Full Life Tilt Volume 1: New Orleans

As we left off, I was going to Tennessee to see my boy Rock make his cage-fighting debut. I took my brother with me and after a morning of mishaps we literally got on the plane 30 seconds before it started pulling away from the gate.

I'm never driving to the airport at 5 a.m. again. There are way too many variables at play. For all of the ridiculous things I spend money on, I'm going to stick with the car service.

Tennessee was way different than I thought it was going to be, and Rock won his fight by a rear naked choke in 55 seconds. I was a little disappointed he beat him so fast - I mean, I flew to Tennessee for THAT?!

It was his first fight and it was against a kid that had been fighting for years and he completely pwned him. I was all fired up climbing the cage, lost my voice; it was cool. I'm fairly certain he will be on the Ultimate Fighter within two years.

The next day we went to Gatlinburg. It's like one of the top 5 tourist spots in the country and I had never heard of it. We gambled on everything from go-karts to mini-golf, darts, there were some interesting bets and some people wound up dressed as girls by the end of the night. Good times.

My birthday was enjoyable ... dinner with Jena and the fam, followed by my first paintball experience. It was awesome, and surprisingly painful. There were 10 of us so it was a 5-5 deathmatch. We had the whole place rented for a couple hours. It was tiring too so nobody was really in the mood for drinking afterwards.

Night before Thanksgiving was like a high-school reunion which was a little weird, but all in all it was a good time. I was more than happy to share the same story over and over and over again all night.

The money shot.

I've always thought it's weird when people say they're sick of being asked the same question over and over or talking about something great that happened to them. Feel free to come up to me in five years and ask anything you would like about winning the bracelet - it'll be OK by me, I promise.

Ooooh yeah, the poker ... Well, I got into New Orleans I guess Thursday morning. The first two tournaments were nothing spectacular. Although I am starting to see a new trend, it was weird the first few months after my summer success - everyone was so nice and pleasant and genuinely happy for me.

I don't know if it's the reruns airing too much on ESPN or what, but I have run into some vicious mostly middle-aged to older men the last month or so. I think I was in New Orleans for about an hour and a half before the first gentleman called me a bracelet-winning turkey from the North. ?! WTF does that even mean?

Now back in my early 20s I guess you could say I had quite the temper, which I have worked hard on over the years to improve. I mean you grow up and you just figure out how to act and well, in my case you become a better person.

I have certainly been tested though lately; mix it in with the lack of run-good sauce and well ... It's starting to get on my nerves a bit.

No love for JY from the southerners.

More on the southerners' hate for me in a minute - ha. Saturday was the $1k and I took off the second level which was a good idea for me anyways to play in the Run-Good Challenge. I think I finished last obviously but it was a pleasant distraction sitting on the floor outside the poker room playing with a slightly more classy group of people than what I had found in New Orleans to that point. SLIGHTLY!

It settled me down actually, and when I went back I started going to work. It certainly was not easy either, as I wasn't actually getting any hands to play but some situational three-betting and making the best out of nothing was all I could do to build a stack, because it was crystal-clear the cards just weren't coming.

I was slightly above average at the dinner break with about 35-40 to go. Eighteen spots were getting paid so I was hopeful of breaking out of my slump with a cash to say the least. I won my biggest hand of the tournament when the button raised in the $500/$1,000 ($200 ante) level to $2,500, the small blind called and I looked down at the 2 7.

$1,500 more into the $7,800 that was already in there? Sure; why not ...

Flop fell 8x-8x-2x; the small blind checked and with $9,300 in the pot and $29k in my stack I mulled it over for a second and figured yeah sure why not, I'm all-in ... The button snap-called me and I figured oh s**t he really had a hand; I'm done ...

Well, he rolled over the A-K off for no pair and no draw, uhhh? thanks?

Anyways, the two held and I received a lecture for about 12 minutes about how terrible I play ha-ha. I mean it was a good call I guess pal, I don't know what to say here. We got down to 23 players; I have TT on the button, good for my first pair in six hours. I have $80k behind; blinds are up to $2k/$4k with a $500 ante.

I make it $13k from the button, the big blind ships it for $29k total. He has A-K; the flop was good enough for him to double.

Didn't play a hand for one orbit; got my last $38k in with 7-7 versus A-J. A jack on the flop sealed the deal on a 22nd-place finish I believe. Whatever it was, it wasn't in the money.

The main event was the only tournament with a good structure and I felt like I was playing well, so I was optimistic heading in. The odd thing about constantly playing poker is that certain seating arrangements will inevitably arise over time.

Crazy like a Fox.

I had dinner with Rock, Phil Sparta, Clint Schaefer, Mclean Karr, Dave Fox and Mike Leah, who as a group plus a few more guys from the northeast I truly believe will be some of the biggest names in poker over the next few years ... But that will be for another blog ...

Anyways after dinner with five tables to go I was in the seven seat with Phil in the eight, Mclean in the nine and Mike in the three.

I have had a lot of conversations about playing with people you know, people you like etc. and for the most part everyone says the same thing: that this is a business and you need to do what you need to do. But I just don't think I'm there yet ...

It's not always bad, as I always want to play better when I know people around me, but I haven't found a way to pull the trigger and three-bet one of them all-in with J-9 off.

Mclean and Mike both got knocked out, and Phil and I were somehow short-stacked so we figured the best way to handle this was to start taking shots and pounding beers. It helped!

Stacks were climbing as we approached 36 players to go and I was finally enjoying myself when I shoved with my lucky hand A-J suited against a player who had proven to be opening real light. He called with sixes and we were off to the races for a $50k pot as the night was winding down.

A beautiful black ace was right in the door and it was followed by an ugly six right behind it. Even the ace on the turn brought a little help, but I couldn't fill up on the river, and yet another 13.5 hour day was down the tubes with nothing to show for it. Phil took fifth and if it wasn't for a couple of horrendous beats he would have won it.

Random side note: Oscar De La Hoya is completely washed up; he got his ass kicked so bad I'd be surprised to ever see him fight again ... It was a shame too because the fight was Saturday night and everyone was really fired up for it, especially because nobody had to play on Sunday, and it was another huge disappointment. Even more of a reason why UFC has pulled so far ahead of boxing.

I'm still up in the air about how I feel about New Orleans. I almost forgot, there was a famous chef at our table during the main, and I was trying to be friendly but he didn't like me either, which had everyone at the table LOL because he was ridiculous. Paul Padiuex or something like that; whatever, he was one of those guys that feels like you should sit in complete silence at a poker game and hear nothing but the chips riffling. OK buddy.

I feel like I left out a lot but it'll come back to me when Tilt continues from New Orleans directly to Atlantic City.

-- JY

JYoungPoker@hotmail.com

Editor's Note: Jason Young came out of nowhere to win a bracelet at the 2008 World Series of Poker and has taken his newfound bankroll and hit the pro circuit in hopes of building poker into a full-time career.

He'll be posting on his progress in an exclusive series of blogs for PokerListings.com over the next few months.

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• Phelps, Foxwoods and Hustled by an Old Lady
• Respect, Aruba and Thoughts on Hellmuth