I am currently in the car, about 100 miles outside Las Vegas. I just finished up a great skiing trip with my friends Jake, Kandis, and Heather. The drive is not spectacular, but the story of the trip is a little more interesting to read about.
It all started at 8pm Thursday night when my friend Heather asked me if I wanted to join her and 2 friends and go skiing in Utah for 3 days/2 nights. I ended up declining at first, because I did not feel like making an 8 hr drive to go skiing for 3 days. A few days later I had just had a pretty bad Sunday, losing a lot of money. I cashed in the UBOC main event, though, and had a few other deep runs in majors but no big final tables. I was feeling kind of bummed and feeling like I needed to get away from Malibu and go relax (crazy I know, Malibu is awesome to relax) So I texted Heather and asked her if she had found a 4th person yet, which she said no. I decided to go.
I packed up and left Malibu at midnight, got into Vegas at 430am, and got a little bit of sleep as we were slated to leave at 9am. If you guys don’t know this about me I have a horrible time functioning when I get less than 8 hours of sleep, so I was already dreading this day. Luckily for me, Heathers friend Kandis had drank copious amounts of alcohol the night before and did not get up until noon. So I ended up getting around 6-7 hrs sleep, enough to tide me over for the day.
We arrived at the cabin at like 7pm, it was a nice small 2 BR cabin I feel like was built for dwarves, but it would do for a couple nights. We all settled in, drank, played some games, and relaxed the first night there and then I went upstairs and fell asleep, needing to get enough sleep for the next day.
The slopes were about average at Brian Head, but there were VERY few people on the mountain which I love. There were no wait for the lines, nobody to worry about when doing jumps or turning, except for Kandis, she’s a liability with her Ipod in. Here’s a little video blog I did which I think might be the first blog done this way.
The flip camera I had ran out of battery 3 minutes in, I did a 1440 jump off a huge jump.. its a shame the camera ran out of juice.
After skiing, we were all pretty tired, I took the night off from drinking and watched a bit of TV and then fell asleep around midnight. In the morning, they decided to just hang out and relax and I decided to go out for a few more runs before we left Utah. I got in 4 runs, and liked the ski’s I rented so much I decided to buy them, so they are sitting in the back of the truck right now. The trip took a toll on the girls too:
I’m going to take most of the week off from poker, as I feel like I need a little break after playing for a few months without many breaks. I will be ready and geared up to go next week.
Also, Trishelle beat me in a football bet so now I’m forced to take her out to dinner. Ugh…
She will also be joining me at an event I am doing in the end of Feb, I will be blogging about it soon I am sure. I will give you a little preview of it now, it involves free beer, wings, poker, and a bunch of beautiful women. I like to be a pioneer what can I say
That’s all for now,
-Matt Vengrin
Here’s your weekly roundup and we have a big list the week so let’s get right into it! Congratulations go out to ALL_DAY_DHI3, XVASIKAX, APESTYLES, RUBINB, MR_SCHLONGD, DRWICKSTROM, ELWOODDOG, 925ROUNDER, THESCHOLAR08, DIPTHRONG and ERIC_BALDWIN for taking down the big guarantees! Hats off to COLDFISH219, 011POKERDR, ROLLOVER2K, POKERDEVL, MOTA_EL_ZORRO, TAZED1SPURR, YOSSARIAN80, TORREY5, I AM CLUTCH and DOUBLEDAVE22 for taking down the second week of UBOC and helping make this the most exciting UBOC ever!!!
Here’s your weekly roundup and we have a big list the week so let’s get right into it! Congratulations go out to BONZO9876, D1RTYR1V3R, JPP5039, FEEDMEMUNE, CHICAGOCARDS1, THEBIGHUNI, MCMATTO, NOWIN2QUIT, CHRIS44 and INEEDMONIES for taking down the big guarantees! Hats off to CYBERCOW, KUNKLES27, SUPERPROP123, MIGUEL_PRADO, SCOTTYDOG25 and SEBBAU for taking down the first 7 UBOC events and helping make this the most exciting UBOC ever and last but not least, a huge WOW to SEBBAU for taking down UBOC 8, the largest tournament in UB history!!
In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a heat wave going on and I’m not talking exclusively about the mercury that’s finally starting to rise. There’s some serious action sweeping the tables around here.
Do you realize that our $4 Million UBOC Online Championship starts this Wednesday? It’s 18 online events crammed into 12 dynamic days, and who can forget the $4M in guaranteed cash? There’s even 2 headline events that each guarantee a million bucks. The action begins at 8 p.m. ET on Wednesday with our $250,000 No Limit Holdem tourney. Check out the complete schedule now.
Don’t forget that the Absolute Poker College Challenge final table goes down live in Los Angeles on Thursday. See six savvy students fight for their tuition live in the Golden State. We’re streaming it all live at 1 pm ET right here.
Hope you guys are having a terrific time at our tables and nothing but money is filling up your AP accounts. I’m just gonna make a quick intervention through our blog to remind you about a couple of things that will definitely warm up your wallets during this cruel winter…
The UBOC4 is about to start and we want to see our multiple events as crowded as Times Square on a New Year’s eve! That’s why FAME has done its part by making several changes on our regular tourneys to practically push you in and make sure you’ll be requesting a juicy payout by the end of January.
Three main things I want to point out: currently our 45-Seat VIP tourney has been revamped for the season and is awarding 4 entries to our Million Dollar UBOC Championship even hosted by Phil Hellmuth on January 31st. Grab 10,000 AbsolutePoints and grant your success at the tourney.
Second, our brand new VIP Invitational has also been temporarily modified and now gives away 2 entries for our unique UBOC8 to be played on January 24th. Stack you Status Points and make sure you are in the exclusive list of this tournament winners.
Third and more important; we are aware that some of you guys wanna give a different use to your Step 10 tickets…so…no need to wait anymore! For a limited time, we are exchanging your Step 10 tickets for UBOC8 tickets!! Yes, it’s as easy as contacting your VIP Host and request an immediate exchange and you’ll be seated at the table soon than expected. Not a VIP player? No issues! Just make sure to email our Customer Support Dept. right away so you can have your exchange as well.
It’s time to play, people! And it’s time to play BIG. It’s officially a battle, except there are no injuries involved…only sweet cash!
At Absolute Poker, we know that everyone has their own holiday rituals, traditions, and schedules. If you feel like grabbing a seat at our Christmas table, we’re not only open, but we’ve cooked up a special holiday feast.
Log on December 24th, 25th, 26th, 31st and January 1st to take advantage of our Holiday Power Hours. You’ll earn double AbsolutePoints all day and night at qualifying ring games and tournaments. That’s a Christmas card you can really cash in.
We’re also giving you the chance to make monumental plans for 2010. We’ll be giving away 10 guaranteed UBOC Championship Main Event seats in each of our upcoming $100+9 satellites. Grab your seat on December 27th at 6:30 pm, December 28th at 9:00 pm, and December 30th at 9:00 pm ET. The UBOC Championship Main Event features an unprecedented $1-Million prize pool!
Have a festive holiday, wherever the season takes you.

Our biggest online poker event is back and more enormous than ever. This year UBOC has 2, count ‘em, TWO $1 million guaranteed main events. The first is the $2500+100 UBOC 8 – No Limit Holdem, 6-max Deepstack on Sunday, January 24th at 4pm ET and the other is the UBOC Championship event $1,000+50 No Limit Holdem event on Sunday, January 31st at 4pm ET.
This year’s championship will offer over $4 million in prizes with 18 events over 12 days. This isn’t just for high rollers either, there is a MINI-UBOC event (complete with a leaderboard competition) for the more casual player offering buy-ins starting at just $5. All of our events, however have traditional satellites and Steps satellites to help you get into the game with just $0.10. And, if you qualify through Steps we have a bunch of promotions to award you even more money just for cashing the main event.
On a different note (but equally as exciting for us) is our marketing team-building day today. We’re not sure what’s in store but I’ve been told it’s a cross between the Amazing Race and ARMY training camp. It’s a beautiful day for a bit of Absolute Poker trivia and good old-fashioned competition between co-workers. Do you know how long we’ve had our CEO in place, what color Lacey Jones’s eyes are or who was the final pro standing in this year’s Aruba Poker Classic? These will be the types of questions combined with physical challenges that keep us afloat or drown us in the competition. Literally.
I’m not talking about the power of positive thinking you’ve all read about in The Secret, as I find that to be cult-ish propaganda and not a valid way to view your successes and failures. I’m referring to a much stronger power. Power Hour, that is. Absolute Poker now has 6 hours a day where we’re serving up double AbsolutePoints. At 1-4am and again from 1 to 4 pm you can rack up twice as many points.
We’ve been working hard on promotions leading up to the holiday season. We’re launching our Online Championship tomorrow (aka. UBOC) with satellites to 18 events in January. We’ve got a bunch of promotions and bonuses to help you get more cash the more you play and qualify. You know when you find that sweet satellite or tourney that is a cakewalk for you? You keep winning entries and just racking up the buy-ins. We’ll we rewarding our players for satelliting to the most events with a ton of cash and tourney entries. Don’t worry, you won’t be able to miss the hype around this event and it’s our job in the marketing department to make sure of it.
We were each interviewed yesterday about what we like most about the holiday season. We each agreed on the cookies, presents and time with friends and family. But, while we were thinking about presents we realized how many gifts we’re going to be giving to our players this season. With VIP promos and All-U-Can-Satellite contests, all I can say is ‘Tis the Season’.
Categories
Tags
2009 world series of poker Absolute Poker absolute poker college challenge AP APCC Aruba Aruba Poker Classic Bahamas blogging bluff magazine CEREUS Christmas community Costa Rica ESPN Fame guarantee Holidays Lacey Jones Laceypoker.com loyalty MAC marketing Matt Vengrin New Features Online Poker Play Poker Poker Poker player Poker Tournaments Power Hour Promotions rewards roundup Software Tiffany Michelle tournament Trishelle Cannatella UBOC Vegas VIP VIP Team world series of poker WPT Celeb Invitational WSOPRecent Posts
Archives
Blog Roll