Traveling and Hating It

I'm back in Vegas, just in time to pay my rent and the rest of the boring stuff, but I leave again in two days. I'm honestly tired of not being home at all.

It prevents me from accomplishing things that are important to me, such as working out and maintaining a healthy diet. It's very tough to sustain a healthy lifestyle as a poker player, let alone as a traveling one.

There's a great gym in my building, but it's pretty worthless when I can only use it four times a month.

Staying healthy mentally and physically this year was a very big priority of mine. I truly believe it helps my game immensely. However, after a month at the Commerce Casino I think I realized how Morgan Spurlock felt toward the end of his documentary Super Size Me.

The Commerce is an awesome place for poker, but aside from that it's comparable to hell. Unless you're eating at the table your options for food and extracurricular activities are very limited.

Most of my daily routine consisted of waking up way too late for breakfast, going down to the sports bar and eating something healthy, like tacos or a burger accompanied by a beer. Before bed I would eat a grilled cheese sandwich and sleep for about 12 hours.

Commerce Casino: Awesome place for poker, but possibly the eighth concentric circle of hell.

By the end of the month I would get winded when I walked down the stairs, I'd feel like crap when I woke up, and I'd get tired after about four hours of play. In fact, I partly attribute my bad play during the LAPC main event to the month-long marathon of poor bodily maintenance.

Aside from all that, I feel that my game is at its best recently; I'm playing great with a different type of focus than before. I'm concentrating on things that I wasn't even paying attention to before. At the same time I'm distancing myself from things that I gave too much importance to.

Overall, the month went well as far as performance and profit goes, with one third-place finish and some decent results in the very few cash-game sessions I put in. At the end of it all though, it wasn't comparable to the results I got during the 2007 LAPC series.

My future plans are yet to be determined. I have a very vague idea but I'm still not 100% sure of everything. It's spring break for college kids across the U.S. and because I missed out on the college experience, it's very tempting for me to skip this month's events and go hang out on a Mexican beach or even just stay here in Vegas.

Alvarado: Looking for redemption at the Reno World Poker Challenge.

However, I think I need to put in some work this year and in that light, skipping a month that has three big tourneys doesn't seem like a great idea. Bay 101 is coming up in the next couple of days, and I'm about 50-50 on whether or not I'll be making the trip.

The two tournaments I am quite sure I want to play this month are the Wynn Classic, which is great because it won't involve traveling, and the Reno World Poker Challenge, which I will go to with the goal of redeeming myself in the wake of my second-place finish to J.C. Tran last year.

I'm excited to go back to the place that gave me my first taste of success as I am sure it'll bring back several good memories, and I hope it will light a fire in me to go back and get a WPT win soon.

Make sure you guys check my Web site, www.jcalvarado.com, to see my definite schedule for the next few months. I've also been doing live updates on the hands I play during the big $10k events so I'll definitely keep doing that if I go to Bay 101 and for the rest of my $10k events.

Until then, I'll be relaxing as much as I can during my short stay in Vegas.

-- J.C.

More blogs from J.C. Alvarado:

• I'm Back
• Fine Line Between Flat Busto and Filthy Rich
• Playing Live Cash Games