skitch-o-rama

Still Here

2006-06-23T13:28:00.000-07:00

The Washington State Secret Police haven't come knocking on my door yet to enforce that silly new online gambling law. I have nothing to worry about though, I've been a good citizen and have only recently gambled in the state-sanctioned casinos.

Bah! Mr. EasyCure is rightfully peeved and is on a crusade to do something about it. EC, I have a buddy who's finishing up law school in NYU this year, so I'll ask him about it. :)

I've been playing "for free" online though, such as the PokerStars Blogger tournament last week. The only other name I recognized at my opening table was The Rooster, but he was sitting out. I almost made it to the first break, when DonkeyPuncher showed up to chit-chat and came just in time to witness my exit. I pushed with AT and was up against a big stack's 99. An Ace on the flop elicited a "Nice" from the DP, and the 9 on the Turn just made me laugh out loud. It was either that, or DP saying, "I've never been ****blocked online before." when ToddCommish and I interjected ourselves into his attempt at table chat with SarahSpades.

Luckily the day wasn't a total wash. It was Father's Day, and my girls treated me to BBQ'd ribs and lots and lots of chocolate!

Well, back into hiding for awhile. The next month is going to be busy and expensive for me as all of my girls (wife and 3 daughters) have their birthdays within a month of each other. We do have a summer road trip scheduled, but unfortunately Vegas isn't anywhere near the planned route.

P.S. EasyCure - I am *not* a felon. The law went into effect on June 7th. As you can see on my previous post, I went broke on June 5th.

Doc - Glad you got my note about PJ's NL... I think I'm gonna give it a shot this weekend. And since you killed it, I think getting those OzzFest tickets would be an acceptable referral fee.

Stacked!

2006-06-05T08:21:00.000-07:00

Typical example of how things have been running every time I sit down at a table, real or virtual:

Can I Play Too?

2006-05-24T21:33:00.000-07:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 7330476

Just Can't Get Away

2006-05-08T19:46:00.000-07:00

With all the hours I'm working now, I thought my only Poker outlet was going to be through the writings of others on their blogs. Boy, was I wrong!

As most degenerate gamblers do, I try to keep the talk about my ~~addiction~~ hobby on the downlow while at a place of business. But during my first full week here, the two Vietnamese brothers who are on my shift were taking a vacation... to Vegas... to play Poker.

So while I've posted very little here on the blog, I've had plenty of hardcore Poker discussions during normal working hours at my desk! One of the brothers plays multiple online SnGs and hates the live limit-game, while the other brother is making a killing at the 4/8 tables in the tribal casino. We all even made a trip on our collective day off to try and sweep the money at the daily Cascade tournament (none of us cashed). Me and the limit-playing brother stuck around afterwards though, and cleaned out some other fishy's racks before we called it a day.

Now he's trying to talk me into joining him for an all day session at the Tulalip. He said he made almost $1000 last weekend at the 4/8 tables and showed me the multiple deposit slips. Apparently it's a lot more touristy than my usual hangouts (like the Muckleshoot). I can see where this can be true... the Tulalip is visible from the freeway, and supposedly the wait in the poker room is never that long, allowing the fish to come and go in droves. The 'Shoot is easy enough to find, but it is kind of tucked away so the casual gamblers wouldn't really have the chance to spot it and act upon their impulses; and the wait for a 4/8 table can run into multiple hours on a busy night.

The Tulalip is normally out of my driving range (not worth the trip with so many options to choose from near my own neighborhood), but it's actually pretty close to the new office here, so I could realistically head up there after work. And if all went well, I could come right back to work from there the next day! I'd have to run that by the wife first, but I am definitely going to give it some consideration! Okay, I guess I could do it on a night where I don't have to come back to work the next day!

In other news, and I saw that Iggy posted about this, but I happened across this news the other day as well: Internet Poker Illegal in Washington State

This comment about the bill is pretty damn funny:

Class C felonies in Washington State, include bestiality; assault on a child in the third degree; custodial sexual misconduct in the first degree; third degree rape; four DUIs in seven years; second degree assault; sex and labor trafficking; unlawful taking of endangered fish and wildlife; robbery (1 count); animal fighting abuse or, most egregiously, going “all-in” in a PartyPoker $5+0.50 multiple table tournament. 60 months in jail seems more than appropriate for going “all-in” with less than a pair of jacks.

So unless I hit a big enough score to post bail, I guess I'll be seeing you all again in 3 to 5!

Addict

2006-04-30T21:14:00.000-07:00

Hello. My nickname is skitch, and I'm a workaholic.

So I officially started my new job a month ago and I got assigned to the 1-11pm swing shift. I had put in my notice with my previous employer, but they've had trouble getting a replacement for me, so they've been happy to have me come in a few hours in the morning to do my 'thang. So now I work from 8a-12p at the old job, then pick up lunch and eat in the car during the 30+ minute commute to the new job.

Yea, I guess I'm pretty addicted to work. Or maybe it's the double paycheck every other week that's the enabler. Whatever the case, my replacement doesn't start for another 2 weeks, and there'll be some training and transition time needed, so it looks like I can milk the old job for another month at least.

Somehow, I've been able to squeeze in some time for another addiction, and played the 300 raked hands needed to clear the free money Party dumped into my account. I'll sign up for the occasional WSOP freeroll on Party and Full Tilt, but I just don't seem to have the mental or physical endurance to last them out right now.

So the cards are on the backburner for now, though they provide a nice distraction every now and then. In the meantime, I have to focus on my other current obsessions: Quizno's Prime Rib sandwiches and Jack-in-the-Box's Orange Cream milkshake. Oh yeah, and getting myself on the fast-track of climbing my new corporate ladder!

Anyone know where I can find a sponsor?

WSOP Freeroll, Take 2!

2006-03-20T15:55:00.000-08:00

Seems Saturday wasn't a good day for WSOP Satellites. I didn't make it anywhere as close as JoeSpeaker did, outlasting only half the field of 3000 in the Party WSOP Freeroll. I had vowed to play tight, and thought I was on the path to righteousness when I made the decision to fold JJ to an all-in on the 3rd hand. After an hour into it, I was cruising along just above average when I got moved to a new table, right behind a big stack with about 6x the average.

He used that stack to his advantage, pushing me off pots or calling me all the way down. I don't know why I let it get to me, but I decided I needed to double up through this guy just once. I started limping in with almost anything, hoping to catch a miracle flop. He min-raised when I had a low pocket pair and there was a caller behind so I thought it would be a prime time to push. I did, and unfortunately he could easily afford to call me with Ace-rag. Of course there's never an Ace on the flop when I need it in a race, and yet it gleefully drops for someone else when my tournament life is on the line.

Pitiful. I seem to do fine getting myself to the big game, but then I choke when it's time to play ball. Yea, I qualified again late last night, wading through 3450 others with hardly a worry. I just need to stay in that state of mind and pull a repeat performance come next Saturday.

Poker Gods Smile Upon Me

2006-03-15T14:05:00.000-08:00

Yesterday turned out to be a very good day for me. I got the message that no skeletons were found in my closet, and therefore I was cleared for hire. I talked to the new boss about what shift I'll be starting on and such - it's a large telecommunications company, so they have support needs around the clock and I noted my preference for the night shift, as that's when my buddy works. There's also obviously less pressure from the hecticness of normal business hours, and it'll be an easier commute for me during those off hours (and it will be quite the commute). But it sounds like I'll be starting a 1p-9p swing shift for my training, and then I'll get placed more permanently after a few weeks.

So I let the news slip to two of my current coworkers, and they were excited for me. I've only been here for 2 years, but they're certified lifers at over 6 years each, and I guess I gave them a glimmer of hope and allowed them to live vicariously through me! A lot of discussion at lunch time about the various ways I can break the news to the higher-ups, ranging from giving the classic "Take this job and shove it," speech to just going AWOL. As upstanding as I'd like to try and be, the question "What have THEY done for ME lately?" keeps coming up. Well, other than provide me a job and steady paycheck... but you get my drift. So I've plotted and timed out my escape route, and it may cause a bit of a scramble but I think it'll be a fair proposition for all parties involved.

Obviously, morale isn't at a high point, and I'm not concerned about burning bridges. I started here as a temp, and it was only supposed to be a temporary blip on the radar; it's absolutely nowhere near to close to the career path I want to be on. I've made some good friends, learned a few things, and can drive a mean forklift now... but somehow I don't think: "Able to crossdock 20-feet beams of lumber through an 8 foot bay door" as a skill on the resumé would really impress any IT recruiters.

And there'll be no more of having to deal with this...

So I'm obviously thrilled about this new opportunity, and I really owe it all to the Poker Gods. Huh? How's that? A few months back, I got a call from a friend to meet him for a low buy-in Poker tourney after work. And while I busted out early because of a silly chip miscalculation; I got to hang out with my buddy - the one that told me about the job opening and put in a good word for me during the interview process! So even though I didn't cash on that particular day, it's turned out to be my most profitable Poker tourney yet!

I'm not sure exactly what I did to curry the Gods' favor yesterday, but boy, did they shower me with it. After everything that went on during the day, I spent the evening partying it up on Party Poker. I actually didn't fare too well in the cash games... I blew a buy-in at the PLO table when I accidentally clicked "RAISE ALL-IN $12.86" on the River when I was trying to switch windows. Of course, I had missed all of my draws and my nemesis just had to call with his Full House.

It was okay though. The $20 I lost there was more than worth the price of where the night was headed. The window that popped up that made me misclick was the beginning of the 3:50 AM (EST) WSOP FreeRoll Qualifier. The one that had about 2100 entrants in it. The one that found me tripling up early on. The one that I flopped Quads twice and got paid off. The one that I ended up on a table with no other live players (everyone was away) so I chipped up quickly by raising every hand. Just how lucky was I? One person whose blind put him all-in had AA against my J9. I rivered Trip 9's on him.

Yes, the Gods were smiling upon me. It took four hours, and lots of folding folding raising folding to work my way down to the last 80 or so - that's about where I dozed off after raising pre-flop with AJ and woke up to Party's warning bell just in time to bet my TPTK. Then I got a really good wake-up jolt when my Pocket Queens held up against AK, giving me enough chips to glide into the top 50 and into the Saturday WSOP Freeroll Satellite.

Wish me luck, and pray for the Poker Deities to keep an eye on me for just a few more days, so that I can escape unscathed from my current cubicle and freeroll my way into the WSOP. :)

Deal or No Deal

2006-03-10T20:57:00.000-08:00

How can a game show that requires absolutely no skill whatsoever be so riveting to watch??? Completely idiotic, yet I can't turn away. Must appeal to the gambler in me... it's like Roulette, just cross your fingers and pick a number. Then do you take the guaranteed cash or try and parlay it? My favorite was an episode last week where she got her Deal to ~$90K, and she almost accepted, but her family adamantly told her NO DEAL! Then she hits two big numbers in a row and her Deal dumps down to ~$27K... her family is now sitting down and tells her, "Ummm... you do what you feel, it's all you now..." Gee, thanks! Here's a funny screenshot recap from TVGasm.

Anyways... I got a call late Tuesday offering me the job I've been stressing about! w00t! But the waiting's not over yet. I took a sick day on Wednesday to go uncomfortably pee in a cup, and HR is waiting for the results of that and a background check before I'm "cleared for hire." I've been a good boy, so I don't have anything to worry about; but the waiting is still killing me!

I got offered the salary I asked for, which was a little bit higher than what my friends on the inside told me that position paid, so I was expecting to have to get into a little give and take conversation. But my wife says I probably lowballed it if they offered me what I asked for straight up. Oh well. It may have been a factor in getting me selected over someone else who asked for higher; and it's a goodly amount more than what I'm making now so I'll gladly take that Deal.

I've stayed true to my word and kept away from the live tables... but it's hard to pass up logging into Party to claim the free money they seem to be giving away to everybody. They only gave me $35, but I worked that up to about $80 in one night thanks to a SnG win and 200 raked hands at the Omaha-Hi. Last night, I signed up for 4 of the $500 Freerolls ($100 for 1st), one starting every hour... Multi-tabling MTTs is tough - but I outlasted over 4800 others in two of them for a whopping $0.75 in more free money!!! Yes, that decimal is in the right place.

Somehow, I missed seeing the WSOP Freerolls they're running. Good thing Iggy keeps up on these things and makes sure we're all informed! Given that I've got two weeks before I start the new job (if nothing goes disastrously wrong), I think most, if not all, my spare time will be spent playing at Party. A completely free ride into one of the WSOP Main Events? DEAL!

It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp

2006-03-06T17:15:00.000-08:00

Didn't watch much of the Oscars, just had it on in the background, but dammit if that song didn't get stuck in my head! I'm gonna have to make a trip to the video store to picks me up some Hustle and Flow.

First off, the Midway finally reopened last Tuesday. The place was cleaned up - brighter paintjob, new felts, heck, even new bathroom sinks! The poker room was rearranged and they were able to squeeze a fifth table in. Saw some familiar faces in there, both playing and dealing. They had a 4/8 game and a 10/20 game running already! Had we known, we might have brought enough to consider playing in the 10/20, but instead we plopped ourselves onto the 4/8 table for a few hours before getting cleaned out. The comped food was good and Wifey flopped Quads for a $150 payout, so it was a pretty cheap night out. The one thing that was odd was hearing the new dealers calling all of us regulars Sir or Ma'am instead of by name. It didn't quite feel like home yet, but I'm sure a few more sessions and we won't even remember that it had been closed!

Those few more sessions will have to wait though. I'm in the middle of a transitional period, so I need to take a little break from the felt until the dust settles and I see where all my chips fall to rest...

I mentioned a few weeks ago I put up a lame showing during a job interview, but I still got a call-back last week and the 2nd interview went much more swimmingly! It was a lot easier to talk about my personality traits and past management experience than it was to try and spout off the correct UNIX commands at will. The interviewer wrapped it up by saying I was a bit light on experience, but I showed an aptitude for learning and would fit in well with the team... plus, I had two really good internal references and that would be taken heavily into consideration.

I was emailed an application package a few days later on Friday, so I've digitally signed the forms, agreed to the background checks, etc. and submitted my info. So now I just wait for the offer~~/denial~~ letter. The waiting is stressful, and I'd love to do my relaxing at a Poker table; but I'm trying to be on my best behavior - because you know, the Company has recruiter-spies watching me and would never hire a degenerate gambler! Seriously though, I've put a lot of little things off to the back burner over the past few weeks, pending the outcome of this application. One stress at a time.

Here's a question... how do I go about "resigning"? I've never voluntarily left a job - worked for the family until I left for college. Worked for the college, so my job was up when I graduated. Worked for a dot-com that went bust. Had a contract job that was unexpectedly cut short.

Now I've been with this company for two years and have myself some vacation and sick time built up. I've told a few coworkers about my interviews, and they told me that if it's a go, to use up my sick days and then call in and say I'm not coming back. While that would be fun, I'm not that much of an asshole. I definitely want to be courteous and give 2 week's notice and potentially train my replacement, but I want to make sure I get maximum value for my time and not get screwed on losing out my sick and personal days (like I did with the new calendar year, grrrr).

Any suggestions on how to, or how not to, leave a job would be appreciated. Granted, this is purely hypothetical right now and could just all be for naught... but damn...
♪ it's hard out here for a pimp (you ain't knowin)
When he tryin to get this money for the rent (you ain't knowin) ♪
♪ For the Cadillacs and gas money spent....

Quad-Coaster Weekend

2006-02-27T11:40:00.000-08:00

Now that Dancing with the Stars and the Olympics are over, half the eye-candy on TV is gone. At least my online play won't be so easily distracted now. Wifey and I got plenty of live play in over the weekend, and even got to meet the infamous Doc. Chako, who ran off with a couple of my stacks....

We'd put in a few hours almost every day at PJ Pocket's, just watching their Monte Carlo board escalate. Quad Aces and Kings at $600+, Jacks at $1600, Eights $700, Tens and Sevens over $400. My wife had this feeling that once one of them hit, the rest would just come tumbling after... we wanted to be there to see of some of it would come tumbling into our laps. After almost a week, the Quads still hadn't been hit, and we were in the plus column overall by about $300.

We decided to go spread the wealth and return to our original stomping ground, the Midway Casino. They closed down a few months back, but is now under new management, and a banner hanging outside said, "Grand Opening, Feb. 24th." Friday night, we cruised down there, and entered through the backstreets. When we made the turn around the building into the parking lot... it was completely empty! The Grand Opening banner now had a crude 8 patched over the 4.

The night was young and so we continued on to a nearby Silver Dollar. This particular location was doing High Hand payouts every two hours, but the only Monte Carlo Jackpots they paid were Royal Flushes. So a few hands in, literally within 10 minutes of sitting down, I limp in EP with QTo and flop two-pair. I lead out and get callers, even as it comes runner-runner Tens. I drag a nice pot, but the High Hand for this period was Quad Queens, and I wouldn't have gotten a Monte Carlo even if they were paying it cause I "only" had a one-card Quad.

The VERY NEXT hand, I get Pocket 9s and flop a set. When the Turn is the 9 of Hearts, completing the flush, I get a bit tricky (at 3/6!) and check it to the guy holding the Nut Flush, who does the betting for me. Yes, EasyCure, I guess am a Quad-peddler. :) I built myself another nice pot, and the missus noted that I've probably now used up my karmic wad for the entire year.

I sit on my pile of chips for awhile and watch as beat after miss after beat is administered to the wife. She finally hit the felt, but I had her covered so we decided to move on. Next stop was the Silver Dollar here by work, where they had High Hands AND Monte Carlo Quad payouts, but I wasn't expecting to hit any of them. Nothing too exciting at that location, except for the fact that we ran into 3 other people that had also left the house that evening to go to the Midway's Grand Reopening, but had to settle for the Silver Dollar. About two hours in, the wife hit the felt and I had doubled up to cover her, so we headed towards home to see how PJ's Quad board was doing.

The place was jumping, as it usually is on the weekends. They have a nice bar/club area, lots of pool tables and live bands and a dance floor, so it's a popular general hang out location for the kids. We weren't suprised to see all the people, but it was surprising to see that half the board had been hit... Kings, Eights, Royal, and most of them on Thursday - the one night we weren't there! Aces, Tens and Sevens were over $700 and Jacks were $1800, so still worth hanging around for.

We got a seat at their 4th and final feeder table, with three older Korean men in business suits who were obviously new to playing and readily giving away their money. As I waited for a hand that I could get paid on, I looked around for a face I'd only seen in pictures... Doc. Chako had text-messaged me earlier that evening asking if I wanted to hit PJ's. Ah-ha, table 2, seat 6, with a rack and a half in front of him. When the button had passed, I went over to say hi and introduce myself. He was now down to less than half a rack, saying he should have left hours ago, and that this was probably his last hand or two. Yea, I've heard that one before! :)

After a bit, there were enough seats open to break down our table, and me, my wife, and the Korean business men all ended up at Table 3. I managed to tread water for a bit, but my wife picked the hot seat and went on a tear. It all started when she flopped a Straight Flush - 78d, flop was 69Td. There was a bet before her that she called, but the action died when the 3d hit the Turn... obviously no one else had a big Diamond. She flipped over her cards, got paid the $50 jackpot, and got her name up for the last High Hand block for the night.

A bit later, she flopped the nut straight with QT. The way she played it, I knew she had it; but I didn't tell the 3 people behind her - especially the one who raised her on the River with his lower straight. She dragged another huge pot the next hand with another flopped straight. After a few more rounds, I was up $50, and she had over 3 racks in front of her. This is the mound of chips Doc witnessed as he left after almost getting back to even. I racked up and she said she would do the same after the next orbit. She managed to fill up another rack by the time the blinds got back around to her.

Quads twice in a row, running into other Midway wannabes, meeting Doc, flopping a straight flush... needless to say, a fun and profitable Friday night! We *had* to go back on Saturday night, so she could collect her $100 High Hand payout, which obviously held up. When we got there, the Jacks were finally crossed off, at $1966. Turns out the guy who hit it was in the same seat the wife was in the previous night, so it was definitely a hot seat that just kept paying out! We got in on the feeder table again and not too long after, the person to my right hit the Quad Aces for $898. What sucked about that one was that someone had just changed seats the hand prior... if he had stayed where he was for one more hand, I think the Aces would have been mine. Instead, all I got was a free drink as the winner bought the table a round.

Just as the night before, our must-move table broke down and we all filled in on table 3. Doc showed up again, asking if we had ever left from the night before! He was first up on the list, and took over the seat that Mr. $1966 Quad Jacks left open, and yes, it continued to be a heater. I experienced it first hand when he flopped a set against my TPTK, and then he took me again when his T4 sooooted rivered the flush against my flopped two-pair. I had just read how he played T5s, but I didn't think he could stoop so low as to play T4!!! Protecting his Kill leg, he justified. Even when I moved directly to his left, he was getting cards left and right. I finally got moved to the main game, and saw him cashing out with over 4 racks.

The wife and I only lasted another hour or so after that, but we still came out ahead for the weekend. Had a lot of fun and got in plenty of play time; but now that the Quad board has fallen, I can get back to my regularly scheduled life... though I hear the Bad Beat at the Muckleshoot hasn't been hit in a few months and is now up to $290K... hmmmm....

Another Week, Already?

2006-02-22T13:13:00.000-08:00

Been kind of a weird week... done so many things but it doesn't seem like more than a few days since my last post. Which I see now was Valentine's day. Which was completely uneventful because we had out-of-town company for the week. Which got me a free pass on the obligatory wining and dining of the wife! Woot!

And since I'm always ranting and raving about the Mini-Eggs when I mention Valentine's Day, I did stop by 3 grocery stores last Wednesday morning to stock up for the office, but none of them had their Easter candies up yet, just discounted V-day stuff! Boo! Luckily, the Albertson's by the office was right on schedule and I was highly chocolate'd up by lunchtime!

Lessee... had a pretty important interview for an IT-related job that could get me back on the right career track. Unfortunately, I had a bit of a brain fart during one of the technical questions. I knew I knew the answer, and I told them if I had a computer in front of me I could show them what they wanted to see, but I just couldn't think of the correct terminology sitting there in that conference room. Of course, it came to me half-an-hour later as I was driving away. Other than that though, I think I did pretty well, and I actually have two good references on the inside who tell me I should be a shoo-in. Should know either way within a week's time.

Went to see Final Destination 3. Part 1 was an amusing concept, I really liked #2, but the third installment has just become a parody of the series. Which isn't to say it's not worth seeing. Just make sure you're not in a "horror" movie kind of mood, because this movie seems more worthy of ending up in the Comedy section. You know the deaths are coming, and there was only one scene that made me startle. The rest were just laugh out loud funny. ROFL'ing at the gory demise of teenagers made me feel kinda shameful and dirty, kinda like after watching a porno, but without the satisfaction at the end. Ummm, porn, death, and teenagers is probably not a good combination of things to talk about all in one paragraph. I'll move on now.

So much going on in the world... VPs shooting lawyers, Muslims bounty-hunting cartoonists, ice-skaters hitting the ice... I just honestly couldn't give a rat's ass about it all right now. How lame is the American media to swarm down with the wrath of a Spanish Inquisition just because a shooting accident wasn't reported within 24 hours? Shouldn't they put their efforts towards inquiring about more pressing issues, like the BS the President is shoveling down the public's throats? And those crazy Jihadists out there... I understand if you want to protest the fact that other societies typecast you as a violent and barbaric group. But bombing embassies and killing innocents doesn't go far towards moving you away from that stereotype. And Bryant Gumbel is now the world's biggest racist... there's no black athletes in the Winter Olympics because blacks, errr, 'scuse me, African-Americans, are descendants of Africans, from Africa, which is generally not known as a ski-resort type destination. I used to be such an Olympics whore, watching the Medal Tracker and keeping up with all the sports; but the US coverage has become so lame over the years. When I'm feeling up for Olympics, I turn it on to the Canadian's broadcast... I might have to put up with some extra coverage of Hockey or Curling, but at least its sports and not more commercialized sappy human interest stories.

Okay, so that was probably a bit more than a rat's ass for those topics, but that's all I'm gonna say about that.

Put in some solid time at the tables down at PJ Pockets. With most WA state casinos now raking an extra dollar for the Jackpot pool (yea, -$5 a pot, not including tip); the Monte Carlo Jackpots are starting to grow at a quickened pace. Case in point, Quad Jacks at PJ's will net you $1500. Quad 8's are at about $900. Everything else is at least $200. I held JJ at least 3 times, but couldn't even catch a 3rd on the flop. And one particular dealer was dropping 2 Jacks on the board about every 3rd hand, but nobody had 'em those times!

So like the BBJ tables at Party, the bigger Jackpots are attracting the fish in droves! While I was playing, I heard the floor take a phone call, "Live game? Yea, we got two of the juiciest games I've ever seen going on right now!" Hell, even without the heightened Jackpots, it's always a wild game there. Do a search for "PJ Pockets" on the 2+2 forum and you'll see someone calling it the best 4/8 game in the US. My wife had a run-in with one of the $5 pros there (as Heafy likes to call them), but I've rambled on long enough so I'll save the story for next time.

Revenge of the Quads

2006-02-14T14:02:00.000-08:00

So the last time I posted was just after the Seahawks ~~got robbed~~ lost the Big Game. Oh well, old news, I'm over it. But I will share these two pics that just about sums it up. :)

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The wife had to make an impromptu trip out to NY for the week, leaving me to play Mr. Mom. Between that, classwork, and actual work-work at the office (how dare they!), that left me very little time for Poker playing, blog reading, or even general Internet browsing... my p0rn downloading has been practically nil for the week!!!

Grandma helped out and took the kids for the weekend, which gave me a day off that I promptly wasted away at the local cardroom(s). I did some casino hopping, winning $80 here, losing $60 there... playing break-even Poker over a number of different places sure takes up a lot of time! My longest stretch though was a fun one at the Silver Dollar. I was the last person needed to get a game going, so as new tables often are, it started off pretty slow, friendly and passive.

One lady hit the High Hand of Q's full of 5's early on, and if it held up for another hour, she'd be getting $150. About 4 or 5 hands later, I raise with QQ on the button and get a Q53 flop. The guy to act before me, we'll call him M, bet out so I just smooth-called as to not scare away the limpers before him, and they all called. The turn is a third club and it gets checked to me - I've got the Qc and a Full House draw so I go ahead and bet, and now only M calls. The River is a 5. Sweet - I've got the Nut FH and would split the High Hand payout in an hour. I bet and M raises me... slowplaying a Flush? I reraise and he caps... Dem's Quads, Skeetch. I so had him on the Flop... but nice hand, nice hand. He takes over the High Hand and gets paid $130 or so for the Monte Carlo Jackpot. A lot of commotion over it, and absolutely no sympathy for me from anyone for the one-outer bad beat I just took.

Not too long after that, my BB of K7 is unraised so I get to see the flop of KKJ. I bet and everyone but M folded. As the game was still kind of slow and friendly, I checked the Turn and said, "I've got the King." I looked down at my cards to find the King and was going to expose it to him, when the dealer put out a T on the River and M fired out. I hadn't shown him the card yet, and I thought maybe he didn't hear me, so I called. He had AQ. Hmmm... I gave him air and he bet into me. So that's how it's going to be, huh? Though I didn't say anything out loud, between that and the Quads, M would no longer be a recipient of my nice guy persona.

The hour goes by and M gets paid for the High Hand as well, and we move into the next 3 hour block for a qualifying HH. The table filled up and the action was picking up, so I reloaded with another rack. An older asian guy who's actually pretty funny and likable and a solid player to boot, starts running over the table as he hits hand after hand. After winning 3 in a row at showdown (with actual hands, not crap two-pair), he laughs as the flop comes QQA. He was first to act and turned over his Pocket Queens as he threw out a bet. He collected the tiny pot along with $90 for the Monte Carlo and got his name on the HH board.

A couple of drunken fish came in to donate their money, and I was able to get a few stacks off them, bringing myself to almost break-even. Then I get QQ in the small blind and just call the almost-family pot. Any Ace or King and I was letting go, but the flop came J high so I led out. I was happy to see a Q on the Turn and led out again. It folded around to M who raised me. No flush or straight, so when he only called my re-raise, I knew he was holding two pair or a Set and I had him completely dominated... unless he Rivered Quads on me again.

But the River was the case Queen! BOO-YAH! Anyone else, I would've checked and flashed them the four-titties in my hand and be happy with the pot + Monte Carlo + High Hand. But since the old guy had already gotten paid for the Queens and had an Ace kicker for his HH, and since this was M who was on my naughty-not-nice list, I bet into him. He raised and wussed out by only calling my re-raise. He had JJ.

The funny thing was that he started talking to everyone that passed by, "Did you see that??? I flopped a set... unbelievable!" I think I heard a slight tone of disdain in his voice that I went runner-runner on him. But I'd already had him beat on the Turn... the River was just icing on the cake. Of course he failed to mention how I had outflopped him earlier and he caught his one-outer on me.

I didn't get any of the bonus payouts, but the pot put me up and over my buy-in, so I racked up and left, completely satisfied that the Bitches got him back!

ROBBED!

2006-02-06T07:32:00.000-08:00

Goddammed STEALERS. How the hell do you win a Superbowl when your team doesn't convert a first down for the first 19 minutes?

Oh yea, you pay off the refs. Have them take away every big play the opponents make. Have them GIVE a touchdown to a quarterback who couldn't score one otherwise.

C'mon, Porter, let's hear you speak out against the officiating on this one!

Yes, everything went quite according to script. Oh, it wasn't scripted? Then why was it that all the commercials showing players with the trophy were 90% Steelers players? The Bus coming home to retire... no way he wasn't getting his Ring. Storybook ending, brought to you by the fine folks at ABC and the NFL.

I'm watching SportsCenter and they're asking some of the crooks how it felt to realize they'd won a SuperBowl. "It hasn't really sunk in yet..." Yea, no kidding, the way your team played! It's pretty bad when Skip Bayless, who's been ragging on Seattle all week, is on the 'Hawk's side.

MVP for the Black and Gold? The ones in the Black and White.

Game Time

2006-02-03T11:43:00.000-08:00

The Big Game is just around the corner. There's been a lot of dissing of Seattle, and not just of the 'Hawks, but of the city itself. Just look for any Skip Bayless or Rick Reilly article, where they say the Seahawks are going to lose because the city they come from is too soft, too nice. Too nice??? Geez, we can't help it if Seattle-ites are a polite crowd and don't mind showing a little common courtesy to others. Unlike some Steelers fans, you don't see any Seattle bloggers badmouthing the opposition or their hometown.

My heart weeps for the future of our society if the rest of the country doesn't know what to do when presented with a modicum of decency.

On that note, THE STEELERS ARE GETTING THEIR EFFIN' ASSES KICKED!!!

I hope that somewhere along the first drive, Joey Porter gets his helmet knocked off and his noggin thudded and we see him sprawled out across midfield calling for his mama. He wants to get physical? He can find out how physical the 'Hawks can get just by asking Sean Taylor of the Redskins or Nick Goings of the Panthers, that is, if they can see straight yet!

Someone said of the silliness that abounds: "Stevens' remarks were directed towards Bettis, so why didn't Bettis retort? Because he's a mature person!"

Bwahaha!

Oh sorry, that must have been my non-Seattle personality creeping out for a sec. Let me take another sip of my latte here. Ahhh. Yes, the Steelers are a great bunch of guys, and it should be a very competitive game between two very good football teams! May the best team win.

Whateva'!

While on the subject of games on TV, my mostest favoritest game of all time is back on the air: Survivor! An interesting start to the new season, with the 16 being divided into 4 groups, older men versus younger men versus older women versus younger women. I think if I had made it onto this cast, I would've had the same reaction as the black lady, "What? Why am I on the 'old' team???"

As far as first episodes go, this one was pretty dull. The smaller tribes make for less dynamics between people, and it was kind of weird seeing a 4 person Tribal Council right off the bat! But I must admit, I like the new dress code they enforced, at least for the younger women's tribe. Those were some itsy-bitsy-teenie-weenie-no-room-for-any-polka-dot bikini briefs those girls were wearing. Good thing too, 'cause there wasn't much to look at above the neck.

Not that I watch Survivor for the skin, of course, but it's a nice little distraction. Dancing With The Stars, on the other hand... now that the comedic relief of Frankenstein P is gone, I get my votes in for Jerry Rice, not just because he was a one-time Seahawk, but because of his red-headed Russian dancing partner that always wears only the front half of a dress... hubba hubba! And then there's Stacy Kiebler. 'Nuff said. (A quick search on images.google.com will do ya wonders!)

Okay, that's all I've got to say about Thursday night TV. If you aren't watching along, at least be sure to check out TVGasm and their hilarious recaps.

Now, back to huffing and puffing and machoing up for Super Sunday! The 'Hawks are gonna soar high and rain down a storm of 'Hawk poo all over the Bus' windshield... and I hope they drop a load right into Porter's wide open mouth as well!

GAME ON!

Dreamsicles

2006-01-30T15:13:00.000-08:00

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!

One Spade Shy...

2006-01-24T12:09:00.000-08:00

Busy, exciting weekend for me. So much so, I called in sick on Monday for a mental relaxation day. :)

Obviously Sunday was a big day for the entire city of Seattle. The wife put out the chips and dip and BBQ meatballs and we had a rocking time watching the game. We made the kids join us to watch history in the making... the 15 year old was unimpressed, but the 4 and 7 year olds were jumping and cheering right along with us. In fact, the 4 year old was so inspired by the "Sea-Fence" she started tackling her sisters.

Yup, my wife and I both agree, we'll be grooming our little bruiser to be the first female drafted in the NFL. Salaries should be up in the gajabillions by then!

Back to the bayou for all you Panther lovin' pansies... sit back and enjoy the show as the Steelers get held back and ripped apart! Final score of SuperBowl XL, 'Hawks: 33-17, with 7 of those points by the defense.

The other adrenaline pumping occurrence happened at the Poker table, of course. It wasn't as big as hitting a six-figure win... hell, it didn't even involve winning. It was being one card away - one Spade away - from $40,000.

Was playing at the Muckleshoot, where their Bad Beat Jackpot was up to $170,000, Quads or better beaten. I had been playing 4/8 Full-Kill for about 2 hours, just not getting any cards. I'd win the occassional pot, just enough to keep my butt planted in the seat. Things started going south halfway through that third hour... I hit two-pair with AQ and was betting right into slowplayed AA, and if I tried to represent a hand on a coordinated board, sure enough someone else actually had it!

I was down to $30 of my original rack buy-in and I see QJ of Spades in the CO. I limp in behind 4 others, figure I'll see a flop and then decide if it was worth putting the rest of my chips in. I rolled my eyes when the BB raised, but followed along with everyone else.

Flop is 9sTsTd... wow, helluva draw I've got! Definitely got to get it all in now. BB bets, a few callers. I raise and he re-raises, scaring everybody else off. I re-raise for the last of my stack and he calls. I look around to make sure that no one else is in the hand, and the dealer confirms it by saying, "Okay, go ahead and turn 'em up."

I flip my cards over and show off my monster draw with a shrug. The dealer says, "Wow! Let's see some pocket Tens..." This is the usual spiel when there's a "Jackpot Board" - two pair, pair and straight flush draw, etc. The board looks pretty, but usually no one is even close. The dealers like to count the time between the Bad Beat Jackpots: "I usually deal one every two years, so I'm due!" or telling oh-so-close stories.

The dealer's eyes light up as the BB shows his Tens.

One of the regulars stands up and leans over the table, practically drooling. Someone else starts calculating what the shares will work out to be. Someone calls their friend over from another table to watch, and the floorman and other off-duty dealers stop by to huddle over the table. One lady had turned around to eat her food and was completely oblivious to the commotion.

The dealer rubs the felt as he burns and turns... everyone is chanting: "C'mon 8 of Spades, c'mon K of Spades!!!" . The Turn is absolutely nothing, I can't even remember it.

Burns the next card, rubs the felt, and deals the River.

Spades.

The 7 of.

HORSE Poo

2006-01-22T01:36:00.000-08:00

Things were a bit hectic at the office, and then I had to wait at KFC for 20 minutes for the drumsticks to finish cooking, so I didn't get home and logon to Full Tilt until about 7:30 (10:30 ET). I was already down to T900 and we were in the Stud level... great, the one game I haven't ever really played yet!

I somehow manage to win a few pots... one of the first hands I had K/K, but someone was showing an Ace and betting the whole way. That probably should have been a clue that he had another Ace in the hole, but I didn't get the memo and it turned out my Kings were good! I was up against a shortstacked Mean Gene who had two pair, 8s and 9s, but with just the pair of 9s showing. I had K/K and then the river paired my 3 for a bigger two pair.

Next thing I know, I've built myself back up to over 2500 and I've got some ammo for the Limit Hold'Em round. Both Mourn and SirFwalgman are on the brink of elimination, and I get some nice hands to try and bust them with; but they both outflop me and I end up paying them off and relegate myself to short stack status again.

I play pussy poker during the Omaha round, throwing away at least 2 huge winners. I'm all-in with my first hand of Razz, 34/6, and I'm up against 23/5 and he draws an Ace and I don't improve much.

I don't know what it is with Tourneys right now, but I am either the first to go, or invest a few hours just to bubble out. Very first hand of a SnG, I get Aces - UTG raised 3BB and I made it about 10BB... he calls and I push on the 78T rainbow flop. His pre-flop raised J9 (sooted!) held up.

Okay, let's try an Omaha SnG. Wow, I flop a set of Kings and have the nut flush draw, but the runner runner fills someone else's straight instead.

Back to a Hold'em MTT? Make it past the first break, only to immediately lose 3 races in a row for a whopping $0!

Somehow I manage to keep a paltry bankroll by racking up $20 sessions at the .05c/.10c PLO tables, which of course I feed right back into Tourneys in the hunt for the Big Score. For some reason, being a nickel and dime (literally) grinder just doesn't sound all that sexy, but it's paying the bills, so to speak.

Well, I'm pretty exhausted trying to look the Poker HORSE in the mouth, so I guess I'll go around back and give the ass end of the HORSE some more play time. Ummm... by that, you sickos, I mean I'll probably be playing less HO and more RSE. I hope the poo on that side isn't as thick, but somehow I have the feeling I'll be knee deep in it.

GO SEAHAWKS!

Miscount!

2006-01-18T14:33:00.000-08:00

The worst bad beat you can ever take is the one you put on yourself. Making a bad read, mistiming a bluff, making that call when you know you're beat. That's all part of the game - take your beating, lick your wounds, and move on.

But what about those really stupid mistakes? Rookie mistakes, the ones that should never happen more than once in your poker-playing lifetime?

Thinking you have the Nut Heart Flush when you're actually holding the Ace of Diamonds - check.

Proudly displaying your four-card straight - check.

Mucking your Pocket Aces when someone shows K8 on a K822x board - check.

Miscounting your tournament chips and busting out because of it - check... and check.

Yup... I did it again. I never wrote about the first time I made a chip count mistake because it happened before this here blog existed, so I'll go ahead and lay out some of that ancient history.

I'd only been playing 3/6 for a few months, and this was maybe the 4th or 5th cheapy tournament ($25 buy-in) I'd ever been in. Never made it too far, but I was learning and having fun. I had just recently found out about Poker Blogs and digested lots of tidbits that helped my game and got me all the way to the final table out of ~30 entrants.

The blinds were up to 500/1000 and we had colored up to just using red chips worth 500 each. At some point earlier in the level, someone announced their raise to "Five." The dealer, who had just pushed in, asked: "Is that 500 or 5000?" At least two people chimed back: "We're at 500/1000, the minimum bet is 1000 so it's obviously 5000." The dealer backtracked and defended himself: "Okay okay, but still, you should be clear about your raises."

It didn't take long to get down to the last 3 players. I was on the button with 21 chips, with 1 and 2 chips as the blinds. I looked down at 9Ts and decided to raise. 3x the BB would cost me 6 chips - I figured it was worth the attempt, it wouldn't cripple me and I could easily let go if needed and still have enough to play with.

I grabbed a stack of ten chips, reached forward and dropped two. "Raise," I said as I moved the stack in my hand over and cut off another two. One more cut would complete my 6-chip raise. With the dealer's reprimand about verbally announcing raise amounts fresh in my mind, I said out loud and clear: "6 thousand..."

As I dropped the last two chips, I realized my mistake. There were my 6 chips out on the felt, which is what I wanted to do, but that only amounted to 3 thousand. I was thinking 6 chips, but had announced and was now verbally committed to putting out 6 thousand - a total of 12 chips, over half of my stack.

I got a caller, and he pushed on the flop. I caught a 9 for middle pair, and figured I was pot-committed and made the call. Hey, at least I cashed.

From that day forth, I make sure to count my chips and separate them before pushing them over the line, and make sure I know what I want to say before I say it. So how did I end up with another miscounting situation? This time, I don't have the excuse of being a newbie as it just happened the other day. It wasn't quite the same circumstances, but it falls into the same forehead-slapping, ass-self-kicking category.

A buddy called me near the end of my workday, saying he heard of a $30 buyin tournament that starts at 6:30. The place was only about 5 miles from the office so I told him I'd be there. It was a nice place and the 30 seats filled up pretty quick. I was looking over their tourney flyer and was amazed that players started with 6000 chips! But then I saw the blind structure began at 100/200 and pretty much doubled every 15 minutes. Okay, this should be interesting.

Chips came in denominations of 100 (5 blacks), 500 (5 yellows) and 1000 (3 reds). In a span of two orbits, I saw a face card once but it had nothing to back it up. I was up against a raise and reraise when I finally saw two paints, but it was only QJ so I let it go. I raised once with pocket 8s, then folded when my continuation bet was check-raised on an AQ2 board. He showed A2.

We were now deep into the 2nd level (200/400) and there was only about 3 minutes before it went to 400/800. I looked down to see what I had left: 2 red chips and a black. I wanted to ask my neighbor to make some change for one of my reds, so I wouldn't feel so short-stacked, but he was involved in a hand. Then the next hand was quickly dealt and I was UTG.

I really wish I would have gotten the change, because it would have helped me avoid the mental lapse that kicked in when I tried to calculate my stack size relative to the blinds. At the other places I regularly play, red chips are 500. So having 2 reds, I counted up 1100, just under 3x the BB, a push or fold situation. I had A3s so I put my remaining 3 chips in the middle. The dealer announced it for me, "All-in." What I wasn't expecting to hear was the "2100 to call" part...

The only caller had AK. I flopped the Wheel draw, but it never came and I was shaking my head in disbelief at the move I had just made. I thought I was much more desperate than I really was, when in reality I could have seen at least one more round of cards. Or if I had just limped in, I could have made a stop'n'go move when the flop missed AK.

Maybe I've been playing too much online and am spoiled by having all the numbers displayed right in front of me; or maybe somedays I'm just an idiot.

Favorites

2006-01-16T14:59:00.000-08:00

The Seahawks are now the odd-makers favorite to win the Superbowl. Huh? Even the Rain Gods had to stop their deluge the day after the game to scratch their heads about that one. Funny thing too, my family was coming back from a trip from Thailand and had a 12 hour layover in the city... the one day it hasn't rained all year.

I was rooting for the Bears, because it would have been an easier team for the 'Hawks, and I would have enjoyed winning whatever wager would have been placed with DonkeyPuncher. Now the Panthers are coming to town instead. They were my favorite team to pick playing NFL Blitz in the arcade only because Tim Biakabutuku was on the roster. Nothing greater than giving him the ball every other play just to hear the announcer yell out his name.

Yes, I'm easily amused.

When It Rains....

2006-01-13T18:01:00.000-08:00

... it pours, especially in the Northwest. We're now on our 26th straight day of rain, and the forecast is for at least another 5 days worth. Ahh, basking in the glorious Seattle Sunshine! It should make for an interesting Playoff game. Go Seahawks!!!

Happy Friday the 13th to everyone! As much of a Schleprock that I am, this day is usually the lucky one for me. Too bad I'm not going to get a chance to test my luck at the poker tables tonight. The next Friday the 13th is way out there in October, so I hope I can survive the bad beat rainstorms until then!

Omalympics

2006-01-12T06:42:00.000-08:00

Over the last week I've been playing a lot of PL Omaha (Hi), both in prep for the Omalympics and just for a change of pace from the Hold'Em ass kickings I'm used to. Right off the bat I'm hitting Quads and Straight Flushes... I scored 2nd place in the first PLO SnG I played, and had a +200BB session at Full Tilt - too bad it was only at the .05c/.10c tables.

I got myself out of work an hour early so I could get home in time for the DADI Special Omalympics. I'd been in training for a week and was ready to go for the Gold. I had missed the first dozen hands (which the Hand History shows I had a lot of chances to chip up!), and the first hand I play after logging in, I flop a set and lose to a rivered straight. Luckily, there was a flush out there so the betting action wasn't that heavy.

I immediately get moved to a table with Iggy, Veneno, GCox and on_thg. The first hand I get involved in on that table, I hit two pair with AJ, but see some chips go to GCox who only has an Ace. I'm scratching my head as I look over the hand history, and see that he won the Low.

Oh yeah, we're playing Hi/Low split... I totally spaced on that aspect of it! "Now I'll be coming into EVERY hand!" I say. Sure enough, I am able to pick up a couple of low halves with hands I would have totally mucked if I had still thought we were playing only Hi. Then things started really going my way:

Dealt to skitchorama [6h Ac Kc 3h]
*** RIVER *** [4c 8c 9c 3c] [2s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
skitchorama: shows [6h Ac Kc 3h] (HI: a flush, Ace high; LO: 6,4,3,2,A)

Dealt to skitchorama [5s 5d 2h Ad]
*** RIVER *** [Ac 8h 3d Kd] [4d]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
skitchorama: shows [5s 5d 2h Ad] (HI: a flush, Ace high; LO: 5,4,3,2,A)

These happened within 5 hands of each other, and both times I got paid off by ScarKnight who had a lower flush. Now that I had some chips, I decide to have a little fun with this hand: "Dealt to skitchorama [2s 7d 8s 2c]" and raise it to 72 and get callers. The flop:

Yea, nobody paid me off on that one, but I did get to drop DQB and HAMMER in chat! A few hands later:

It came runner runner Duece, but I had to let it go when the turn was a 3rd club.

I get this in the BB:

Dealt to skitchorama [3d 6h Jd 2d]
*** FLOP *** [7c Jh Ah]

I led out betting, but got raised and reraised... I folded and watched the other two get themselves all-in:

*** RIVER *** [7c Jh Ah 6s] [As]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
willythewise: shows [2c 4h 2h 5c] (HI: two pair, Aces and Deuces; LO: 7,6,4,2,A)
grupper: shows [Ad 5d Js Ac] (HI: four of a kind, Aces)

Ummm... I would have had A,2,3,6,7 for the Lo and taken willythewise out. I guess it was a good laydown though, wasn't it? If a 3 had fallen, it would have counterfeited mine and I would have lost to his Wheel. Having the A,2,3 was giving me the nut low draw, but with no Straight or Flush draw, my lone pair of Jacks wasn't strong enough for me to keep going, especially in the face of TWO all-ins. Is my line of thinking correct on this?

Dinner was cooking, and since I was up near the top ten I considered sitting out to protect my chips and let the rest of the Omatards take each other out. I was going to play through my button and then head out. I get this in the SB and complete:

Dealt to skitchorama [9h 3d 7h 4d]
*** FLOP *** [4h 9d Td]

I bet out and ScarKnight, whom I'd taken plenty of chips off, raises enough to let me know he's going all in. I started with about 2000 and he had 800. Everyone else folds and I go ahead and grant his wish:

*** RIVER *** [4h 9d Td 2d] [9s]
skitchorama: shows [9h 3d 7h 4d] (HI: a full house, Nines full of Fours)
ScarKnight: shows [Th 8d 9c 8s] (HI: a full house, Nines full of Tens)

Yea, he flopped the bigger two pair, but I turned the Flush only to lose to the bigger Full House. Great. Back down to 1200. Now I'd have to bring dinner to the computer desk so I wouldn't miss out on the hand that would bump me back up. I thought this might be this one here:

Dealt to skitchorama [Ah 5h 4d As] - but when the board came 998J with no flush possibility for me, I was resigned to let it go. It got checked around to the River, where a third Ace fell.

Nut full-house no good. I was thinking it was fortunate that on_thg only had 500 chips starting that hand. That left me with 700 to try and make something of. It turned out it didn't matter, because precisely 2 hands later, my BB no less:

Dealt to skitchorama [4s Kd 2h 4c]
*** FLOP *** [3c 5h Qc]
GCox25: checks
skitchorama: checks
yosoyveneno: bets 100
mowenumdown: calls 100
GCox25: folds
skitchorama: calls 100
*** TURN *** [3c 5h Qc] [6h]
skitchorama: bets 534 and is all-in
yosoyveneno: raises 79 to 613 and is all-in
*** RIVER *** [3c 5h Qc 6h] [Td]

So I had the 6 high straight... a possible scooper hand. I might lose the high to a 7-4, or lose the low to a A2 or A4. With Veneno betting the Flop, I figured she hit a set, or maybe had the A2 or A4 for the low draw. She had the A4, plus a 7 for the scoop:

Well, I guess it benefitted Veneno that I didn't lose all my chips to on_thg, as he busted out shortly afterwards. She, on the other hand, was able use my chips to make a comeback run all the way to the final table.

For me, it's back to the gym...

Finally!

2006-01-09T14:50:00.000-08:00

At long last, I get in a post for the year 2006! And the Seahawks finally make it to the 2nd round of the playoffs! Game tix went on sale today, and I tried to get a pair to make a quick turnaround on eBay but Ticketmaster wouldn't let me through. Ah well, guess I'll have to stick to making money the old fashioned way.

New Year's was great - a few months ago I just happened to run into an old friend who I hadn't seen in about 5 years. He was setting up a New Year's party, and told me that he had recently got a hold of some other people who had fallen off the radar over the years. It made for quite the get-together, the "old gang" all in one place! My cell phone contact list practically doubled overnight and an uber-email list was compiled for future party invitations.

I had to keep my alcohol consumption to a minimum and give myself enough time to sober up for the drive home. I was surprised my body lasted until 5am, considering how I had spent the anniversary with wife just two nights prior. We had been at it for a full 17 hours... and by 'it' I mean poker playing. I told her I was going to take her into town for a nice steak dinner, but having just recently returned from New York, she said she was tired of the fancy, stuffy restaurants as that's all she ate at while she was out there. How nice for her, while the kids and I enjoyed Mac n' Cheese or Jack in the Box on a regular basis during her absence. But I didn't put up much of an argument when she said she'd rather put that money towards a poker buy-in!

We mosied over to the Muckleshoot late Thursday night, got ourselves some discount casino food and were both seated at a 3/6 game just around midnight. We rode the wave as our chip stacks went up and down, and watched as a myriad of drunks and regulars came in and out of the game. Wifey finally hit the felt at around 5:30am and I was stuck about $20. I told her I wasn't leaving until I got one of the donuts that they bring out at 6:00am. I'd put my time in, and I wanted my free donut, dammit!

I scooped a pot as the donut tray came around - there were no chocolate creme filled so I settled for a good ol' maple bar. After scarfing that down, I saw I was back to even so racked up and cashed out. On the way to the door, the cash-out found itself cashed back in at a Craps table. :) The shooter was hot and I was up another $50 within a few rolls! Unfortunately myself and my wife were not so hot and we found ourselves back down with just $50 left. Since the pit boss couldn't cash our chips, and the cage was sooo far away, I split the chips with the wife and we took two seats at a Pai-gow table. A few hands in, she hit Quads, but with only a dollar on the bonus. Of course, the other old asian ladies at the table were shaking their heads in disbelief as their $50 bonus bets were swept away.

As it is with Pai-gow, we got to play for almost an hour, and amazingly found that there was now about $200 between us. Back to the Poker room? Sure, why not! I don't really remember what time it was at this point, and our only clue that it was around normal waking hours was when the Poker room was filled up and the waiting lists were getting longer. We had ourselves breakfast at the table, and made sure to get up and stretch the legs and get some fresh air every now and then. Despite being awake and at a casino for over 12 hours after a full day of work, I was really enjoying the cards and the company.

Before we knew it, 5:00pm rolled around and we were both feeling the gas tanks starting to empty. She was back to even and I found myself up $250. I told her once I broke $300, we'd leave... and wouldn't you know it, I went on a downswing and blew through $200. Most of it was in a huge kill pot that just completely deflated me, so we racked up and left shortly after. Made it home and got a good 12 hours of sleep before having to get up and get ready for the New Year's party that night. Not an impressive BB/hour rate, but a fun way to end the year!

As you can imagine, we got quite our fill of casino action and haven't been back to play yet this year. But when we do, I have to try harder to give up the fun and social aspect of it and remember to get out of there with as many chips as possible. I guess I could consider that a New Year's Resolution, but I'm pretty sure I said the same thing last year, so I think it's just me finally getting around to fulfilling an Old Year's Resolution. :)

See You Next Year!

2005-12-27T18:00:00.000-08:00

Seeing as how I only get around to posting once a week, this is most likely my last post of 2005. Wow... another year gone... unbelievable.

Had a wonderful Christmas with the kids. Took them to see Santa on Friday - it only took 2.5 hours of standing in line to get to him. At least there was some entertainment in the form of a lady who couldn't keep track of her two little hellions... one of them ended up on the other side of the food court yelling "Mommy!", and my wife stopped the other one from leaving the mall while the mother was busy trying to keep her place in line. Some people just shouldn't be allowed to be parents. And you would think that the kids would have been told to remain well-behaved, what with Santa himself just a few yards away!

When my little ones finally got on the big man's lap, they ended up asking for things that weren't originally on their list, so the wife and I spent Saturday morning fighting the last minute crowds at Toys 'R' Us and Target so that Santa's reputation didn't get tarnished.

I've said it before: kids + Christmas = -EV.

The four-day weekend was nice, and I get another one for New Year's. I'll probably spend some of that time playing some more Omaha... tried out one of Full Tilt's PL Omaha SnG's and scored a 2nd place finish in my very first one. The pivotal hand was raising in LP, just for kicks, with 6969 double-suited and catching a 69x flop. The action was fast and furious and I wasn't quite sure exactly what I had, but I was all-in, won the hand and busted someone out. A series of nice flops right after that and I chipped up enough to sit back and cruise into the money. I put some of the SnG winnings into a .05/.10 PL game, and tripled-up when my Straight Flush was bet into by the Ace high flush and called by the King high flush. I guess scoring $15 in a nickel/dime game isn't too shabby... but why can't this shit ever happen to me in a game with dollar limits???

Tomorrow is my 3rd wedding anniversary, which really doesn't reflect the nature of me and my wife's relationship, as we're coming up on our 10th year together. We had a couple of kids, bought a house, ran a business, went through our share of ups and downs, and then got around to finally completing the formality of marriage just a few years ago. But it's still an important day, and as much time and money as we've spent on the kids the last few weeks, mommy and daddy will be treating themselves to some well deserved quality time together tomorrow - "quality time" meaning a nice steak dinner followed by a few hours of live poker playing!

Have a happy, fun, and most importantly, safe New Year's, and best wishes to everyone and their families for a healthy and wealthy 2006.

Titan's Fan

2005-12-19T18:24:00.000-08:00

Wow, been spending hours reading all the Vegas trip reports. So much for putting up a post of my own, let alone trying to get some actual work done at the office. :)

So yea, I'm a fan of the Tennessee Titans, or at least of Air McNair. Unfortunately he's been stuck with a pretty sad supporting cast the last few years, but it was fun to watch a Seahawks/Titans game. I almost broke my neck jumping from bandwagon to bandwagon at halftime! The better team pulled through though, and it sounds like the 'Hawks game against the Colts this week will be nothing more than an exhibition game. Saving their best for the Superbowl, I guess. Anyways, football is not what this post is about...

Having finished most of the Christmas shopping and house decorating, completing the Advanced DB Administration and SQL class, and shooing away the visiting relatives - that left a lot of time for some poker playing this past weekend! Oddly, none of it was spent in the casino. In fact, after the beating I took in November, I don't think I've played a single hand of live Poker this month. It's not that I'm scared... I tried going down to play at lunch a couple of times but there were no games running. Could be due in part to the new smoking ban that went into effect in Seattle a few weeks ago. No smoking indoors nor within 25 feet of the entrance, although I don't think that part is being heavily enforced. The Indian casinos aren't bound by the new law, so maybe that's where all the players are at nowadays. I've been way too busy to go fishing around, but I definitely feel an urge to go pull an all nighter at the Muckleshoot again pretty soon.

Hey, if people are concerned about their health and not want to leave smelling like smoke after a Poker session, they should have just opened an online Poker account. Then they could enjoy sitting at home in their shorts, watching some football, and check-raising on a stone-cold bluff, like I did on Saturday and Sunday. Been putting my time in at PokerBlue to qualify for their weekly Freeroll (of which nothing came about); and I've somehow managed not to blow through the entire Titan Poker freebie as of yet. I dipped it down to $20 but worked it back up to almost $80 now. I don't think I've been playing enough for the additional $25 bonus from Instant Bankroll, so I guess I'll just have to try earning that part on my own.

Grinding away at the $.50/$1.00 table is not my ideal choice of game, but I realize it's what I gotta do with what I have, and at least I'm getting to play. Since I actually had some time to invest over the weekend, I decided to mix it up with an MTT, and signed up for a $1250 guaranteed, $3 buy-in with rebuys/addon. Got some good hands to chip up early on, then blew it with pocket 9s. The Flop was 237... no one would be playing the Hammer here, would they? I figured my overpair was good, that is until A5 called and caught the gutshot Wheel on the River. I rebought, then doubled up just before the rebuy period ended, and of course took the add-on. Invested $9, 30th place paid $15, and 1st was almost $500.

I had nothing to play with for awhile and was down to about 10xBB. I made a big raise with A5s in MP, the SB pushed and the BB went in as well. Okay, I'll tag along. It was Pocket 8s and Big Slick against my measly A5 of Hearts. I was in pretty bad shape... an Ace hit the flop, so at least I pulled into 2nd. Not enough cards for a runner-runner Wheel, and the board was all black - the three of us had red cards, so no flush possibilities for anyone. My only hope was a five... just like the lovely 5 of Spades that fell on the River. :)

Big Slick boy was pretty pissed. "WTF??? You lucky bastard. Oooohh, you are SO mine!" Next hand, I had AT and caught a Ten on the flop. He pushed the rest of his chips with J5 and I took him out. Rather than taking the beat like a man, the guy hung around and tried to harass me. "You're on my hit list... I'm gonna find you every time you play... keep playing like that and I'll clean you out..." I tried the Sorry this is my first time playing line, but that didn't back him off.

The amusing part was that he even followed me after I got a table change. His new goal in life was to see me bust out on the bubble. He apparently knew one of the other guys at my table and offered up a bounty on me. "Double if you take him out in 31st!" He kept chanting 31, 31, 31 in chat... I think I was the only one that didn't have him on Ignore at that point. I asked if he would be my fan club president. "Only if you bust out 31st." Unfortunately, he witnessed my AA losing to TT (hit the Set on the Turn) and I went out in 39th.

I think by then, he was done steaming and was just amusing himself and probably having as much fun as I did. He was talking to his buddy about tilting people by playing 72o... hmmm... so he's one that can dish it out, but I don't think he likes the taste of his own medicine.

So for those of you playing on Titan, the next time you see my new buddy chillinaz, be sure to drop the Hammer on him and tell him skitch sent you. Who knows, he might become your biggest fan too!

Bummer

2005-12-07T15:03:00.000-08:00

This past week has been nothing but a series of bummers:

Not going to Vegas.

Flop 2 pair with AT on a AQTxx board. Lose to a slowplayed AQ.

Forgetting to check the Christmas lights before putting them up and having to restring almost the entire house.

Flop 2 pair with J3 in an unraised BB. Turn the Fullhouse. Lose to slowplayed QQ when Q rivers.

Finding out company is not able to offer Christmas bonus this year.
Not going to Vegas.

First to bust in a 3 table SnG with KK losing to a 47 who flopped the straight. At least they were suited!

Wife erasing last night's Victoria's Secret Fashion Show before I got a chance to re-watch some of the jigglies in slo-mo.

Did I mention, not going to Vegas?

More evidence that I'm just a bad luck suckhole: neither my wife or I have come away from the tables with any significant wins in the past few weeks. So she goes off to play the other night and I opt to stay home. She wakes me up at about 6am the next morning by slapping a fistful of 100s across my face. She hit a Quad jackpot for about $300 and they also held up for another $200 High-hand jackpot. If I had been there, the Quads probably would have already been hit by someone earlier (has happened to me twice before) and the high-hand would have been beaten with 2 minutes left to go.

I feel like a living Voodoo doll or something. If any of you want an extra edge in Vegas this weekend, buy me a ticket there and I'll sweat your opponents at the final table! Trust me, you can't lose!

Another Month Down

2005-11-30T22:39:00.000-08:00

It's the end of November... one more month before 2006. Wow.

Nothing much going on… just some really bad luck at the tables. I could have sworn that I didn’t win a single dime all month, and then I saw I had a post about placing 4th in a WWdN tourney. Guess that’s why I have this here blog, to post the posts that remind me of the good times, to post the posts that remind me of the bad times… don’t… cry for me… next door neighboooor.

Yes, ever since then, I’ve been knocked down, but I haven’t gotten up again. I’ve blown through most of my ‘Stars bankroll playing twenty or so $5 and $10 SnGs and MTTs and cashed once for $13. How’s this for a depressing stat – Pocket Queens: 0 for 9. Only twice did an Ace or King flop. Twice I ran into a bigger pair. Twice I flopped the set against AK, who caught their pair as well, so I was guaranteed plenty of action. Runner-runner straight or flush guaranteed I was going to go bust.

I feel like jumping on the “ONLINE POKER IS RIGGED!” bandwagon, except a couple of those losses came at the casino as well. Don’t know how it all works - I just know I haven’t flipped over QQ and scooped a pot in a while.

In the live game, I’ve walked away a winner once all month…. A whopping $10 profit. A few times I’ve settled for breaking even, and the 4-1/2 total buyins I’ve lost have left me scratching my head wondering if my poker skillz have regressed or if I’m just a bad luck conduit. Some evidence supporting the latter – I happened to be downtown driving by the Seahawks Stadium (it is not Qwest Field) when Feely was lining up for his first OT field goal kick and missed. Coincidence? Maybe… but I finished my errands and was driving back past the Stadium again when he shanked his 2nd one! I should go on the road with the ‘Hawks as their official cooler…. 14-2 baby!

Hey, at least it would put my bad luck to good use.

This is not the way to save up for a Vegas trip, especially one with my Inter-web heroes in attendance. Actually, it wasn’t even like the weekend of the 9th was going to be open for me anyways… what with class finals, family visiting, and trying to squeeze in as much OT as possible. Lesson of the day: young kids + Christmas season = -EV.

Another month down, both chronologically and monetarily. See you in December.

Night of the Living Kicker

2005-11-16T17:48:00.000-08:00

Went to play at the PJ's Midnight tourney - Doc Chako told me he was going to be there too, but we didn't trade phone numbers in time and I didn't know who to look for, so I missed the opp to hang out with another local fellow blogger. I don't think he was at my table because I don't remember seeing Aces cracked. Only Kings... gee, imagine that, Pocket Kings losing at PJ Pockets....

Anyways, I played a good game. I made bets at the right time and laydowns when necessary. One nice pot I took early on was with QJ in the BB and a few limpers, so I took the free flop. QQx (trips!). I bet out right away and only the button called, as well as my Turn bet. River was a flush/straight scare card and we checked it through... he had 99 and thought I was bluffing. Who, me? Bluffing? Never! ;)

I made a raise with KQs and the short-stacked BB pushed. It was only a few hundred more back to me so I called... 78s and he flopped an 8. That's okay, it was early... I still had enough chips to fire at and buy a few pots here and there to stay alive. A few rounds in, I isolate another short-stack with AQ versus 66. Turn an Ace, but he Rivers a 6. Yowza. As I slow down to sit back and watch, it turns out I'm not the only one losing every race/kicker battle - it seemed almost every All-in showdown had the dominating hand getting outdrawn.

I see AK versus A8 and the Flop comes AAx, and then a snowman on the turn. KJ verus KT - a Jack on the Flop only helps to complete a Straight for KT. Then it was my turn. I make a push with A2s and get called by A9 and AK. A Duece on the Turn and I triple up! This being the trend for the night, I should have mucked the next time I had AK, because I was up against AT... and of course I lost.

Then came the undeniable proof that it was a night for the underdog, although it should have been obvious from the get-go - the Cowboys did end up beating the Eagles earlier that evening!

I'm down to about T3000 at the final table and have to put in 800 for the BB. It gets folded to the chip-leader on the button who raises to T2000. He's a solid player who knows what he's doing, so I put him on a definite blind steal. I have A9 and re-raise All-in. He tells me, "Nice hand," but calls anyways and shows his A3. I don't even get a chance to enjoy a moment of self-satisfaction for making the right play when the dealer flops out 353. There's a 9 on the River just to signify my 9th place finish.

I don't fault the button for making that move (he ended up chopping first/second for $500)... it's a play I would have made in his position. And I really didn't have any major leaks in my game that night either... just kept getting outflopped. The turnout for these things have been nice... 3 full tables + 4-5 alternates, and first place has been over $700 the last few times I've been there.

Since I've been running decent in tourneys, I've been focusing on MTTs at PokerStars. Signed up for a $20+2 MTT, and played in a $5 3-table SnG while waiting for the other to start. I busted out by going in the best hand, AK of Spades, and losing to KJ of Clubs on a ridiculously uncooperative flop - J high with two clubs.

Luckily, the $20 started off great, with my first hand being Q8 spades in the BB and getting to see the Ace and King of Spades on the flop. I bet out and was called by someone who actually flopped two-pair. If he had pushed on the flop, I might have bucked out; but he waited until I got the Nut flush on the Turn to put me All-in. Ooops, did I just hit the Call button? I managed to stay right around the average stack size for the next 3 hours, and the Curse of the Kicker seemed to have worn off. I lost a race, AQ versus Tens, and finished in the top 20 out of ~650 for an $80 pay. The $3400 for first would have been nice, but I'll take what I can get.

Hoping Wil runs another West Coast Warm-Up tomorrow, otherwise I look forward to playing against familiar names on Saturday. See you all at the final table... just be careful not to call any All-ins with the better hand!

Saturday Sitout

2005-11-14T16:15:00.000-08:00

After scoring some cash in the WWdN WCW-u#1, I figured I could put down $11 to hold my spot in Pauly's Saturday circuit. Ended up placing right in midfield again. I'm slightly amused, yet saddened for those that are placed below me.

I requested the HH for the tourney and scanned through it for fun. I found out that I most likely would have busted out early when I flopped the ass-end of a straight and someone Rivered the high end. But if I had managed to work up enough chips to survive that one, I might have been okay since I later had KK when two people got all-in with JJ and KTs. And one of my last hands before being unceremoniously blinded away was AA... the PFR blind-stealer showed his QQ.

Here's to hoping my next Saturday doesn't become another Sitting Out with Dr. Pauly event.

West Coast Represent'n

2005-11-11T14:15:00.000-08:00

Look at that... I offer up a little Poker Lesson and all of a sudden I get mad skillz. :) Took 4th place in Wil's West Coast Warm-Up, and I was the last West Coaster standing.

I got seated just to left of ToddCommish and across the table from Wil. I busted someone out early when my AJ flopped two-pair against his AK. Got some chips from Todd when I rivered a Flush against his top pair; and then flopped a Set (not Trips) against Wil. He paired his Ace on the flop and I just smooth-called. We checked the Turn and he folded on the River when I bet. I don't know if he was influenced by the fact that I typed "fold..." into the chat box before confirming my bet amount. I woulda felt bad for busting out the host so early on... :)

I was in the top 5 at that point and pretty much sat out and enjoyed Survivor. The blinds started creeping up and I was slipping towards the bottom of the ladder with about 1/2 the field gone. Made some moves and my pocket pairs actually held up. Maudie eventually showed up to the left of me, and the last time I had seen her she was down to T500. Now she had over T5000 and was using them to call my PFR and then raise my continuation bet! A few hands later she called my AT raise and the flop bet. So like a little whipped school boy I checked it through the Turn and River and luckily my Ace high was good. :)

I ended up to the left of The Film Geek in time to see him get check-raised by Joanne and start lamenting about having to make "good laydowns" and folding made hands. I put him out of his misery a short while later with my first (and only) AA against his 77.

Sitting on the bubble was excruciatingly painful, but there was a bright moment during it all. When the short-stack went All-in and was called, someone in LP went over the top, forcing the original caller out.

From the rail, The Film Geek voiced my thoughts exactly: STUPIDEST RAISE EVER! The player teetering on the bubble caught his Ace on the River against the isolation-raiser's JJ. The initial caller said he had KT, so he wouldn't have busted the bubble anyways... but still, if you've got a good hand and someone has already called an All-in, just make the overcall so there's a greater chance of bursting that bubble and everyone else making the money.

After the Ace fell, someone said, "9 people just cursed their screens."

Film Geek: "10 including me!"

We finally get to the final table and I fold fold fold my way to the top four, where I had an amusing back and forth with Mourn. I was only ahead of him by a few thousand chips when he went All-in, and because I had sat at a table with him for quite awhile and knew he was playing very aggressively, I didn't hesitate to call with my TT. He showed A5 of Spades. The flop came 772, two spades. Oh, my bankroll for a Hammer! A 3rd Spade came, no Ten to fill me up and I was down to T5000. I get the Hammer the very next hand, but decide to let it go to when someone else raises. Good thing too, 'cause the next hand dealt to me was AJ and I pushed and I got called by Mourn's smaller Ace. I was back in it, and pushed again with A5 of Diamonds. Mourn insta-called with his 99. Ummm... didn't we just go through this? The board was all low, and the Turn gave me the Diamond draw, but no Flush on the River. Instead, my 5 was good for a 7 high straight.

Mourn: You deserved that!

So the 4 of us left were all about even again. I get KJo and face a raise from CW21. I'm about to click Fold, when my wife tells me to just go All-in. I asked her, "You feeling it?" and she said Yea, so I pushed. Up against a pocket pair and I was out in 4th. I ragged on her for a bit, telling her if I ever make it to a Final table of a major tourney, she won't be allowed to be in the audience. She apologized profusely, saying she thought it was a good hand to steal the blinds/antes, not realizing there was a raise before me. So much for women's intuition!

Thanks to Wil for hosting the tourney and thinking of us Pacific Standard Time'rs. It was definitely a great warm-up, and I'll be looking forward to seeing you all in the the main event (whatever that may be)!

My Poker Lesson

2005-11-09T20:02:00.000-08:00

There's a slew of great strategy posts written up by some of the bloggers out there - HDouble, PokerNerd, DoubleAs, ScurvyDog, Joanne, Beck, and many others I'm sure I've missed. So I thought I'd offer up my own little poker lesson... but not about pot-odds or check-raising the turn, but rather, about a bit of proper grammar.

SET versus TRIPS

Both words refer to the same poker hand, a Three-of-a-Kind, which always ranks above Two-pair and can be beaten by a Straight or higher. So is this just another case of giving a hand multiple names, like Full House/Full Boat or Four-of-a-Kind/Dem Quads, Beetches? In a regular 5-card game, sure, you could say you've got Trips or a Set of Jacks to sound like a savvy player who knows what you're doing.

But really, what's the difference? It's the same hand right? Why squabble over semantics?

In the case of Hold'em, Omaha, and other games with a community board and hole cards, it is commonly agreed upon that having a Set refers to holding a pocket pair and catching the third on the board, whereas Trips refers to having the Three-of-a-Kind with only one in your hand and the other two on the board. This was a distinction I had learned early on, but it never dawned on me until recently that there was a solid, logical explanation for the difference.

Notice that a Set is always A Set, singular. When you have a Set, you have the only Set of that rank possible. If you've got KK and the board is AK8, then you have the only possible Three-of-a-Kind in Kings. If someone else says they've hit their Set of Kings, then it's time to call for a new setup. The poor sap holding K8 is drawing dead, and the only hand ahead of you at this point is a Set of Aces, which, if out there, could only be held by one other person.

On the other... hand, Trips are plural and two people can have the same Three-of-a-Kind, leading to a split pot or kicker battle. AT versus AJ on a AAKQ2 board would both have Trip Aces, KQ kicker and split. With a AAK82 board, the Jack would play and scoop the pot.

Simple as that. A sound, grammatically-based explanation of Set versus Trips. Now here's an example of the confusion that can occur when improperly used:

I watched a hand where an EP player raised preflop and was called all the way around the table (as is the case in 3/6 limit No-Fold'em). The flop came AAJ and he led out and got a few callers. He slowed down and checked the River when it put a Broadway straight and a flush possibility on the board. Sure enough, someone had hit their straight but the winner was a runner-runner Ten-high Flush. The original raiser mucked his hand in disgust and told his friend, "Geezus, I flopped a set..." So of course I'm thinking he had JJ and why the hell did he muck his Full House to a measly Flush??? "...Big Slick no good at this table!" Ah-ha! He didn't flop a Set, he flopped a much more vulnerable Trip Aces.

So there you have it... my all-important Poker lesson for you all. Now when you need to correct someone at the table, you'll have the reasoning to back it up and you can wow them with your extensive knowledge of Poker terminology. Or you can keep it to yourself and laugh at them internally when they show 92o and proclaim they have a Set of Dueces... take pride in the fact that you know it's actually TRIP Dueces that cracked your Aces.

Quiz on Friday!

Best Way To Play

2005-11-07T14:39:00.000-08:00

Outlasted 50 other bloggers/readers in Dr. Pauly's first Saturday tourney... and I didn't even show up! I was absent from the last PokerBlue Freeroll as well, but my wife took the reins and her flopped Broadway straight lost to a Rivered Full House within the first hour. I didn't see the stats on that one, but I'm sure I would have placed a lot higher had she just left it alone!

Something has come up for next Saturday as well now. I'm torn between making a down-payment for next week's tourney to maintain my middle-of-the-road standings; or just giving up on the whole thing and playing if and when I can. Grrr...

My Donation

2005-11-05T08:13:00.000-08:00

So I'm now registered for the first Saturday w/ Dr. Pauly tournament. Unfortunately, I'll be spending the day in town with my brothers who are visiting for the weekend. I guess I'll be sitting out and folding my way into the top... 30? 20? I'll be happy to take the points towards the Circuit Championship, as I'll be playing in the next three for sure.

If you do see me raising though, it means my wife decided not to come with me and is instead playing as my proxy. If that's the case, you all better watch out! :)

Soggy Halloween

2005-11-02T14:47:00.000-08:00

Monday was pretty uneventful, as far as Halloweens go in our neighborhood. With the rain pouring down all weekend, most of the kids, including mine, were doing their trick-or-treating indoors at the mall. And after I had spent all of my Saturday hanging up ghosties in the trees and spreading the cobwebs around the bushes... I coulda been playing Poker instead!

I actually haven't played since taking my beating from The Rock last week, except for the required 4 hours on PokerBlue and then the one measly hour I lasted in the Sunday FreeRoll. At least Daylight Savings Time had ended, so I got that hour back. My wife's back home too, but she needs to get herself readjusted to West Coast time before trying to make it through the Midnight tourneys.

Kind of a weird time for me... it was right about now a year ago that I went ape-shit with some online gambling funds (non-poker related) and took the nastiest bad beat of my life to the tune of 5 figures. I'm too scared, embarrassed and ashamed to link it or even go back and read about it again right now, but it's there in the archives, ready to taunt me for the rest of my life. I may have gotten over it, but I don't think I ever really recovered. It haunts me all the time... kind of fitting for this team of year I guess. I think the only way I'm going to really get past it, really feel that I've made up for the loss, is to score some major tourney win, or hit the Lotto. With the way things go some days, I get the feeling I have pretty much the same chances at either of those options.

Rundown by The Rock

2005-10-28T12:53:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not referring to the movie (which I can't dig on cause I haven't seen yet), rather, it's what happened to me a few nights ago.

I was over at PJ Pocket's for their Tuesday midnight tournament. The format changed recently - instead of a straight $25 buy-in for 1200 chips, it's now $25 for 1000 chips, with a $20 rebuy for another 1000; and if you pay all $45 upfront, you get a T500 bonus. Blind structure is still the same: start at 25/50, 50/100, 100/200 and then SB goes up 100 each round from there. Many other places just start doubling the blinds (so you never get a 300/600 blind level). Almost everyone takes the add-on, so starting with T2500 allows for much more play... raise and reraises instead of just raise and reraise all-in... although with that many chips some people end up making T1000 raises even during the first level. Okay, whatever.

I really like this new structure and actually cashed both Monday and Tuesday last week, so I was feeling pretty confident going into it that night. Took down a few small pots early, and in the 2nd round raised 3x with A5s when it was folded to me in LP. Only the SB called. Flop comes 556. Nice flop, and not wanting to overplay it or slowplay it, I make the same continuation bet I'd made a few times before and get check-raised all-in. I have him covered by a few hundred and I make the call... Pocket Sixes? Nope, he had Pocket Eights... he had put me on a big Ace so thought his overpair was good. But of course the board comes 7, 9 so his 8 makes the straight and I was pretty much done.

I thought about how I played that hand while fiddling with my remaining T600 chips... if I had pushed on the flop, that would have screamed "I missed my overcards and I just want to take down this pot" and he would have called anyways. Checking would have given him the open-ender, and you know how people love to call all-in with their draws. So there was really nothing I could do.

I came to the realization it was just bad luck and resigned myself to a bad night. I didn't know it at the time, but my negative thoughts must have been so strong that they coalesced and came into being on this plane of existence right before my eyes. No, it wasn't in the form of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man... it was The Rock.

He was a big Samoan guy who could very well be a relative to Dwayne Johnson. And that was the only thing his nickname was based on... his play style was far from Rock-ish. In fact, as he took his seat as one of the last alternates, one of the solid players on my side of the table said, "Oh shit, I hate playing with The Rock... you can't put that guy on anything."

I thought it would be amusing to watch him play, and it didn't take long for the show to begin. On his very first hand, with blinds at 100/200, Rock was UTG and says, "Three-bet!" and puts out three T100 chips. It's explained to him he has to raise to 400, so he throws another chip out there. A few callers and the flop comes with an Ace and he goes all-in. The guy who beat me with the Pocket 8s calls and flips over A5. Rock has A9 and doubles up on his first hand. Next hand he raises from the BB, flop comes 976 and he pushes. Gets called by K9 and A7, and he shows 56s. Runner-runner 5s and Rock busts out two people!

I looked over to the solid player who made the comment and said, "You weren't kidding, were you?" Rock sat out a few hands, busily stacking his chips. Then he calls a raise and is the first to go all-in when the flop is King high. He shows K2 and the raiser has Aces in the hole. A King on the River and the Aces guy goes storming out the door in a huff.

Unbelievable. Where do these people find that kind of luck? My AK loses the race to Queens and I'm out of the tourney while the night is still young. I get myself a rack on the live 4/8 half-kill game and enjoy a comped meal and play tight and solid for the next hour, occasionally hearing a "THREE BET!" or "BUCKLE UP!" from the Rock at the tourney table. He ends up making it down the final two, and I don't know if he won or took 2nd or chopped it, but I see him counting a couple of fresh hundred dollar bills from the cage.

Wait a minute, Rock and I never tangled during the tourney. In fact, he provided me much amusement for awhile. So why all the bad vibes? Yup... he bought into the live game and his luck continued to hold up. The game had been pretty lax up to that point. Once he sat down though, it seemed that no pot went unraised, and if it was raised it was usually capped. It was rough to put $16 into the pot pre-flop with pocket tens only to have a K flop and a Q on the turn. I let it go and saw that Ace high won. I was in for another $16 with AKs. Rock led out the whole way, and I was going to raise him on the River to see what he would do. The guy before me raised first, so I folded... as did Rock.

These were huge pots. Three or four people seeing the Flop at $16 a pop... seeing the Turn was at least another 2 or 3 bets, and most everyone hung around. An ungodly portion of the time, the chips went over to The Rock... he would win one and not have enough time to stack them all before he was raising the next hand, yelling "BUCKLE UP!". He'd win that one and have even more added to the pile in front of him. Once, I had the nut Flush on the Turn when a second Duece in my suit hit the board... I bet out, he raised me, I re-raised and he capped. I was hoping he'd just hit Trip Dueces. I checked the River, saying "Pot's big enough," but he still bet. I say I call and start stacking my chips and Rock yells, "CAP IT!" and starts pushing out more chips from his pile. The dealer tells him to slow down and pushes his extra chips back... then pushes him ALL the chips when he flips over 92o for a Full House.

Buckle up, indeed. I knew I just needed to take down one of these monster pots to be able to walk out of there with a decent win. I thought it was my time when I got Pocket Aces. Of course it was capped, and flop came Jack high. It was bet and raised before me, so I 3-bet, and Rock capped it. A Trey on the Turn, all four suits, no straight possibilities, I lead out, Rock raises, and everyone else drops. I check to him on the River... take a second to think when he bets and flash the Aces to my neighbor. I make the decision to raise, and even blurt it out; but Rock wasn't paying attention (he was still stacking chips) and he tables his J3 two-pair. I showed my Aces and no one made me commit to my verbal raise, so I saved a few bets there.

Now I was down to about $60. AJc in a kill-pot. I raise it, saying "I'm on tilt!" after just having my Aces cracked. I hit an Ace and basically get the rest of my chips in... with FOUR callers! In a raised 6/12 kill-pot no less! There was over $300 in that pot, and I was beat by three of those callers... two of 'em had two-pair, one had the straight, the last was on the flush draw... and me with just my lowly pair of Aces, Jack kicker was done.

It was 4am at this point... I knew if I bought-in again, I'd eventually get a winner... but it could have cost me a few more hundred to get there the way things were going. I called it a night and tried to get in a few hours of rest before work. Hard to get any peaceful sleep though, after The Rock Layeth The Smack Down.

986th

2005-10-24T10:08:00.000-07:00

I'd been running decent in tourneys all week... cashed in the PJ Midnight tourneys, placed 50th out of 2000 in a Party rebuy MTT, a few solid SnG cashes. I figured that I was either just getting warmed up, or that I was definitely overquota on my luck for the month.

Unfortunately, it was the latter.

Got Big Slick once and had to chop it (but mine were suited!); lost a race to a short stack; and doubled up with AA, but I was already the short stack at that point so it didn't help much. There were two really aggressive players that I was stuck between, and I couldn't get any cards or a matching flop to play back at them.

Ah well. Congrats to the winners. I hope the conversion rate for new, first-time depositors at PokerStars will make it worth their while to make these Blogger Freerolls a regular thing!

In the meantime, it looks like PokerBlue is extending their Freeroll for a few more weeks, so I won't be cashing out of there completely quite yet.

Oh, and since I'm on the topic of somber news, while I was playing at the Muckleshoot, I heard another player telling the dealer that Midway was closed... that employees showed up and the doors were locked. My heart sank a bit, as that was the place that my Hold'em cherry was popped. First live tourney, first live ring-game, first time playing 10/20. And like a good whore, she was both of my younger brothers' first as well.

I spent many long nights there and really liked all of the dealers. Felt kind of bad as I was hearing the news while sitting in an Indian casino... like I was caught cheating or something. My guilty feeling quickly subsided though, as I hit my draw on the River and raked in a $150 pot.

R.I.P. Midway. I'll take the lessons I learned from you and make you proud. There'll always be a special place for you in my heart.

FreeRollin' Idiot

2005-10-17T18:00:00.000-07:00

Ahh, finally, a moment to breathe, relax, read some blogs, and punch out my own post. Last I was here, the kids and I were getting ready to fly off to New York city. It was a great trip: got to see two Broadway shows, had the full the NY taxi-cab experience (the 7-yr old even almost got creamed by one!), and visited all of the major Manhattan tourist attractions - Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, WTC site, MoMA, Central Park, etc.

Didn't get a chance to make it out to any of the cardrooms, but that didn't matter, because the most important part of the trip was getting to spend some quality time with the wife. :)

:)

:D

AAAnd, I'm spent.

Anyways, last week was obviously a hectic week, as it always is when I'm out of the office for 3 days and since I don't really have a backup in the department. And my evenings have been pretty much tied up working on finishing up a database project. Not easy to do when the SQL server is down for most of the night and then running at half speed after that. But server downtime == online poker time! Managed to squeeze in my four hours at PokerBlue and then couldn't resist the $500,000+ BBJ tables at Party.

Tried playing at all three levels I could comfortably afford (2/4, 3/6, 5/10) and it seemed I was the only one taking the bad beats, and unfortunately they weren't bad enough for the jackpot. Dropped over $400(!) over the course of the week, as well as another $50 or so bubbling out in a few SnGs. Put quite a dent in my already tiny online bankroll, but at least it's all been someone else's money I've been playing on (yea yea, I know, a bad gambler mindset to have). Oh, I did make about $30 via the new Blackjack and Sidebets. Go -EV!

Fortunately, I had a really good weekend at the casinos and am currently carrying around a fat wad of $20s. No amount of virtual low-limit table winnings come close to the feeling of lifting off 3-1/2 racks of white chips and lugging them over to the cage to cash out. :) Was supposed to meet up with EasyCure for an evening of fishing, but I decided to treat the kids to a night out at the movies instead with the winnings.

Sunday rolled around real quick, and I took my last shot at PokerBlue's $12,000 Package freeroll. Only 185 people in this one, and I could only make it down to #30. :( I was at about T7500 with the blinds at 300-600, and there was an EP short-stack All-in for T1500. I figured he had any pocket pair or Ace/rag so I went over the top to isolate. Didn't cost me that much to try to take someone out. Then the guy behind me with just about T9000 calls! With AQ!!! What a horrible call, except it turned out to be a good one when two more Q's hit the board. Didn't I just read somewhere, "It's all about making the wrong play at the right time."

I also got called an idiot earlier on in the tourney... I had just recently doubled up with AK versus AQ (oh, the irony) and was sitting on T4000 with the blinds at 75-150. Not a bad position to be in. There was a min-raise UTG so I called with Pocket Dueces. Flop it or drop it, or maybe pull a move if it was a low raggedy board. Flop comes 233 and the PFR leads out. I figure I'll let him hang himself and just call. But the Turn is another 3, pretty much killing my hand if he had a bigger pocket pair. We check it through and he shows AJ and I take down a small pot (compared to what I might have gotten had that 3rd Trey not fallen).

So I say, "Whew, that turn killed my hand, thought you had a bigger pocket pair."

A guy not even involved in the hand says, "So why'd you call a pre-flop raise if you thought he had a bigger pair? Keep chasing your two-outers, idiot. You'll learn..."

What? I replied, "Hey, it was a min-raise and I had chips and position. Flop it or drop it, and I f'in flopped it! If he had a bigger pocket pair and caught it on the turn or river, then he would have been the one that two-outer'd me."

I held back from pointing out the fact that the guy calling me names only had T900. Unfortunately, I doubled him up a few hands later when I had KK and he had AT and caught the Ace. "There," I told him, "You have some chips now so quit whining."

If nothing else, playing these big-prize winner-take-all Freerolls have made me think about aspects of my play... overvaluing hands and getting all-in when I don't need to be. I'll take it all as preparation for next week's PokerStars Freeroll. Should be an interesting mix of good players, political bloggers, and me - the two-outer chasing idiot!

I have registered to play in the
Online Poker Blogger Championship!

This event is powered by PokerStars.

Registration code: 6059488

Distractions

2005-10-04T08:27:00.000-07:00

Last Friday was payday, and a coworker wanted to go play some cards to get his mind off the busy week. Gee, twist my arm, why dontcha! We went down to the Silver Dollar at lunchtime and made the wait list long enough to warrant opening a second table. Bought in for $60 each and ordered some lunch as well.

My buddy took some beats - his pocket Qs flopped a set and lost to a flush, and KT ended up with trip Tens, but someone had flopped a set of 4s and the paired tens gave the villain the boat. He was busted out with 20 minutes left to go in the lunch hour, so he just turned around to enjoy his Kung Pao chicken. I was down to about 1/3 of my stack and was resigned to strike up this lunch hour as a loss. About 10 minutes left before heading back to the office, I get 56c in the BB. Flash the cards to my buddy and when it goes unraised, I tap the table and tell the dealer to flop me a BB special.

Flop is AhJc8c. "That's it!" I yell, "But I'll check 'it'..." MP bets and myself and one other call. Turn is the 9c. I check again, MP bets and I pull the good ol' checkraise. Other caller folds, and MP looks sickened as he calls so I know he doesn't have a higher flush (yet). My buddy's worried he has a big club so he says quietly, "No more clubs..." I double check the board and whisper back, "Well, the 7 of clubs would be nice..."

BAM!

I shake my head in disbelief. I say out loud to the dealer, "Winnie, why another club? I had him on the Turn!" MP checks his cards... and yes, he has the Ace of Clubs... so he bets his $6 and I checkraise him all-in for $10. I start reaching in my pocket for my wallet because you need your ID to get paid on the Monte Carlo jackpots. The guy gives me another $4 but he knows he's beat, and the dealer asks me, "Jackpot???" I toss my ID onto the table as I turn over my cards. That pot got me back to even, and I got an extra $140 ($20 of which went to Winnie) from the jackpot.

It was back to the cubicle after that. I wonder now and then if I shouldn't just take another hour off work because my payrate at the tables some days is so much better.... Anyways, thinking back about that hand, the Ten of Clubs would have clobbered me, but I still would have gotten paid for the jackpot because both of my cards played for the lower Straight Flush. Now, if someone had QTc, would we have split the jackpot? I guess I should find out about these things before I hit my next one! I do know though, that if the board had come out 789Tc, only my 6 would have played and I wouldn't have made the extra $120. Anyways, it was a good day and I was happy for the distraction.

Newsbreak!
Horrible times for Seattle! City Council approves tougher strip-club rules: "The council voted 5-4 to approve an ordinance that will require clubs to keep dancers and patrons at least four feet apart, install a 3-foot railing between the stage and audience, ban direct tipping and install brighter lighting."

Ugg... wish this wasn't such a sissy city. Guess I'll have to go back to just getting my jollies online. Speaking of playing online... [segue] I ended up at the final table at the Poker Blue WPT Freeroll!

I took an early lead, as I always do, and then I tightened up too much and let everyone else surpass me. There was one point where a guy took a bad beat and then just went all-in for the next 6 hands or so. The three times he got called - he won. The last of those times, I had KJs but I let it go, knowing he was going to push and he had built up enough chips to hurt me if I lost. I would have won. :(

Then I got a lucky double-up when no one raised my T3o in the BB and I flopped two-pair. MP had AT so he reraised me all in and I caught another 3 on the River to seal the deal. He didn't see that there was a 3 on the flop and started berating my play. "What a river! How could you call with a 3 kicker, you didn't think you were beat???" "Umm, dude, you didn't raise and I hit two pair... I wasn't going to let it go." "Oh, didn't see that. Nice hand, then."

I continued playing smart and survived the field of 200 to make it down to the final table. I was still kind of short-stacked, sitting at 7th place or so. Unfortunately, it was about 6pm and there were a couple other things going on. I'm taking an online database management class, and we had a group project working on some SQL scripts. I had just gotten off the phone with one of the group members who was telling me he had a family emergency and couldn't get his part of the code done. Being the group leader, as well as needing his section of code to be able to get mine done, I was all of a sudden dumped with a double load of work and it was due in about 4 hours.

HDouble recently wrote about focus and concentration on your game. It was a very inspiring post, but due to the circumstances my game time was split... ALT+TAB'bing between folding and coding database queries. Then it happened. JJ in late position, UTG min-raise and I pushed. He called with A9 (sooooted!), caught his Ace and I was out in eighth.

I just sat and stared at the screen in shock. How could he call an all-in with A9??? After a few minutes, the realization of what happened sunk in. It was a horrible move on my part. I should have considered the position and the chip stacks. I should have just called the raise, and after seeing an Ace and a King on the flop I could have let the Jacks go and played on. Turns out the guy who beat me was the next to bust out.

I was distracted, plain and simple, worried about getting my assignment done (which is a completely valid worry) and not being able to focus on the game. A friend told me he would have rather went out 150th than 8th. Yeah, I guess I would have felt even crummier if I went out in 3rd or 2nd as I usually do in tournaments, but it would have been nice to have had a shot at the grand prize.

At least I know I can get there. I'll be out of town this weekend, but I'll definitely be back for Blue's final Freeroll on the 16th, not to mention PokerStars Blogger Freeroll on the 23rd. And you can be sure that I'll have my work done by Saturday so that nothing... not even the Seahawks pulling out a win... will take my focus off the game.

On The Bandwagon

2005-09-30T09:54:00.000-07:00

A $12,000 Freeroll. Who can say No?

I have registered to play in the
Online Poker Blogger Championship!

This event is powered by PokerStars.

Registration code: 6059488

p.s. to PokerStars - brilliant viral marketing campaign! ;)

Into The Deep Blue

2005-09-26T08:18:00.000-07:00

Both the Seahawks and the Chargers were in their deep blue uniforms, and they both kicked some arse on yesterday! Woot!

I haven't had much casino time with everything going on at home, but I sure have logged plenty of hours on that thar' Intraweb thingy. So last time I mentioned my online bankroll, I had cashed out over $950 from Caribbean Sun from an initial $500 deposit and after working off a $90 bonus.

I had to withdraw the initial deposit 'cause we had a bit of a problem with a leaky water heater that was soaking some of our things in the garage. I think I got screwed on that deal though, cause I paid Lowes $700 for the heater and installation, and when the guy showed up, he said we needed a special "short" heater for our space and it would cost $150 more... and he just happened to have one on his truck. Hmmm... I didn't have much choice but to pay up.

Anyways, I put most of my online sugar into UltimateBet. I'd read that UB was full of rocks. I thought, c'mon, online poker is online poker... boy was I wrong. I could not get any hands paid off, and I was the sucker that kept running into overpairs or flopped sets. Played a few nights at 2/4, 3/6 and 5/10 and just couldn't hold a profit and was finally depleted. Well, except I have almost $150 in bonus dollars, but I don't know if I'll ever be back to get a chance to work that off.

I took the last $100 of my budding bankroll and went to join the Party. Cha-ching! Believe everything you read, because those 2/4 BBJ tables were just ridiculous! I had taken a few days off to get rid of the sour taste from UB, and my first session at Party netted me over $200 in one sitting! Yes, I was getting good cards and flops, but I just could not believe the number of callers and bluff-raisers that were handing me their cash. After one huge pot, where I flopped a set of Deuces, turned a boat which gave someone trips and another person a flush, someone commented, "When did money go out of style?"

Well, I was able to work that $100 up enough to where I could put $250 into PokerBlue and try out for the WSOP/WPT freeroll. It's been nice to play there, cause you only need 4 hours at their 1/2 table to qualify... so I feel okay logging off after an hour or so even if I've only broken even. If I haven't doubled up, at least I've put some hours towards getting into the Freeroll. And after I get the email confirming my registration, I don't log back on until Sunday.

Last week in the Freeroll, I had QQ run into KK and was out pretty early. This week, I played tight and smart and lasted a bit longer. I recognized the name StB from Beer City Poker on the leaderboard, and I was actually moved to his table (just after he had taken a beating and was no longer in the top 5). I made it down to about 50 out of 170 or so, but the blinds were moving up and it seemed there was a high proportion of large stacks at the table, so I knew I couldn't get away with any steal attempts, and I just wasn't getting any cards to play. I finally put in half my stack with ATs on the button when it was folded to me, the SB called with 77 and hit his set and I was out in 34th. They're running this for a few more weeks, so I plan to get my 4 hours in again and give it another shot. In the meantime, I'll just keep raking it in at the 2/4 BBJ cuz money's never out of style with me!

This was amusing... just after busting out from the PokerBlue freeroll, I hop on a Party table called "Blue Devils." I win a large pot and get disconnected. When I signed back in to make sure I got that last pot, this is what my account was at:

Birthday Bash(ing)

2005-09-20T08:28:00.000-07:00

So I went 0-3 in the NL Tourney's on my birthday... pretty bad beats all around too. Funny how I lose with AQ versus KK, then later double up with K2 and K6, and then get crippled when my KK loses to AQ (89TJ on the board).
UPDATE: rest of the bad beats posted at Kicked In The Junk.

It was alright though, as I eventually made all my buy-in $ back (and then some) playing live, so I pretty much got a free day of Poker. :) Traffic kept me from getting to the 6:00 tourney on time, and after gorging on all the chocolate my kids got me, I skipped out on the midnight tourney and stayed home to play some online and continued to kill!

In retrospect, a year ago I thought I was pretty decent at NL tourneys and always blew it in the ring games. But over the last few months, I can't seem to survive past the first round of a tourney, while my limit game has become much more aggressive and profitable. This really came to light when I hopped in a MTT NL tourney and was out in 10 minutes; and then I played in a Limit tourney and was chip leader throughout. Took two beats at the final table - both times I turned top pair, but I was reverse-dominated and that same Turn gave my opponent Two-pair. The two players I lost those hands to ended up being the final two, and I had to settle for 3rd out of 80.

I used to be too passive, and now I can be too aggressive... I need to find a way to balance the two playing styles or at least keep them separate in my mind so that I can be successful at both... practice practice practice, I guess.

Year One

2005-09-16T09:08:00.000-07:00

So today's my birthday... I'm 27 (offsuit). Been a year tracking my poker playing... pretty uneventful compared to others who are writing articles and books and playing in WSoP events. But I've had fun and learned a lot and can only get better.

It was an uneventful year altogether I guess. But I have a home and a beautiful family, so there's not really much more I could ask for!

I've got the day off from work because at the beginning of the year, I'd submitted today as one of my floating holidays... my birthday very conveniently falling on a Friday. But since my wife is out of town and my brothers backed out of coming down from Anchorage (one turned 21 yesterday, the other will be 20 on Monday), there's nothing left for me to do but play some poker!!! Here's my schedule for the day:

10:30 AM - $45 buy-in tourney at the Silver Dollar
12:45 PM - $45 buy-in tourney at the Midway
3:00 PM - $25 buy-in tourney at the Cascade
6:00 PM - $35 buy-in tourney at the Rising Dragon
8:00 PM - Dinner break... come home and let the kids "surprise" me.
12:00 AM - $25 buy-in tourney at the Crazy Moose

And since I'm 27, you know I'll be playing that hand every time I see it! :)

Kick-off!

2005-09-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

Yea, the Seahawks fumbling the opening kickoff return is going to be real indicative of their season...

Oh well, at least I have the new TV Season kickoff to look forward to this month. Nip/Tuck, Survivor, Smallville. Yikes. As if my current schedule isn't tough enough on the psyche. Getting the kids ready for school, busy time of the year at work, the commute home through a construction zone, the new slew of TV shows, staying caught up in the online class, and to top it all off, there's no wife to keep me company.

*sigh*

Well, at least the Broadway show she's working on is going swimmingly, and the website is up: In My Life, The Musical. The kids and I are being flown out to New York the first week of October to see a preview! I'll have to read up on the NY Club reviews before I go and brush up on my NL game.

The ocassional 3/6 live games I've played here haven't really been anything to talk to about. After dropping the kids off at grandma's last weekend, I stopped at my local Silver Dollar and blew through a rack - luckily I bought in for another $60 just in time to catch an upswing and was able to walk out with only a $20 loss. The next few times I played, I got my socializing fix out of the way and then forced myself to leave when I was up, even if it was only $30 or $40.

As much as I don't like to say it, it's probably better that I'm playing without my wife. She likes to stick around and drink and hang out with the guys all night, and so I end up playing for much too long (oh, woe is me) and usually leave empty-handed.

Wow! Breaking news!!! Judge strikes down ban on strip clubs. I wonder how many places will spring up (pun intended) overnight! But maybe this won't be such a good thing... having only a few places to go really kept the hot stripper population concentrated... now they'll have the option to spread out, and many more cover fees will have to be paid to seek out the best ones.

Speaking of strippers, I briefly mentioned in one of my previous posts that I was on my way to becoming a bonafide bonus whore. A couple of paydays ago, I had a large chunk of overtime, so I put a full $500 into Party with a 1st time deposit bonus code... but I never got the bonus. Turns out that because my brother had transferred me some cash a few months back and I played on the real-money tables, I wasn't eligible for the 1st time deposit bonus. Lame! So in a desperate attempt to become a bonus-whore, I withdrew it all and put $100 into Iggy's new sponsor Caribbean Sun to get their $50 signup plus $40 monthly bonus. Needed 250 raked hands to get the $50 and 200 of those would count towards the requirement for the $40, so an easy $90, right?

Nope, not so easy. The fine print said only hands that had $1 or more in rake were counted, and the rake only hit a buck when the pot reached $20. Hard to get a $20 pot in a quarter or even a dollar game, and I couldn't find a 3/6 or 4/8 table to play on. And once you're in, you couldn't quickly backtrack... you have to wait for a withdrawal PIN to come via snail mail, and they charge a $1 withdrawal fee on top of it all! Pretty crummy if you ask me, but I guess Iggy's gotta do what he's gotta do to keep his site running!

So what did I do? I think I've been reading too much of Sir Waffle and contracted his Go Big or Go Broke syndrome... I deposited the rest of my bankroll and took the last open seat at a 5/10 game. Why not... I buy-in to 3/6 and 4/8 games with just $100 (16 and 12 BB), so I should be okay at 5/10 with 50 BBs. It's the same game, right? The same 52 cards... the same hand rankings. Just play premium hands, value-bet draws, fold to aggression, and position raise for a free card. $.50/1, $5/10, nothing more than a decimal, really.

After 3 nights of playing, I confirmed I reached the 250 $1+ raked hand mark and my bonuses were deposited. I kept myself offline and occupied for the next few days (by playing live!) and a week after my initial deposit, I finally received my PIN and withdrew a little over $950! Not a bad run... I had a bit of a scare when I dropped down to ~$200, but things picked up nicely after that. After the withdrawal hit Neteller, I uninstalled Caribbean Sun Poker... thanks, but no thanks Iggy.

I'll follow up later with further adventures of my bankroll. Online poker season has begun for me!

Martial Law

2005-09-02T18:13:00.000-07:00

So martial law hasn't yet been declared, but I heard authorities have been given the okay to shoot to kill. And boy, do I hope they do.

It's one thing to loot a grocery store to get food to feed yourself and your family, but hitting up a sporting good store for shoes and football jerseys?

Reports of people getting raped in the Superdome? WTF? That's Superdome, people, not Mad Max and the Thunderdome. If I were there (and single) I might be tempted to ask every decent looking girl I came across if they wanted to sneak around the corner and shag, given that it could very well be our last opportunity. But it would be consentual... how could you add more trauma to someone's life at this time?

And those idiots shooting at rescue 'copters. What a bunch of morons. Maybe this is just Mother Nature cleaning out the gene pool? Whatever the case, it's a good thing that our government has been on top of things! Oh wait... that's right, our soldiers are out dying on foreign soil and billions of dollars have been spent rebuilding some other country's infrastructure. Wonderful!

My wife is still out in NY, and the kids are spending the weekend with Grandma. I think there's not much left for me to do but try and forget the troubles of the world by hanging out at a 3/6 table.

Hmmm

2005-08-31T14:04:00.000-07:00

Dropped $500 into Neteller recently and started making deposits (and withdrawals, thank goodness) from a couple different poker sites and trying to become a bonafide bonus chasing whore. But as I sit here, I can't avoid seeing and hearing about the devastation Katrina has left behind; and it makes typing about Pocket Aces getting beat seem kind of trivial.

I don't have any family out in that area, nor have I been affected by it personally in any way; but with the loss of lives and livelihoods... it really makes my worries and stresses seem inconsequential. I think I went into this same mood after the SE Asia tsunamis - kind of sad that it takes an event of that magnitude to make me remember to truly appreciate the things I do have.

My evening online-time, be it poker playing or blog reading, will probably be limited for the next few days, as I spend that time snuggling with my kids.

I'm Just Too Smart

2005-08-24T16:51:00.000-07:00

So last time, I insinuated Tommy Reed was an idiot for folding his set.

I wish I could be that much of an idiot sometimes.

A $10 SnG on Monday night... the first hand I limp in with is JTd; BB min-raises and I make the call. Flop is 5JJ. I manage to get myself all-in and I lose to AJ. Okay, let's try this again... next SnG, the very first hand I get is 99. The flop comes 9TJ. I get a caller so I figure he's paired up or has an 8 or Q for the open-ender. The turn is a blank and I make a large bet to try to push him off but he goes over the top. I call... he didn't need the 8 or the Q because he had KQ for the made hand.

I mope around the house for a bit, then head off to PJ Pockets for the Monday midnight tourney. I'm the 2nd alternate, and it seems everyone is playing tighter than a [insert your own analogy here], 'cause I don't get in until 20 minutes later, already into the 2nd round. I pay my $25, I sit down, post dead, and am dealt KTc in the BB. "Hey, look out, Trouble's here," jokes one of the regulars. I give him a smile and an acknowledging nod as I check to see the flop. The cards fall with a Q and J of Clubs. Flush, open-ender, Royal/straight flush draws. Nice. The Ace or 9 of Clubs would be even nicer. I raise the min-bet put out by the SB and only one LP caller. The turn completes my flush with the 4 of clubs. We both check. A red 4 on the River and I get the rest of my chips in. LP calls... he not only has the Ace of Clubs, but the 9 as well!

From the time I get my name called to the time I pat the table and stand up... less than 2 minutes. The guy who called me Trouble shakes his head in disbelief, "Where you going, man? You just got here!"

Three first-hand bust-outs in the span of 3 hours.

But at least I'm not an idiot player who lays down his Trips and King high flushes!

Actually, in a tournament I played at the Midway a few weeks ago, I did make some "smart" plays and it just didn't pay off. I took my visiting cousin there on a Sunday, not knowing they had just started a new $10 tournament, with up to 3 $10 rebuys. Most everyone just put down the $40 up front. The were full at 40 people, and I got our names in as alternates 20 and 21! We went to the pit to play some BlackJack and get some food, not really expecting to get in, and just waiting for a live game. Almost 45 minutes later, the Floor rushed out and grabbed us and said we were up... there was only a minute or so left in the 3rd round - which was the final round for alternates and rebuys. We both bought in for $30. I catch a couple of nice flops and get some chips, so I don't have to worry about playing a short-stack game right away. I see Pocket 6s in the BB, and UTG goes all-in and gets called, so I easily let 'em go. It's AA versus AT. Nice laydown, I tell myself, that is, until I see the 6 on the flop. Grrr!

Somehow I manage to survive down to the final 2 tables and am still in good chip position. I get AJh in MP - short-stacked UTG goes all-in and I make the decision to call him, but the player right before me instantly goes all-in as well. Calling and losing to him would cripple me so I make the wise move and let it go. That's what the book would say to do, right? Flop is all hearts, and both of the All-ins had nothing but KQ offsuit. GAAAH!

Next thing I know, we're drawing for seats at the final table. Maybe those smart plays did pay off. Right away, I take out two people with KK and become the definitive chip leader. First place is almost $1000, so I vow to sit back and let the other monkeys take each other out. Then I see AA and it's another two All-ins by the time action is around to me. I have to call, right? Or do I make a Reed-iotic play and fold 'em? Of course I'm gonna call! It's JJ and QJ versus my AA. An Ace on the Flop, and I'm already starting to think about where I'm spending the $1000. Get some new DVD box-sets, take the kids to Six Flags, throw some green chips around on the craps table... but runner-runner King and Ten snap me out of my daydream as MY chips are pushed to someone else.

Two more desperation All-ins that I call with the better hand (AK versus 23, and KT versus Q5) both spike their pair and all of a sudden I can't even afford to pay a Big Blind! I'm out in 4th and take home only a measly $200.

That's poker, right? As skillful as you can be, luck is still a factor... getting the good and avoiding the bad. Sometimes you make the right moves, make the perfect plays, and still end up regretting it.

The Boob Tube

2005-08-22T16:42:00.000-07:00

Did I miss this discussion already? About the WSOP Circuit: Lake Tahoe episode where Tommy Reed folded his turned set of 10s? I haven't seen anyone else mention it, though I found a few threads about it on the 2+2 forums.

The action went as such - David "The Dragon" Pham raised preflop with QQ, Reed calls, and another player calls with 67d. Flop comes AJ7 with 2 diamonds and a spade; and it gets checked around. Turn comes the Ten of Spades. Pham checks, Reed checks, and 3rd guy puts out a relatively small bet. Pham calls. Reed takes his time... it looks like he's just trying to figure out how much to raise... but then he folds!!!

The river is a blank, Pham calls another small bet, shows his Queens, and pats himself on the back for making a good call. It shows Reed whispering to Phil Ivey (seated next to him), "I just screwed up... I threw away 3 Tens." Ivey says, "What? You didn't have 3 Tens!" The guy next to Ivey hears him and throws in a comment of disbelief as well.

Did he really think he was beat? Pocket Aces, Jacks, or a KQ... but to fold on the Turn for such a small bet? At least throw out a raise to "see where you're at." Some of the posts on 2+2 say the hand was faked... that ESPN spliced in some footage of the Pocket Tens to make it look good. When a player says he folded something, it's probably only the truth 10% of the time, if that. Heck, when I tell someone I threw away a winner, I'll exaggerate on my kicker a bit. Someone postulated that he probably had a weak Ace, with which he would have won the pot, but that's an easy enough laydown to make. But why would he go and say he had 3 Tens???

I hate to call the guy an idiot... he did make a WSOP final table and score almost $100K. I know I've overplayed sets and busted out early because of it. But seriously, if he really did have the Pocket Tens, wouldn't it have been at least worth a call?

I found more boobs on the tube, and not necessarily the kind you want to look at, when I flipped over to Celebrity Poker Showdown, with Reality TV stars: Bachelor Andrew Firestone, Amazing Race midget Charla, Apprentice Bitch Omarosa, Survivor Jonny Fairplay, and Real World's Trishelle (who was the only one worth looking at, and she was definitely showing some nice boobage). Talk about BAD play... Charla folded the nut straight. Jonny called all the way down with middle pair. Omarosa caught her flush on the river when Andrew hit his set and she thought she lost until it was announced.

At that point, Fairplay was already in the Loser's lounge with Trishelle, berating everyone else's play, even though his was arguably the worst. When Omarosa said she was glad she didn't have to go back to the Lounge with Jonny, he said, "Hey, who made Omarosa the good guy? Oh wait... I did!" That got a good chuckle out of me. But without shots of Trishelle's cleavage every other minute, or Fairplay's constant wisecracks at the table, I really couldn't stand to watch the rest of the episode to even see who won. Besides, there's a lot better bad TV out there to watch.

RANDOM!

2005-08-18T17:20:00.000-07:00

I was back up in Alaska 2 weekends ago for one of my best friend's wedding, which also happened to be a day before my mom's birthday, so it turned out to be a jampacked trip. While there's no casinos or underground cardrooms (that I know of yet) in Anchorage, there was still plenty of Poker to be found. A comic book/card shop that normally held Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh tournaments, was now holding weekly NL Hold'em tourneys. It was $6 to play, and prizes consisted of merchandise and gift certificates. One of my brothers was volunteering as a dealer, and I was there as just an observer because the tourney was open to only 18 and YOUNGER! Something surreal about railbirding a bunch of 10-16 year olds and hearing prepubscent calls of All-in.

The tourney that I did participate in was my brothers' weekly $10 buy-in that they held in the family restaurant after-hours. They just slid a couple tables together and set down the padded foam tabletop w/ oval rail that they built. The last time I was up there, they had about 10 of their friends that came on a regular basis. Now the regular player base is around 25! I busted out pretty early with AJ versus AK on a AKJ board, and so I spent the rest of the evening dealing... which was fine because they needed an overly-experienced degenerate like me to straighten out some of their bad habits. String-raises, discussing the board when not in the hand, and making their own change out of the pot. I had to slap a couple of hands and scold them like a kindergarten teacher: "You guys better clean up your act if you expect to play in the WSOP or WPT someday!"

One of the funniest things was the cry of "RANDOM!" when someone would take a bad beat or catch their T3o Full House. It was also used as a verb: "You're all-in? I guess I'll have to Random your ass... Call!" with a 94 soooted, which of course flopped the Flush!

Speaking of random, as I was leaving the deli yesterday with my sandwich, I overheard some guy telling his lunch mate, "And the flop comes out King, Queen, Four..."

Oh my god, it's EVERYWHERE!!!

In current news, this week has been a helluva lot busier than I expected it to be. The boss was pretty sure it would be a slow week while he's on vacation, but every customer and their mother has called with some sort of inquiry that I have to spend an hour researching to answer. On top of that, my wife was called out to New York for an indeterminate amount of time. She has a producer boss that is currently working on a new Broadway show... she had gone out there earlier in the year to help him with some of the songs and the casting - she wasn't expecting to have to go back until September when the previews begin, but rehearsals are starting now and he wants her to be there through that process as well. So I'm wifeless for at least 2 months... I guess that means more poker fundage for me, yay!

Speaking of Broadway shows, I've currently got the soundtrack for "Wicked" stuck in my CD player. It's a show based on a book that tells "the true story" of Oz's Wicked Witch of the West. She's a smart young book-worm kind of girl, but is an outcast because of her green skin. In college, her roommate is Glinda, who we all know eventually becomes Glinda the Good. But during the campus years she's the typical blonde - caring only about boys and her popularity status. Haven't read the book yet (wife has it with her in NY), and while you don't get the entire story in just the soundtrack alone, it's still a great listen. You know the music is doing its job when you realize how much empathy and sympathy you end up feeling for the "Wicked Witch." Can't wait to see the show when the tour hits the "West" coast.

It's been awhile since I've watched the original Wizard of Oz. It's been even longer since seeing it WITHOUT using Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon as its synchronized soundtrack... but there's just no other way to watch it. I may just have to pop in my "Dark Side of the Rainbow" DVD tonight!

Random!

I guess that's enough rambling for now. This should get you football fans hyped up for the season: For You, T.O.!

Languishing

2005-08-15T12:17:00.000-07:00

"Did you drop off the face of the earth or what? Your fans want an update!"
-EasyCure

Okay okay, so it's been a month and a half since a post... and damn, does it feel like a lifetime already!

Lessee, the trip to DisneyLand was awesome! We took turns driving and powered through from Seattle to Anaheim in 20 hours... the worst part was that we hit LA at about 5pm, so it took us 2 hours alone to get through that mess! My girls were just big enough to get on some of the bigger-kid rides, so they had an excellent time. Wifey and I talked about swinging by to check out the Commerce one evening, but we ended up staying at Disneyland until closing both nights we were there and were just too pooped when we got back to the hotel room to even think about leaving again.

The drive back up the coast was nice and relaxing... stopped at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and got to dip our toes in the sand and ocean. And though we had our camping gear packed in the van, we decided to save it for another time and just headed straight home. We knew there were a couple casinos in Northern California (Rolling Hills) and in Oregon (Seven Feathers), so the deal was that if we happened to pass by one during late evening, when it was dinner time and it was cooler outside (we had the dogs with us), we would stop to feed the kids and of course, throw a couple of bucks around. Unfortunately, our drive took us past during the hottest hours of the day and everyone had just eaten, so there was absolutely no gambling to be had during the road trip.

Back in the office on the 5th of July and had a wonderful time playing paperwork catch-up, since I didn't go online for office purposes once during my week vacation (which is an amazing feat for me!). As I finally got back on top of things at the end of my second week back, I took a sigh of relief, but only a short one, because I knew I was going to be doing it all again since the company was sending me to Dallas for a week for software training.

So a week vacation, two weeks back at work, and then a week long business trip. If you couldn't tell, I've been a bit busy... too busy to type out a few hundred words here, but never too busy to play some Poker! Shot an email before I left to Jaxia at Stealtheblinds.net and found a card-room in Dallas, where I actually money'd in their daily tournament! I've had a couple of other tournament successes (and failures) since I've been back home.

I'll flood my "fans" with those stories over the next couple of days. It always comes down to quality versus quantity, so I'll go with the quantity to make up for the missing month+! Besides, it'll give me something to do 'cause my boss is on vacation this week and I won't have to work too hard at trying to look busy.

Summer Daze

2005-06-21T17:36:00.000-07:00

Happy first day of Summer to everyone! Yesterday was a beautiful day, and today looked like it would be the same - but it started just raining and there's even the occassional thunderclap!

I played during lunch, and the weather hadn't degraded to the point it's at now, so I think I was affected by some sort of Summer Daze. After a few losing hands (TPTK versus an overpair and having the butt-end of a straight); I was down to about $30 and only 15 minutes left in my lunch hour... totally getting ready to chalk this up as a losing session. I limp in UTG with pocket 4s and see a lovely flop of K42, but with two Hearts. I bet out and get raised by a solid player who I immediately put on a King; and an older lady calls the two bets cold - Heart or straight draw for sure. I only call, not wanting to necessarily scare away the solid player with his pair of Kings.

Turn is a black 9 - I bet out and get raised again, and the chaser still cold-calls the two bets. I make it three, and the solid player thinks out loud, "Pocket 9s???" Both call. The River brings the third Heart. I do my best not to let out an audible groan as I tap the felt to check. It gets checked around and I flip over my 4s and look up to the ceiling, not wanting to see the Flush. Instead, I hear dealer announce "Full House!" Huh? Who? Where???

As I suspected, the solid player had a King as well as a 9 for two pair; and the old lady had T9h for the Flush.

But the Rivered Heart was another Deuce. Damn the season for making me miss a bet!!!

That pot refills my rack, and I take the next hand as well (A7s flopping Trip 7s) for a little extra sugar. Man, I hate having to leave when the rush is just starting!

Anyways, in general news, the wife has been hard at work planning the summer vacation. We'll be packing up the Honda Odyssey and taking a little road-trip starting this Friday right after I get out of the office. We're working our way down into SoCal and taking the kids to DisneyLand. Last time we went, the youngest was only 2. She's 4 now and will be able to actually get on some of the rides! After a few days of pure Happiness saturation, we'll head back up the coast and stop at the beach for a swim. As we get closer to home and re-enter the Pac-NW, we'll find some campgrounds in Oregon and set up tent. I'm lobbying to stay in the van and watch DVDs while the kids enjoy Nature, but I'm sure that idea will get quickly vetoed and I'll be forced to re-evaluate my love for the outdoors.

And of course, there's been a mention or two by me about casinos we may pass along the way. Since this is mainly a trip for the kids, we'll only be stopping if it's not too far off the route and the time of day doesn't require leaving the kids to sleep in the van. Speaking of the little monkeys, here's a recent picture of my 4 and 7 year old.

There's only one caption I can think of: "BONUS CODE IGGY DAMMIT!"

Taking it Easy

2005-06-17T11:53:00.000-07:00

Met up with WSOP Veteran EasyCure at the Silver Dollar after work yesterday. Well, actually, it was a little bit before my shift was up... the network was down for some reason and productivity grinded to halt so I left half an hour early. Things were powering back up just as I was leaving, but I told the boss I had already shut down and wrapped things up for the night. Besides, there were much more important matters to attend to!

I found the man sporting his red WSOP cap, dead center at table 2 (my favorite seat!). He'd been there for less than an hour, but already had pocket Aces cracked and was on his second rack. This place is either Easy Money or Bad Beat Central.

They opened a 3rd table and Easy asked to move down, joining me and my coworker at one end of the table. Nothing spectacular for me... the few decent hands I saw all missed, and if I had stayed in with 84o, I would have taken a big pot when the runner-runner 4's hit against someone who had flopped 2 pair.

I did, however, get to witness Easycure playing "in the zone." He made a call on the River with pocket 8's, with 2 overcards on the board, against a pre-flop raiser who led out the whole way. The PFR mucked. Nice read! Then he pulled the classic Limp-Reraise from UTG with AA. He got plenty of action and was even raised once on the flop. They held up and I think that pot got him back to even! I'm glad I never had to tangle with the beast!

I was there for only about an hour when they broke the table. Down $40 and it was time to hit the road anyways.

MP - looking forward to hanging out with you again soon, and definitely for a more extended period of time. Maybe we'll get to drop some Hammers too!

Crapshootin'

2005-06-14T14:51:00.000-07:00

I wish I could attribute my absence to something wild like an alien abduction (I do have an unexplained scar on my shoulder) or being in the Witness Protection Program (my Grandpa did have ties to the Chinese mafia); or even better, some story about a room in Vegas, 4 strippers, and a whole gaggle of Poker bloggers. Alas, the truth is much more mundane.

Work, online classes, family... the occassional poker game: win some, lose some. Even made a trip to the Muckleshoot to take care of a dice-throwing jones. Ironically, my two times at the Craps table was less of a crapshoot than many of the 3/6 and 4/8 sessions!

Okay, I admit, the first time back at the rail, the table was ice-cold. All the way around the table, only three or four rolls, then seven-out and leave. I was down to $25 from $100, and it was just me and the wife left at the table. She said, c'mon let's go, but I told her to give the dice a shot since we were the only ones left. Amazingly, she hit her point, and a few more people joined the table when they saw the chips sliding my way. She continued to hit the numbers, the table filled up again, and when she finally did seven-out, I was up $50! My wife obviously warmed up the table, and I stuck around for another few shooters and took another $100 of the casino's money.

Of course, a good chunk of that went right back into the fishy's pockets in the poker room. No point in trying to berate someone who calls a pre-flop cap and catches their double-gut shot straight draw... it's a 3/6 game, what else would you expect?

But another trip to the Craps table last weekend and a power lunch at the Silver Dollar and I'm doing okay for the month. Now I just need to find some spare time to catch up on the many many blog posts I've missed reading over the last few weeks... see if I can't get back to thinking about the pot-odds rather than the pass line and come-bet odds. Yo-leven... errr, I mean, RAISE!!!

It's Official...

2005-05-25T23:18:00.000-07:00

... Summer is here in Seattle. After 3 days of torrential rain and some hail and thunderstorms, the sun's finally out! Warm breezes and 80-degree weather, but that's not the true measure of the season... it's the fact that the neighbors mowed their lawn (or had it mowed), making mine look like a jungle. So I fired up the lawnmower right after getting home from work and proceeded to uncover steaming piles of dog-doo and get my workout dodging agitated wasps. When's Winter coming back?

... I'm a fat-ass! It wasn't long ago that I was working downtown and walking 6 blocks from the bus-stop to the office. I had time to play volleyball at the rec center and take some martial arts classes over the weekend. But for the last year and a half, I've worked near the airport and I sit in traffic for an hour on the way there, just so I can continue to sit on my butt, either in front of the computer or in the seat of the forklift. I've never been uncomfortable in my jeans, but they were digging into my new-found gut so badly today I had to unbutton them for the drive home.

... My coworker is resigning. Every where I've worked, there's always been someone who got pregnant (not by me!), went on maternity leave, came back for a month or two, and then quit. I knew it was coming with this one too. And the higher-ups haven't given me a clear answer as to what's going to happen once she's officially off the payroll. I guess I've been doing such a stellar job in covering her portion of the paperwork, they haven't really been on the search for a replacement. Great. More work, same pay. Damn my parents for passing on their workaholic-ness to me!

... My cousin is a Marine. He finished Bootcamp and was promoted to PFC at his graduation last week. He came back through Seattle to visit with his mom before he returns to SoCal for two more months of training and then off to where ever they require him. For his sake, and for the sake of all our boys and girls, I really hope the stupidness in Iraq is over or at least calms down very soon.

... I'm a corruptor of our youth. I took the above-mentioned cousin and my brother, who was in town to visit him, to their first strip-club and paid to pop their lapdance cherry. I guess Seattle has a ban on new strip clubs, so the stripper density is always high, even on a Monday night. The boys enjoyed the stage show, but at first weren't too excited about the private dances, thinking were just a little more close-up ass-shaking. They were pleasantly surprised when they found out lapdances were literally in-your-lap, and they definitely enjoyed the touching and squeezing that they got to do.

I couldn't help but think of Pauly and his Existentialist Conversations with Strippers(tm) when Sophie plopped herself down beside me and introduced herself. I told her I was just taking my newly anointed Marine of a cousin out for some fun, and she started going on about the military and the choices people make to join and that she could never do it because her will to live was too strong but that those who are in must have a stronger will... I really wasn't sure what she was talking about as I was in awe of some of the pole moves being performed on-stage to Gwen Stefani's new cheerleading son. And before I could turn to Sophie and ask her about her thoughts on Nietzsche, she popped me the question. :)

As for poker, not so good. Besides contributing to my already overly-sedentary lifestyle, the last few casino trips have netted the exact same result as the outing to the strip club: less cash and more frustration....

It's Not Just Me

2005-05-17T11:06:00.000-07:00

Took a final shot at the WSOP Satellite... I promised myself smart play, no wild Hammer bluffs this time around. I stuck to it - stole when I could and folded a lot. Won a few hands and was in the top tier for a few orbits. Then I had a complete brain fart. Limped in EP with JT, and then called April's raise from the blind. Raised her on the flop with a 10-high board, and was all-in by the Turn. She had KK.

I was kicking myself for that play, for getting involved in the hand in the first place. Then I started thinking back to all the other times I've busted out in the past few weeks, which unfortunately have been a lot. Was I really taking as many bad-beats as I thought I was? Or was I just making bone-headed plays? One guy can't get this unlucky for this long, can he?

Yea, it really is mostly a whole lot of bad luck. Last night's Midnight tourney, I fold fold fold and don't try anything too fancy. Probably playing a little too scared, but everytime I was ready to commit myself to a late position steal/bluff; someone else raised before me so I had to let go. Correct thing to do, right? I survive half the crowd and the alternates and make it to the final table. I'm one of the short-stacks at only T2000 and the blinds just bumped up to 300/600. I have about 4 hands to go before they come around to me again. I get dealt the King of Spades. I have this strange tingling in my gut that it's going to pair up. It does... King of Hearts. Then the tingling makes me nauseous as I know they're going to lose for me again.

Remember I said once I've been really good at making reads, I just can never follow through and make the proper decision based on the read? Yea, I shoulda mucked 'em. Instead, I'm all-in and SB calls with AK of Clubs. "Of course... here comes an Ace or two," I say as I stand up. First card to hit the flop is the Ace of Diamonds, followed by a whole bunch of Clubs.

Sure, it's a game of skill. But it's hard to utilize any of that when I can't even see through the torrential downpour that's constantly hanging over me.

Week from Hell

2005-05-15T15:17:00.000-07:00

This past week has just been ridiculous. Our warehouse manager was on vacation all last week, and I'm the default backup for him. My department coworker is still out on medical leave... I'm pretty sure she's not coming back, but she's making sure to take all of her vacation and sick pay. I don't blame her, I'd do the same; but in the meantime, the company isn't going to hire a replacement until they can stop paying her. All of which left me handling the jobs of 3 people all week. At least my overtime will be juicy.

Obviously, I've been a bit behind on my blog-reading and more so on posting. Last time I was here, I was on a roll with the sports betting. My advisory coworker picked 5 for 5 on Wednesday, bringing the account up to almost $400. So I doubled the bets on Thursday, and he bombed and went 1-5. He tries to claim he was 2 for 5, but one of the teams didn't cover the spread, so it's still a loss in my book. So I took the $150 left from the one win and put it on some of the favorites and 20-1 longshots in the Derby. Thanks for nothing, Giacomo. The last $50 went back on the Sonics first game against the Spurs... it would have paid 4-to-1 if they had won. Obviously they didn't, and so my quest for a $1000 came to an abrupt end.

Poker was an uncontrollable beast as well. FPP WSOP Satellite on Stars, 2nd hand dealt is QQ that runs into KK. In live tourney and ring games, everytime I hit a great flop, I got outdrawn on the Turn or River. QJs flops the Q and two more spades, and I turn a straight draw - another Spade comes and I'm beat by the K high flush. AJ with a J-high board. Oh yea, J2 hits his kicker.
I laid off the cards for a few days... easy to do with the extra work load at the office as well as from the online classes I've started. Friday the 13th was payday, so I decided to see if a bad luck day would be good for me. It was. Started with $50 after work... flopped some straights, rivered some flushes, and left an hour later with an extra $100! Came back with the wife after dinner, and the luck continued to hold up.

I should have quit when the clock struck midnight. I was up another $80 at the time, and as soon as Friday the 13th was gone, so was my good run. Seriously, I remember looking at the time... 12:30 am... and never winning another pot after that. I had a few nasty beats in a row, and that was that. The first one wasn't actually all that bad... I flopped Broadway with AT. Tons of action on the flop and turn, but I had to slow it down when a 2nd King hit the River. Full house anyone? Nope... Quad Kings! The only thing that made it okay was that it was my own wife that had the Kings. My chips were staying in the family, and she got a $60 Monte Carlo bonus as well.

But after that... I turned a 9-high straight during a kill pot (6/12). Some idiot playing 25o Rivered a boat. And no, it wasn't his Kill blind, nor his Small or Big. Two bets on the turn and 3 on the River... that pot cost me over $70. Flopped trip Dueces with Q2 in the BB. Outkicked by K2 in the Small. My all-in was with A5 and I flopped 2-pair. It was a family pot pre-flop and post-flop, so I was looking at getting back at least $60; until someone rivered a straight.

Fortunately, the wife held her own for the next hour or so as I mulled around the casino in despair. Tangent: everytime I busted out this week, I'd hang around to watch some table games, and I witnessed a $500 bonus winner at Paigow, a $600 4-card poker straight flush, and a 20-to-1 payout on quads at the Caribbean Draw poker... he had $50 out for a $1000 return. All part of some cruel joke being played on me, I'm sure!

Anyways, I came back from watching another table game winner to see my wife cutting off two stack of chips to cold-call a raise. The board was 258 with two hearts. I immediately knew she was on the flush draw. It got capped with 5 people involved including her. Turn was a black Jack. Capped again with 4 people in. The guy I was standing behind flashed his cards to his neighbors... his pocket Jacks hit their set. King of hearts on the River and lots of moaning and groaning. No one bet, and wifey showed her Q4h. No one had the Ace, and she did a little "gimme gimme" motion towards the HUGE pot. One guy who was in to the end showed his 25 flopped two-pair. There was a lot of loud, good-natured finger pointing, "How could you cap preflop with that???" to both the 25 and Q4. Someone noticed me standing there and said, "It's okay, she's just covering for him!"

It was over $200 in that pot, and after she finished stacking them up 6 hands later, I motioned for her to rack 'em up. With her Quad bonus, she had a profit of over $300. I figured I broke even for the day, as I had only used the money I won earlier in the day to play with.

Well, enough bitching for now. Have to get caught up on reading about other's winning play. That should help me get re-affirmed for the WPBT WSOP Qualifier tonight...

Sports Freeroll

2005-05-04T10:53:00.000-07:00

Last week I got a flyer in the mail for a free $50 at BetonUSA.com's sportsbook site. I check it out, make sure I don't have to deposit any real cash (nope!) and sign up. Threw the $50 on the Sonics vs. Kings on Sunday... they make a 4th quarter comeback to win me $90!

I read the fine print about the free money: For clients who are eligible for the free $50 promotion you must wager the bonus a minimum of 10 (ten) times, minimum cashout is $1000, maximum cashout is $1500.

Minimum cashout is $1000.

So I figure I either get a lot of free sportsbook playtime, or I can make a cool grand. I'm not a big baseball or basketball fan, so I ask my two sports-junkie coworkers about their picks and bet $10 here, $20 there based on their advice. More wins than losses, and the freebie account got up to $250.

Of course I gave the free $50 back via their online casino... it's the same software that I killed myself on before, and after not winning a single hand, I quit. My buddy gets to the office an hour before I do, so I called him during my commute in and told him to get his picks ready for the day. He handed me his sheet as soon as I walked in... "I'm liking this, I should take it on as a side-job," he tells me.

One baseball game has already started, and his underdog pick is in the lead. I've got all $200 spread out over 8 games... I've never been so interested in baseball scores or the NBA Playoffs. And my interest won't wane as long as there's $10 - $999 in the account!

Wife coerced me into going to the Tuesday midnight tourney. I got kicked in the junk on the very first hand... she finished 3rd. Too bad I couldn't place a money-line bet on her!

Forsaken

2005-05-02T11:38:00.000-07:00

Even after seeing Jesus and being promised I would win, I busted out unceremoniously in 44th. I got crippled when I tried to overplay the Hammer; and in retrospect I think I actually underplayed it. I raised my 7s2c in EP after Anisotropy limped in and he called. Flop came 3 clubs, including a 7 and a Jack. He checked, I bet out about pot and he called. Turn was a red 9 and here's where I pussied out. I don't have the HH in front of me, but I think he had almost twice as many chips as me. I should have just pushed on the flop; and definitely on the turn... instead I made a weak bet that was too easy for him to call. A fourth club fell on the river, and he made me call off half my stack to see his KcQs. If I had pushed, he might have had a tougher decision calling with a gut-shot straight and possible 2nd nut flush draw.

Don't worry Sean, I'll have the last laugh when T.O. is booted from the team and your precious Eagles don't even make the playoffs this year!

What sucks is I read him for a big club... I seem to be really good at reading people nowadays. The only problem is I still make the wrong decision based on the right read. Guess that's what separates the winning players from... well... me.

So I was down to T500; all-in with A3o against Derek's QQ and rivered a deuce for the Wheel. My next all-in hand was 77 with 2 callers: an AQ and Easycure's 55. There was a Q and a 5 on the flop; and I didn't hit the Jackpot 7 to triple up.

Ah well. My wife came back from NY on Saturday night, and she was itching to play some limit. The NL games at the NY clubs were too much stress for her with all of the business stuff she was dealing with as well out there, so she wanted to have some fun tossing chips out and chasing everything to the river. Although we got to play for 3+ hours and hang out with some friends at the Midway, as you can guess, since I've been forsaken by the Gods, Poker and all, we walked away empty-handed. It wasn't even getting bad-beat... it was just getting absolutely nothing playable.

I'm starting up some online classes to brush up on my IT skills, so that will definitely cut into my poker playing time. Which is probably a good thing for now....

Seeing Things

2005-04-30T16:18:00.000-07:00

I've been given a sign from above! I will be winning this Sunday! This was in an email from my mother-in-law:

Just stare at the center 4 dots for 30 seconds, then turn your gaze to a blank wall and blink and you will see the face of Jesus!

And if you're loony enough, he'll even talk to you and tell you anything you want to hear, like the fact that you'll be winning the 2nd Blogger's WSOP Satellite. And if you don't, it's your own fault because you're a sinner for gambling anyways...

Yea, like the powers that be in our world wouldn't have anything better to do than stack the deck in my favor. Obviously, I'm not a religious person. The funniest part of the email was one of the responses from the multitudes of forwarding this email went through:

"I don't know how this works, but I'm totally spooked. Everyone in the office saw the same thing I did. Spooookkkyyy!"

It saddens me that there are people out and about that are actually that stupid. And using email no less. It's called an optical illusion honey... I'll admit, it's a very well done one, but I knew even before reading the instructions what I was going to be seeing.

Here's a neat one to try: stare directly at the sun for 30 seconds, and then tell me what you see on the walls!

I wish someone would put this inverse-color after-image effect to good use. Here, let me give it a shot.

If you really want to see the savior, stare at the button in the middle of this picture for 30 seconds, then... ummm... then you... uhhh... yeah....

See you on Sunday!

When Bloggers Attack

2005-04-27T20:38:00.000-07:00

All of the parties involved in play criticism have kissed and made up. We sure can bitch about bad plays and suckouts from the fishies, but when you play in a tourney of bloggers-only, be careful who you berate cause they can bite back!

Funny thing is, if either of the plays in question had involved THE HAMMER... there would be nothing but much rejoicing! :)

I've had a hell of a see-saw week. I won my friend's home-game, $20 buy-in tourney on Saturday. But I could only claw my way to 19th at the WSOP satellite on Sunday. I put the rest of my PokerStars minimum buy-in at a NL table, and promptly lost it in the first orbit when my AA hit their set, and lost to a runner-runner flush. I money'd in the Monday night tourney; and then gave it all away to the lunchtime crowd on Tuesday. Didn't I just say something about staying away from the Peter and Paul situation? *sigh*

I didn't know how today was going to go, but I got my answer during the drive to work. I rear-ended someone... coming downhill, light just turned green and I saw other vehicles moving, I turned my head for a split second, not expecting to have to come to a complete stop... but the lady in front hadn't started going yet, and BAM!

My hood and grill are a little bent up, and I did nothing more than paint their bumper. Of course, as we exchanged IDs and insurance cards, she took down my info with a hand on the back of her neck. C'mon lady, it was a little love tap... your fat-ass had enough cushion for you to not feel anything. As I talked to the claims agent later in the afternoon, she said that there was already an injury claim in place.

If this little fender-bender causes me more grief than it has to, I'm gonna head over and make sure her injuries are well-justified! FOX can follow me with a camera and they can film the pilot episode of "WHEN BLOGGERS ATTACK!"

Speaking of TV, just got done watching the Atlantis episode of the WPT. Fun to watch and see the actual hole cards that went along with the betting that Otis blogged about! And what's up with the WONDERCAM? I've had dealers say they can't Foxhunt or they'll lose their license... maybe they could do it because this wasn't regulated by US gaming laws? Or am I completely wrong and we'll be seeing the WONDERCAM in future episodes? Have they done it before and I just missed it? The WPT brought televised poker into the mainstream, so I guess they can do whatever the hell they want!

With the way things are going this week, I don't know where I'll be, physically and mentally, on Sunday. Here's to hoping I'll be in a calm enough state of mind to take another stab at the satellite. And if I do show up, be warned, it'll be with both swords swinging!

Defending My Blind

2005-04-25T21:34:00.000-07:00

There's been lots of posts out there about not getting the cards during the WPBT WSOP Satellite... so in that respect, I guess this is an anti-post! I saw every pocket-pair 9-A: 9s flopped a set, Ts and Js were worth the blinds and a limper or two, Qs took out Derek, Aces held up even with 2 Kings on the board, and of course, Ks ran into As and busted me.

I got to show down the great hands, allowing me to make lots of open-raise steals. I even showed a 23o for the heck of it. I tried raising with the Hammer once, but got re-raised all-in... I couldn't do it. :(

But my personal favorite play was K8o in the BB, and it was folded around to the SB who raised. I called, and flop came Axx. SB bet out, and I raised. There was a long pause... time bank went into effect, and finally a Fold! That was the first time I think I've ever consciously and successfully defended my blind with a completely missed flop.

Now it looks like I have to play defense again. I alerted TripJax to the fact that Dragonystic had some choice words about one of his plays; and then I came across some criticsm about one of my plays!

From Big Slick Nuts:

=-=-=-=-=-=

[Temper Tantrum Begins]
Now, I have never, ever, criticized another blogger by name before... and I won't start now (which is why I won't post the hand history). But dude, if you're reading this, you DO NOT re-raise someone that has already called an all-in with K-3o. Re-raising means you think your hand is good enough to isolate - and it WASN'T. Not on any day of the week. Not at that table in this tournament. Not, Not, Not... {BSN stamps his feet and punches the air}

Yes, my AJ would have won the hand and busted someone out. But it isn't nearly strong enough to call an isolation move like that. Instead, Mr. K-3o doubled the other player up.

I probably could have re-raised the all-in to isolate also, but in a winner-take-all event like that I didn't think it was prudent. I wanted the all-in player OUT, but I wasn't strong enough and WANTED to see others call so we could check it down and remove another obstacle to the prize.

I don't know if you're a reader of this blog or not, but you broke my heart. {sniff} Please, please, please tell me what you were thinking??? I mean, if you were first to act, ok, but re-raising???
[TEMPER TANTRUM ENDS]

**********************************
Ok, enough whining. I admit it, I made a mistake in not calling when I would have been getting about 3.5:1 calling the re-raise. But, honest to God, I read KK or AA. Those were the ONLY hands it made sense to make that move with. So, my read that I was, what, a 4:1 dog at best?

Guess, I still had some whining to do. I can't help it, I was in the top 5 at that point, and as you can easily tell, I've been steaming ever since. Just couldn't let it go. I managed to get back where I was in chips, but my heart was pretty much gone.

At least I lasted longer than Mr. K-3o.

=-=-=-=-=-=

Yes, I'm pretty sure I'm Mr. K-3o. I'm waiting to see if BSN will post the Hand history (if he has it), so I can properly defend myself. Below was my response on his site, and I've got nothing against having an open discussion about what I did... I admit, it wasn't a world-class play, but it seemed to really strike a nerve!

=-=-=-=-=-=

I'm pretty sure I'm the one who broke your heart... I'd love to see the hand-history to make sure my story is straight, but if I recall, the all-in raise was pretty small. I had a pretty large stack at that point and only made a minimal raise.

It wasn't meant as an isolation move... for all intents and purposes, you basically limped in, so I was looking to build a sidepot (hence the smallish raise) and try to outplay you for it post-flop. I stole and bluffed with a lot worse hands through-out the tourney, and if you had come on strong I would have let you have it.

As it was, I ended up only against what I figured was a desperation all-in, and you're never that much of an underdog heads-up.

I brought my best game and played my way to the top as well... just had an unlucky hand to bust out in 19th.

No hard feelings? I'll be sending you a dozen roses and a box of chocolates to help ease the pain. ;)

Mr. K3o

=-=-=-=-=-=

Will you take my case, Mr. Cochrane?

No One Remembers 19th Place

2005-04-24T21:57:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a great event! It was an honor and a pleasure to play on the WPBT circuit and face opponents with some actual skill. Been playing too much at the local casinos with TV-trained yahoos who think calling 2 all-ins with Pocket Dueces is a good idea. So that's what it feels like to steal the blinds and have re-raises respected!

I started off playing somewhat aggressive, and it seemed to work out for me. Along the way, I got bullied around by BadBlood, I got Hammer'd by Helixx, and I got up as far as 2nd place (just behind HDouble) with 23 players left. I shoulda taken a screen shot cause T9000 was the best I would get to... I made a few too many loose calls and then blew another 2000 on a busted bluff attempt. And then this:

PokerStars Game #1580251159: Tournament #7037849, Hold'em No Limit - Level VIII (200/400) - 2005/04/24 - 20:51:32 (ET)
Table '7037849 10' Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: jerge88 (5325 in chips)
Seat 2: hdouble (13807 in chips)
Seat 4: skitchorama (6786 in chips)
Seat 5: badblood44 (14587 in chips)
Seat 8: phillsievers (6818 in chips)
Seat 9: peacecorn (3071 in chips)
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to skitchorama [Kh Ks]
hdouble: folds
skitchorama: raises 1600 to 2000
badblood44: folds
phillsievers: calls 2000
peacecorn: folds
jerge88: folds
*** FLOP *** [9c Qc Qd]
skitchorama: bets 2400
phillsievers: raises 2393 to 4793 and is all-in
skitchorama: calls 2361 and is all-in
skitchorama said, "uh oh"
hdouble said, "oof"
badblood44 said, "wow"
*** TURN *** [9c Qc Qd] [4s]
heL1xx [observer] said, "wow"
spm1024 [observer] said, "wow momma"
heL1xx [observer] said, "wow"
homersolo [observer] said, "wow"
*** RIVER *** [9c Qc Qd 4s] [Qs]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
skitchorama: shows [Kh Ks] (a full house, Queens full of Kings)
phillsievers: shows [Ah Ad] (a full house, Queens full of Aces)
phillsievers said, "gg man, ul timing"
Donegal [observer] said, "yyesh"
phillsievers collected 14272 from pot

Those frickin' Cowboys ALWAYS get me into trouble late into major tournaments. Why can't I ever follow my own damn rule about them??? What's ironic is that when he raised, my pointer was hovering over the fold button and I almost clicked... but I considered the fact he could be bluffing, that if he had a Queen he would probably slowplay it. I was right - he didn't have a Queen. At least Phil went on to put those chips to good use!

Despite my double-digit finish, it was quite a confidence booster for me to know that I can hang in there with the best of 'em.

Awesome tournament - when's the next one?

Robbing Peter...

2005-04-20T22:33:00.000-07:00

Another week, another post. My cubicle-mate is still out of the office, and another co-worker is down in LA on a business seminar... guess who his back-up is? My wife is out of town as well, across the country in NY. Her producer-boss is working on an off-broadway show, and having been what basically amounts to his PA for more years than she's known even me, he flew her out there to help out with songs and casting, etc. Every few years or so he's got a project he's working on and my wife gets whisked away for days at a time. He trusts her opinion, and she has a way of getting things done that need to get done, allowing him to keep his own hands clean. I'm okay with it, especially as she always comes home with a nice wad of cash!

Of course, being out in NY, I had to get some card-club recommendations for her from Pauly and asphnxma. Coming from WA state where there's a damn cardroom around every block, she's excited to be playing on the fringes of the law, and that there'll be the possibility of her game getting raided!

But just because I'm doing triple-duty at the office and playing Mr. Mom at home, doesn't mean I haven't gotten out to play some Poker myself! But hey, I'm not addicted or anything!

Ever since I discovered PJ Pockets and their $25 buy-in tourneys on Sunday afternoon and midnights Monday and Tuesday, I've been able to get in a lot more tournament play. Everyone knows limit ring-games and NL Tournaments are two completely different beasts, and I find myself in the unfortunate pattern of robbing Peter just to pay off Paul. A few weeks ago I money'd in 2 tourneys to profit about $150, then promptly gave it all back to the River chasing monkeys at the 3/6 table. The next week, I follow Paul around at another 3/6 table and manage to sneak away with $100. Enough to pay back Peter and get myself into 3 tournaments... where I didn't even last into the 2nd round.

How's this for some bad play: I open-raise w/ QJs in LP and the BB calls. Flop comes AKx. Checked to me and I fire at the pot. He reluctantly calls. Turn brings me four to the flush to add to my gut-shot, and I bet enough to put him all-in. He does a "What the hell, I'm ready to leave," call and shows JJ. None of my outs hit and I don't last much longer after that. I'm still trying to figure out if he was the idiot for calling, or if I'm the idiot for giving him too much credit to actually lay down a pocket pair with a pre-flop raise and overcards on the board. I'm sure his buddies gave him "Good read!" praises.

Next day, new tourney, we're only in the 2nd orbit and I get KK in EP so I raise to T200 (4xBB). The guy to my left, whose friend told the rest of us to just call Napoleon Dynamite cause he had the same look and mannerisms, re-raised me to 400. This was immediately followed by two short-stack all-in raises to 700 and 900. I push the rest of my stack to make it 1400. It would cost Napoleon another thousand to call, leaving him with only about 500. "Wow, that's a big pot," he says, sounding an awful lot like the movie character. He makes the call, I flip over my hand and say, "I want to see Aces everywhere!" and I do... AQs, AKs, and Napoleon completely dominated with the worst of all: AJo.

Jack on the flop, and the case Ace on the turn. First to worst, worst to first. Someone who knows the math - did he have the odds to call? Obviously, like Waffle's recent beat of the Geek, it turned out to be the right decision; but I think I would have easily laid down AJo to 3 all-ins.

The last tournament of that week, I get TT in the SB and call the button's min-raise. Nine high flop, I bet and get raised. At this point, I know he's got a bigger pocket pair, I just know it. But my mind is numbed from the previous beats and I reraise all-in. He shows QQ.

I took a few days off from playing, and even skipped this last Sunday's tourney and spent the day with the kids (aka sleeping in the theater through the movie Robots). Finally, on Monday, I made my first lunch trip in awhile back to the Silver Dollar. They changed their comp policy - no free lunch until you've played for at least an hour. So I couldn't get my chicken wings, but I went back to work $80 richer!

On the way home, I stopped at PJ's and put in my $25 for the midnight tourney. I wasn't expecting much of it... I had a good live session so I figured my tourney chances were pretty slim. But something was different that day. My mad ninja skillz were at full blast as I not only robbed Peter at lunchtime, but I was kicking Paul's ass that night as well! I made all the right decisions, and minimized my losses on the beats. I had perfect reads on everyone, laid down two pair when necessary and bluffed with 92o when the opportunity arose. Got heads-up and played back and forth for 15 minutes before agreeing to split it for $200 each. I made it home about 3:00 am, but was on such a Poker high I couldn't get to sleep for another hour.

Tuesday was a repeat of Monday... had a profitable lunch and placed in the money in the midnight tourney! It feels good to be playing well and having it pay off. I'm going to ride out my rush and will be signing up for the WSOP qualifier... it'll be my first time playing against other bloggers and I hope to get Hammered!

And congrats to our Poker Blogging Idol for surviving yet another week!

VOTE!!!

2005-04-13T22:52:00.000-07:00

As much as I try to avoid watching American Idol, I do catch glimpses of it when my wife and daughter are watching it. The first time I spotted this guy, I was sure I knew him from somewhere...

Then it dawned on me that I did know that HUGE HUMAN HEAD:

C'mon now people, a fellow poker blogger was on the brink of elimination tonight! Be sure to tune in and vote next week!!!

Epidemic

2005-04-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

Two weeks can go by real quick. Especially when my coworker's newborn son is sick and she's taking an emergency medical leave of absence, leaving me to cover her corner of the cubicle for an unspecified amount of time. Since I work in Export, things are time-critical and have to get done during business hours, meaning I can hardly even get any overtime for my double duty.

Doesn't help when my own daughters are taking turns at home being ill. The 6 yr old caught the creepies just before her Spring Break, so she got to spend her week laying under blankets on the couch watching TV and playing video games. Which is what she probably would have chosen to do anyways, but I wish she could have enjoyed it without being drugged up half the time.

Then the 3 yr old had a fever that spiked after a few days so we took her to the emergency room that evening. After an hour of waiting for the doctor, the fever had come down quite a bit - mostly due to the fact that they overdosed her on the Children's Tylenol and Motrin because the nurse had written her down as 36 Kilograms instead of 36 pounds. Luckily the doctor caught this before writing out the dosage for her antibiotic prescription.

And to top it all off, I just can't seem to win at Poker right now. Just this weekend, my wife and I finally got a chance to go out and play. I was involved to Showdown in a total of 3 pots before I busted out: 55 that flopped a set, AK catching a K, and QQ with all undercards... I rammed and jammed all of them only to lose to runner-runner flushes each time. Not to mention my two tourney attempts, both in which I got crippled thanks to AK versus QQ.

Fortunately my daughters are on the fast track to wellness and just have a few sniffles to get over. I, on the other hand, need someone to write me up a prescription for some winning sessions!

Hoppy Easter!

2005-03-28T14:51:00.000-08:00

The best part of Easter is the day after, when all the candies go on sale! I picked up 12 Big Bags of Mini-Eggs at half-price this morning! That should last me about two months, or until I go into a diabetic coma.

It was a joyous weekend on the Poker front as well. Wife and I decided to go see a movie on Friday night, but it was about 8:30pm, and we missed all the 7:30 showings and didn't want to wait around for the 9:30 ones. So we tried to decide on which casino to head to... she wanted to hang out with our buddies at the Midway, and I wanted to try and take advantage of all the drunk idiots at the Silver Dollar Seatac. We compromised and headed south into Tacoma to find a new place to play.

We came across a Chips casino and got our names on the wait list (numbers 12 and 13) and ordered some food. After eating, our names hadn't moved up more than 3 spots, so we went down a block to the Silver Dollar Tacoma and got seated at the same table right away.

I had one of my best nights ever - the first hand I got involved in was with Ax of hearts and I rivered the Flush and my chip stack never again dipped below the $100 buy-in. Things really heated up when I got KK, and a flop of Q99. I played it hard on the flop, but then when I got raised on the Turn, I knew I was beat but called anyways. Then the third King hit the River, and I was able to steal the rest of the chips from the guy holding Q9. Ouch!

It was a full-kill game, so after winning the next hand with top-pair, I put in my $6 Kill blind. Was dealt T7o only to win again with two-pair. So this is what being on a rush feels like! And my 3-in-a-row didn't go unnoticed by the table. I justified it by telling them I never would have played that hand if it wasn't for the Kill button. My next blind was Q4, which flopped two-pair again! I tried to be nice this time and told everyone not to call, and I had two non-believers follow me all the way to the River. The fifth hand missed, and I was happy to fold and go back to stacking my chips.

The greatest hand of the night though was completing with 36c in the SB. Flop is 245. I check, BB bets, MP re-raises, I 3-bet and it gets capped. Turn and river were inconsequential, but betting was capped the whole way. I was really counting on one of them having A3 and the other flopping a set of 5s, and I wondered how I would contain my glee as I took all their money. The table had an audience at this point with so many chips out on the felt. I turn over my flopped straight, and the BB shows 36h and MP has 36d!!! MP had the best shot at the entire pot as he had 4 diamonds, but in the end, the dealer had to take 5 minutes to split the huge pot between us. Luckily we had a few poor saps who had come along for the ride, so it was still a profitable situation.

My wife got her fair share of good cards too, but, as she told me later, she was playing more loosely knowing I was so far ahead already. We had bought in for $200 total between us and cashed out at $420 (score!).

After spending the day on Saturday coloring eggs with the kids, I talked my wife into going to Seatac Silver Dollar for the evening. It was a reversal of the previous night as she scored big early on and never worried about having a down session, whereas I had to go all-in at one point. But the cards started coming back again, and it was nice to have some loosey-goosey guys raising and capping with their nut straight or King high flush when I've got the Ace high flush. That kind of thing does wonders for the chip-stack! After just a few hours, we happily left with a profit of $250 for the night.

Suffice it to say, we had a great Easter Sunday. Besides the extra nice Easter gifts, the kids got some quality time with the parents, as we had gotten a satisfactory Poker fill for the weekend. And, of course, I had made sure to put aside enough cash to be able to fund my Mini-Egg shopping spree!

Raise My Blinds, PLEASE!

2005-03-25T14:50:00.000-08:00

Decided to hang out with the lunch crowd at the Silver Dollar today, and bought in for a measly $60. Nothing really playable, and then I had J7 in the blind. Flop a 7, SB bets, I call, as does everyone else. Turn is the Jack of Spades. SB bets, I raise, and still get a few callers. River brings a third Spade. I check, and there's a late position bet... nice runner-runner.

An orbit later, still nothing playable. The BB brings me 36o. No one raises and I get to see a flop... 457 rainbow. I checkraise my flopped straight. The Turn is a T. I lead out and get raised from MP! He raised his T5 two-pair, and then caught a 5 for the boat on the River.

Fittingly, I put in my last $10 and lost with AA.

I think I should just start mucking my blinds blind. Probably save me money in the long run!

The Seat of Death

2005-03-22T11:43:00.000-08:00

PJ Pockets $25 buy-in tournament, 30 seated with 9 alternates. I'm in the 5s at table 3. After a few inconsequential hands, the 4s goes all-in with AK versus a pocket pair and loses. They send in the first alternate, who posts his dead blinds, and then makes a 3x raise on his very first hand. I look down at Pocket Aces and re-raise. The limpers fold before the alternate goes all-in over the top of me. I call... it's AA versus KK. Two people out in two hands, from the same seat.

By the end of the 2nd level, two more alternates have taken that seat and been killed... and no one else originally seated at the table has busted out yet! There were no more alternates to fill the now infamous "Seat of Death" so things reverted to normal tournament seating. I get moved to table 1 and pick up a few pots to keep alive with an average chip stack. As more people bust out, I get moved back to my original seat at table 3. A hand later, the tournament director tells me he made a mistake and I have to move over 1 seat... into Seat 4! The others who had been at the table since the beginning say their goodbyes to me, "It was nice knowing you man...."

The seat lives up to its reputation as I bleed away a quarter of my stack when my good starting hands miss and someone else got aggressive before I could. I manage to keep alive before I get tapped out and moved over to table 2. I had survived the Seat of Death! But now I was short-stacked at my new table. I amazingly double up with an Ace high all-in; and then again when I'm heads-up and catch an Ace on the flop, then trap my opponent by checking through to the River and calling when he pushes with QQ.

It gets down to the final table and now I'm in 2nd or 3rd place, and when we draw for seats back at table 3, I say out loud, "No 4, no 4!" and of course, I draw the 4. Much laughter from the rest of the crowd, but little did they (or myself) know that it would be I that would have the last laugh! The 4s decided to do a complete 180 for the final table... it was tired of giving away chips and now wanted them all back.

My ass planted firmly in the Seat of Death, I take out 5 people at the final table.

A3s on the button and I come in with 2 short stacks, one of which had made a small raise and was now all-in. Flop comes 236. Other short-stack checks, I look over and asks how much he has left. I put him all-in for only about 1/5 of my stack. They show AT and KJ. Turn is an 8, River is a close-but-no-cigar Q and my pair of treys take out two people. "Gutsy move," I'm told. Not much later, my pocket Tens hold up against a smaller pair and some overcards and another two bite the dust.

I'm feared now, and proceed to make a nemesis in the 6s when I have 9Ts in the BB and the flop comes A25. The blinds are 400/800 and the SB is already all-in with only 300 left. I throw out a T1600 bet, figuring the 6s doesn't have an Ace as he was one who would raise with it pre-flop. He reluctantly calls. I catch a 9 on the Turn and throw out T2400.

The 6s hems and haws and counts his chips and looks at his cards. I'm holding my cards as if I'm ready to flip them over. "You'll get to see my cards, there's an all-in," I tell him. He finally sighs and flashes me A6 before he mucks. I chuckle and joke, "I had you outkicked," as I show him my 9, and then have to show the accompanying 10. He bangs the table as I rake in the side pot... SB had 25o and the river filled up his boat!

"That's the one and only time... you won't get so lucky next time," the 6s says. I think he's joking but when I look over at him, he's seriously pissed at me! He's in 2nd place behind me now, so I decide to stay out of any pots with him until I have a monster and then use his tilt to my advantage.

I limp in with the 9s holding KTh. Flop is all hearts and I check-call his All-in. Add another notch on the belt as my King-high flush beats his QJ flush! "Wow, I'm going to remember that hand for a long time," he says. I would too... that was a rough beat, especially one that takes you out on the bubble! The other two short stacks thank me for carrying them into the money... for one of them, it was his first live tourney.

I sit back and let the other three duke it out. The first-timer is happy with 4th place and $120 so he ends up giving his chips to the 3s, the one who was blinded all-in with 25o and tripled up on it. Armed with some chips now, the 3s actually whittles down my nemesis quite nicely, almost taking him out at one point! Unfortunately the River saves him, and a few hands later the villian makes a comeback and busts out the 3s, who leaves with about $180.

So we go into heads-up action pretty much even. A few hands back and forth, I see we might be going at it for awhile, and so I offer up a chop. It was close to $540 for first and $300 for second, so we would both take home about $400 (after dealer toke) and call it a day. He considered for a long while and finally agreed.

One the way to the cashier's cage, he told me he almost didn't want to split, that he was holding a grudge against me for making him toss his Ace. I told him there was no way he could have beat me. I was in the 4 seat. :)

The AlCan'tHang Home Game

2005-03-17T10:40:00.000-08:00

http://www.wagenschenke.ch

For those not fluent in German: after it loads and you click Start, your mouse pointer disappears and all you have to do is move left and right and see how far you can get!

Welcome to TV Land

2005-03-16T17:20:00.000-08:00

Not being much of a basketball fan, I don't get caught up in all the March Madness Mayhem. But every season, the damn games still affect me... they have to bump Survivor up a day!!! Do you realize how many important moments in Survivor history I've missed because I didn't tune in a day earlier? Thursday nights have become our family's regular teriyaki night, so we can all eat rice along with our favorite castaways. And now we have to shuffle our weekly schedule just so millions can watch some college kids bounce an orange ball around the gym? Outrage!

I probably would have forgotten again this time around as well if I hadn't been watching The Amazing Race and been constantly reminded that Survivor is on a "special" night. Rob and Amber kick ass. The producers will find some way to keep them in until the end because there wouldn't be much of a show left without them.

Speaking of which, my wife and I were once part of a local reality show, based around gambling of course.

We did it last summer, and while it's nothing I'd put on my resumé, it was a fun experience and occassionally we get recognized, mostly by the casino-going crowds. And thinking back, it's actually the reason my wife and I got so into Hold'em.

It all started when a co-worker sent me this link. Basically, the premise is 10 teams of 2 compete in a series of table games: Blackjack, Roulette, Bacarrat, and Hold'em. And like every good reality show, there'd be eliminations until only one team remained, and that team won the chance to spin a wheel for a million dollars. Yes, you read that correct, you don't necessarily win the money... you win a spin for the money. It was a local show, what'd you expect?

Being the degenerate gamblers we already were, this sounded like the perfect competition for me and my wife! The Tulalip Indian Casino is about an 1.5 hour drive from home, and seeing as we can get to the Muckleshoot in just 10 minutes, the Tulalip was not one of our usual hangouts. But we made the trek out there the night before open-casting-call day, got a nearby hotel room, and checked out the facility (a beautiful place!). We got back there early the morning of, and there were only 3 or 4 other teams waiting, so we got our initial interview done and over with really early. The audition was open all day and they ended up seeing about 200 couples throughout the day.

The interview consisted of two minutes in front of a producer and a camera answering questions about what we like to play, why we make a good team, etc. Our spin was that we were yin and yang when it comes to gambling. I play by the book and know the odds and strategies, she plays on her intuition and gut feelings. But we always play as a team and are supportive of each other, and usually end up covering each other in terms of win/loss. So we break even for the night but we have a good time doing it.

Since we were done so early, we hit the casino floor. At this point in time, neither of us had played Poker at a live table, only a little bit online. We stuck to the craps and baccarat tables and found ourselves playing side by side with one of the other teams that tried out that morning. They were a fun, loud and boisterous mother/daughter team, and when we started chatting about the show, we told them the only game that worried us would be Hold'em. At that, they whisked us out of the Tulalip to a nearby Silver Dollar, and being the regulars that they were there, got us all seats for our first ever live game. The rest, as they say, is history.

Anyways, back to the show: a few weeks later, we got our first callback. There were about 25 teams called back, but unfortunately they didn't include the mother/daughter that had taken our Poker virginity. We were gathered in a conference room at the TV station where they laid out felts for each of the games and had casino dealers playing mock games with everyone. It was kind of surprising how many people didn't know how to play Blackjack or Roulette, and it seemed we were the only couple who knew how to play Bacarrat. I guess everyone else was just there to be on TV. The producers took teams aside to do more in-depth interviews and had us record sound bytes to be used in the commercials.

After another few weeks, we hadn't heard back so assumed we didn't make the second cut. But then two weeks before the first day of taping began, they asked if we would be available. Apparently, the producers narrowed it down to 11 teams they liked, but since there was only room for 10, they wanted to pit two teams against each other for that tenth spot. You know, kick off the show with a little more drama and excitement. Obviously, we were one of those two teams.

You can read the episode recaps at the official Tulalip Casino Night website, but here's my summary, with some behind the scenes commentary. The "Play-In" would be us, The Pocket Rockets, versus A Pair of Queens, and it consisted of a completely random hand of Texas Hold'em. Both teams got their cards, face-up, and we'd see a flop, turn, and river. Whoever had the best hand won. No playing, no skill or strategy, just pure luck.

The whole concept of the Play-In was kind of dumb, but what really irritated my wife was that the team we were up against, the Queens, was a team that we didn't see at the open casting call nor at the first call-back. She figured that they must be friends of one of the producers, and because they were flamboyantly gay, they would make for good TV. Or at least they would be needed as the token gay couple on the show. She voiced her opinion, loudly, to some of the other teams as well as the producers, and we were told they were a team that just couldn't make the callback and had other interview times and arrangements. We felt it was hardly likely that the Queens had even sent in an application... they knew nothing about gambling, so why would they even be interested in doing the show?

Anyways, it took almost half the day to get things set-up and have practice runs and make sure everyone was oriented before the cameras started rolling. By now, my wife was fuming - we invested all this time and energy and came all this way, just for an opportunity to lose to a team that was there purely for camera time, rather than for the love of the games (and money).

We ended up winning the Play-In (I don't even remember the hand, it was that random), but in their exit interview, the Queens called my wife a mean bitch. It was kind of funny because when the show aired, there was absolutely no history shown on us or them, and the negative comments just seemed to come out of nowhere. But as it is with reality TV and editing, within the first 15 minutes of the first episode, our image as the trouble-maker team was cemented.

The casino had partitioned off their no-smoking section for the show's use, with a table for each of the games and a few slot machines. The competition consisted of a Frenzy round, where each team took their $10,000 in play chips and hit any of the tables/slots for 15 minutes to build up or lose their bankroll. Then there would be a round where all teams played Roulette together, and then a round of Blackjack, etc. Bankrolls would be counted after each round and challenges and eliminations ensued based on standings.

As I mentioned before, we noticed that not everyone that made the show was a gambler... most teams had one casual gambler and their tag-along friend/cheerleader. One team played nothing but slots and barely knew blackjack. We'd made mention, on camera, that we thought our team had the best shot because we both knew all the games and were regular players of them all. Somehow this comment got turned into us being all high and mighty, and other teams saying in their interviews how they thought we were annoying and so full of ourselves!

We ended up being on the chopping block again at the first elimination as we ended the round in 9th place. This elimination would be based on the spin of the roulette wheel. The 10th place team picked Red, and when the ball landed Black and we got to stay, it gave us an even bigger target on our backs. There was an occassional "Challenge Bet" where the last place team could challenge any other team for a chunk of their chips, either via a spin of the wheel or a deal of 2 blackjack cards. Of course we would get picked and of course we would win... and we never had a say in any of it, luck just went our way!

By episode 3, we had won 5 challenges, suriving 3 eliminations. Everyone was out to get us at that point! And on air, those first episodes we nicknamed the Steve and Shawni show, as it was all about us squeaking by. On the episode we finally got booted off, they had thrown in a twist. First place after the last gaming round would get to choose which teams went up for elimination. Now instead of just trying to stay out of the bottom, the goal was scrambling for the top. Our nemesis team, one that had challenged us twice and lost both times and therefore really wanted to get back at us, was leading the pack and we were at the bottom.

So we tried to make a deal with one of the other trailing teams (this was all on-camera of course), where we would pick them for a Challenge Bet so that we would be basically dumping our chips to each other no matter the outcome, and that if we could work our way back to the top with those extra chips, we would keep each other off the block. They wouldn't agree to it, we ended up losing our chips to another neutral team, they couldn't do anything with it, and so we were picked for elimination and our lucky streak ended.

Anyways, the point of all this is that we were the only team that made good TV, like Rob and Amber are doing for The Amazing Race. All the other teams were too lovey-dovey and just plain outright boring. We stirred up trouble and caused drama... so much so that we were brought back for the final episode, in a shocking suprise twist of course, where we got to grant immunity to one of the last 5 teams and send them directly to the the final table, which would consist of only 4 teams. The producers loved it that my wife wanted to have each team plead their case to us as to why we should give them the immunity. She really didn't care what any of them had to say, as we had decided to give it to the Old guys already, but again... it made for good TV!

So there you have it, my dark dirty little secret. Like I said, sometimes we get spotted while sitting at a table. "Hey... weren't you on that show?" And it seems the small viewing audience that did tune in were rooting for us, being the underdogs that we were. "That sucked that everyone was picking on you!"

And while we didn't win a million dollars (the winners got their spin and actually hit it!), and we aren't being flooded with endorsement deals or recording contracts, we owe a lot to this experience: without it, my wife and I may have never found our way to a real Hold'em table and become as addicted as we are to the game. Okay, so maybe that's not such a great thing. :)

Time to go pick up the teriyaki and settle in to just watching reality TV.

To Lay Down or Not Lay Down?

2005-03-14T18:12:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately my Sunday was booked weeks ago for a birthday party, so I couldn't attend the HORSE festivities. Despite the busy weekend, I was able to squeeze in some Hold'em, and now I have two more hand histories to file away in the "Never Make That Play Again" mental cabinet.

I was at the Cascade on Saturday for their 3:00pm tourney. Got JJ early on and called someone else's preflop raise. Flop had both an Ace and a King, so I folded to a small bet. Of course the turn was a J. Few hands later, raised with QQ and got no action. Called a short-stack's all-in with 99 and they held up against his A8, so I should have had plenty of chips to ride on for awhile. A few more rounds of nothing playable, I'm at T2500 with 200/400 blinds, and then I get QJc in the SB. I figure I can take this pot with just a small raise, as the two who've limped in so far were passive and easy to push off post-flop. Action gets to me, I'm considering my raise amount, when the BB announces a raise. He had just been moved to the table and had less than T1000, but had already doubled up twice in a row with pretty random hands, so I couldn't really put him on a hand.

The dealer pushed his chips back and told him the action was still on me. Isn't that the ideal Poker situation? Knowing ahead of time what your opponents are going to do and base your decisions on that information? Now I know he's going to raise to T1500, which is what I was just about to do, so he's going to call me anyways. So I should have just laid down that marginal hand, but instead I push all-in, I guess in hopes that would make him fold. Nope. He calls, as well as both of the limpers (!) who were short-stacked anyways. BB had KTo, and both the limpers had pocket pairs (tens and sevens). All I needed was a Q or 3 clubs and I'd be good. No such luck - K on the flop gives BB the side pot and the main pot went to the set of Tens spiked on the River.

I have no one but myself to blame for a really, really bad call. :(

Moved over to the live game. Flopped a set twice, but lost once to a turned higher set and another to a rivered Flush. No amount of raising scared these guys off. Came back to about even after taking a number of smallish pots, and was getting ready to leave as the blinds got close. I get AA UTG+1 and raise. Everyone but the button folds. Flop is K59. I bet, get called. Turn is 6. I bet, get raised! 78 good for the straight? River is a 7. Wonderful. I check, he bets, and I tell him to take it as I toss my cards face up.

I try never to get married to my hand. I can bring myself to lay down high pocket pairs or TPTK when there's an obvious straight or flush on the board. A pair is just a pair, right? And after the nasty burns I've taken the last four times I've had AA, it was an easy laydown.

The guy gives a wry smile as he turns over his KQ and scoops the pot.

All I could do was shake my head and rack up with half my buy-in. I done got outplayed. I should have been playing consistently, and I would have won this time. The other four times in a row AA lost for me, I called a raise and still called the river just to see I was beat. Or even better, if I had learned my lesson in the first place, I would have laid down to a raise immediately and not have found myself in this predicament. But the one time I deviate, the one time I think I'm making the right move, the opponent is nice enough to let me know what a sucker I am. No one but myself to blame....

What Goes Down...

2005-03-10T16:02:00.000-08:00

Why do I even bother? I ramble on about bad beats and post a vow to stay away, yet later that evening I stop at the Midway anyhow... just to see what's going on, yeah, that's it, really. I buy in for $60 and promptly lose it. No bad beats, just paying blinds and seeing flops. I shake my head in disbelief and pull out the last $60 of my monthly allocated Poker cash. Might as well blow it all now if I'm not playing for the rest of the month, right?

Three hours later, I've recovered my first buy-in, as well as an additional $250. The Poker Gods must have seen my threat to join the dark-side of fishiness, as I folded crap hands and didn't have to see them hit, and I would get one decent hand every other orbit that would hold up. That's the way it's supposed to work, right?

There were two MAJOR hands for the night. The first one, I have to give thanks to all the bloggers out there that post their thoughts and strategies on outplaying opponents and on how to milk every last bet possible. I can't name any specific names, as I skim a lot and click around randomly on my blogroll over there; but when there's strategy talk, I pay close attention and assimilate the data presented. And I was glad to be able to finally put it all into practical use last night!

I raise QQ in LP and get a flop of AQ3 with 2 clubs. I know Aces are gonna call, clubs are gonna chase, but one guy bets out before me. I raise him, some callers in between, and the bettor re-raises me. I take a thoughtful pause... I know he's a pretty tight solid player, so he would have raised preflop with AK and definitely reraised me with AA, so I rule out a set of Aces. He wouldn't be so aggressive if he was just chasing clubs, so it's either gotta be two-pair (AQ or A3 as he wouldn't play Q3) or a set of 3s. Whichever it was, I had him beat. I just had to dodge clubs, and as much as it'd be nice to have the board pair for a Full House, it could give him Aces full to beat my Queens full, or potentially Quads. It happened earlier with KK vs. 88 and a board of K8x8x. Huge pot, KK was pale as a ghost when he saw the Snowmen. At this point, I was happy with set over set or two-pair.

So here's where I considered something I read about that someone called the Third Level (or was it Fourth level?) of Poker playing. Beyond the ability of just reading your opponents.. this is the step where you make your opponent put you on a hand, incorrectly of course. Since I had been playing tight as well, my pre-flop raise most likely indicated AK or Pocket A/K/Q. If I had re-raised him and capped it on the flop, he knows he's up against AA or QQ and I'd only be serving to slow him down, forcing me to lead out on the Turn and River. I know TPTK is usually no good when you get re-raised, and I knew he knew it, so I decided to represent AK with just a call to his 3-bet.

Turn was a blank. Same pattern as the flop: I only called his 3-bet... let him keep thinking his hand was good. River was another airball, thank goodness. Here's where I turned it on and re-raised him. He looked shocked and had to call my bet... even though I was first to show, he flipped over his Pocket 3s before I pulled the chip off my cards. Perfect.

Guy next to me asked why I only called on the Flop and Turn. I shrugged and told him I thought he might have been slowplaying AA. Heh.

I'm not at the point yet where I can easily keep track of BBs during a hand, or anytime while at a table, so I took a little break after that hand and went out into the lounge and tallied up the bets on the back of a receipt to see if I played that the best I could.

A three-bet on the flop (1.5BB), 3BB on the Turn, and 4BB on the River got me 8.5BB out of his stack. If I had capped it on the flop (2 BB), then I most likely would have had to lead out and just been called on the last two streets for a total of 4BB. If I played it where I called the flop (1.5BB) then capped the Turn (4BB), I would have only gotten 1 more out of him on the River for a total of 6.5BB. So yeah, I took the best course of action I think I could have. And then there was the gravy from the other callers who got stuck in the middle. :)

Wow, I have one good night and I turn into a babbling fool. Seriously though, it felt nice to be able to get a hand, and then be able to take what I've learned, what I've read about, what I've thought about in traffic, ~~what I have wet dreams about,~~ and put it to good use at the table.

The second major hand was a no-brainer. I call a pre-flop raise with AK. Flop is AKJ, with the A and J being hearts. Too many players in and too many ways to be beat, so I avoided the Fancy Play Syndrome and just called the bet or two that was put out on each street. Turn is a blank, and the River is the King of Hearts. Everyone ooooohs at the possibility of the Royal Flush and the $2500 Monte Carlo, but no one has it. Someone did flop a Straight though, another caught their Flush on the River. Inital pre-flop raiser has KJ. Nice hands, but I take the pot.

So the night started off slowly... okay, it started off rather poorly. But damn am I glad I rebought and stuck it through! I'm kind of scared now, though. I know what goes up must come down, and what goes down doesn't always necessarily make it out of the hole that it dug itself into (I'm reminded of a recent personal Blackjack tragedy). I got lucky last night and it seems to be a really nasty roller coaster ride right now. I'm not even technically up for the past few weeks, so should I be happy with almost breaking even now, or ride out the potential rush I'm on?

Guess I'll just have to buckle back up and see which way I'm heading. Any bets on how soon before I quit again? :)

You've Got To Be Kidding...

2005-03-09T16:09:00.000-08:00

I really, really, REALLY should have stopped playing for the month like I said I was going to. I'm such a bad quitter.

I was down at PJ's around midnight to sign in for the 1:30am tourney. Sat down for their 4/8 half-kill game while waiting. Played tight, mucked a couple of winners - 58o for the full house, 74o for the straight, and they were nice pots too because someone would have two pair or a set. But like with the 95c for a flopped Straight Flush, I can't bring myself to fishily play them. And then when I play decent hands like KQ or Ax suited, the board completely misses me.

Then it happens - I see two Red Aces in LP. I raise and the limpers call. Three Spades flop. I bet out on the flop, get to check the turn, and have to call a bet on the river. J5s wins.

Then, four or five hands later, the blinds haven't even gotten around to me yet, I get AcAd. Raise, and get all but one to fold. Flop comes 2 Spades, and can you guess what the Turn was? I lose, again.

I end up placing 4th out of about 25 in the tourney, win double the buy-in, but I'm still in the hole $150 from the live game and those damn Aces.

Today was the first day in about a week that I got a chance to take a lunch... not having to work through it or run errands (like renewing car tabs!). So I swing by the Silver Dollar and settle in for a rack. Again, played tight and spent more time enjoying my comped order of chicken wings. Near the end of the hour, I see those cursed Aces in LP. I raise and the limpers call. Hmm... deja vu. This time though, no flush opportunity and a really raggedy board. But wouldn't you fucking know it, 36 (they were suited!) flopped two pair. How come everytime I flop two-pair against an overpair, the board pairs to give them top-two? I can't get no love.

The guy is a regular, and apologizes and sounds like he's guilty for putting that beat on me, but he's still raking in the chips. I tell him it's okay, that it's the third time in less than 12 hours that I've had AA destroyed.

Then, four or five hands later, the blinds haven't even gotten around to me yet, I get AA. I knew I was going to lose again, but I had to play it. Raise, a few callers. J-high flop. A deuce on the turn gives J2o the win.

Deja fucking-vu? If I was knew I was going to blow that kind of cash, I would have rather spent it at the Deja Vu strip joints!

Twice in 10 minutes beat by flush. Twice in 10 minutes beat by two-pair. I guess I understand the theory behind calling ANYTHING in a 3/6 game. When you catch those lucky boards against "legitimate" pot-building hands, you can really rake it in. But I still cannot bring myself to feel good about playing like that. I don't want to have to buy in two or three times to catch those monster pots that will just break me even. And even if I caught them early, I have a bad track record of not being able to rack up and walk away after just getting started.

*sigh*

Maybe after a few weeks off (seriously!), when I can't resist the urge any longer, I'll come back and be able to play totally fishy. I'll chase all the way to the river, win with something like T3o, and I'll feel damn good about it.

Or maybe I'll just keep losing, again.

Relapse

2005-03-04T15:11:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Iggy the Enabler for pointing out ESPN's Poker Club, with the free WSOP qualifiers. I'm a sucker for these mulit-level entry qualifiers, and the ones at ESPN are just the right price. :)

Despite my resolve to stay clear of even the virtual felt, I registered and downloaded the software and started playing at about 9:00 PST. The SnG tables filled up quick and it was a crapshoot as to whether you could get a seat or not.

Over the course of the next 4 hours (in between watching The Apprentice and Jersey Girl), I managed to get onto enough tables to actually win the 5 of them I needed! You get 6 points per win, and need 30 to enter the Sunday qualifiers. You can get 30 points for winning the MTTs that start every 20 minutes, but those fill up right away as well and I was too busy chasing open seats in the Single Table tab.

Given that these are freebies and a person can play as many as their heart desires, you can just imagine the kind of hands people were going all-in or calling all-ins with. And since the site is sponsored by Degree, there's a cute little "DEGREE ALL-IN MOMENT" pop-up icon on the table when someone pushes.

People were a little more cautious when I first started, when it was harder to get a seat; but roll around midnight my time, multiple tables were open at once and you actually had to WAIT for one to fill up and start.

That's when it got amusing, as half the table would go all-in on the first hand. What the hell, right? Lose and move on to the next table. Win, and you've quintupled up. I mostly tried to stay out of the cluster-fucks and actually play poker, but I did join in on the first-hand-frenzy once with KT and won. T6000 and I demolished the remaining 4 before round 2 even ended. Another table had everyone (but me) going all-in, and I was heads-up on the second hand. I couldn't overcome his 9-1 lead, but hey, at least I didn't end up investing that much time into that one!

Instead of thinking of this as a relapse, I'll consider it good rehab. I'm getting to play, it's not costing me anything, and it could potentially reap some great benefits.

Hmm... I wonder if the all-in first hand tactic will work at the WSOP?

It's Official

2005-03-03T13:33:00.000-08:00

I'm going cold-turkey. No more cards, real or virtual, for the rest of March. Or until I can't stand it anymore - which shouldn't be more than about 5-6 days...

Tuesday night, I saw a few nice hands that missed the flop, and then someone else would take a shot at the pot before I could, or raise me so I that I had to let it go. Round 2 and I have yet to take a pot... blinds are coming around and I have a feeling I'm going to get too short-stacked to try and be aggressive later.

UTG+1, first card is the King of Spades. Okay, maybe this is the hand I make my move. Second card, the King of Clubs. Wow. But as much luck as I have with the Kings (none at all), I consider just limping in and letting go if an Ace flops. But I never have to make that decision as the chip-leader UTG goes all-in and he has me covered.

Why do I keep breaking my own stupid rule? Why? WHY??? I call, as well as the button! UTG has ATh, Button has AKd, and I show my KK. There's a lot of commotion at the table, and I'm up on my feet. Three are Kings out, as well as two Aces. As much as I'm hoping for a 10-high flop, I already know the outcome... an Ace on the flop, a T on the turn, and two seats are open.

My wife actually lasted through the night and took 2nd place for a $175 payout. There was a nice sense of satisfaction when she took out the ATh guy, after chopping with him about 4 times with Ace-rags. She'd never been in a heads-up situation before, so she wasn't as aggressive as I might have been. I kept mouthing to her, "raise it" or "push all-in!" but she wouldn't have it. Fortunately, the other guy wasn't too aggressive either and allowed her to limp in and catch a lot of flops. They were about even when he pushed all-in w/ Q2s and she was tired of the back-n-forth and called w/ K6o. She caught a 6 on the flop, but the River dropped a Queen.

Oh well, that's poker. At least she money'd, unlike her loser-no-more-poker-playin' husband.

Falling From Grace

2005-03-01T14:51:00.000-08:00

Wow... January started off so nicely. I had felt the power of the Poker Gods behind me... my hands were guided by them and I could do no wrong. But somehow, somewhere, somewhen, they turned their backs on me and now I am no more than a blind mouse, skittering around for scraps....

On Friday, I get to the Midway after work, and they have the 10/20 game going with half a dozen on the wait list. I watch for about 45 minutes, just salivating at the piles of red chips moving back and forth, and finally get my name called. I buy-in with $400 and get placed in the 1s just after the button, so I'm dealt in immediately... first hand is pocket Jacks, Hallelujah! Two limpers before me, and as much as I hate being aggressive on my very first hand at a table, I don't want to fuck around with this gift given to me, so I raise. The BB makes it 3-bets, one limper and myself call. Flop hits with a K and a Q. It costs me another two bets to see the turn, which just ends up completing the flush for the first limper.

My next hand is Presto, 55. It costs me another 3 SBs to see it to the Turn. I miss and have to let it go. What is going on here? All this temptation laid before me and absolutely no fruit to bear!

Not 10 minutes in and I'm down $80. I try not to think of it in terms of dollars and tell myself I've still got 3 full stacks of chips to do holy battle with. The only problem was that I could not get ANY cards to take with me on this crusade.

K3, J6, T2, 94, 83, and on and on... it got to the point where I was ready to play the next two s00ted cards I got, but the Gods didn't even have the decency to grant me that! Of course, they tease me when I muck T6 and TT6 flops. I flash the dealer my fifth or sixth 94o before I fold, and the flop comes 94x, making even the dealer jump in her seat.

Okay, this means things are turning around, right? I'm being smiled upon and I need to take advantage of it, right? Nope. I get a playable hand like KJ and hear distant laughter overhead as I get outkicked by AJ. I turn two-pair with JT, no straight or flushes possible, but the river pairs one of the blanks so that I lose to KK (which of course is the way it's meant to be, right?).

I'm down to $50... half a stack... and pretty much resolved to go all-in with QQ. Another guy is all-in for about $15... there's all sorts of callers and side-pots going on. The board is only J-high and the Hilton Sisters hold up to win the big side-pot bringing me back up to $200+... but I still can't get all the glory as the smaller all-in rivered a Flush and he takes the $75 main pot.

The same thing happens again a few hands later, when my AK holds up for a decent side pot, but a K6 hits two-pair and takes the main pot. What cruelty... I have this juicy carrot dangled in front of me, and am only getting to nibble on the tip.

At this point, somehow I've got my 4 stacks of reds back, and then some... I'm up a whopping $40! Whoever came up with the idea of using casino chips was a genius. The psychology behind it all is amazing... playing a 3/6 game, I'd be pretty happy with being up $40. Two full extra stacks of chips... I could easily rack up and leave. But when that $40 is represented by a paltry 8 chips, how can I be satisfied with that? I know there's more in store for me... I know my celestial destiny has yet to be fulfilled.

Honestly though, I was prepared to keep things in scale... I would have racked up with +2 stacks... hell, I only bought in with $400, and I would have been happy being able to just fill up a rack. But even trying to get one measly extra stack of chips is a near impossibility, at any level, when you've fallen from grace like I apparently have.

Near the end of the night, one guy sat down with just $200. He hit 4 monster hands within 2 orbits and was up to $600, and wisely left after the next round. How dare he be that lucky? Whose virgin daughter did he have to sacrifice to have the light shone upon him like that? Myself, on the other hand, stuck around and just got myself stuck for another $200 before the table finally broke at midnight. How ironically fitting that my final hand was JJ... no overcards on the board this time... but instead I run into AA. Sheesh.

I'll admit, it was a really good game. Pretty solid, consistent play with minimal river beats. I just wish I had been blessed with some cards...

Unfortunately this bad run got me playing scared during the WPT Satellite freeroll at Cascade on Saturday. There were only about 36 people... I knew I could handle that. I tried to tell myself it was a new day, new cards. But I forgot to say my prayers, and I continued getting the same crappy hands. I was too pussy to try to make any moves when I easily could have... I went ultra-tight, limped in once an orbit (if even that) and folded to any bet. I mucked A7o in LP when I could have seen the flop for cheap. Two Aces on the board and King-high wins the pot. I raised with pocket 7s, but was re-raised all-in by the chip leader and couldn't bring myself to call. Suffice it to say, I didn't last very long, and after getting blinded down a few more orbits, my T500 push with AK didn't scare anyone off.

Last night, the wife and I hung out at the Silver Dollar, as they were doing a Ford Truck giveaway, and you had to be present to win. We didn't win the truck (surprise!), and couldn't win at their 3/6 game either. It was odd, having the previous two days worth of Poker playing be at the 10/20 and tournament level, and then coming back down to a 3/6 must-move table and seeing hands like J3 and T6 take down pots. The Overlords of the Cards are a fickle lot.

The killing blow for me was having AK lose to 83 (they were s00ted of course!) with a board that went Kxx, 3, 3... and that wasn't even the worst part. The bad beat was the one I put on myself, when the very next hand was 95c UTG. I mucked it right away and just wanted to cool down. Flop is 678c. I would have flopped a fucking Straight Flush! But how could I bring myself to play a shit hand like that? I mean, I'd seen 95o win twice at that table when they hit their straight, but I'm a better Poker player than that, right? The Monte Carlo jackpot for a Straight Flush was almost $100. I would have played 97s or even 96s to see if I could get close to the Straight Flush... but 95 flopping the triple-belly-buster-inside-back-door-gut-shot-Straight-Flush completely? What are the fucking chances of that??? What a nasty sense of humor somebody has.

I busted out two hands after that and I can't even blame it on being on tilt. Pocket 7s flop a set and I'm all-in only to lose to a runner-runner straight. Is that a tilt play? No, that's a "getting goosed by the higher-ups" kind of play.

I made it over to PJ Pockets for their 1:30am tourney, but was tenth on the alternate list. They go through as many alternates as they can within the first two rounds... alternate #9 got a seat just before the 2nd round timer went off. Geezus, I'm not even playing at a table and I'm still getting smited (smote? smitten?)!

PJ's added a Tuesday night tourney to their calendar, so I pre-registered for that and hope to snap myself out of this funk and turn things around before midnight tonight.

Seriously , if I can't money in tonight's tourney, I'll have to make the rest of March a poker-free month. Focus on some other back-burner projects... catch up on blog-reading... and of course, work on my prayers to the Poker Gods so that maybe they open their arms and accept me in their warm embrace once again....

Weekend Warrior

2005-02-25T14:28:00.000-08:00

Played in a $3 tourney on Pokerchamps the other night and took first place ($50) out of ~60 registrants. I had a mini-rush when it was down to 13 people... dealt AA off-color, one caller to my pre-flop raise. Flop is KQT, I bet out big and get called. Turn is a blank, I check and he goes all-in. One of the short stacks at the table egged me on: "CALL! YOU'RE POT COMMITTED!!!" I sighed, having lost a good chunk of my chips early on with AA against a Turned straight. I called anyways, and he showed J3 (!) and didn't complete the straight.

I fell back with a big sigh of relief, and when I looked back at the screen, I had off-color AA again. I thought maybe there was a lag I hadn't been pushed the pot from the last hand, but I saw everyone else had cards again. Pocket Rockets twice in a row!?! I raised it, got one caller, and he caught Top pair on the flop and pushed. I bust out two people in two hands! The chat lit up... someone asked if I was having intimate relations with Gus Hansen himself. In the meantime, I get dealt JTs and catch a straight on the Turn, taking out another person and bringing us to the final table. It quickly gets to heads-up and I'm a 3-1 chip leader and easily take the win.

I hope that luck holds up for the weekend. The Midway just started running a Friday night 10/20 game, which I put my name on the list for and will be taking a shot at tonight after work. I hope it's like they say it is... people less willing to chase to the river because of the stakes. No bad-beat river suckouts. I'm just going to play it like 2/4 with red chips... and if I can double up my buy-in, I'll be good!

Then on Saturday, I'm using my accumulated hours at the Cascade for another Vegas qualifier freeroll. These guys run a good set of tournaments... they just need to update their website and keep the Seattle public in the know. Every night for the past few weeks, they've been running a $50 (40+10) Sit-n-Go, a one-table satellite to the main "WPT Satellite" event sometime in early March. If they get a full field of 40 winners from the SnGs, that's $16,000 in the prize pool, and they'll give the Top Five a $3200 package that includes a buy-in to the $3000 NLHE event at the Bellagio's Five-Star World Poker Classic in April, just before the WPT Championship!

So they're holding ONE freeroll (need to have saved up 50 hours) on Saturday for an entry to the main event. I figure if I can't sweep that one, but I do okay at the 10/20 table tonight, I'll use some of those winnings and take a shot or two at the single-table entry satellites. I'm feeling awfully cocky, which I try never to be, but I've been pretty consistent with my tournament play so as long as it all holds up, then I'll ride with the cockiness for awhile!

And lastly for the weekend... we found a place closer to home, PJ Pockets, which is pretty classy. They have big comfy swivel chairs at their poker tables, and their chips are nice and shiny, as if they were just newly laquered. We don't play there often though as they only run 4/8 games. But they have a Sunday noon tournament, as well as a Monday "Moonlight Madness" tourney that starts at 1:30am Monday nights (Tuesday morning). That was one of the two I money'd in on Valentine's day... I probably would have done better than 3rd if I hadn't made a really stupid, STUPID mistake.

Anways, I'll record my idiot play here at a later date. For the time being, I have to focus on my game and try to plan on having one of my best weekends ever!

The Great White North

2005-02-22T17:12:00.000-08:00

Most of last week was unexpectedly busy at work, so I had absolutely no time to write or keep up with reading. Then I get a call early Thursday from Mom up in Alaska saying to get the family packed up as we're flying up there for the weekend. Grandpa just had a stroke, and while he recovered well and is currently in good spirits, he made the decision to move back to Thailand and live out the rest of his days there. So he basically he wanted an impromptu family reunion, to be able to see most of the kids and grandkids one last time.

The family gathering went as family gatherings do, lots of hugging and crying and catching up with one another, and lots of spoiling of the children. But the young ones weren't the only ones to be spoiled: while there is no Great Alaskan Casino, there was plenty of poker to be had!

Turns out my brothers run a weekly Saturday night game with a rotating crew of their college buddies and other misfits. And with extra family members floating around, there was plenty of $5 and $10 buy-in action! And while Grandpa didn't participate, he did offer to stake some of the younger ones. So much for grandparents not choosing favorites!

Since I was the most experienced, in terms of hours spent sitting at live casino tables, I was the designated dealer at whichever table I was at. Unfortunately I spent more time dealing than playing, as I dealt myself bad-beat after bad-beat. Once I dealt myself AA, and then flopped quad 9's for my cousin. Oops! I went in as the favorite (at least in my mind), but couldn't money in any of the 5 mini-tournaments we ran over the weekend.

On the plus side, I played my first batch of online SNGs on my brother's Party Poker account, and did pretty well! Two firsts and two seconds out of 9 played (at the $5+1 level) for a profit of $26... which covered my losses from some of the ring-games I tried out!

While the reason for the trip to the Great White North that is Alaska was a somber one; Grandpa wanted to keep it upbeat and joyous, and everyone ended up having a lot of fun.

Gramps, here's to hoping the upcoming trip to your Great White North is just as enjoyable.

The Day After

2005-02-15T16:46:00.000-08:00

My favorite day of the year is today, February 15th, the day after Valentine's. Why? Is it because the stress of planning a wonderful Valentine's Day dinner for the loved one is over? No more racking the brain trying to decide which diamond ring to pick out? No more fretting over whether it will all pay off and I might actually get some at the end of the night???

Nah... February 15th is my favorite day of the year because I'm a chocoholic... so today all the V-day candy is on sale. And even better than that, it's the first day Easter candy is available. And that means... I can start on my yearly binge of Cadbury Mini-Eggs!!!

Gawd, I don't know how I make it through the rest of the year without these chocolately balls of heavenly goodness. The crunchy candy shell has a light dusting of what I truly believe is some raw form of crack cocaine, cause there's no other way these damned little things can be so addictive. I can go through a whole one-pound bag in a day... in fact, I'm almost half-way through my first bag of the season, which I just picked up at lunch time.

One year, a coworker of mine kept track of how many bags of Mini-Eggs I ate, and determined that I had a caloric intake equivalent to eating 2 McD Big Macs a day! It's amazing I'm not Mini-Egg-shaped myself!

And now that I have this forum to keep track of my daily going-ons, don't be surprised if this turns into a Mini-Egg Counting Blog, at least through a few weeks after Easter.

Valentine's Day itself turned out to be really nice, especially since my wife didn't want anything fancy-schmancy... rather she wanted to spend a day at the Poker tables with me! I had the day off work, so we did some casino-hopping and hit some of the daily tournaments. I ended up money-ing in 2 out 3 of them!

I'll write up about the tourneys later, that will give me something to do throughout the week... that is, if I haven't overdosed on Mini-Eggs by then!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2005-02-09T16:30:00.000-08:00

No, you haven't stepped into a blogging time-warp. Today is New Year's for those of Oriental descent, or to be politically correct, it's the Lunar New Year. Welcome to Year of the Rooster! Click here to find out your Chinese Zodiac sign and attributes.

Nothing much going on the last week... no wild weekend casino-hopping as I'm in the middle of refinancing the home and want to keep the bank account fat and my nose clean.

In fact, so much nothing has been going on, the most excitement I've had all week was when I discovered they recently opened a Panda Express restaurant just a few blocks down from work! Panda Express is always my #1 choice when it comes to mall-food-court outings, and now I have a whole stand-alone restaurant where I can enjoy the fine cuisine with other connoisseurs of Chinese fast-food, without the distractions of those pesky mallrats.

And the best part is... they have a drive-thru! You mean I can get Orange Chicken on the go without even leaving my car? How FUCKING AWESOME is that???

Anyways, now that I'm done salivating... the qualifiers for the LA Classic are over and I had only taken one more stab at it over the weekend. Obviously nothing came of it... stupid pocket Kings. I really should have followed my own rule on how to play Cowboys and I may have lasted a bit longer. I don't know if I should keep playing on PokerChamps or cash-out and try elsewhere. We'll see how things go after the re-fi and what extra cash we have or don't have to play with.

Made $50 at lunch today. :) The Calendar New Year started off good for me, so maybe the Lunar one will be just as prosperous!

Woes of Working

2005-02-02T15:47:00.000-08:00

As much as I'd love to play in the Blogger's tourney, my work schedule won't allow it. How cool is the WPBTOnline though??? My name will be on that leaderboard soon... oh yes, very soon.

In the meantime, I'm happy with the $120 I made at lunch today! Best hand was KQ of diamonds, flop comes all diamonds including the Ace. I'm EP so I check to see if anyone will bet into me. Nope. Turn is a black Q, so I bet and loudly proclaim, "Okay, I'm betting my pair of Queens!" I get raised, I re-raise, and when he caps, I say "Uh-oh, you got me outkicked?" The River is a blank and then he only calls my bet. I show him the flopped nut flush, and he laughs as he showed me he did have me outkicked with AQ. Hey, I wasn't lying when I said I had a pair of Queens!

Lunch hour was over after that hand and I had to leave in the middle of a rush. This working thing sucks... who needs a regular paycheck anyways??!?

Jinxed!

2005-01-28T16:32:00.000-08:00

I think I really jinxed myself with that previous downer of a post. I'd had a couple of positive lunch sessions during the week, but then went to play last night and blew two racks. It took about 3 hours, and I won ONE pot the entire time. And I even had to bluff at it and almost got called. It was pretty sad... I threw away at least a dozen winners - if I mucked pre-flop or after missing the flop, it would come runner-runner for what would have been the win. But if I stayed in for the draw, of course it never came. And the few occassions I'd catch top pair, someone would eventually catch a bigger one.

Who knew the Force would affect my cards that way???

So seeing as how I got a vast number of 92's and 83's, I thought maybe that was a sign for me to hit the BlackJack table.

Nope.

Hit on a 12 and get to 19. Push. Dealer shows 10 so I hit my 16. Makes it to 20, alright! Dealer goes 10+2+2+A+6 for the 5-card 21. Get dealt the nine-dewey... DOUBLE DOWN! Make it to 18 and push. Finally get dealt two face cards. Dealer blackjack. Seriously, this must be rigged.

Speaking of rigged games - still playing the occasional quarter game on PokerChamps. It's a rough transition, coming from a 3/6 game where I can walk away with $100, and then playing online and trying to be excited over doubling up... a whole $10! But I've been good at resisting the temptation of taking it all and jumping up to the dollar limits I'm "familiar" with.

Still hovering just below the initial $100 that was deposited. It was almost bust at one point, but a few 3rd place finishes in $3 and $5 tourneys helped kicked it back up. I can't seem to break that 3rd place barrier, and I haven't had a chance to play the LA Classic qualifiers... only one more week before the final qualifier - I better get on it!

I can't fairly rate PokerChamps, as I haven't played for ca$h on any other sites - but from what I gather reading about others' bonus whoring adventures, PokerChamps are the biggest bonus chumps. They release the bonus amount in 10% increments once a week. Since I went for the full $100 - I have to be in a ton of raked hands just to barely reach the $10 release threshold, and I've got $80 left to clear... only 2 more months of this! And while they have a rake-rebate structure, it's not much to write home about, at least playing at just the quarter limits.

On the plus side, their support has been outstanding. I was in a hand and had already put in about $1.50 into a pot that was at $5 after the flop. The Turn gave me the Ace-high straight - someone bet, and I was waiting for my RAISE button to show up, but it never did. Turned out their server crashed. A minute later, it came back up, but the hand was gone and so was my money!

I emailed Support and said I expected to at least get back the money I put into the pot (someone could have caught a flush on the River!). Within an hour, they had reviewed the hand and credited my account the full $5! Woot! Should I reply and I tell them to throw in a few more bucks because of the implied odds? :)

Well, my grandma will be in town over the next couple of days. She'll want to spend the day with the kids, and then the nights in front of the slot machines, so we'll be spending time at the Muckleshoot again this weekend. I think I'll just stick to throwing dice and stay clear of the Poker room... with the way things are going right now, it'd be just as much of a crapshoot!

Disturbance in the Force

2005-01-27T10:08:00.000-08:00

Two news stories from yesterday, plastered on the front page of the newspaper today, really hit close to home.

Idiot:
The commuter train wreck in CA. If you feel the urge to kill yourself, then do us all a favor and take care of it in the privacy of your own home. I used to be an angst-ridden teen and had contemplated suicide - I once had to keep myself from stepping on the gas and plowing into the speeding train going by in front of me. One of the more prevalent thoughts was to just jump out in front of a bus. But then I would think, How guilty would that bus-driver feel for the rest of his life? I couldn't do that to him. Obviously I'm still here and very glad that I am. But 11 more people aren't because of this dumb bastard who "changed his mind." I guess he'd seen too many movies and TV shows where the train just blows through the vehicle on the tracks and keeps on going... Hollywood should consider a little more reality and show that trains aren't necessarily glued to the tracks. Plus, derailment would make for an intense action sequence. I hope irony finds its way to Glendale and gives that guy the death sentence.

Idiocy:
Iraq. What a waste of time. What a waste of resources. What a waste of young American lives. What are we even doing over there? There are dictatorships and slavery and genocide prevalent all over the world. If people want freedom and democracy, they'll find a way to escape and make it over to America. My family did. My mother lost family members trying to escape the communist take-over in Laos and she spent time in a refugee camp after crossing the border into Thailand. But she found her way here and is making a good living for herself... that's what the USA should be about - not trying to spread our values and ideals to those who didn't ask for it. And now my cousin is shipping off to boot-camp in late February to join the Marines. I truly hope all this bullshit is over with before he gets stationed out there and gets hurt in a vehicular accident during a routine patrol.

I'm 26. My wife is a few years older than me, and she was so excited when she turned 30... she told me she never thought she'd make it that far. I didn't understand what she meant. How could I? I didn't lose a best friend until I was 22 - and a few more have gone since then. Now I know how she feels. Can I survive another 4 years and make it to my 30th birthday?

I'm sorry if I've brought the mood down a notch for anyone. Maybe I should have started a LiveJournal (or even better, a DeadJournal) for this posting. But with all of the natural disasters going on around the world, and all of the suicidal/homicidal idiots walking the streets... I hope everyone takes a moment to appreciate what they have (like the ability to play Poker with people around the world, and then write about it!); and maybe pick up the phone and call up an old friend just to say hi.

Batting 1000

2005-01-24T18:09:00.000-08:00

Another casino-hopping weekend puts my total Poker Profit for the month at a cool grand!

Started at the Muckleshoot and the wife rolled some hot dice, giving us a free $200 to play with. Got creamed in a maniacal 4/8 game, but picked it all back up and then some when I rebought at a much friendlier 3/6 game.

Played at the Midway and took a nasty bad-beat right away - flopped trips, then runner-runner 7's give me the full house, but gives someone else the quad 7 jackpot (as well as most of my chips). Somehow I managed to recover - without rebuying this time! A few lucky flops, and some really aggressive plays got me back over the top. By the end of the night (or morning rather), I was up $400!

There were two plays that I even got complimented on during my rise to fortune, and I'll stroke my ego and boast about them in a later post. Right now I gotta hit the road and pick up dinner - a fancy one thanks to the weekend winnings!

Four Years To Go

2005-01-19T09:25:00.000-08:00

Source: MSNBC - Bush Unplugged

RIGGED!

2005-01-18T15:20:00.000-08:00

Now I understand what all the hub-bub is about. Played online for a few hours early in the weekend and pretty much stayed steady, but then somewhere along the way, the weekend went to shit. In the course of an hour... every suited paint flopped the opposite color; pocket pairs missed completely; had KK run into AA twice; and then my own AA beat by a rivered 72o two-pair -- who in the world would play a hand like that??? :)

PokerChamps' qualifiers were few and far between over the weekend, but I took a shot at one and finished in 3rd of 25 (it paid out $0.11!). The wife played some and didn't fare any better, and now we're down to about $50 in the account. And their 10%-at-a-time deposit dole-out means we'll have an extra $10 at the end of the week, but we'll probably end up going through $500 more just to clear the other $90.

Woe, the sordid lure of online gambling. And to think, I could have been spending all that time in a noisy smoke-filled casino instead!

Contagious Stupidity

2005-01-14T17:11:00.000-08:00

So all good things must come to an end... my lunch-time bank run is finally over! I guess $300 isn't too bad for a little extra lunch money. It brings me up to $800 profit for the year! :)

I considered not going today - why press my luck? Save the cash a long weekend session. But being the gambling addict that I am, those sane thoughts were shook from my psyche faster than a... (insert your own witty analogy here)!

The table was really passive today, and I should have stepped up and been the aggressor... I think I played with a bunch of idiots for too many days in a row, as their stupidity seemed to have rubbed off on me. I didn't steal pots that were wide open for the taking; I paid 3 bets to chase a gut-shot straight; and my worst (and final) play... A6s on the button. Flop comes 789, none of my suit. I call a bet, hoping for a 5. Turn comes a 5! Yes, I have a straight, the ass-end of it (as 12-yr old Miami from TILT would say), it gets bet and raised before me... and then I STILL call. Yes, someone is holding JT for the nuts, and I can only shake my head in disbelief of myself. WTF?

I think I got put on tilt just a few hands earlier when I had AKs and flopped 4 to the flush and the straight - I bet out on every street and got called all the way. The guy was holding 99 and still called on the River with two Ts and a Q on the board. I guess that's why it's not such a great idea to play so short-term... I've got this guy pegged as someone who can't let go of a pocket-pair, and I can't stick around long enough to take advantage of it next time I do have him beat. Luckily I left just after my run of stupid plays so no one could try to use it against me!

I really can't point the finger at anyone else, or even curse at the horrible cards I got all hour. I played poorly and it cost me, bottom line. If nothing else over the past few months (and even more so in the past few weeks); I'm beginning to see when I make bad plays and can admit that to myself, rather than blaming everything around me. Live, learn, and move on to the next game!

On the PokerChamps front, not much to report. Tried out two entry satellites on Saturday - one with 12 and one with ~20 registrants. Finished 5th and 10th. Looking back with 20/20 hindsight, nothing but pure stupidity on my part. I was in 1st at one point and sat out for awhile. Then I get JJ in LP and it's folded around to me. Should have just let it go and kept waiting, but against all better judgement, I raise it and get called by the BB. Flop is all undercards, 8-high, so I push and and BB calls. His A8 catches trips on the River. All downhill from there.

Unfortunately, the last Satellite is at 5pm PST during the week (when I'm at work reading and writing!), and the weekends are obviously more packed. I tried playing some $.25/$.50 and $.50/$1 games, and made enough to cover the previous Satellite buy-ins. It's going to be a weird transition, trying to play online. Sitting at a real poker table in a casino kind of forces you to pay attention to the game and the players. But playing at home on a laptop in bed, with the TV blaring and the kids screaming and dinner cooking... yikes!

Thanks to A.D. "CoolDog" for being my first affiliate! Drop me a comment or an email and let me know how you do! PokerChamps has a whacked out bonus and affiliate program... check out the complex diagrams they have at the bottom of their FAQs!

I don't plan on playing much, if at all this weekend, as we have outings planned with the kids. But if the wife suggests going to play (even jokingly), I for sure won't say no!

Maybe I'll get a chance to win some of my brain cells back!

One, Two, Three... JUMP!

2005-01-13T14:16:00.000-08:00

Will tonight's premiere of TILT be the point where mainstream poker has jumped the shark??? Nah, it can't be any worse than the WPT's American Chopper vs. Trading Spaces. I'm sooooo sad I missed that.

Thursday night has always been a good night for TV. Survivor, Apprentice, CSI, ER, and now TILT. Dammit, why haven't I gotten a TiVo yet?

So here I sit in this office: pushing papers, answering emails, using barely an iota of my technical skills and getting way underpaid... and I sneak off to the casino at lunch time and double my daily net income. Ain't life grand?

Monday, Silver Dollar had too many people and I couldn't get a seat before my lunch hour was up. Tuesday, there was no one there! Wednesday, sat down for about 40 minutes and left with an extra $180! I was up the entire time too... I won the first hand I was involved in, and I never dipped back down into my original buy-in.

I just got back today with an extra $110. It didn't go as well as yesterday as I did lose about a stack and a half before it began to pile back up again. But I was smarter today, as I asked for a comp and got some lunch as soon as I got there so I wouldn't come back hungry. :)

As I was racking up to leave today, the guy next to me said, "Wow, you won every hand you played!" I smiled and told him, "That's cause I only play the winners." I think that image was helped due to the fact that I only stayed in to the Turn and mucked if I didn't have it by then. No lucky River wins (of which I would have had a few), but that meant not having to show a loser either.

The Silver Dollar has been nothing but a freakin' bank for me! I didn't try any fancy plays or try to be overly aggressive. Just played good cards, and milked every made hand I had for as much as possible. I got a beautiful BB full-house flop, and I checked-called it until after the River to draw in as many flush and straight chasers as possible.

There's just something sadistic about checking the nut flush, and having someone with an 84s for the baby flush bet into you. Or holding pocket 10s and flopping Tens full of Deuces, then letting the two holding K2o and J2o get into a raising war... when the smoke clears, they're in shock at where the chips are headed. What's that look on their faces? Oh yeah... TILT! (premieres tonight, only on ESPN!)

Well, back to work, which of course includes catching up on the latest comments on The Hammer deb(acle/ate).

Wild Cards Weekend

2005-01-11T11:10:00.000-08:00

Seahawks? No comment. Chargers? No comment.

So much for a home-team Superbowl for me and my wife.

There was definitely some better wild card action at the casino over the weekend. We hit the Silver Dollar on Friday night and the place was packed. We were number 6 and 7 on the wait list, so they opened up another table. First hand was crap, and then I hit 3 Full Houses in a row. Two other hands I mucked within the same orbit would have been Full houses as well.

Up $100 in the first 20 minutes. I figured I had blown my karmic wad for the weekend and almost considered racking up, but dammit, I hadn't even gotten a drink yet! We hung around for about 4 hours, the wife stayed even, and I bled away my early winnings (of course!).

My last hand of the night was brutal: JJ in MP. Flop comes AJ8. EP bets out, and I just call, not wanting to scare off the others in the hand. Another A on the turn. Sweet... EP hit his trip Aces but I've got Jacks full. He bets out, someone after me mucks out of turn, so I figure it's time to raise it and go to war. It gets capped and the River is a brick. Cap it again! "Ace Jack, you win dude," he says as he turns over his A8. Shit. I was so blinded by my flopped set, and he came out betting so strong that I put him on an Ace with a weak kicker (I would have slowplayed the 2 pair). That beat pretty much cleaned me out.

If nothing else, Silver Dollar is tracking hours in January for a $3000 prize pool Freeroll in February, so on the plus side, my early rush allowed me to stay for awhile and rack up some time.

Still plenty of cash in the Poker box from the previous weekend, so we head back on Saturday night. Starts off pretty tame, and eventually I'm holding 33. "Flop it or drop it," I tell myself. And boy, did it ever flop... 3JJ. An elder guy bets out his J of course, and I take it easy, still reeling from the previous night's Full House beating. Turn is a blank and I just call. The River drops the last 3. Holy moly! My first ever Quads at a real table, and a Jackpot Quad at that! I raise the guy just for kicks - I gave him back his last $12 call after the hand, as I was getting paid $90 from the Monte Carlo jackpot anyways.

I don't know how common Monte Carlo jackpots are around the country, and I don't think I've ever heard of it online; but basically a dollar is taken out of every pot (along with the house rake) that goes into the "Player Supported Jackpot" pool. This pool is divided among Quads and Straight Flushes and Royal Flushes - every place does it a bit differently, and some places even pay out for the Wheel Flush. If you hit one of those hands, you get paid whatever that hand is currently listed at. The only requirement is that both of your hole cards have to play for the straight flushes, and obviously you have to have pocket pair for the Quads.

So Quad 3's were at $90 at the time... but wait! Silver Dollar just started a "Quad d'jour" at the beginning of the year, and 3's happened to be that day's special... worth $350! Order up!

I tipped the dealer 10% of the jackpot, and I doubled up my buy-in within the hour. Unfortunately, that second rack essentially belonged to my wife, so we left the table even, but with an extra $300 in the to-go box.

Seeing how things were running for me, of course we went back on Sunday. It wasn't quite as busy, so none of the drunk, casual players donating money at the tables. But it was definitely some of the worst play I'd ever seen. Guys were raising with any face card, cold-calling with anything suited, hanging on to their bottom pair all the way to the river.

Fortunately, I recalled how I would get sucked out if there were other maniacs at the table and I tried to keep up with them. So I adjusted and stayed tight, hardly raised and didn't try to steal even one pot, as I can usually do with the casual players. Coincidentally, Iggy posted on Sunday about these loose-aggressive games, how the variance is greater and you'll suffer the bad beats, but it's worth it as the wins you do take will be huge.

Prime example: I take a few nice pots with Top pair, and a lucky BB special that flopped a straight, so I have some extra chips to play with. I raise once with Big Slick and hit a K on the flop. But runner-runner diamond and some idiot who came along for the ride proudly shows off his T3d for the win. I raise again with KK in LP and get called around. Board is all under-cards and I bet all the way, but the river puts a 4-card straight on the board and I check it through. A different moron flips 92o for the straight and tells me I'm lucky I didn't bet cause he was prepping to check-raise me.

I take it all in stride, and pretty soon I'm holding QTc - two clubs on the flop and the Kc on the Turn. I'm kind of worried about the Ac, but I didn't recall anyone raising pre-flop so I happily call 3-bets. River puts a straight out there, and two fools raise and re-raise and I just call, as if I'm stuck in the middle. The first dim-wit (I had to use a thesaurus for more words to describe these guys) flips over some low-ball straight. The next knuckle-head throws down his 84c with a HA! I shake my head and chuckle inside as I turn over my hand. There was over $150 in the pot so I'm back up and over.

The next hour doesn't bring me any more favorable hands, so I racked up and left with another $100 surplus for the Poker box. I'm still patting myself on the back for being able to adjust to the table and not go on tilt as I've realized I've done in the past. Just need to keep it up and weekends will be much more fun than they have been in the past few months!

I know my last post was about taking the plunge onto the Inter-web thingy, but nothing major to report there, unfortunately. I'll wax poetic about it later... it's almost noon and I've got a lunch-date with a 3/6 table. :)

Taking the Plunge

2005-01-07T14:18:00.000-08:00

So I'm finally doing it. This will be a big step forward in my Poker career. No, I'm not going pro. Geezus, I ain't that stupid. I will, however, be playing my first ever real cash game online (well, at least higher than $.02/$.04)! Kind of backwards from everyone else's progression, but hey, I've been known to be a rebel!

The praises have been sung for Party Poker (bonus code Iggy) and various other skins etc., but I'm taking my first step with the Great Dane Gus Hansen at PokerChamps. The 100% bonus up to $100 is a nice lure, but the real kicker for me is the LA Classic Satellites.

I've played on P/C now and then, doing their FreeRolls, and even won a buck once (where I piddled it away at the penny table). But the last time I checked in, I saw they were running daily $5, $10, and $20 satellites that gets you into the $200 Super Satellite - which pays out $10,000 seats into the LA Poker Classic at the Commerce. The crazy thing is that the satellites don't have more than 20 or 30 registrants! Hell, I even saw one $20 satellite that had 3 registrants, and they still gave 1st place an entry into the Super!

So I figure I can grind out $10 or $20 at a low-limit table, and use that to buy into one of the smaller sats and have a decent shot at getting into the Super. The next one is Sunday the 9th, then the 23rd, and Feb 6th is the last chance before the Classic in late February. Three shots at the big time, and the first Super only had 75 or so entrants. Not to sound too cocky, but I think my chances are pretty good.

For the few of you who read here (and I know you're out there!), you may decide not to pass this info along quite yet, at the risk of ballooning the satellite registrations. So feel free to sneak in with me, and be kind enough to use my first pimpage affiliate link for PokerChamps and let me know if you do. Thanks!

Enough with the daydreaming and snapping back to reality.... I took my Friday lunch at the Silver Dollar Casino down the way. Got a seat right away and after the button passes me, I get KK! It's pretty much a family pot so I don't want to raise right off the bat (and give away my playing style!). I do bet out every street, even though the board came JT7JT. Kinda scary but I'm up $25 right away. Later, Pocket 5s catch a set on the Turn, but it puts a flush out there as well. I raise anyways, and the board pairs on the River allowing me to beat the King high flush. "Value-betting my Full House draw" I tell the dealer. That pot helped me make up for a flopped straight that got flushed out on the river a few hands earlier.

I'm down to 20 minutes left in my lunch hour, and the table wants to go to 4/8. I don't object - I'm up $50 and ready to rack up anyways. As the blinds get close, I get A7o and limp in. It gets raised and I go ahead and donate and prepare myself to leave after seeing the missed Flop. But it comes all Hearts, and I double check to make sure I'm holding the Ace of Hearts. Yup! I'm first to bet out and some kid looks at me and says he's got the made hand. Turn is another heart, and he yells out "There it is!" but still only calls me. A 5-heart board and me with the Ace takes down the pot... the kid had 4 to the straight flush. I always forget to watch out for those... oops! :)

I rack up and tell the table, "Man, this game is too rich for my blood!" as I toke the dealer my surplus and get back to work with an extra $100 in my pocket.

I hope I get things cleared with Neteller ASAP so I can get cranking on my trip to LA. I can taste it already... I've got the hunger, and I can feel it in the pit of my stomach.

Or it just may be the fact that I forgot to go and actually get some lunch today. :)

Off to a Good Start

2005-01-04T13:55:00.000-08:00

First day back in the office today, so I have a lot of reading to catch up on!

Spent most of the last week shuttling around the 10 visitors to Seattle (mom, dad, three brothers, an aunt, two cousins, two of their friends, and of course the partridge in the pear tree). But no complaints as there was plenty of Casino time! The kids got their first live game experience, and despite their claims of Poker greatness playing online, they got their asses handed to them at a real table. We even took up 8 seats in a $25 buy-in tournament one day, but only two of us got to the final table and neither of us made it into the money.

The joyousness of the holiday season was added to when I had an awesome night at the Silver Dollar's 3/6 table. Something just clicked that evening and I was making accurate reads on people. I mean, I'd occassionally get decent cards or a miracle flop; but I'd say almost half of my winnings that night were from pure aggression - betting out or raising when a scary Turn or River card showed up. I admit I got lucky a few times - like pre-flop raising 23o on the button and catching a runner-runner Wheel. But c'mon, I was betting out strong every chance I could and the guy shouldn't have called me all the way to the River!

Once, I raised pre-flop with JQs and flop completely missed me. Someone before me caught two-pair, so he bet out every turn and I continued to raise him. The Turn paired the board (but not to fill his boat) and the River was a Jack, giving me a higher two pair. The incoming dealer saw my take and whispered, "Nice when a plan comes together like that huh?" I smiled and said, "I had him all the way." :)

I finished +$400 that night. I guess I'll disregard my negative numbers for 2004 and get things started off on the right foot for 2005! I went back again the next night and was up $200, but then got a string of nasty beats - in the course of an hour and a half, I saw all of the major hands (AA, KK, QQ, and JJ) and they all got creamed. Flopped flush, rivered straights, a flopped set of 3s, etc., and had to leave when I broke even.

Obviously I feel pretty confident about myself, but I can't let that get to my head quite yet. I'll have to keep playing and stick to my guns about playing well and see if I can bring myself up one or two hundred and then actually leave. I know I have a bit of a problem when it comes to bringing myself to leave when I'm ahead, so I guess if nothing else that's going to have to be my New Year's Resolution, and it's one that I think I can actually commit to for more than 2 weeks. :)

And lastly, if you haven't yet, please consider giving something, anything, to aid in the tsunami relief efforts. I hope no one out there has been personally affected by the disaster... my entire family was supposed to be in Thailand for Christmas - my aunt has an itinerary showing that we were to be on the beaches of Phuket on that tragic day.

Best wishes to all for a safe and prosperous New Year!

Happy Holidays!

2004-12-23T16:57:00.000-08:00

I took an extended lunch break to stop by the mall for some last minute shopping and picked up some things I saw the wife eyeballing last time we were out together.

On the way back, I stopped into a nearby Silver Dollar and took the last seat at the one 3/6 table they had going. It takes an orbit before I get a decent hand: QQ. I was UTG so I just limped in, as the table was raise-happy and I figured I'd let someone else do the dirty work. Oddly, no one raised, but EVERYONE called. Flop comes AAx. Blinds and I check, then MP slams out a bet. Showing strength to hide weakness. Nice. He gets one caller before me, I raise and they both call.

The Turn comes another rag, I check and make myself look prepared for another check-raise, but in reality I was ready to fold if either one bet. They didn't. I had my chips out before the River hit the felt. MP calls and I show the Hilton Sisters. He flashes me a King and mucks.

An old guy to my right was doing a play-by-play commentary on the hand - on the Flop bet: "Ooh he must have the Ace!" And after my raise: "Woah, one of you guys is a liar!" He pats me on the back as I'm raking in the pot, "Damn that was ballsy! Good play!"

I only won 4 or 5 pots in that half-hour, but they were all decent sized and I left with a $60 profit. Not bad for a lunch break... at least it covered the shopping spree!

I'll be enjoying my upcoming 4-day weekend. My family is coming through for a few days as well and I'll be introducing my brothers and cousins to the Midway. They're all between 18 and 21, so they won't be able to play in Vegas (which is where the family is heading off to -- without me -- for New Year's); so I have to make sure they get their gambling fix in at the 18 and up Midway. Of course, they've played online, so this will be their first live table experience. I'll have to stand behind them and smack 'em upside the head everytime they act out of turn! :)

Everyone be safe and have yourself a great Christmas - or if you don't celebrate, at least enjoy the days off!

'Tis The Season

2004-12-20T14:37:00.000-08:00

Wow. A whole weekend of Football. Not being one who subscribes to the NFL packages, it's nice to be able to watch a few "real" games, seeing as how watching the NFC West games is more depressing than tuning in to a Jerry Lewis Telethon. The best part is knowing the Chargers made it to the play-offs... the wife's a San Diego native, and trying to root for both the 'Hawks and the Chargers over the years we've been together has been a driving force towards our downward spiral into alcoholism and gambling. :) It seems now that we have a glimmer of hope, and all of our years of faithful fanaticism has paid off!

Chargers and Seahawks in the Superbowl. Now there'd be a game! Heh.

Here's something no one needs to ever see again.

Christmas is a rough time, especially when you're on a budget, which we hadn't had to worry about for the last 3 years. But now, every time I whip out the credit card, I look over my shoulders to make sure those High-Interest-Rate Viking Warriors aren't charging at me cause I'm not using the Capital One Primelock Card....

Not to say that the kids aren't gonna get what they asked Santa for this year, plus a few extra higher-ticket items that Dad especially can't wait for them to open: a Nintendo DS, Donkey Konga, and Mario Party 6. Yea yea, I'm a Nintendo Fanboy, and I love any game that comes with a silly accessory. I've had them all: Virtual Boy, the Power Pad, the Power Glove, Super Scope 6, even the Genesis'Activator!

Our current party favorites are Dreamcast's Samba De Amigo; PS2's Karaoke Revolution; and of course Dance Dance Revolution, played on our $600 Cobalt Flux metal dance pad set. Grubby, you can put your money and me and I'll dance my ass off for you when I can make it to a Vegas WPBT. ;)

Speaking of Poker, we stopped by the Midway last night to see if we could make a few bucks through the Pai Gow Tourney. I didn't win a single hand in my round, and Shawni was beat out by just a few chips in her Semi-final. She bought in for a rack at the 3/6 table while I opted to sit back and watch. She had set a loss-limit of $50, and when that was getting near, I see her call a pre-flop cap with 35o. Okay, so the call took her under $50, and she would fold after the flop and we'd be out of there. Except that two 5s flopped. Obviously there were already a bunch of maniacs on the table, and her raise was re-raised... capped again with 4 players after the flop! The Turn brought a 2 which gave someone with Pocket Dueces their full house, but a 3 on the River pushed the $100+ pot towards Shawni! I asked her what the hell she was doing, and she said she was feeling it.

Hey, women's intuition - I'd take hormones for that if it were available!

Her very next hand was 85o, which again got capped pre-flop, which again she called. A 5 on the Flop and another on the Turn. Someone said, "You can't have trip-5s again..." as he raised. She raked in almost another $100 on that one. And her next hand, 33, flopped a Full House with 773; and she took another $100 and busted out 2 people. Someone had once called her a table-killer, and she was living up to it tonight! She actually tightened up after that, and it ended up costing her... AK, KK, and JJ all got beat, and the 47 she tossed away on a capped pre-flop pot flopped a Straight. It was just one of those crazy nights where anything could hit. And at a 3/6 game, there's just no way to scare people off with a raise when you're holding a good hand that misses. My wife was living proof of that!

So we left with $250, and even though I didn't play (my 2nd straight weekend!), just watching all of that action was pretty satisfying.

But I digress. Suffice it to say, this weekend was a very holiday themed one. More house decorations, a visit to Santa, and way too much mall time. I made, not one, but two wrong turns driving through the shopping mall area and got stuck for almost an hour trying to get back to where I started.

Yes, it truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

Randomness

2004-12-15T10:41:00.000-08:00

Nothing major going on right now... spent the weekend with the kids doing Christmas shopping and decorating the house. No casino action at all, and very little online poker play. Had a J9s flop a straight, my all-in was called by another J9s, and runner-runner clubs gave him the flush.

Spending my off-time at work catching up on reading about the Vegas Blogger trip and other going-ons. Here's some random links for those of you who find your way here on occassion:

http://www.AnnualCreditReport.com - A law had to be enacted to give people free access to their own information. Those of you who can, take advantage of it now before they realize this might be good for us citizens and take it away!

http://abclocal.go.com/...videogame.html - See, GTA ain't that bad!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/...gambling - Didn't they do a CSI episode about this?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6677040 - Be careful of how you play with your laptop!

How To Play Pocket Kings

2004-12-08T11:12:00.000-08:00

Muck 'em.

Fold it.

Throw that crap away.

Since my sleep schedule is still kinda outta whack from the weekend, I was up at 4:00am and there was a UB 25-pt Ultimate Point tourney starting up. It began nicely for me - I played well and didn't have to rely on any lucky draws or miracle river cards. Hovered around 10th place with 50 people left (out of 283), and top 30 places paid out so I figured I could just fold my way into the money, so to speak.

Then I see KK pop up on the button. Min-raise it, BB pushes all in and it costs me 1/3 of my stack to call him. I run into freakin' AA and the board gives him another Ace and a pair just for good measure.

It's downhill from there and I'm out in 39th place. Stupid high pocket pairs. I knew I shoulda just tossed that shit.

Weekend Review

2004-12-07T13:09:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of the year, my wife and I sold a business we started up a few years back and we've received decent monthly payments. We got our final check for December, and decided to take a grand and have ourselves one last weekend of raunchy decadence and debauchery. And boy, did we ever...

We started by hitting the Muckleshoot at 10pm on Friday. My very first hand at the 4/8 table was KJs. Flop is KJx, there's a bet into me that I raise. He calls, and we see a Q on the Turn. He bets again and I raise again. River is another J, and this time I'm in for 3 bets. I show my awesome opening Full House, he shows QQ for a bigger one. Little did I know that was going to be the foundation for the rest of the weekend. I won't go into any more hand histories, as the memories are too painful, but suffice it to say, too many of my great hands just couldn't hold up. I saw more quads than I'd ever seen before, and unfortunately I was on the wrong end of them.

Obviously, my first buy-in didn't last too long. I made my 2nd rack last until 4am when the table finally broke down. As I was moving to a new table, I saw a crowd around the craps table (well, a crowd for 4am in the morning). Talked my wife into racking up what was left of her stack and throwing some dice with me. Best decision of the night, as the first time she touched the dice she had a 16-roll hot streak. At one point, she rolled 4-6-4-6-4, and I had Place bets and Come bets with max odds that paid off nicely. After her roll, we were up $250, which helped to cover our Poker losses and then some.

We were back in the Poker room and settled into a friendlier game of 3/6 for the rest of the night/morning. It was 9am when that table broke down and I'd been up for over 24 hours now. Down a total of $200 and decided to go home for a bit.

Gambling Hours: 11
Amount Remaining: $800

We both got a few hours of sleep, woke up around 3pm, spent the rest of the day/evening with the kids, and then we were back on the road at 10. Went to the Midway first this time. Apparently people had better things to do that Saturday night as it was pretty slow and there was no one left to play by 2am. Shawni was up $150, $50 of which was from my rack... that's why I hate to play at the same table as her, but we didn't have much choice.

Gambling Hours: 15
Amount Remaining: $900

We decided against the Muckleshoot as it seemed our luck never held up there, so we went up the street to another privately-owned card room, the Silver Dollar (which has a number of locations around Washington). While waiting for a table, Shawni played some 3-Card Poker. The first few hands, she didn't play the Pair Plus bonus/sucker bet. I told her to play it, and when it didn't hit, I was the one that got hit, usuallly by her elbow in my stomach. She eventually started playing it every hand, but one hand she was distracted and didn't put the bet up. I didn't want to say anything for fear of any more bodily injury. She caught herself and did try to put the bet up but pulled it back when she saw the cards were already dealt. Of course, she had the Straight Flush (789d) which would have paid $200. She asked the floor if there was any recourse, but since she pulled her bet back, there was nothing they could do. She should have just left it up and let them review the tape to see she had placed it before looking at her cards. But oh well.

We both got seated shortly after that, her at 3/6, me at 4/8. One funny hand when the cards got dealt too close together and I reached for the wrong card. The guy next to me said, "Whoa! That one's yours, this is mine..." He looks, mucks, "Shit, you didn't want it anyways." He had 35, but his careful eye made sure I got my Pocket 8s, which hit a set on the flop. I tossed him a red chip that was in the pot and thanked him for watching out for me.

We only got to play for about an hour as the place closed at 5am. She was down a rack, I was up $50; and playing a few hands of Pai-Gow before we left paid off with a $50 win on Quads, so we left with the same amount we walked in with.

Gambling Hours: 18
Amount Remaining: $900

Washington State requires that the privately-owned casinos close for 4 hours a day. Most are closed in the early morning hours after last call - 4am-8am, 6am-10am, etc., reopening in time to cater to the lunch crowd. But there's a couple places that close later and are able to catch the orphaned early-morning gamblers. One of those places, Chips, was open until noon and just happened to be up the street from the Silver Dollar we were at. Cool place - one of their promotions is that if your Pocket Aces are beat at showdown, they'll give you $30 anyways!

We waited for a table, and Shawni was back at the 3-Card Poker table. Three hands in, she gets a Straight Flush again, and this time, there was a bet out there! $200 pocketed for our poker buy-in! They opened a new table at 6am, and thus the beatings began. If I held in a hand, I missed completely or got beat on the river. If I folded, my gut-shot showed up. If I was out pre-flop, I'd see what would have been the winning hand on the board. Within 2 hours, I was down $200 and decided to go nap in the car. At 10am, Shawni woke me up - she was down $200 as well, and told me all her bad-beat stories as we drove back towards the Muckleshoot.

Gambling Hours: 23 (includes a 2 hour nap for me)
Amount Remaining: $700

Back at the 'Shoot, she decided to take her half+ ($400) and hit the 10/20 tables again. I would have done the same but there was only one table and didn't want to have to play against her, so I ended up at a 4/8 table. Deja vu. I gave away $150 in less than an hour. Before buying back in with my last $150, I remembered what we had set out to do this weekend, and that was to have fun. Obviously the poker tables weren't treating me nice and just frustrating me, so I got up and headed over to my first love, the Craps table. Not fifteen minutes later, Shawni was by my side with her last $100 in chips. She had come to the same conclusion about spending the last of what we had just to have fun.

For the next few hours, we took the last $250 and hit every game at the casino. Down a few bucks at Craps. Up $50 thanks to the Roulette wheel. A couple of lucky guesses at Bacarrat. Video Poker treated us just as bad as real poker. One spin of a $5 slot machine paid off $100. We took a short lunch break at about 3pm, and then continued on our whirlwind tour.

Gambling Hours: 31
Amount Remaining: $350

It was about 6pm when I threw down $50 for one hand of Blackjack. It was a good one, and brought us back up to an even $400. we decided to end our night (day?) back where we started - at the Midway. Shawni wanted to stop at home first to rinse off. We had both been up for over 24 hours, again, and somewhat delirious at this point.

Got home, sat in my big comfy couch, just to rest my eyes for a minute, which of course turned into a couple of hours, and we never did make it back to the Midway. The $400 in the Poker money box will be extra Christmas money now, and we're putting a moratorium on gambling weekends for awhile, at least until we find out what our cash flow situation will be for 2005.

It was a frustrating weekend. I felt a lot like Bad Luck Schleprock over here, not being able to win for anything. It was no surprise that on Monday morning, on the way to work, I called into a radio station to win tickets for a premiere movie showing, was the winning caller #25, and then my cell phone cut out before they could get my info. Not to mention coming home and watching the Seahawks get creamed.

If we keep to our self-imposed Casino ban, I guess there won't be much to write about. At least I'll be able to catch up on some reading and live vicariously through some real winners! Sometime early 2005 I'll put some money into an online poker account and see how those tables treat me. Until then, I'll be sitting at Freeroll tables, and most importantly, having fun. :)

SNOOZE!

2004-12-03T13:17:00.000-08:00

No, I'm not just describing the nature and demeanor of this blog... SNOOZE seems to be my magic word every morning this week. I figure I'd set the alarm an hour and a half earlier than normal, so I can get up before the kids and do a little catching up on the blog reading/writing.

BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ... and my fingers find their way to the snooze button, giving me 9 more minutes of blissful sleep. The Snooze Button has to be the greatest invention ever, a wonderful boon to those of us who treasure our precious moments of non-wakedness. It's so great in fact, I can't bring myself to use it just once... one snooze press turns into 6, then 7, then 8, and almost 2 hours later, I'm rushing to get ready for work and the kids off to school.

Just seems to be the way this entire year has gone. Speaking of which, where the hell has the year gone??? Four more weeks and we'll be celebrating the 5th anniversary of the Y2K disaster! Yowzas.

Thought I'd post a little HI so those of you who are still visiting know I'm alive and well. And for those of you who have been following along:

The day of Good Fortune has passed, and not much is different. And yes, I did buy a few lotto tickets for that day. If I had hit anything, then you probably wouldn't be hearing from me at all right now.

Heh. Excuse me while I use the Snooze button just one more time....

Glub Glub Glub...

2004-11-22T15:32:00.000-08:00

Drowning in the river. What else is new? The 9-person tournament for Vegas started off nicely for me. I was involved in two early pots and took them both, so I went from the T2500 to about T3500 pretty early. Then I get KK just behind the button. EP raises to 500, he gets one caller, and I just call as well. I figure EP must have an A, so I don't want to be risking too much if one happens to flop.

Flop comes KQT. Lovely. Caller bets out 500, I raise to 1000. EP folds, caller re-raises all-in for another 500. I take a second look at the flop, thinking AJ would be a killer, but I have to call. He shows J9o. WTF? Board doesn't pair and I'm back down to T2000.

I did my best to keep out of the way as two others bust out. Then I get KJ of spades and call an EP raise. AQ spades and a 4 on the flop. I have a Royal Flush draw... I have yet to ever see a Royal, and here I am practically holding one! The other two in the pot had Q4 and A4 - they were betting out strong so it cost me dearly to chase the Ts, or any Ten or any Spade. Nothing. The River brought a Q to fill out Q4.

Short stacked now at about T500. Push twice with nice hands, AKs and 77, but no action. Get 66 in the BB and there's an EP raise that puts me all-in. He has A4s, and catches the A on the River.

Could I have done anything different? Could I really have played any better? I think the only mistake I made was paying too much on that straight/flush/Royal draw. Should I have been more aggressive pre-flop on that hand? Hindsight is 20/20 and I probably couldn't have pushed the other two off the pot at any time; and I'm glad I didn't go all-in like I had considered. But again, it's hard to analyze what I'm doing when I just keep getting killed by crap left and right.

Well, there's still a week left before the Fortune Cookie lets me down. Maybe I should go pick up some lotto tickets or something. Maybe then I can pay for some swimming lessons.

Sudden Change of Schedule

2004-11-20T11:37:00.000-08:00

It seems like a slump of a week for everybody. With the craziness going on at work, I've just been too tired to even consider going out to the casino on a weekday night. Haven't even gone online all week, so I've seen ZERO cards, real or virtual, since last weekend.

I wasn't planning on playing much this weekend either... lots of things to do around the house before Thanksgiving and all that. But when I got home on Friday, Shawni told me the Poker room manager from Midway/Cascade called... the Vegas Freeroll final table that was scheduled for Nov 28 has all of a sudden been moved up to this Sunday!

Wow... I don't know if I should go and play some tonight, to get warmed up... or if I should continue avoiding all cards and let my good karma build up for Sunday.

I'm hoping that some of the final 9 won't be able to accommodate the schedule change, and that it'll be an even shorter-handed table. :)

Well, time to put a rush on my household duties for today. Then I'll need to do some studying up on single table/SnG tourney tactics. There seems to be plenty of that out there, with all of you online players.

Wish me luck!

What's This Hook In My Mouth???

2004-11-17T14:46:00.000-08:00

It was a cold cold weekend.

It started on Saturday when I talked my wife into going ahead and trying out the 10/20 tables. "C'mon now, it's just like playing 2/4 but just with red chips!" I figure after my masturbatory Blackjack rush, it was her turn to play with the big bucks. She went down to the Muckleshoot first as I had to finish up some work for the office.

When I got there 2 hours later, she had already bought in with a rack ($500) and was now down to just one stack (~$100). The first hand I saw of hers was Q3 - it was a lowball flop and she caught a 3, but it got raised twiced before her so she dumped out. A Q came on the River, and the players who raised just had medium pocket pairs, so she would have taken that huge pot. Had this been 2/4, she probably would have stayed in. My thought is, a hundred chips is a hundred chips, whether they be white or red. But I guess realizing the red ones cash out for a bit more makes the transition a bit harder. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to see if I could hold true to my theory, as I was only allocated $200 and had to sit at the 4/8 table.

I think I did pretty well. Didn't play half as many hands as I normally would. Folded if my outs were too few after the flop. Played according to my position to bluff a few pots. I was up about $50 when the weather suddenly turned on me. I got absolutely nothing I felt comfortable playing, even on the button. When I did get a decent hand, someone else had a decenter hand. It began when I was holding AT and flopping KQJ for the nut straight. I didn't try to slowplay and bet right out and got a raise from an older woman who was playing very tight. We capped it on the flop and the Turn. She had 9Td for a lower straight, and then caught a 3rd diamond to flush me out of a huge chunk of my chips. I raise pocket Aces UTG; and when two 7s flop, another chunk of my stacks get split by 67 and 78. I finally bust out completely when my Pocket Tens sees a 9-high flop, and I get beat by Pocket Jacks.

Shawni had left the 10/20 and traded down to the same game in white. She wasn't faring that well either. We'd been there for about 6 hours at this point, so I had to go home and check on the dogs (the kids were spending the weekend with Grandma). I hung out at home and watched TV for a bit, when I got a call from the wife. She said she had to leave the Muckleshoot cause all the luck was just whizzing by her... the table next to hers hit the Bad Beat Jackpot and split $24,000. She had to leave and told me to meet her "at home" aka Midway.

I head down there at about 10pm and see her seated happily with a large stack of chips. Yup, home sweet home! I bought in for $100 and just started bleeding away chips. Could not get a damn hand or a flop to match. Or if I did catch something, I wouldn't get any action. Luck may have whizzed by Shawni at the Muckleshoot and caught up with her at the Midway, but it was ignoring me completely!

I was pretty much ready to give up for the night, when I get AJs and FINALLY flop the flush. There were two other maniacs in capping each round, and I ended up going all in and taking the $100 main pot. Three hours and I've only broken even. I racked up and went home and right to sleep.

When I woke up in the morning, Shawni was sound asleep; and there was over $500 in our Poker Money Box! I found out over breakfast that she stayed still closing and managed to clean out some of those maniacs. And she was getting good cards too! Full house after Full house, flushes and straights getting called all the way down to the River.

Then she broke the bad news to me. She talked to one of the dealers before leaving, and he questioned my play, thought I was a weak player.

Man, I thought it was just the cards that were cold.

Apparently, he felt I tried to bluff way too much, and gave away a lot of chips chasing cards. Hmm... I'm totally open to criticism and advice, and I thought back about the last couple weekends of play. Unfortunately there's no B&M Poker Tracker, and I'm not one to sit at the table with a notebook, so I just had to go off memory. In thinking back, I came to the realization that I do play too aggressively. I remember hearing that one should play opposite of the table; and the only times I do well are when it is a passive, easy to scare table. But once another aggressor comes in, I have trouble holding back. I get caught up in the moment. I seem to always end up heads-up with them and try to push them off the pot without the best hand. Not good.

I will defend myself against the chasing bit though. How can you not hold out to the river when you flop a open-end straight draw AND the 4 card flush? If there's nothing on the flop, I'll see the Turn if it's cheap, and then I'm out. I don't hold low connectors or s00ted rag, cause I know those get expensive to chase, and then they're still easy to beat. I know how to count my outs and bet accordingly.

These thoughts ran through my head all Sunday. Am I really the fish? I try to spot the sucker at the table when I sit down, but do I need a mirror to be able to see him? Aw dammit. Enlightenment sucks!

Well, we went back down for the last qualifying Freeroll and I told myself I will play better, play my best. No excessive aggression. No gut-shot chasing. Excellent hand selection only.

I played exactly 4 hands, no limping, 2-4x BB raises: ATs, flopped missed completely. AKo, flop came with 2 Jacks. QQ, an Ace and a K flops. As a short stack, I finally have to push all-in with pocket 8s, get called by an AK. King on the flop, and another King on the turn just for my amusement.

*sigh*

Kind of hard to analyze my play when the cards are running that badly. And it wasn't just in Hold'em. I clawed my way through the first round of the Pai-gow tournament; and I couldn't hang on to make it through the 2nd round. I was just on the bubble of making it to the final table, where, of course, everyone split it for an easy $150.

Went back into the Poker room and bought another rack, and stuck to my guns. I was going to play well and play consistent, but my luck decided to remain consistent as well. Pocket Js gets a board of 256,7,9 and of course two others are holding an 8. KQ flops two-pair, but I'm drawing dead to someone holding KK. Twice I got KK but lost to a rivered Flush and a rivered Straight. The night went on like that, and the table finally broke when I was down to $20.

A negative weekend for me. Down $300... found out I'm a fish... kept drowning in the river... no wonder it's so damn cold.

The New Poker Diet

2004-11-10T17:36:00.000-08:00

Forget about the low-carb craze! Disregard all you've read about calorie counting! Don't bother wearing out your joints on a silly treadmill! Splashing the pot and mucking cards is the way to go to shed those unwanted pounds! Shuffling chips and raking in wins will shape and tone those target areas. Everybody, follow along now - 1 bet, 2 bet, 3 bet, Cap it!

I started taking my diet more seriously this weekend. Wifey and I hit the Midway for some 3/6 on Saturday night, around 10pm. We started on the 2nd table, younger table, friendly game - and by 'friendly' I mean $15 pots, if that. A seat opened up on the main table and I moved over, wanting a piece of the $50 pots over there. Unfortunately, the table was full of wild players, capping pre-flop and calling any bets to catch their runner-runner two-pair for the win. As you can imagine, my $80 didn't last me long there.

Of course, as soon as I left the seat, the guy who replaced me won with the best hands 3 times in a row. If nothing else, at least I'm a good seat-warmer.

I bought back into the 2nd table when some new people showed up, and the table became much more loose-passive. Larger pots, and easier to scare off everyone with a Turn or River raise. I bluffed a 34o with a K on the flop and runner-runner Queens and raked in at least $40. By the end of the night, 5:30am, I had recovered my $200 buy-in and was up another $100. The wife only broke even.

So we took our cash and headed over to the Muckleshoot, which was open all night. I snuck over to the Craps table when Shawni had to go to the bathroom, and bought in with $40. I was up $20 before she came out and yanked me away. Who's got a gambling problem? Not me! :)

All of their 2/4 tables were closed and they only had 4/8 and 20/40 games going. If they had some 50/100 tables running, we might have played there; but since they didn't, we stuck to the 4/8. :) It was our first time higher than 3/6, so it was a bit intimidating, but we both went ahead and bought in at $150 and sat at different tables.

I waited a few hands for the button to pass, and the very first two cards I get to see are KTs. I go ahead and limp in to catch a K on the flop. It gets checked around to me and I bet, and get half of the table to call. A Ten on the turn and I'm still getting callers. I'm sure they were all thinking I was some fish betting with A high trying to bluff them out. Another Ten gives me the Full House. EP glares at me and says, "Check to the bettor." I smile back and shrug, "I hate to do this guys, but I gotta keep betting." Another caller or so and I get to show off my monster opener. It was a very nice rake, especially after coming from the piddlance of a 3/6 game!

The wife held her own at her table, and we both adjusted pretty nicely to the extra chip per call. There was only once, when someone left and I had to post a Small Blind on the Button, that I threw out a single chip. An older gentleman to my left nudges me and says, "It's two on the small blind, kiddo. You're a 2/4 player huh? Just gave yourself away!" I tried to explain I'd been playing 3/6 all night... maybe I should have just told him I came from a 200/400 table and was used to throwing out a single Black for the SB. A boy can dream, right?

Now it was close to 9:30am, and we'd been playing poker for almost 12 hours straight. Talk about a marathon run! The only reason we had to leave the Casino was that Shawni had her UltimateBet Freeroll starting up at 10am! At some point I had gotten all the way down to just one stack of 20 chips, but worked my way back up and never had to once go all-in. When it was finally time to go, I had broken even, plus had enough to toke the dealer and see one more flop. I held 25o and went ahead and called it and flopped 2 pair! Now I had to break into my initial buy-in to bet it. Got called only by the old guy who had tried to out me as a 2/4 player. I check-raised him on the Turn, and he stopped and looked at me. "Now you got me all confused!" I checked on the River, and he threw in his last $5: "Well, at least you can't raise me again!"

He showed his unimproved AQ and I meekly rolled over my winning hand. "Sorry, it was my last hand and no one raised pre-flop so I called," I told him. He patted me on the back as he got up and left. "That's alright son. That's poker." The guy to my right - we'd been laughing together about the fact that he got crappy blind hands but was always winning with them anyways - he said, "It's one of those night where the shit hand catches... but you're almost embarrassed to show them!" As I was racking up my chips, I hear someone on the other end of the table chuckle as he looked at his cards and limped in. After the flop, he mucked and said, "It was 25... I had to try it!"

That wonderful last hand kicked me up another $20, and Shawni was up $100 as well. So between the two of us, we put in 24 hours and made $240. I don't think I've ever worked so hard in my life for $5/hr, but at least it was hella fun!

The next scheduled meal in our Poker Diet was UB's $100 Tournament Entry Chip freeroll from 10:15a to probably 1:00pm. Then we were going to hit up the Cascade at 3:00 - Shawni for their Vegas freeroll qualifier, me for the $25 cash tourney. That would be followed at 7:00 by the Midway's qualifier and then the Pai-Gow tournament.

We took turns playing hands at UB, so the other could wash up or get some food, etc. But after an hour and a half, both of us started glazing over and falling asleep at the mouse. Something quite different about playing poker at a real table versus on your laptop in the comfort of... your... own... bed... Zzzz.... Zzzz... Zzzzzzzz.

Fast forward to about 5:30pm. Missed the Cascade tourneys, but was awake and refreshed for the Midway. Since it was the second to last week to qualify for the final table, EVERYONE was there for the Freeroll. They had to break down the live game and use all 4 tables for the tourney.

Shawni busted out pretty early, and I got short-stacked when twice in a row, I called two smaller All-ins with the better hand, and got wasted by the board. I caught two pair with K7 on the board, went all-in and got called by an AJs on a Flush draw. She got a third J on the River. Next hand I called a short-stack with AK, he had AQ, and 2 Queens flopped. I came back up a bit in a crazy hand when 4 people pushed all-in (myself included), the chip leader at the table covered it all, and his pocket Js lost to pocket 6s, my 45d, 34o, and A5o. The board was 346,9,2 giving the all-ins two-pair, a set, and the main pot I had to split the straight with Mr. A5o. Everyone got a piece of it except for the one with the best pre-flop hand. I finally lost when I went all-in with KQc, and I was called with an 8To that paired up on the flop.

Played some 3/6 while I waited for my round in the Pai-gow tournament. Lost $150 before I got called away - but then made it to the final table of the Tournament and chop-chopped the $1000 prize pool again. No one dissented this time, so it would be $150 per person. The pit boss wouldn't just give us the cash, so we had to play, "for the cameras." Myself and two others who were also involved in the previous week's prize splitting agreed to be the ones to win, as we weren't sure we could trust the other 3 to not just take the money and run. We had everyone bet all their chips and just muck their hands, leaving us three ringleaders with enough to place. We got paid in Casino chips, and I was responsible for distributing. I thought a second about asking security to escort me out with the $1000 that was in front of me; but then I probably wouldn't be able to ever show my face there again. :)

While I was breaking even at the Pai-gow tourney, Wifey was up $100 at the poker table. We finally left there about 3am, as I still have a job to show up for on Mondays. As you can imagine, my productivity was somewhat shot. Hell, it's Wednesday and I'm just now getting around to posting this.

But hey, this Poker diet is worth it! Not only are we up $300 for a loooooong weekend of entertainment... I'm actually down 10 pounds from the last time I weighed myself a few weeks ago! Who would have thought the best weight loss regiment would be just sitting around a green felt table for hours?

Hey Jenny Craig, bring me another rack, will ya!

Trust Me, I Know...

2004-11-05T09:39:00.000-08:00

Thanks for the link, Iggy, and thanks to those who left insightful comments. Especially this one: "you are one stupid fuck..."

Keep 'em coming, cause I need a good ass-kicking.

Believe me, I've replayed the scenario over and over in my head, trying to come up with a happy ending. I had thousands of outs. But in the end, I come to the exact same conclusion: "you are one stupid fuck..."

The casino sent me an email, offering a special 10% reload bonus, because I'm one of their best customers. Ha.

On the brighter side of things, last night my wife won $3 from a PokerChamps freeroll - now she can hit the penny tables and start amassing the fortunes! She followed that up by qualifying for the Tournament Entry Chip on UB. Final playoffs are on Sunday morning, so that just adds another Freeroll to our usual Sunday schedule! We've all heard of the Poker Widows, but I may just become the first Poker Widower.

So I guess all I can do now is buck up and move on. My fortune-cookie fortune is pinned up here on my cubicle wall and it tells me good things are still in store for me. Can't wait to find out what that may be, so I can blow that all as well.