Posts Tagged ‘Poker’
Congrats Trishelle, Hooters, Poker Show
Its been 2 weeks since my last blog, I apologize to those who I made cry when you could not read my blog last week, but I will make it up to you in this one.
First off, Congrats to my teammate and fellow poker pro Trishelle, who came in 3rd in the WPT celeb invitational. Ok people first off… This was no cake walk like you may assume it to be. Over 600 players entered this tournament and she finished third. I know she wanted the win, but this is a great first step for her in her early poker career. I am SO glad I will always be better then her at poker, but I think she has a ton of potential! Seriously though, Congrats to her for her great finish.
So last week we had a great event at Hooters. I was sick as a dog but managed to still teach people how to play, eat some wings, and mingle with the people there. Here are a few pictures from the event:
Me with our lovely dealers:
Me with Trishelle
Team AP and Team Hooters
Me with my good buddy and MMA star Jaime Fletcher
I had a hectic day today also, I had my first meeting with a production company about representing my TV show (Still cant say much details, but its hot). The meeting went really well, and an offer was made. I am still entertaining some more meetings before I decide how I want to proceed. Before the meeting, I dropped my car off at the Lexus dealership and who was in front of me but Robert Knepper. For those of you who do not know that name, he starred in Prison Break, and now has a leading role in Heroes. He’s a real cool dude, we had a chat for a few minutes about cars and then we went on our merry ways. Only in Hollywood!
Alright that’s all for now, be good everyone.
-Matt “The Grin” Vengrin a
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Beer, Babes, Boobies…and Matt Vengrin?!
Hey guys! This past Thursday, Matt V. and I were lucky enough to attend a poker event for Absolute at Hooters in Hollywood. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Clearly, I’m from the south and I’ve been to a Hooters (NO, I’ve never worked there. Har har har). The girls at Hooters in LA, though, are just…hot. I brought my guy friend, who was obviously just happy to be there, along with a girlfriend and one of the gays. The whole set up was pretty cool. It was the entire upstairs of the Hooters on Hollywood Blvd. They had about 3 or 4 poker tables set up for people to play poker (play money of course) and these really cute dealer girls and all the free beer and chicken wings you could eat. You guys have to look up these events on Absolute Poker to find out when they are. There were tons of people so excited to be there!
Matt was the host and he was helping teach people how to play both at tables and online. Everyone loved it and him. They had a tv screen set up so that he could play poker online and we could watch what he was doing. That’s pretty huge. Many online players hate it when people watch them play and this can really help people. In between that, Matt went over and sat with people at different tables and helped people who really didn’t understand the game.
I sat at a table with my friend and about 5 strangers and started playing. Normally, I can’t play unless I know it’s for real money. I’ve always been this way, even before I played poker. I swear my gramma and I would bet pennies playing Go Fish when I was 8. This time it was actually fun though. Since they weren’t allowed to play with real money, they had a prize for chip leader at the table. I ended up winning my table (honestly, there were 3 beginners there and I am not the person to play nice, haha) I did not take the prize though, the 2nd place winner at my table won a nice NY Yankees jacket along with a good time and a crush on the dealer. He was happy.
I really hope they keep doing these Hooters events. The turn out was pretty good! People were able to sign up for Absolute and they did, they received tickets for drinks and free food and to play at a table with a chance to win a prize. Not a bad deal at all. And everyone had a really good time, including myself. Can’t wait for the next one!
Xo,
T
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WPT Celebrity Invitational
What a great weekend! I was invited to represent Absolute at the WPT Celeb Invitational, which I’ve played for the past few years. Tons of people come to this event. Mark Walberg, Marlon Wayons, Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad/Big Love), David Zayas (Dexter), Ricki Lake, Jenny McCarthy, just to name a few, and a ton of pro poker players also. It was a crazy fun night. The tourny begins on Saturday night at Commerce Casino in LA and lasts for 3 days. The first night is normally the fun/party night. We play poker, but if you bust, it’s usually not that horrible since you have a lot of fun people to hang out with.
Going into the tournament I had a really good feeling. I think there were almost 600 people that entered. I had a good time the first day but managed to play good poker as well. I had lots of cool people at my tables. I saw lots of people I normally see at these charity poker events, like the boys from Melrose Place and my friend Brian Peeler from Workout and Sal from E!. We all had fun and some of us made it to day two. Chris Ferguson (Jesus) was also there. Most notable for day one was Kirk Avecedo from Fringe. I really love that show (fan) and he was a great poker player. He actually made it to day two!
I went into day two with about average chip stack. Day two I was totally prepared. No fun and games. I was stoked because my friends Katie Lindsay, Tiffany Michelle and also Liv B also made it to day two. My goal for day two was to be the last woman standing. There were still many people playing, but I had a good run and managed to become chip leader at my table. Next thing I know, Katie, myself and Ricki Lake were the last women in the tournament. I was pretty excited. We were finally down to 3 tables and I moved over to Ricki’s table and took her out. I was pretty amped. After that I started getting cards and playing really aggressive.
To read about the hands in more detail go to this page
Finally we were down to about 10 people. In this tournament, 6 people make it to the final table and that’s all I wanted. I really felt good about it and eventually it was down to 9 of us. I had a poker pro, Thor Hansen, who has won 2 bracelets, LeRon Washington, who is a boxer that won his seat online, and David Zayas, who is on my FAVORITE show Dexter! It felt so good. Long story short, I made it to the last 6, which is the final table. (click on the link above to see exactly how).
The final table shoots this Wednesday and I’m so excited! I’ve never made it to a final table for a WPT event and the first prize is 100k plus a seat into the main event. It’s more than I could have hoped for started out this tournament. I will keep yall posted on what happens at the final table!
Cheers!
T
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SuperCross what?
I made the final table of a poker tournament last month and one of my prizes was VIP Section for some race at the stadium in Anaheim. I really had no clue where or what exactly this thing was. My friend Katie, Liv Boree and I took off from Hollywood to Anaheim where we met up with Tiffany Michelle. Apparently this thing was called Supercross and it’s one of the coolest things I’ve been to! First off, this stadium was completely sold out, so the fact that we had these VIP passes, made us feel really cool 
.
Supercross is basically off road motorcycles that race on an obstacle course on this HUGE track, and it’s noisy and there are fireworks and the energy is super high. Loved it. We watched a few races, had a few cocktails and met some fun people! I saw Sal (the E! guy I knocked out of the last tournament I played in) We also met Dominic Monaghan who is on a little show that you might have heard of, LOST. I also got to meet someone that I’m pretty obsessed with, Jeff Probst! Tell me ya’ll know who this guy is. He’s the best host that’s ever been on television. He is the host of Survivor, he’s won Emmys, he’s just a bad ass and SO handsome!
There are really only 3 people on tv that I’m just a tad bit obsessed with. Anderson Cooper (I mean…the silver fox…come on!), Joel McHale (I’m a sucker for funny guys), and Jeff Probst. We talked about Survivor and he genuinely loves the show. He’s not arrogant about it or anything. He was actually a normal, nice guy. But the best part was that he knew who I was! I guess anyone who is involved with reality tv sort of knows the characters, but it still made me happy. I definitely blushed a little (a lot).
After I acted like the biggest fan ever, we went down to the Pits to check out the bikes and be closer to all the action. Katie talked one of the guys to let us on one of the race bikes and took us around for a ride! It was awesome, except I had a dress on, which was just awkward. We took pics (see below) and had a great time. Great night. Glad I got 6th in that poker tournament so we could experience all of that, because there’s no way we would have done it on our own. I had such a good time I’m thinking about getting my own bike! Ok, not really, but I might actually go to another race.
Sharon Osborne Colon Cancer Foundation Charity Poker Tournament
The first weekend of February, I was invited to play in this tournament which took place at the Hard Rock in Vegas. Saturday morning, Katie, myself, Shaun Sipos (Melrose Place) and Nicholas Gonzales (Melrose Place, Mental, lots of things) all met at Burbank airport for bloody marys and mimosas. A few minutes later, we see Tiffany Michelle and Joe Reitman, who were on the same flight. Already I know it’s going to be a good night.
Katie and I had planned on flying in for the tourney and taking the last flight out from Vegas to Burbank, which was about 9 pm. We all arrive to Hard Rock and have a quick dinner/drinks at Pink Taco. Yum. After dinner, we go to the tournament room where I find at my table the two Melrose Place boys, Lou Diamond Phillips, Cheryl Hines (LOVE Curb Your Enthusiasm). I was pretty excited just to listen to Cheryl talk. She’s hilarious and she’s not a bad poker player either.
I started off playing pretty tight. These charity tournaments normally have lots of people that really have no clue how to play poker. I figured it was better for some of those people to be weeded out before I really started to play. About an hour into it, I won a pretty big hand against Nicholas Gonzales that gave me a pretty nice stack (thanks Nick). A few hours after that we moved tables and shortly after I was chipleader at my table. By that time, most of the people we were there with had busted and Katie reminded me that our flight leaves in like an hour. At that point, there were 3 tables left and I was probably 6th in chips overall. I decided it was time to shove next hand, if I went out, I was making my flight, if I won, then I would really start playing and change my flight. I shoved with 10 7 spades and had 2 callers (crap!) AQ and KJ. I flopped a set and knocked the 2 people out. I actually did feel bad about that, but that’s gambling.
After that ridiculous play, I got comfortable knowing I was just going to stay the night in Vegas even though I had nothing but the clothes on my back and my purse. Haha. I started playing pretty well. At the final table, there notables such as Sal Masekela (he’s the really cute guy with dreads who does the Daily 10 on E!) Tiffany Michelle, and Sara Jean Underwood (Playmate of the Year). Sara kept shoving, and God bless her, I really don’t think she had a clue what was going on. She was totally just happy to be there. Finally she shoves and I call with KJ and I doubled up. I also took out Sal, which made me pretty sad, because he is just so damn cute. Finally, it came down to me and another guy, who I cannot remember his name. We only played heads up for about 15 minutes, when I shoved with 10 9 clubs. He called with 7 8 and I won with a pair of tens. All in all, I won like 6 bounties, which I gave away to people, and a really nice trophy and some other prizes. It was so cool to win for such a great charity and I gave half my winnings to the Sharon Osborne Foundation. I really hope even that amount helped. It was a fun night. The after party was held at Vanity in the Hard Rock, where I hung with Tiffany Michelle and Maria Ho. Love those girls, they’re so fun.
The next morning I flew out to LA and got to watch my SAINTS win the Superbowl. This really could not have been a better weekend.
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Hooters
When I was on the basketball team at Plattsburgh State, we took a trip to the Bahamas, by way of Florida. While in Florida, we ate at a hooters and I remember the food being good, and the atmosphere being even better.
5 years later I will return to hooters, but not just to eat.
This has been in the works for a few months now, but I will be in attendance at a poker/beer/wings event, sponsored by Absolute Poker. It will be held in Hollywood, CA and will be a blast. I urge anyone who’s reading this and is in the area to come on down.
Basically what it will be is free beer and wings and poker. We will have some poker tables set up, as well as some laptops to play online poker at. And here’s the best part, its all free!
If you don’t play poker, don’t worry. I will be there to help out and teach some things, as well as have an exhibition where I will be playing 6-10 tables at once on the big screen. Also my partners in crime Lacey Jones, and Trishelle will be stopping by to drop some knowledge too.
I am very thrilled to be working with Hooters, I have to give a shout out to Terrance, my publicist for that one. It’s a week away, and already I am starting to get excited. Hope to see you all there.
-Matt
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When I almost quit poker
It was the summer before my junior year of college. I had almost gone broke playing poker, I had an apartment I was renting that I could not afford, and it was almost my 21st birthday. I had a job waiting tables, but it was at a new restaurant and I was getting very few hours. I was very close to quitting poker for good.
So what’s a guy to do? Well I decided I was going to pack it up, head east down to the Jersey Shore, and basically tell my parents they were right (they were extremely against poker) and act like they were the government and ask for a bailout. I had never relied on my parents before, so this was very demoralizing.
On the way down to the shore, I had $70 to my name, and I saw a sign for Atlantic City. I decided that $70 was not going to make a difference at this point, and I may as well enjoy some of my first live legal poker before I had to face the wrath of my parents. So I sat down at a 1/2 game with ALL of it.
Perfect bankroll move, I know. I was very nervous at first, but then I realized that the game was pretty easy. After the first hour I was up to 200, after the second hour I had 400 and so on. After 8 hours I had 1100 in front of me. I had got as high as 1400, but lost a big pot calling off with AQ on a Q89 board, and he had 99. I decided to leave, happy to turn 70 into 1100 in one sitting.
I drove down to see my parents, electing not to tell them about my hard times YET. After a few days there I was about to leave and go back up north. I stopped by a hotel I had put in an application to work at just to see if they had an opening. It turned out they did, oh and did I mention FREE housing if I worked there? I mean, I don’t see how I could pass this up.
I ended up staying there, where I would basically baby-sit kids while their parents would eat dinner at the restaurant in the hotel. Luckily the work was only about 4 hours a night, which left me a lot of room to do what I wanted when I was not working.
A normal day would consist of waking up at 2pm (yes, 2pm), going to the beach, taking a shower and eating lunch, going to work from like 6-10, and then driving 45 minutes south to Atlantic City to grind some more. I ended up having a pretty decent summer playing strictly live. I swore off online because that’s where I had lost my bankroll.
Towards the end of the summer I had a friend transfer $15 into my account, which I ran up to about $200 before I lost it all back, well not all of it. There was actually 34 cents left in my account. I had told myself I would not reload online, because school was just about to start and I needed the money I had saved over the summer to pay for books/food/etc.
So I decided to just mess around with the 34 cents and try to build it into something. I played 2/4 cent heads up limit holdem until I grew that number to $1. I then took that to 1/2c no limit. I built it up to $3 and then moved up to 2c/5c. I then had exactly $6.50 after a short while, and decided to put it ALL in one sit and go. I ended up winning this sit and go, then playing another and winning that. Now I had $45 in my account. I almost stopped, but then decided to push my luck by playing a $5 rebuy tournament. 11.5 hrs later, I ended up chopping it for $4,500.
Needless to say I was ecstatic, now I had some extra money for school and I had a workable bankroll online again.
I still remember that story like it was yesterday, I took that as a sign that poker was for me because I literally was not going to reload online, and had I not made that run, I doubt I would be where I am today. I have not looked back since.
-Matt Vengrin
On the way back to Vegas
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
APCC Dinner
I finally got to meet Matt Vengrin! Last week I went to dinner with a few of the guys who made the final table for APCC. They were filming the final table the next day at Bluff Studios, so the night before we went to a Mexican place in Venice Beach (which I love) for dinner and drinks. Thanks AP! :) Joe Sebok was there, who I think is hilarious by the way, along with a few of the players. Christina Lindley was there. That girl is hot and a damn good poker player apparently. Mike Hofer who actually won the event and 10 thousand dollars for college and his girlfriend were there. They were both super cool and it was fun to meet and hang out with people who were really down to earth and excited about poker. I also got to meet Stephanie and Garin from AP who were so fun to hang with. I’m pretty new to AP, so I’m just starting to get to know everyone and this is so fun for me. I love getting involved with everything and meeting new people and mingling. Matt V is my new partner in crime.
After dinner, Christina suggested we all go to James Beach for drinks, so we headed there. That’s the place on the movie “I Love You Man” where they go for tacos and they say it’s the best tacos in LA. I can’t really attest to that, but the drinks are nice. A little bit after we got there, I convinced Jeff Madsen to join us! I’ve known Madsen for a few years and he’s a good friend of mine, but I forget that people know him from poker. The college guys were pretty excited when he showed up so that made me pretty happy. Jeff is great with new people, so he and the boys talked about poker and hung out. After a few hours, the night started winding down for everyone since they had to head to Bluff Studios in the morning. Not Jeff and I! haha. We actually met some random girl at James Beach who invited us to go to some underground music party in Venice. We ended up hopping in a cab with 4 people we did not know and went to some abandoned looking place. When you walk inside it’s a bunch of hipster Venice people sitting on couches with a home made looking bar in the back and all these musicians were playing. It was so rad. I love stuff like that.
All in all a good night and made me proud to be part of AP. I hope the college guys had as good a time as I did. Congrats Mike (MSBHVNTWIN) on your win!
Xoxo,
Trishelle
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Goals:
In life, I believe goals are paramount. I’ve said it before, and ill say it again, every person should take a few minutes out of their lives and set some attainable goals. I will give you guys and gals an example of a goal I had back when I started playing poker in college.
One of my goals when I started playing poker was to buy a car. I always had hand me down cars, it started with a mini van in high school, and then an old saab during college. I was lucky enough to have transportation, but these cars were not exactly the most reliable cars out there. When I started playing poker, the goal was simple.. buy a nice car. Nice is a relative word, but for me nice meant a 3-5k used car like a Nissan Altima, or a Honda Civic. When I formed this goal it made me work harder, and get better at poker in a shorter amount of time.
About 6 months later I hit my largest tournament score to date, winning a 300R event for a little over 200k, and I used a chunk of that to buy myself a new car. I purchased a 2006 Lexus IS350, a step up from a used Altima or Civic.
The reason I am writing this is because sometimes when people have success, they take it for granted. They are happy with the success they have had, and do not strive to get better. I have found myself in this rut for the past few weeks and therefore I find myself needing to set new goals.
So my goal tonight as I’m writing this is to set some new goals this week. I encourage all of you out there to do the same. The goal can be large or small, it does not matter. What matters is that it is an attainable goal. Its ok to start small too, I started small once and it paid off big, and will continue to pay off.
So if you want to try this I highly suggest it. Take a few minutes and ask yourself: What do I want? Once you figure that out, then you can map out the goals and the fastest route to reaching them.
Cheers,
-Matt Vengrin
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