Dreamsicles

Happy New Year to those of the Asian Persuasion. It's the Year of the Dog, so you know what that means... yup, the underdog SeaHawks are winning the big one! But I have a confession to make - I had a dream that the 'Hawks lost, and lost big (44-3). Then the next night I dreamt they lost by just one point (34-33). Both times, I remember thinking, "Geez, how'd I miss the game?" 'cause I didn't know any details of the game, just the score. The second time though, as I was waking, I realized the 1-pt game meant the Hawks covered the spread, but I was still bummed they lost. Weird, because it ain't gonna happen!

Maybe the depressive thoughts are being conjured up due to the onslaught of torrential rain we're getting up here. The sound of the rain literally woke me up at 4:00am this morning.

In other wild and wacky news, we went grocery shopping at Albertson's, and right as you walk in, there's an overly pink and red display of all the Valentine's candy available. But smack-dab in the middle of it all was a very familiar yellow and blue square... no, it can't be... why, yes it is!!! A box of Cadbury Mini-Eggs!!!



Easter candies aren't usually out until the day after Valentine's day. Feb. 15th is by far my favoritest day of the year... it's the day I start putting my pancreas into overdrive in an effort to stave off diabetic shock for the next 3 months! This Albertson's must have gotten a misshipment or something, because they had a few boxes of the mini 1.5oz bags out, but none of the pounders. I, of course, grabbed as many as my wife would allow me to and I've been happily snacking on the egg-shaped balls of chocolately goodness all week! W00t!

Gawd, even the smell of the candy coating is enough to make me have an incident in my pants. Yes, I'm an addict and probably need an intervention. But admitting the problem is the first step towards recovery, right? Now give me my chocolate and nobody gets hurt!

As for my other vices, I've been loving the HORSE SnG's on Full Tilt and actually scoring a few bucks in them. The best part is when it goes from Razz to Stud... there's always some fool who misses the notice and starts re-raising their made 8. Mwahaha!

I was invited to a home-game $10 tourney on Saturday through a friend of a friend. It sounded like a regular thing, and the host was only a few blocks away from home so I thought I'd discovered a new fishing pond. When talking to the host though, he claimed it was only the 2nd time they'd done it, and they'd do it once every 2 months or so if it was a success. It was a pretty well-organized event for something that had only happened once before. They had Dr. Neau's Tournament Manager running and even had the monitor projected onto the wall so everyone could see the time and blind levels. After paying the entry fee, I got a little Ziploc bag with my allocation of chips, and each of the 4 tables (only 1 poker table, the others were just buffet tables) had a printout of the blind level structure and chip values taped to it for quick reference.

There was a list of 40 players, but only 32 showed up. I got seated to the left of the friend who invited me, and there was another player who knew what he was doing to the right of him. The other 5 were obvious newbies or novices. The first 2 levels (20 minutes each) took forever, and we only went 2 or 3 orbits that entire time, because one guy really didn't know what he was doing - checking pre-flop, not raising enough, etc. - but he still took 2 minutes to make any decision. Sometimes he would just stare at the board and look at his cards and stare at the board some more. "Your action, dude!" "Oh yea... uhh.... uhh.... uhh... I guess I'll check."

Definitely a test of patience here. No use trying to bluff at a table full of rookies. I saw calls at the River with Q high (?) and figured I'd just have to wait for the nuts to get paid off. Except the couple of times I did have the nuts, everyone folded or I had to split. Then I had three hands in a row that I tried to see a flop with: A2s, A9o, and QTs; but either my friend or the guy to his right raised or re-raised before me. The only 2 people I was worried about at the table just had to get in on my action so I folded pre-flop. Those hands would have been winners, each and every one of them.

Shortly after a break, I was down to 7x the BB, so pushed with ATs UTG. The button called, and I was a bit worried because I had only seen her play pocket pairs or two paint (she had good hand selection, but was pretty much a calling station post-flop). I was pretty surprised when she showed K7o. She had the deck and dealt the Flop cards one by one. The first card off was of course a K, but that was quickly followed by an Ace. The third card was a blank and I felt this little tingle of hope, but I knew it wasn't going to be that easy. Of course the Turn was a 7 and the River didn't help me any so I was out in about 15th place.

Not much I could do there. I properly laid down my inferior hands which would have outdrawn and come out winners, and then someone else made a bad call and outdrew me. Fortunately, it was a short trip home and I was able to quickly drown my sorrows in my heaven-sent ambrosia. Mmmm... I must still be dreaming!