My suceess during the Chris Money maker era was unparelled by most!! I enjoyed 6 years of experience on the rush of novice players which allowed me to build over a million dollar bankroll. I crushed the Borgata games so often that eventually I out grew the biggest NL games they had even on the weekends. I packed my bags and with my best friend moved to Cali in search of better competition as well as bigger games. My confidence sored and I often thought I was the best player that America that would one day be a house hold name. A wide eyed kid with big dreams and who rightfully won a crazy amount of money in those 6 years. When I arrived at commerece in the 1st 24 hrs I got a lesson on how different they played on the west coast @ Commerce Casino. I was used to running over the game at the borgata and dictating the action. By the time players played back at me I often was on a complete free roll to stack east coast players on a draw!! In my 1st 24 hrs I succesfully bluffed away 25k yowser!!! I went to bed that night feeling deflated and being caught on 3 big bluffs by 1 pair hands!! WTF I thought as my head hit the pillow. I woke up the next day and found myself at a similar table as the night before inbthe early am hrs. My image was set so I adjusted my game. Decided I would mix it up enough to remain active but would jam when I was pretty confident I had way the best hand. I quickly got back my 25k from the night before and added another 25k to my bankroll before the night was over. I had arrived and sitting with the likes of sick call Kenny train Buffy Hoff and Danny Alaei on a regular basis I was in good company. After logging hundreds of hrs with those 3 players I no longer believed I was the best player america didn't know in fact I knew for sure if all 3 were on the table I was at best the 4th best player at the table. I played super solid against them and mixed it up against the big fish. One such fish was a regular player. An asian guy that went by the name of Juan. He was Asian and the biggest luckbox that I ever encountered in the poker world. Athough I learned one of the biggest tells watching him play a hand against David the dragon. That tell saved me at least a million dollars over the future years. We played a hand that I will never forget and it still burns to tell the story!!! He was stuck 50k in the game and I was up just over 45k and had a stack of 70k one of my largest stacks in the 20/40 game. I routinely bought in for 20k because my generallrule was to cover the table and I excelled in big pots both bluffing and otherwise. Karma may have played a big role in this hand as I was needling Juan to reload because being down 50k he was nursing a 3k stack after a good hr of needles I finally struck a cord and as the dealers changed he reloaded to cover the whole table. Four 25k chips yabbadabbadoooo I tought in my mind. The new dealer dealt me 34 spades on the button and Juan raised utg 4x 6 callers and obviously so deep this is such aneasy hand to play. The flop was gin 567 of spades that's right I flopped a straight flush!! Juan continuation bet and 2 callers before getting to me. I quickly called. The turn brought another 7 maing many boats possible. I absolutely loved that card. Juan bet again around 2k 1 caller and decided it was a good time to raise and hope somebody had trips or a boat. Juan tanked to my 5k raise then called. The player in between us went out. Heads up with the stuffed fish and a straight flush life is good as long as the 8 of spades doesn't hit the river. The river the Queen of spades whooohooo nothing changed. Juan surpringly leads 10k at this point I put hi on the nut flush and opted for a 10k min raise hoping to get paid off. Then the unexpected happened he shoved allin!!! huge raise at this point I have nearly 30k in the pot myself. My instincts told me he had 89 of spades but as I worked myself back over the hand from pre-flop to river as I often do with big decisions. Two things ultimately made me call. Number 1 he was stuck 50k and wanted to bluff me sooooo bad and number 2 he opened raised UTG. I called and when he started laughing my heart sunk. He rolled over the higher flopped straight flush. I later ran the probabilty of these two hands colliding and the number is beyond on comprehension!! He crushed my soul that hand and it became a wel know story at the Commerce Casino rarely believed by anyone who didn't witness the hand. The icing on the cake was the bad beat was over 400k at that time but that only applied to the 200 low stacks tables. The 10/20 tables and up were not included. Double wammy!! I hate bad beats stories but that hand still resonates today among at the Commerce Casino in Commerce LA