Archives

All posts for the month March, 2006

First: GMU? Seriously? Wow. Apparently 4 people in the estimated 6 million entries on ESPN have this Final Four picked. When UConn lost, I lost all of my sheets. Now I root for the Patriots to win it all.

Second: Work. Busy as hell. I’m digging the job, lots to do and learn. But it has made my mind pretty frazzled after work and that makes it hard to concentrate on my hobbies (such as poker)

Third: Poker. My low limit challenge has been hit or miss. I set up a tracking site called Poker Track. It isn’t all that fancy although I am learning CSS to do the colors and formatting. It does work however. I think I am going to try and use FullTilt for the remainder of this challenge. When I clear the 100% bonus I should be pretty close to matching the LLC bankroll with my real bankroll there. The only problem is that they do not have anything lower than 25c/50c – so if I dip below $50 I just have to keep playing. No biggie. I played in the WWdN game tonight. I was doing really well up until these two hands (no bad beats, I promise):

I am in seat 2 (8 handed) with the button to my left just after the first break. I get dealt JJ. drewspop makes it 450 (3x BB) in mid position. I call. 678 rainbow flop. drewspop continuation bets 600. I pop to 1200. He re-pops to 1800. I call time. I don’t think he has the nuts- we are too deep and we have some chip leaders (myself included). Opening raises with AJ, KQ and above seem reasonable. I folded on the flop, he didn’t show. But I have to think I folded to a made hand there and you don’t typically see re-raises with 99 to have the open ended. Either way. I did lose a bunch of chips, but I think I made the right call.

Last hand of the night (about 10 hands later): UTG limps. I have AK in mid on the same 8 handed table. I make it 600 (4x). The UTG (GScottW) makes it 1800. I go all in for 3027, he calls with KK and goodnight SteveO.

Those two hands killed a great run I was having with a solid shot at making the final table. It sucks, but that is poker. I hit FT, made a great limit run and cleared my Poker Tracker bonus tonight- so it isn’t all bad news.

Fourth: I got tickets to Blue October @ Stubb’s in April. Kick ass. I love Austin.

Fifth: I think I will finally get working on the base to my poker table this weekend. When it is complete I will be running a small cash game followed by a tourney to break it in. Should be fun. Those folding legs suck.

This will be quick. Raised to 140 in the SB with QQ. Flop was all unders. Bet 500 into a 4 way pot. Call. Raise to 1350 all-in. Fold. Shit. Finally folded, figuring a call and a raise means I was dead to a set or an over-pair. Other caller folded, but the OG better showed her set of 8s. Good Fold.

Collapsed table. Limped with AQo in the SB. Flop is K high all spades (I have the ace of spades). Bet pot on the flop. One caller. No spade on the Turn. Check – 150… errrrr…. call. A on the River. Lead out for 450 all-in to try and knock of KJ or KT. Eventually called with a set of 6s and I go home.

Pretty much sucked.

Sucking wind on the Low Limit Challange right now too. Maybe I should just give up poker for awhile.

Short post about music. On a recommendation by the lead singer for Left Hand Smoke, I recently acquired the debut album of Rocco DeLuca & the Burden titled “i trust you to kill me”. He (and, obviously, the band) are good. Real good. Check them out if you get the chance. It is a mellow style with lots of instrumentation. Hard to put into a genre- iTunes calls it “rock”. They are the lead act for a new indy label called “Ironworks” whose founder is a name you might recognize: Keifer Sutherland. Yep, who knew it but Jack Bauer is a indy music fan.

If you happen to be in Austin this week- they are here. Check their website for details. I’m not sure if I will be able to find a show I can attend, but really would like to.

And a poker related item: Mookie is having his weekly online event tonight. Try and join us if you can.

That is right. I have a new title.

Some of you know of my prowess on the felt- but you may not be aware of my primary skill. 42. A game of skill, luck, and reads- just like poker.

I competed in BD Riley’s 4th 42 championship yesterday and was able to pull out a victory when my partner (it is a rotating partners tournament) went 3 marks nelo made it. Good times. For my effort I was able to secure my name on the trophy, a championship belt, and a toaster.

As for the title. Well, our universe (little ‘u’) has a more restricted definition than normally expected.

Got absolutely shellaced at poker this weekend. Bad run, bad play (on my part), at Mookie’s. Just plastered on the cash tables on Stars. No love.

New worst hand for me: AJ. First hand: Hit top pair. The other guy hit his 3 outer with A-10 on the river to sink me. Second time: Hit my J on the flop. Lost to QQ. The first hand I knew he hit it. Just a sickening feeling. The 2nd one- I just priced myself into the hand and didn’t hit my miracle on the turn or river to suck out.

I think I will stick to the bones.

After flying back from Vegas today I was pretty much spent. After I got home and cleaned some sort of yellow shit off my checked bag and the back seat of my truck where I put it I was ready to eat some dinner and maybe play some cards. I entered the WWdN weekly event and was playing ok. Got to about 2000 before the first break. Got lucky flopping trips and getting someone to put me all in and I was at 4300. Phone call. My boss. What? Our webserver was hacked? Shit. I told the folks on my table that I had to go and if I could I would make it back. Then I signed off.

Mookie called me as I headed to the office and told me Wil was seated to my left and could collect my chips. Nice of me, eh?

I couldn’t get back into the event. I signed on to check my progress and saw me bust out in 20th spot. Not bad for not playing a hand since the first break.

Sorry folks, but sometimes duty calls. We had a crappy CMS system in place since before I got there and somehow someone uploaded a program and got it to run on our webserver. I don’t think they did any damage, but I had to rebuild a box (nearly from scratch) and get the content moved over.

It is now midnight, and I am running on 5 hours of crappy sleep. I am off to bed.

We landed last Thursday about 8:30 and hit the Crown and Anchor and their amazing Hot Pot. Off to the Saraha- which is pretty much a dive. My buddy was out cold, so I headed to the tables. I played on the 2/4 table for 5 hours or something and ended up down a rack. Only one truely bad beat where one of the off-duty dealers took me to the cleaners when I had AQ top two on the flop and he hit is heart draw on the river with 2-8. Ouch. I laughed it off though- what else can you do?

In bed by 5 AM Friday. Out of bed by 7 AM to golf. We got the Member’s hookup there- only $55 a round. We got back to the hotel about 4 and I needed some sleep. My buddy was supposed to wake me up in time to see the UT/UNLV baseball game. Well we didn’t make it. Probably for the best because UT blew a 10-0 lead to lose 13-12. On to the Hard Rock to see if we can get into The Cult. $20 tickets. Sweeeeet. Very cool concert, but my ears rang for 3 days.

Saturday morning we got up and headed out of town to the mountains. There is a chalet about 45 minutes out of town. They had a few inches of snow on the ground and a great view of the hills around. Saturday was also the 2nd baseball game. They were out of beer in the 2nd inning- did they not realize Texas was playing? We left when they had a 1 run lead- which they promptly lost in the 9th. Grrr… A bit of poker, but only a few hours. I ended up a few dollars.

On to Sunday. Breakfast at the buffet. Nothing says Vegas more than french toast and shrimp. More baseball. This time we left them with a 6-2 lead. They ended up winning 9-8. A bit more dinner at the Crown and Anchor and back to the hotel. Dinner at Del Frisco. What a great steak that was. Then downtown. A bit of blackjack at the Vegas Club and some 2/4 at Binion’s. Lost a rack at BJ and a few bucks at 2/4. I could have done ok but, my buddy was pretty trashed, so we headed back to the hotel.

Monday- more golf. I shot about the same and it only cost us $65 a round. Back to the C and A to see if we could flirt with Jennifer- but she was off shift already. Bummer. She was quite the hotty. I headed to the tables about 7. Unfortunatly I missed the Sahara’s tourney. They ended up splitting 13 ways. Insane. Bad beat jackpot was over 17 grand. It was like 3 weeks old. I started off ok, but then ended up down near a rack. I re-uped and went on a tear. I quickly won my first rack back and more. At one point I was up almost 2 racks. I quit at 2 AM up a rack. My buddy stayed until 5:30 AM when he almost got in a drunken brawl and they kicked him out. Between 2 and 5 the Jackpot hit. Aces full lost to a straight flush.

Wake up call at 5:45 today and 8 hours later I am in the office.

Overall I pretty much broke even on poker. Given a bit more time I could really kill that 2/4 game. Nice to know. Lost some on blackjack, no big loss or surprise there. Given comps of draft beer and food at the local joints I certainly didn’t have a bad weekend.

Good times. Good times.

Big O Online Results

I played in Mookie’s online event last night. This is quickly becoming one a great force of online private games. We had TWELVE people. Dear god. I don’t know how Poker Stars even handles that kind of load 🙂

I ended up 7th when the blinds were 50/100 and I had 1300ish. I was in push or fold mode and pushed with QJ to be called by KQ. Drat. I ended up 7th. Which, dedicated readers might notice, is better than I did in Tuesday’s WWdN event. The money wasn’t as good though.

I moved back into my recent cash cow, which is 50c/$1 NL on Stars. I quickly moved to near double my buy in. Nice. I kept playing. People kept donating. I ended up nearly trippling my buy in for a earn rate of over $100 an hour. Why can’t I make this kind of money consistantly? I could quit my day job 🙂

Still grinding on Full Tilt. I have about 1/2 of my Poker Tracker bonus from VPP worked off. My session was slightly positive, which is much better than mostly negative. My bankroll thanks me.

Off to Vegas in a few hours. My bags are packed and my wallet is full. I’ll be getting in at about 8:30 local time. I should be drunk by 8:45 local time. I have not had a drink since Super Bowl Sunday and will start off with my first cold beer and a shot of Jager before I head to the airport.