Shannon Shorr

I've changed my starting day from today to tomorrow. I'll be at table 19 Seat 8. Anyone interested in following the tournament should note that the tournament starts at noon Eastern Standard (local) Time.

SS

As I write this I'm on the balcony of our hotel room at The Atlantis looking over the ocean. Things could be worse. Mike and I arrived here from New Orleans last night. Adam had flown in from New Orleans earlier in the day. New Orleans was pretty much an insane, fun, party time. We undoubtedly drank more than any other humans in the state of Louisiana for six straight nights. My body is still feeling the effects of it. We also did some other cool stuff like get beignets and coffee and the famous Cafe Dumont, ate some fantastic dinners, attended the Saints vs Panthers game, sat courtside at the Hornets vs Wizards game, went uptown, walked through Jackson Square, etc. We also spent a buncha time hanging out with our friend Tim "Timkrank" Miles as he is pretty much the nut. On Sunday night Mike, Adam and I went to the Sugar Bowl at the Superdome of course. Sadly, Bama played like death and Utah played marvelously on their way to a 31-17 upset victory over us. Bama was without starting offensive tackle Andre Smith after he "violated team rules". The food in New Orleans is easily my favorite part of any trip to New Orleans. We ate countless muffulettas, poboys, and bowls of red beans and rice, gumbo, bisque, and jumbalaya.

When we arrived here in Nassau we cabbed it over just in time to see the kick for the Colts/Chargers game. We got some dinner at Johnny Rocket's and sweated it. What a game! Today we're gonna relax out on the beach and by the pools for a while. We might play online. We've always kind of laughed at the kids who grind a lot online in the lobbies when in the beautiful Bahamas though, so playing would be kinda hypocritical. It would also be unlike us to display any sort of work ethic :) Plus, there are football games that can be watched from the outside restaurants and bars today.

I am slated to play the 10 thousand dollar main event tomorrow. I am going to do my best to get that changed to Tuesday in order to watch the Fiesta Bowl. I think the best site for following updates will be pocketfiveslive.com. There are like 1000 entrants though, so I expect updates will be scarce. Something feels right about this tournament. My results over my last, say, 25 10000+ dollar events have been disappointing, so maybe this is the one. If I do bust on day one, I'll probably play the 25000 dollar event on Wednesday. There are a couple of other postliminary events, too, that I may or may not play.

Congrats to my man Jonathan Little and his bride-to-be Katy Humphrey as they are now officially engaged to be married. I'm extremely happy for them. Happy New Year everyone!

SS

This year was a year that I'll never forget from both a poker and life standpoint. It was my third year and my most profitable year as a professional poker player. Of the 3 years I've been playing professionally, I spent the least time playing poker this year. It was especially nice to put up a nice bottom line number after all of the heartbreak I went through last year in turning an overall loser for the year. About this time last year I pretty much hated the game with a passion and was on my way out as a professional. Things have worked out though, and I'm very grateful for what the game has provided me. By trade, I am namely a big buy-in live tournament poker player. Realistically, I haven't even played a big enough sample of live tournaments in 3 years to tell if I'm a long term winner. I've obviously been able to supplement my income in other areas of poker besides live tournaments though. I've been fortunate to be on the right side of things so far though. I was especially fortunate to hit the Aussie Millions right at the beginning of my career which allowed me to play my own money for my entire career to this point, as opposed to being backed.

The year started off for me in the Bahamas at EPT PCA. I busted late on day 1 and hopped on a flight back home the next day. I'd resume taking classes towards my Civil Engineering degree a few days later after not having been in a class room in some 29 months. I came in very focused and determined to get that degree. Alas, I'd forgotten a lot of the skills needed to do well there, and to be honest it just seemed so fucking impractical. It shouldn't surprise anyone that I didn't intend on using that degree had I gotten it. I dropped my classes in mid February after 6 weeks of struggling through it. I threw Civil Engineering in the muck for good. The Friday that I dropped classes I looked at the poker schedule and noticed that the LAPC was the next day. I was on a flight and in Los Angeles by midnight.

After I busted from LAPC I was back in Tuscaloosa chilling for a week or so. During that time I had my biggest career online MTT score of 51000 dollars in Full Tilt's 1000 dollar Monday tourney. A few days later I took a great vacation with my Dad down to Florida to check out 4 spring training baseball games. Talk about a great trip. If you're a baseball fan at all you owe a trip like this to yourself. I hope we get to do it again soon. Soon after I returned from our trip, I got home and my then-girlfriend, Stephanie and I decided to break things off after 19 months of dating. This was for the best as I was moving back to Vegas for four months and she was gonna stay in Huntsville and work. I actually haven't been in a relationship with a girl since and don't really want to until I finish school in May of 2010.

At the end of March I moved into an absolute mansion in Vegas with my boys Adam, Mike, Cody, Eric and Jerry. We had the summer of a lifetime with so many just ridiculous stories. April went very well for me in Bellagio's Five Star series. I made three final tables including two sevenths and a third place finish. The third place finish was worth like 92000 dollars.

May was pretty much a month long vacation. In early May I came back to Birmingham to hang out for a Crawfish Festival and Cinco de Mayo. Soon after I went on a short 8 day trip to London, England and Amsterdam, The Netherlands with Mike and Adam. Sick time. I came back to Vegas and hung out with my sister for a week and then we all went on a really great houseboat trip on Lake Mead.

The WSOP kicked off in June and I got off to a poor start airballing the first 5 tournaments. In my sixth tournament, I made a magical run through 1600 players before finishing just short of a bracelet in second place of event 7 to Matt Keikoan. It was the most fun playing I've ever had playing poker. The finish was worth 350 thousand dollars. I went on to have a successful Series and added three more cashes. After the WSOP, I went across the street to Bellagio and had yet another successful series. I outright won a 3000 dollar tournament for a quarter million dollars and then the very next tournament I finished 3rd in a 5000 dollar affair for another 125000 dollars.

In late August I again decided to return to school, this time as a more practical, much easier Business Management major. It's a scrubby degree, but as I said earlier I'm just going back to school to prove to myself that I can finish. I completed the semester earlier this month, and I wish I could express in words how great it felt. I posted a 3.73 grade point average, and now have just 3 semesters left until I'm finished. I'll knock out another semester starting in a week or so. I played a couple of poker tournaments over the course of the semester with some decent success. I finished 5th in a tournament at Bellagio in October and I finished 15th in a tournament earlier this month at Bellagio. I also had some poker related business ventures go my way over the course of the year.

Alabama football went on a really sick run, so it's funny that that was the semester I decided to return to school. I took a lot of road trips over the course of the fall and in general drank way too much alcohol.

Here's to hoping 2009 goes well. Happy New Year everyone.

SS

I'm sitting at the Birmingham airport waiting for a flight to New Orleans, Louisiana. I decided to come a few days early. Mike Katz is flying into town to meet me, and we have a pretty cool week planned. Tonight we're going over to our poker friend Tim "timkrank" Miles' apartment in the French Quarter to watch the UFC fight. Tomorrow afternoon we're going to the Superdome to watch the Saints take on the playoff-bound Carolina Panthers. Tuesday, we'll go over to New Orleans arena to watch the New Orleans Hornets host the dismal Caron Butler-led Washington Wizards. Adam Geyer is flying into town on Wednesday the 31st, and we'll bring in the New Year on Bourbon Street. Finally, we'll attend the Sugar Bowl on Friday night where Bama will hopefully have no trouble with the University of Utah.

I should mention that as I write this I'm sitting in the terminal with the entire Alabama football team. They'll apparently be on the same 75 minute flight down to New Orleans. Actually, this very instant some woman just asked John Parker Wilson to pose for a picture with her.

Some really good poker news: I've been having a lot of success the last few days playing heads up LHE. After taking a few lumps along the way playing semi-regulars, I've been able to game select pretty hard and been able to really find some value at mostly 1/200 and some 50/100. Limit hold em really is a fascinating game when you get right down to it. I particularly like being able to to make Kate Bosworth-thin value bets and raises on the end. Hopefully it continues to go well for me. It's really swingy, so my stomach still has to get used to swinging 5 to 10 thousand a day. Poker is funny in the regard that you can play high limits for a while and get totally immune to the money, then you take a break and have to start all over again. Obviously, I can afford it and should press edges though. Ok gotta board the flight.

SS

I got back to Birmingham a few days ago. Since I last posted my buddy Justin went on to finish second at WPT Five Diamond to Chino Rheem. The 28 year old North Carolina State graduate earned a very nice payday for his hard work. It was really fun to sweat. Me, Adam and Justin's wife, Morgan drank a lot of beers throughout the 9 hour long battle. Justin entered as a 7:4 chipleader headsup, but Chino played very well and was able to come back and win it. I'm really happy for Justin because he really deserves it. He's one of the nicest guys around and never has a bad thing to say about anyone.

I decided to delay my flight one more day after the tournament. On Saturday night Justin, Morgan and I went to the Pioneer Las Vegas Bowl. It featured BYU vs Arizona in what was a highly entertaining game. I came out of sportsbetting retirement to load up on the "sure thing" Arizona to cover 3.5. Luckily, they did (31-21), but we had to sweat it despite being up 17 with 6 minutes left. BYU quickly drove down to the field and scored then recovered the subsequent onside kick.

Since I've been back in Birmingham not too much has been going on. Of course I waited until today, Christmas Eve, to do all my shopping. It only took a few hours and wasn't as bad as I thought. I did have to battle the nightmare traffic that is Birmingham's HWY 280, so that wasn't too fun.

Other than that, my next couple of weeks will be slightly busy. I'm going to New Orleans for New Year's and then will probably fly directly to the Bahamas for the EPT Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure. If I go I'll miss the first day of classes at school, but that shouldn't be too big of a deal. I also might skip class Thursday January 14th in order to play WPT Biloxi. My official grades are in from the Fall semester. I'm delighted to share that I posted a 3.73 GPA.

Merry Christmas everyone. Tonight I'm headed over to my Dad's house to celebrate Christmas. Tomorrow, I'll celebrate with my Mom. I probably won't post again until my end of the year wrap up post next week.

SS

One of my longest and best friends in the industry, justin "robert07" young will play 6 handed tomorrow for a televised wpt title. He is easily the best pure nlhe player amongst an excellent cast of characters of evan mcniff, chino rheem, Amnon fillipi, Steve sung, and my fellow alabamian hoyt corkins. He'll have his work cutout for him as he enters 5th of 6th in chips. Adam Geyer and I are gonna drink a lot and sweat it tomorrow live in the conference room at Bellagio. I also have to sweat our gorgeous waitress from Fix showing up tomorrow bc I layed adam 45:1 against her showing up (100 vs 4500) despite her showing a lot of interest in sweating it.

Sorry for not really posting an update from the main event. I busted and wasn't too happy with myself. Quickly, here's the 3 hands that led to my expiration from WPT Five Diamond.

I was at around 37000 in the fourth level and raised red fours UTG+1 to 1300. A kid defended in the big. Flop 866 two diamonds. Kid led 1700. I called. Turn 6. Check. I can bet here, so I don't face a big bet on the end, but for whatever reason I played poorly all day and decided not to and checked. River offsuit 2. Kid led 3700 and I somehow found a call. He showed two tens and I'm down to like 30000. Very next hand I'm UTG with QsQd. I raise to 1300. Believer82 calls and then a pretty nitty old guy made it 4500. I think my only option is call. I called. Believer folded. Flop 662 two spades. I checked and guy bet 7000. I had him covered by 2400 chips. I puked on my shoes and after two minutes decided to go with the hand and move him in for his 25500 total. This is just one of those awful spots. The guy really isn't capable of bluffing the flop with AK high, but I think he shows me Jacks sometimes and maybe, maybe even tens. World class players just toss it though. I'll be there someday. Guy called with Aces and I missed. I was crippled to 2400 and was able to get my last 6 blinds in for very good odds after Believer opened to 1100 and two people called. I moved with A5o and Believer isolated and showed me A7ss. Flop 544. Turn 7. River X.

After the bustout I came back to the hotel and basebaldy busted shortly after. We decided to go over to The Palms to see the UFC Ultimate Fighter show finale. We were able to catch the last 3 fights. It was sickkkkkkk. It was my first time to ever go to UFC, although we've ordered a ton of the fights on PPV. Basebaldy lost the flip for the 700 dollar pair of tickets, so my spirits were quickly lifted.

On Sunday we headed over to Henderson from our Bally's hotel room to Cody and Eric's houses that they both just bought. They are both insane. Cardplayer really needs to do a high stakes living shoot of them. They have a combined, like, dozen flat screens. We played the online tournaments on Sunday and watched all the NFL games across three TVs. We all had really good Sunday's. I netted about 12 dimes after 4 decent cashes including a fourth place in the UltimateBet main event for 13000 dollars.

The past couple of days we've kinda just been sitting around sweating the WPT event. I have a significant financial interest in how this tournament plays out.

Mike and I are about to grab some lunch. Congrats to our roommate Adam Geyer for his finish. He just expired in 41st. Good luck to Justin "robert07" Young and Jon Little who are both still in with 38 left. Jon has a chance to make WPT history by winning back to back events. As if he hasn't already accomplished enough on the WPT :)

I have a flight scheduled back for Thursday evening, but I'll change it if Justin or Jon make Friday's final table. There's also the Las Vegas bowl game between BYU and Arizona out here that might be worth sticking around for on Saturday.

It's also snowing outside our 25th floor window, which is sort of noteworth because it's Las Vegas.

SS

out

valuebet gone wrong against believer82 had me at 35000 but I rebounded...two more levels

roller coaster level...down to 38 and up to 55 at one point...3 more 90 min levels