game. Minh has over 2 million in Tournament winnings but has had a very tough time lately.

The blinds were 25-25 and we had 2000 in starting chips and I was the BB. I folded every hand until the BB came around to me again and I look down and have AA.

There were 3 hands I would of won big pots with if I had played my J-10. Q-7 or my 76 clubs. However i stuck to my system and as the under the gun player raised it to 225 it folded to Minh, who called.

I re-raise to 500 chips and the Under the gun calls as does Minh. The flop Q-8-8 with two hearts.

Minh checks I make a bet of all in because if the flush draw there and I am sure neither of them has Pocket Queens or an 8.

Under the gun thinks for a bit and he really wants to call and now I know he has a Queen but does not want to risk his tournament right now. He folds and Minh to my surprise says,"Sorry Scott, you are drawing dead as he turns over 88 for QUADS. The turn and River do not help and I have one 100 dollar chip left.

I was shell shocked and the under the gun guy said he folded AQ and I was still dazed my flopped quads. I could here the Demons hands slapping and it felt like everyone of the 494 players were looking and laughing at me.

What can i do... Well i am going back tonight to play the $335.00 NL event and if anything close to what happened to me again last night occurs, Commerce will be a place I will no longer patronize until I can find some kind of Poker demon spray or book on how to rid the place of the Demons.

Till tomorrow...take Care...Be Safe..

I had a pretty good two weeks of Poker and I am very happy with the way my game has been. As I told you, I won two satellites to get into the $1000.00 event at the Legends of Poker where I cashed. I have played well on-line also and this weekend we had our Monthly Deputy Tournament at one of my good friends house Saturday Night.

Well being the good friend I try to be, I told Jimmy I would be there until my wife kindly reminded me it was our Wedding Anniversary. So being the great Husband I am, I took my wife to the Bicycle Casino on Thursday Night and we watched John Phan play some great poker and we had a Very nice dinner at the Sushi restaurant there. Congratulations John on a superb evening of Poker.

So Saturday I am at work and go to downtown LA in the flower district and buy my wife an amazing bouquet of Roses and bring them home. She loves roses and they were a big hit, so she packed the girls up and we headed over to Jim's house to Play some Poker and try and get the bragging rights for the next month.(Huge at my station)

There were 18 players and after a pretty good 6 hour session of playing I finally won, but it was now 1:30 am and I have to get up at 3:30 am to go to work. Long day but it was worth it after winning the $500.00 first place prize.

So on my way home the Nascar race was starting at 5pm and the freeways near my home were jammed packed with 80,000 people, so I stopped off at Commerce and played (2) $40.00 satellites. I won those as the players were not very experienced at satellite play and now I have $600.00 in tournament chips to play some of the upcoming California State Championship events.

I was wanting to play on Wednesday the $335.00 NL Event and as I was looking at the structures today,the majority of all these events only start with 1500 in chips.

This will be a good thing for me with my style of play the first few levels. There will be people trying to chip up really early or bust really early on draws because they do not have the patience to sit for three levels short stacked, as I do.

I hope your weekend has been a good one for you. I will let you all know Thursday how my tournament went, so until; then..Be Safe...Take Care.....