I would like to thank Katie, who was the heart of the team and helped us with all our problems.

I didn’t get a chance to play as much poker as before since my daughter was born in July, but I did make a come back in December and cashed on my first tournament in the Budapest Poker Open. Since I couldn’t play in the WSOP last year, I will still play that tournament as a member of the Live The Dream Team in 2011. I am looking forward to it.

I am happy that I got to know some of the great Everest Poker players, I am proud that I could be part of the team. I wish good luck to all of them and I hope to meet you all soon at one of the big live events again!

I busted after putting my very healthy stack in with an 85% advantage. The same guy busted me who knocked me out last year on the second level after a preflop all-in - my AA vs his AK. 93%…

I felt I played quite well – I was happy to realize that poker is like cycling: once you learn how to play, you can’t forget it. I made some mistakes but funny enough they all turned out pretty well. It is important to make the wrong play at the right time BTW in the two whole days of play (12-14 hours per day) I haven’t had any QQ-AA. Zero!

I came 25th out of 305 players.

Then I played in the Ladies Event where I had AA once – and I had to check-fold it on the QT8 flop Again – I played pretty well but I made a mistake at the end when I got knocked out. I rarely make this mistake but I this time I wasn’t careful enough. When I made a move based on a tell against the player on the button I didn’t look to my left to see how eager the big blind is to put her stack in…

Then I played the 3LT final in Vienna. I like Vienna very much, but this time I played quite badly unfortunately. Somehow nothing worked out and I was out in the second hour.

My baby took it very well, she fed from the bottle happily and she went to bed like an angel for her naps and the night. I am happy that I could concentrate on my poker and didn’t have to worry about her. She is a very good baby )) I am confident that I can play all I want next year and she will be ok.

Everest Poker will run a bounty freeroll on 28th December to celebrate my come-back and my success on the Budapest Poker Open. Come and hunt me!

I really enjoy being with my baby but I miss the excitement of the poker world a little bit. It is going to be hard though as Norah is exclusively breastfed so I will need to get some bottles ready for her while I play. Luckily her daddy will be with us so hopefully it will all go smoothly.

I am not getting much sleep lately, Norah decided that she likes to feed every hour during the night. I hope this growth spurt will not last long otherwise I will collapse from exhaustion.

I managed to play a little bit of online poker here and there, but only cash games as I can get out of those anytime.

Well, I am excited that I will be back in a month or so and I think I will even try to play some satellite tournaments on Everest Poker for the Montesino tournament in Vienna.

So far I am surprised how well it is going and how much we can sleep and go out with her. I think this is the fundamental difference between having one baby or having twins. None of this would be possible with twins.

I didn’t plan to have her in our bed during the night, my plan was that she would sleep in the bassinet by our bed but that didn’t work out for two reasons: one – she wakes up usually within 15 mins if I put her down in the bassinet instead of sleeping with her; two – if I try to swaddle her, she wakes up, but if I don’t swaddle her, she wakes herself up because of her wild hand and leg movements, plus she is cold without a blanket and a loose blanket is not safe in the bassinet.

So for the first 5 nights after coming home from the hospital (2 days after birth) I slept with my rocker/recliner chair with her, because I could hardly get up from the bed to sit up to feed her – my incision just hurt too much. After several days and being fed up with sleeping in the rocking chair, when I was well enough to sleep on my side (which I couldn’t do with the fresh wound for days) I started to sleep with her in our bed and feed her in the side-lying position.  So I am actually getting more sleep than I expected although I am still awake for a good portion of the night, but at least it is comfy and I can sleep while feeding and between feedings.

Our social life is much better than I expected too. We went to our first BBQ party when she was 5 days old – we had a lot of fun and she was asleep the whole time. We visited my in-laws 3-4 times already and went out to have dinner with them the other day. On Saturday we went to have lunch with friends – Norah was asleep the whole time, then visited her twin cousins – she spent most of the time asleep again and we went out for dinner with other friends. So it has been really easy so far and I think we are lucky that she doesn’t cry much and when she does, she usually has a good reason – 90% of the time she is hungry (after all she is a big baby) and most of the other times she is dirty.

I haven’t played any poker lately, but I plan to make my online come back when I play the heads-up against a lucky player who will be chosen on the Everest Poker Hungarian Cup final on 7th August. I hope to play some more poker online after that, maybe an hour or two every couple of days – that is the good side of cash games that I can sit down and stand up at any point. We’ll see, but that is the plan.

Here are some pictures of our precious baby:

I don’t think it is surprising but I haven’t played any poker lately, I am too big and too uncomfortable to do anything. I just sleep, eat and swim in the pool – which is good for the baby and me. Plus, I cook sometimes. I have less and less energy to do that too. It is a blessing to have a pool in the back garden, however small it is, just to be able to cool down on the hot summer days.

I have been following the WSOP and the other Live The Dream team members’ performances. Congrats to Sigurd for winning a bracelet in the $2500 8-mix event! Amazing job!!!

As for the baby, I am glad we decided to have her here in Canada instead of Hungary. The preparation and the whole birth experience is quite good here (I hope to confirm this after…). We did tons of classes, like baby CPR, baby massage, lamaze, hospital tour, etc. So we feel quite prepared. Now we only need the baby herself ))

We also finalized the name, both our mothers’ names are going to be middle names. She will be called Norah Jane Ilona Brown. I like it

My husband says this little unborn baby has more clothes already than the two of us together. True LOL

So, for the last couple of days I haven’t been playing poker, I am just too big and too tired to sit down at the computer. Not sure I will play at all before the baby comes. I just can’t concentrate and I am very uncomfortable having such a big belly.

Anyway, no poker for a while. I’ll be back with either baby-stuff or maybe with poker, but then it will be later.

This is the reason why this might be my last post for a while, at least about poker . I am not sure if anyone would be interested in reading about diaper changes and breastfeeding in this blog Plus, as I hear, I will be to tired to write anyway.

So, about May. It was a strange month, partly very successful but also with failures. The biggest disappointment is the online tournament result, which was a big negative (-9k). However, I won over double that last month, so I will keep trying. The biggest reason for the negative result is that I played several WSOP satellites (on which you can get the cash credited or tournament dollars) and I haven’t cashed in any of them. These are much more expensive tournaments ($700) thank the other ones I played ($55-$350), so they influence the results greatly. If I just cashed one of them, that would have offset the whole negative balance.

Anyway, the good part of the month was my 2-7 game. First of all, the tournament result included my 2-7 win, which was close to 3k. On top of that, I won over $11k in 2-7 cash games which means that my month had a positive balance. I  haven’t had a negative month in 2 years now. I played 16 sessions and won in 12 this month. I probably ran above EV, but I don’t mind at all ))) I played a little as high as $50/$100, but usually only up to $30/$60 where I am getting quite comfortable. I only play higher if the table is really good and there is no good game at lower limits.

The player, who helped me with some advice at the beginning of my 2-7 learning curve, is in 2nd place at the WSOP 2-7 tournament with 8 players left (Peter Gelencser). I hope he wins it

My 7 card stud game didn’t go well either. I played on $1/$2 stakes and had no success. It continuously seemed to happen that I bet all the way with the best hand and someone with a complete nonsense calls me down all the way and makes the best hand on the 7th street. But because this kept happening again and again, I start to suspect there is something wrong with my play, too. It can’t just all be bad luck. So I will drop to $0.50/$1 for a little bit to investigate what I am doing wrong. I will definitely not give up

My short handed NLHE didn’t go well either. My biggest problem is that I just don’t like short-handed play. However I will keep playing and practicing, learning from videos, etc. , because this game is much weaker on Everest Poker than full ring (at least at the stakes I like to play full ring – $2/$4 and up). I didn’t lose money on my cash games, but I hardly won anything which is disappointing.

So, this was probably my last month of playing serious poker for a while. I will still post if anything remarkable happens, but I can’t promise anything.

There were 42 players in the 2-7 triple draw tournament and I got $2700 for the win, but that is ok. I just want to practice 2-7 tournaments to prepare for the WSOP next year. And as long as I don’t lose money while practicing, I am fine I also came around 100th out of 3600 in the 750k and cashed quite a few other tourneys today.

I am unable to cash on Everest Poker. I played 5 tournaments there today, no cash. Well, I guess it is only short term. But long term in tournaments is usually very-very long…

My life nowadays is much more about highchairs, strollers, rocking chairs and baby clothes. Got a ton of stuff yesterday. These tiny pink clothes are just sooooo cuuuuute She is gonna be a very well dressed baby

I am also getting more and more uncomfortable in the heat and with the extra weight. Well, I will just have to cope, there is nothing I can do.

I played some 2-7 triple draw cash games on $30/$60 and $15/$30. I made $4000 last night which is pretty good. I had huge swings but finished nicely up. I was never much down. I am also trying to practice my 7-card-stud game. It’s been going well, made $21 in the $1/$2 game, but I only played very briefly while waiting for my 2-7 table. I hope to get good in 7CS too in the next year. I will gradually work my way up to the higher stakes, I don’t just want to jump into it. I made more playing 2-7 this year than playing NLHE cash games online

I am off to have some rest before starting the session today.

I should have called the floor, but I didn’t. As the lady was quite loose with her calls and I thought she didn’t want to raise (I was probably wrong), I thought I could make her fold by re-raising. I was wrong, she had a monster and pushed all-in at which point I was getting 3:1 odds on my call, so as long as her range is not only QQ-AA (which it is not), I can’t fold. My Q7o didn’t draw out on her KK.

So this was disappointing but I think I finished a good season. (I think a tournament season should be from August to July, until the end of the WSOP) This was my first season when I played a lot of big tournaments thanks to my Everest Poker sponsorship and satellite tournaments before that.

I made 4 final tables (WPT, NAPT side event, Unibet Open and Budapest Poker Open Ladies Event) and won the NAPT side event. I hope some truly big results will follow next season which is very well possible if I keep playing so consistently and improve my game as much as I can. I also think the WSOP 13th place was a great success, I qualified for the $1500 event on Everest Poker from $100.

Now I will have close to two months for online poker and then no poker for quite some time. I started to work on my 7 card stud game again, I played an hour or two yesterday for small stakes ($0.50/$1) and made $30. I felt pretty good about my game so I will try $1/$2 for next. I have played on $2/$4 before, just a couple of times but I haven’t played in a while and I am just starting to learn this game so I wanted to take it easy.

I would like to be able to play the small 8-game tournaments on the WSOP by 2012. I think in 2011 I will play the 2-7 triple draw and 7 card stud, and possibly some more stud games like Razz or 8 or better. I hope it will be a big surprise when I show up in 2011 as a very mature 2-7 player who they have never seen before By that time I will have been playing for 2 years and hopefully get to some decent stakes online. I wouldn’t mind playing as high as $500/$1000 later if I can beat the game (and not necessarily by that time).  Same for stud and other games, perhaps the 8-mix too.

So from July, no poker for months and months… only baby I am very excited about it, I can’t wait. I will be back in December playing some tournaments and then I guess the continuation depends on Everest Poker for the most part.

I am flying back to Toronto tomorrow.