Hella Hold'em

I spent the night at Majestic Star last night (literally, driving home around 6:30am). I got there around 8:45pm and had my name on the lists for 3/6 LHE and the $100 max NLHE games (planning to, worst case, play 3/6 until an NL seat opened up). After waiting in line for 15 minutes to check in, there was a seat immediately available in NL - sweet! - except that there wasn't. I'd gone to the cage, gotten chips, and headed to table 11, where I had been assigned - and there was no seat. 15 minutes of following the floor guy around later, he finally got me back on the list, though 3rd on the list instead of 1st, where I should have been. Whatever. This guy reminded me of Frankenstein.

A little after 10pm, I finally got seated. A qualifier tourney for the Heartland Poker Tour was just wrapping up, and the place was packed. I haven't been to Majestic (formerly Trump) in a while, and noticed that they put video poker machines in the little deli/concessions area just outside the poker room. Thanks a lot for the temptation, guys. (My general rule is to only play video poker - or any other casino games besides poker - in Vegas).

My table was a nightmare of troublemakers. We had the typical cranky old man, who called the floor every other hand (and was always wrong, despite his very loud declarations about playing this game for god knows how long and knowing the rules inside and out). There was the typical drunk and disorderly guy, talking way too loud, swearing constantly, and picking fights with other players (including the cranky old man), which of course resulted in more calls of the floor management. There was the token "I want you to review the tapes!" incident, invoked by a guy who then of course couldn't stop talking about the hand for the next four hours. (Lucky for me, he was seated to my right).

To get to the nut of the story before I go rambling on (for those who just want to know if I won or lost), I left up about $60, which was disappointing considering I was up a bit more and suffered some brutal rivers. (I am wearing my "F*cking River" t-shirt as we speak). It made for a quite awful win rate (I think I played for 8 hours or so), but what the hell. Up is up, right? I think I may be heading out there again Sunday night with my friend Ed (of Diamond Game and Nice Table game fame).

My first rambley point is that I think I prefer the raked NL game versus paying time in an NL game. My previous trips to Majestic (when it was Trump) to play NL were timed games. You paid $7 or something like that every half hour. (Looks like they currently charge $8/half hour on their timed games). I was playing in the baby-NL game last night (ya know, tippie toes when moving back into the NL cash games), with $1/2 blinds. $3/round is veeeery cheap for us rock-types who like to fold a lot, and it's also veeery cheap for us rock types that like to see cheap flops with Negreanu hands. (ie., it's veeery cheap for me!). It was also helpful NOT to be paying time, considering the number of times we had to sit with no action waiting for floor decisions and discipline of unruly players and other such interruptions. (Srsly, it was an AWFUL table in that regard).

The incident I mentioned re: reviewing the video tapes is one that warrants mention, if only for the lesson it teaches. I think we all need this reminder every so often, even if only to reinforce our current standards of practice.

Two guys were in a pot: I will call them Vic and Disorderly. Preflop, flop, turn, lots of betting. River. Vic bets out $40. Disorderly calls the bet. Neither man flips his cards. Dealer scolds the men and tells them to show their cards. (This had been going on all night, and I'm not quite sure how any of our dealers refrained from wringing the necks of these guys). Disorderly (who had called the river bet) waves his hands over his cards. I wish you could just see the hand motion I'm doing right now, but imagine that you're in a restaurant, and you've just tasted a mighty foul morsel of food on your plate. Imagine the hand motion you'd make to the waiter to say, "Get this nasty ass food away from me!" That sort of, palms-down, flick of the fingers sort of thing.

However, Disorderly didn't touch his cards when he did this. He waved his hands over his cards, as if to flick them away from him - but the never touched his cards and his cards never crossed the betting line.

Vic, taking this hand-flick to mean that Disorderly surrendered his hand, tossed his cards forward toward the dealer, face-down. The dealer immediately mucked Vic's cards and declared Disorderly the winner. Vic immediately protested, saying he had Ace-King for top pair, kings, and if the dealer would only look at the top two cards in the muck, he'd see that Vic was the winner. Disorderly then got out of hand, and lunged forward on the table, scooping the pot away from the dealer and into his own stack (despite the dealer currently working to resolve the situation with Vic, calling the floor).

In the end, of course, Disorderly won the pot, because Vic mucked his cards. Dealers are not allowed to take cards out of the muck. Hand mucked: Hand dead.

Lesson here: Never, never, never, ever surrender your cards to the dealer until the pot has been pushed to you. HOLD ON TO YOUR CARDS. No matter what the back story is, the baseline rule here is always the same: it is the player's responsibility to protect his or her own cards.

There are a lot of angles to this rule, including some peoples' preference not to show their winning hands after an opponent has mucked, but even in those cases - you should STILL hold on to your cards until the dealer has confirmed you as the winner and the pot is safely in front of you. THEN toss your cards to the dealer.

As an aside to this story - I really don't like to see players flip their cards up at showdown and toss them forward towards the dealer, especially when 2 or more players are in this habit. Heaven forbid your cards get mixed up with an opponent's cards, or unintentionally hit the muck. Your hand could easily be ruled dead. I've seen it happen with over-anxious players flipping up the nuts so quickly that they mistakenly muck their hands. Just stick to the golden rule: hold on to your cards. Flip them face up for showdown right in front of you. Don't toss them out into the open. Don't throw them to the dealer, even face up. Keep your cards in your possession until you know for certain the outcome of the hand. Do not release your cards.

There's a bit to be said for the "always show your cards at showdown" rule as well, particularly for newer players (or drunk players or half-asleep players), because your cards speak for themselves. You might misread the board or your hole cards and think you have nothing, when in reality you spiked that Ace on the river but were too sleepy to notice. You'll win the pot if you show the winning hand, even if you said "I've got nothing." If you think you lost and muck your cards, though, well, you lose. I personally don't always stick to this rule (thinking I'm so sneaky to conceal my starting hands from all of the donks who aren't keeping track of me anyway), but there are certainly times when I probably should.

Of course, most of you probably play online, where none of this is an issue.

This is one reason why I so much prefer playing live to online. There are so many intricacies to the game of poker when played live that just never come into play online. I find it so much more enjoyable to play live - even if it's a slower game than online.

There's definitely some money to be made in that baby-NL game. My first impression is that most players have no idea what they're doing (based on bet sizes and the atrocious hand selection practices of my table mates last night). There are a lot of people playing tournament-strategy (having learned poker by watching the WPT on television), and lots of all-in's with top pair and such. I'm highly pleased with my first trip to this game, even if the river did kick my ass.

Pocket kings did me wrong last night. I raised to $12 (the average "high" raise for the table, 6xbb) preflop and got one caller. Flop came 8-4-2 rainbow. I bet out $20. Call. Turn came a 2. I bet $60. Opponent pushed all in for $97 more (so, there was about $180 in the pot, and I owed $97 to see the river). Two spades onboard and the pair of deuces at this point. Did donkface call my PFR with a 2 in his hand? This was shortly after a table move, so I had no info on the guy. Pocket 8's or 4's? Straight or flush draw? $97 was about a third of my remaining stack, and I was getting around 2:1 on the call. I called.

He showed A-8 for top pair, 8's with top kicker.

And then the Ace hit on the river.

Blah.

Earlier in the night, I was involved in a big 3-way pot when I flopped a set of 3's and ended up getting both of my opponents all in on the turn. Well, actually my bet put one opponent all in, and the other had $38 left, which he pushed all in over the top of my bet. The board was A-3-J-10, and when he went all in, he said, "Please don't pair the board!" Of course, I knew he had KQ for the straight, but there was easily over $300 (probably closer to $400) in the pot at that point, and for $38, I'll try for the boat. In fact, he did have the KQ (the other guy had a naked Ace). That was a pretty big hit to my stack too.

I was pleased with the number of pots I picked up in position by betting because nobody else was. They're small, but I'm pretty sure those orphan pots add up over time, and why let them go to someone else's stack when they could so easily be in mine?

Again, I'm faced with the luck factor: playing against a bunch of scoobies can feel like taking candy from a baby - but, the more scoobies you have at your table, the more crazy hands you're up against. The more chasers you play with, the more likely it is that they'll outrun you with their lucky catches.

So, which is better? To play with people that don't play well, or to play with more experienced players?

I waffle back and forth with this one a lot, but for now, I'm going to get out my scooby snacks and swim with the fishes. Just call me sharky! (Ha!!)

Show Wolverine some love and go defend our beloved US of A against the Brits on Poker Stars!

Note to Self: You're being too aggressive preflop with mid pairs.

When I raise 4xbb preflop with a mid pair like 10-10 and someone re-raises me, my instinct is to push all in, and that hasn't been working out so well for me. I keep blowing nice early SnG leads this way.

And, is it just me, or does the first attempt to post with blogger's stupid word verification never, ever work? I always hit publish and get the error that I didn't type the letters correctly. Every. Single. Time.

Do we know the December WPBT Vegas tourney dates yet? Someone was talking about booking their flight, and checking flight prices doesn't sound like a bad idea, while I happen to have a little money this summer. Thanks!

Ooohhh pretty! It was my first time :)

A strange phenomenon has been going on for the past month or so. I've been playing a lot of NLHE sit n' go's. That's not suuuuuuuper-strange, but usually I'm running a 3/6 limit table alongside my NL SnG's. Not so.

Lately, I've been running a .50/1.00 NL table alongside my NL SnG's... and doing alright.

I played 9 hours of 5/10 limit holdem at Empress Casino the other day. It was such an unspectacular session that I have no stories to tell - except for this one WPT-wannabe kid who had been a poker room rat for the past 6 weeks, spending 20 hours a day playing poker. He was up $1,800 that day (I admit being jealous), but said that with that day's win, he was only up $200 for the past week. Yowza. (Where do these kids get this kind of money?? He couldn't have been much over 21... though I guess living with the parents is an option at that age). Anyway, he kept yammering on about every single hand, giving advice and explaining how he would play various hands. He was an alright kid, though it took all of my willpower not to correct him every time he referred to a bet on the flop from a preflop raiser as a "Continuous Bet."

A continuous bet... ahhh, the kids these days.

9 hours of limit holdem would normally throw me head-first into a huge desire to play MORE limit holdem. However, all I can think about is hitting up Majestic Star II for... their NL cash game.

I know, I know - believe me, the KK Quandary (and its resolution) is still fresh in my mind - a year and a half later.

Could it be that I'm just cyclic in my desires for limit vs. NL?

At the .50/1 NL cash table. We were all in full-stacked after the flop. I'm phlyersphan.

Aside from poker, I've spent the last 2 weeks fawning over my new toy - a Canon Digital Rebel XTi digital SLR camera and a nifty 70-300mm telephoto lens to go with it.

I finally got around to putting a blog together to chronicle my journey from photo n00b to photographer (if I may end up so lucky!) - photoN00b - http://photon00b.blogspot.com (spelled with two zeros).

I'd love feedback from any of you more photographically experienced than I :) Just be gentle - I'm new!!!!!

:)

Thanks to my friend Jim (and his wife Kim) and a group of generous poker players, the kittens and puppies at the Animal Welfare League (Chicago's largest humane society) are about $150 richer.

Last night, Jim hosted a $20 rebuy NLHE tournament, in which a portion of the proceeds was to be donated to the AWL. 12 players came out to play for the puppies and kittens, including Randy and I.

We started out 6-handed at two tables. I bought in for $40 (the $20 buy in and an insta-rebuy). I later took the $20 add-on as well. I knew Randy and Kim at my table, but the two other guys and girl were new to me. The guys were from a game Jim had recently played in, and the girl was the girlfriend of a friend of Jim's. (Look at me, forgetting everybody's names already! I didn't bring my notebook, as you can see). The girl was a bit new to poker, which was fine as we helped her along with the betting options and whatnot. The two guys seemed to know how to play.

I was getting good starting hands early on. On one hand, I tangled with the new guy across the table from me. I had QQ and raised it 4x the big blind preflop. He called my raise, and led out betting into me on a flop full of rags. I raised him back, and he called. On the turn (another blank - uncoordinated board of low cards), he bet into me again - way too small for a pot of that size. Now I was fearing that I'd run into a sneaky set or some bullshit two pair. I called. The river was another blank, and I can't remember if he bet or if we went check-check. Either way, I turned up my QQ. He had JJ. Yowza! Nice pot for me, but it tipped me off to the scent that this kid wasn't too keen on choosing bet sizes. At that point, I thought maybe he wasn't as experienced as I'd initially thought.

I had QQ a couple more times - getting cracked off once by the girl at the end of the table, who called my bets down all the way only to flip up her hand at the end saying, "I've got nothing!" Turns out, though, she had A8o and spiked the Ace on the river. Ship it... away.

Kim made a very nice laydown against me (grumble grumble grumble!) when I flat called her preflop raise with KK and flopped a set of Kings on an A-K-x board. Again, my recollection is sketchy, but I think she bet out and I raised her. She laid down top pair with AQ. Eeeep! Good lay down, girl. (grumble grumble grumble!)

Randy picked me off once, raising my bet on the come with a flush draw. I called him a dirty word. (Gotta remember my PG rating here, heh). I don't really think Randy is a (insert dirty word here). It's just fun to do some verbal jousting. We've known each other long enough to get away with it.

My big question mark hand was one against Ed. I lost a good half of my stack on it at a rather crucial time in the tournament. We'd made it to the final table with only a few spots left to the money (top 3 places paid). Ed had just run into a messy hand, and the table was crying tilt on him. I raised preflop in position with a ragged Ace. Ed called. I flopped top pair top kicker on a low-card board and bet about half the pot. Ed raised half my remaining stack worth. Ed had been in the small blind. Was he tilting? Or did he catch with some dumbass two pair or set? Or was he holding a small overpair to the board - 10-10 maybe? Anything was possible, considering 1) Ed is generally a blind defender, 2) Ed was in the SB, 3) Ed called a preflop raise (probably 4xBB - that was my norm last night), 4) Ed very well could have been tilting from the previous hand (it has been known to happen).

The old mantra, "don't go broke with top pair" echoed through my head as I considered my options. Calling wasn't really an option. It was push or fold, considering that a call would overly commit me to the pot, and a fold would leave me with about 10BB - not the best situation but not dead yet.

I folded, a bit disgusted with the whole hand.

Ed seemed shocked that I laid down top pair - I'm not sure if because he was surprised at it as a good laydown, or if because he was surprised at it as it was a tight laydown since he was just testing out his Ace high. He said that he absolutely was not tilting, but whether or not that means he actually had a hand - well, I guess I'll never know.

I'm thinking he had 10's or Jacks. Something like that.

With that vanished half my stack, which put me pretty much in push-or-fold mode.

I ran into a hand vs. Jim and the new guy I'd clashed with earlier. With A9 I flopped top pair 9's. Jim bet out and the other guy called his bet. I was inclined to raise, but even a minimum raise would commit half of my remaining stack, so I pushed all in. Jim pretty much insta-called with his nut flush draw, and the other guy called as well. (I don't remember what he had, but in a whole lot of cases it turned out to be... nothing). My top pair held up.

Randy and I discussed that hand on the way home. Jim cited his implied odds as his reason for calling my all-in raise. Since the other guy initially called Jim's bet, it was likely that he'd also call my all-in, so in terms of the odds of winning the hand vs the money odds the pot was laying, it was statistically the correct call with 2 cards to come. However, at this point we were out of the rebuy period, and losing that pot would severely cripple Jim's stack.

I concluded that implied odds lose their importance when the losing end of the proposition puts your tournament life at stake. Implied odds can definitely swing your decisions in a cash game or during a rebuy period in a tournament, when you have the option to buy back in if luck doesn't swing your way. But when your tournament life is on the line, and you are not yet in the money, I think that choosing to play a speculative hand based on the implied odds of winning is not the best move. In a cash game or during a rebuy period, I'd make the same move Jim did all day long, but in a tournament where losing the gamble basically costs your tournament life, I think I'd lay it down.

Then again, you can always live by the philosophy of, "I'm playing to win - not just to make the money" - in which case, my laydown there is too conservative.

But that's me :)

I ended up busting out in 3rd place - just making the money. Ed and Randy played one hand heads up, which I dealt - AJ vs AK. (Yes, I rule - here's to quick heads-up finishes!) Ed's AJ didn't improve and Randy took down 1st place.

Congrats to both Randy and Ed for a great game, and huge thanks to Jim and Kim for hosting the game for a charity that is near and dear to my heart!

Dipped my toes into the pools of the 50+5 single table SnG's on Full Tilt today. Played 3 games. Busted out 9th in the first one, when my AA lost to a 4-card flush. I figured - bad beat, so - let's try again! Went out 5th in the second game, after being rather card dead. I got under 10BB and had to push any ace or face. Still not feeling outplayed, however, I tried a third time and won it.

w00t!

Play is much more conservative in the 30 and 50 games, with maybe a 1:9 or 2:9 donkey:good player ratio (as opposed to the 5:9 or 6:9 or worse ratio you find at the lower games).

Feeling good. I'm on a nice little SnG streak, which is odd, considering that limit hold'em is what I consider to be my "natural" game.

Tonight is the NLHE re-buy tourney at my friend Jim's house. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Animal Welfare League, with the rest going to the prize pool. I hear there will be some new blood at the game. Looking forward to it!

* this post idea stolen from kat *

Took down another 30+3 single table SnG on FTP just now. That's 2 days in a row - made up for those 3 nasties from the other day. Also doubled my money on the 3/6 limit table. Happy vacation to me!

Upon completion of today's SnG, the 2nd place player proceeded to spew "LOL, donkey - learn to play $&*&#&$!" after I had politely said, "gg." I literally laugh out loud when called a donkey. I'm about as rock-ish as they come. It's practically impossible for a rock who is winning to be classified as a donkey, as most of the time, when the rocks are winning, it is because their good cards are hitting - and they only play good cards.

I was chip leader for most of this game, after doubling up early on a flopped set of ducks. I got lucky one time, raising the short stacked BB when it folded to me in the SB. He re-raised all in, which was less than 10% of my stack more to call - so I did. I had AT vs his KK. I rivered an Ace. Yikes. Still, not a donkey move preflop, I don't think.

On the final hand, I limped from the SB with 79 offsuit. I flopped 2nd pair 9's, and called my opponent's minimum bet. I turned 2 pair. He bet out, and I raised him all in. He called. And lost. And then threw a temper tantrum.

Must be rough finishing in 2nd place all the time :)

I'm not really so arrogant - except after being called a donkey by winning a match fair and square.

Have a great week, everybody - I probably won't make it on much this week, as I'll be off on vacation. One hour till I head out to see Dave Matthews Band. w00t!

I'm here to say that I finally do.

I finally take advantage of position.

I know, I know - the poker books of the gods harp on position like it's the holy grail. I've been play poker for, oh, maybe 3 years now. Finally, I hear myself saying in my head:

Well, hell, if they're not going to bet it, I will.

And I bet. I represent hands that look not even marginally like what I'm actually holding. And I get the chips.

It's rather "kid in a candy store" -ish.

And quite lovely.

Now, I must finish this SnG on Full Tilt (I'm 2nd in chips with 4 people left - single table so 3 places pay) then finish laundry so I can pack for vacation.

I'll be in Raleigh, NC for the next week (after a quick romp around the room with DMB tomorrow night in the Chicago burbs). Catch ya's on the flipside :)

/edit: I won :)

"Run over" does not begin to describe the past hour or so I've spent on Full Tilt. 4 SnG's. Four 8th or 9th place finishes. Ouch.

It wasn't even bad beats (well, one was). I was just misreading people left and right, pushing when I was sure I had the best hand and, well, being totally, utterly wrong.

In other news, I got a new camera! Picked up the Canon Digital Rebel XTi digital SLR. I'm a photography n00b but am enjoying the heck out of it so far. I'm heading to North Carolina on Monday for a week (mini-vacation). I'm hoping to get out to one of their many gardens and arboretums to maybe try out some nature photography.

I'm also rather antsy to play some poker. That's pretty much the plan for the last few weeks of the summer before I have to head back to work.

Next Saturday (7/14) is my friend Jim's charity NLHE tourney. A portion of the prize pool will be donated to the Animal Welfare League. Any Chicago locals that are interested - details here.

That's all my news! I'm off to lick my wounds and do some laundry.

Well, it's not a new game by any means, but I'm new to it. Tonight, I checked out the FTP tourney that Plainfield Poker hosts (local to my fellow Chicagoans). It was just about the high point of my poker day, as I avoided the bubble to take 3rd place, though sadly donking off a sizable chip stack hand-before-last when I pushed top pair shitty kicker into a flopped set all the way. I was low guy on the totem pole for most of the final table, though, so I was pleased with the finish. (I say "final table" as if it was a huge tourney... hey, 12 peeps ain't bad!)

Thanks to the guys from Plainfield Poker for hosting. I've been meaning to make it out to a live game. I will, soon - I swear! My work schedule lightens up this week and I should be able to make it out sometime this summer. I miss live poker dearly.

Other than the Plainfield game, Full Tilt Poker ran my ass over today. No joke. I flopped 2 pair 9 times today - NINE - only to get run down by either scoobies or bad luck. Board comes 4 of a suit I don't have. Scooby chases his gutshot and catches on the river. I pull 3 pair, negating my 2nd pair and leaving me with a shitty kicker. You know... but NINE times in one day? Oy. Three of those nine were in the small or big blind with J-7. How bizarre.

I even managed to go out 5th or worse in 3 different $30 SnG's. It was just a bad day.

On the bright side, I feel like I've been playing well lately. I've been playing more NL than usual. (You know me... I've been the grinder limit girl for a while now... *shudders at the recollection of the KK debacle* Who remembers that one? Scars, my friends... scars...).

I've got a vacation coming up in a couple weeks to North Carolina - Raleigh area. Are there any casinos out there? Srsly. Missing Vegas has me jonesing for live poker in ways that just aren't natural.

In the meantime, how about a nice LOLcat?



Source of LOLcat: http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/06/13/i-see-u-and-raiz/

Not poker related, but important:

Dave Matthews Band has started a petition:
http://web.davematthewsband.com/petition/

We have been disturbed by the stories that continue to surface about the medical care being received by our returning servicemen and women. Supporting our troops entails providing them with the complete, timely and excellent care for injuries they sustained during their military service, at the very least. Providing this care is a moral obligation for our nation and should be our highest priority at home.

As an example of our concerns, recent stories are alleging that some servicemen and women are being misdiagnosed as having pre-existing personality disorders. However, the evidence suggests that they may be suffering from injuries related to their service. This diagnosis has resulted in these soldiers losing medical benefits.

We cannot ignore the possibility of an injustice to any of these veterans. Technicalities and misdiagnosis should not cause them to lose medical benefits. Therefore we ask you to join us in signing the petition below which asks the Secretary of Defense to formally report in detail to the American public on each of the issues raised in these allegations and confirm that all of our servicemen and women are receiving the medical benefits they have rightfully earned. If this is not provided, or if the Secretary of Defense's report is inadequate, we strongly urge that Congress hold hearings to allow our veterans to speak.

This war has many tragedies; we want to do whatever we can to make sure this is not another one. Please join us.

Sign the petition: http://web.davematthewsband.com/petition/

Me likes the $30+3 single table SnG's on Full Tilt Poker.

You likes?

I'm happy to report I finally got back into FTP. Won the single table SnG after coming back from TWO big blinds left in chips! And I'm in the money in the 2-table SnG, 2nd in chips with 4 players left.

Update: Took 3rd place.

What can I say. w00t.

I'm heads up in a single table SnG with even chips vs my opponent, and in near top chip position with 9 people to go in an 18 player SnG which pays top 4.

And I've lost connection to FTP and can't get back in.

Ironically, my internet connection is just fine.

Anyone else having trouble with FTP right now? Or is this just my luck?

I've got Poker After Dark playing on the TiVo while playing a couple SnG's on Full Tilt.

While watching PAD, I had this thought:

These pro players generally bet the true strength of their hands.

Unless they're bluffing.

Full Tilt has been kicking my proverbial arse lately.

It's mean about it, too. It takes you out for some wining and dining, whispers all sweet in your ear, gets you upstairs, then laughs in your face just when you think you're about to get it on.

I was playing in a $20 45-player SnG yesterday. I won some hands early, and nearly tripled up a few rounds in when I held top set in a set-over-set-over-set situation. I've never seen that in my life. Three true honest-to-god sets, where all three of us held pocket pairs. Two of us flopped sets and the third guy turned his. I was on top of the world.

Almost as quickly, I lost most of my stack on the ass end of a set-over-set scenario.

And then I busted with KK against AA and JJ. (JJ took it with turn-and-river quad Jack's).

It was a rather insane day.

3/6 limit has not been kind, either.

So if anybody wants to go sign up at Full Tilt under bonus code: HELLA I'd love you forever!

If you haven't watched the WPT Mandalay Bay episode yet, or don't want to know what happens, stop reading now! Spoilers ahead!





You were warned :P

Alright, here's one for the girls - True or False: It would have been a MUCH better looking final table with Joe Tehan and Brad Booth.

I vote true.

I watched the tail end of the show today on my TiVo, and I'm confused about something. Early in the final table, the chip counts showed Burt as the chip leader. The proceeded to show several hands in a row where Joe was getting run over by Burt (presumably shipping MORE chips to Burt). After a couple commercial breaks, they showed Joe win ONE hand - and not a huge hand at that - and all of a sudden, he's the dominating chip leader.

Bad editing? The storyline they showed just doesn't fit the chip counts. I know it's TV, but... come on! At least form an accurate storyline for what really happened!

I was rooting for Joe :)

I've watched more of the WPT this season than last season. There's still some really whacked out plays going on at times. Vince and Mike play them off as "brilliant" or "gutsy," but half the time, if I were in the announcer's seat, I'd just call the plays "stupid" or "scoobified." It may take balls to call off your stack with Ace high after the river, but most of the time I think it's just dumb luck when that ends up being the right play. I know it has to be done for the sake of TV, but Vince and Mike give some of these players too much credit for "reading their opponents" or having a "feel" for the hand.

It's easy to criticize from my armchair :)

Hope everyone is well. I won't be making it out to Vegas this summer. It's the ol' money excuse again. The good news is, my head is still above water, albeit barely. There's always next time...

Overview of the Ocean's Thirteen Darfur Charity Tournament:

These tournaments are special re-buy tournaments - the entire prize pool will be matched by PokerStars and donated to the Darfur relief efforts. At the conclusion of the event the prize pool, which will be temporarily awarded to the 1st place finisher, will be removed from the 1st place finisher's account. The amount will then be matched by PokerStars and sent forward to the Darfur charity. Thank you for participating — go re-buy crazy! — it's for a good cause. Good luck!

Date: May 27th 2007, 15:30 ET
Buy-in: $10 plus rebuys.
Prizes: Top 4 receive tickets to June 5th premiere in Los Angeles plus 2 nights hotel and $2k for travel/spending. Top 18 receive autographed copy of "Oceans 13" DVD. Total prize pool will go to charity. PokerStars will match the donation. The tournament is open to all players. Good luck!

Hey Chicago locals...

My friend Jim is hosting another charity poker game, this time to benefit another organization that is dear to my heart. Drop me a line if you're interested and want more details :)

$20/Re-buy No Limit Hold’em

Animal Welfare League Charity Tournament

Saturday, July 14^th @ 7:00pm

I'm watching the WPT episode from Bellagio (Fiesta del Lago or whatever it is - and don't tell me the ending cuz I'm only half way through it!) Just saw the hand where that Andreas kid had TT against David's 66 (ya know, the kid they keep referring to as a train conductor).

Yum!!! Isn't he just a cutie? And his fearless play with The Roman... I love it.

I think it's the hat.

I made it out to my friends' annual charity NLHE re-buy tourney to benefit the American Cancer Society last weekend. We raised $285 for the ACS - $50 more than last year. Thanks to Scott of the Diamond Games for hosting this year's event. It's a cause that's dear to my heart, as I lost my dad to cancer 7 years ago, amongst far too many other friends and relatives.

The game didn't start out too well. It was a $20 rebuy for the first hour of the event, and let's just say it cost me several rebuys to survive that hour. I must have been feeling *really* generous. Because the game went downhill so quickly for me, my notes got very sketchy (as I got too cranky to bother taking notes anymore). Actually, I did take some notes, but I can't find my notebook. :-/

Despite some nasty cards early on, I did make the final table, and right around that time, my hands turned good enough for me to get up to around 18BB. People started busting out, and I did some damage to Ed when my JJ held up against his pair (99 was it?) I took a few rounds of blinds raising with Ax, and the next thing you know, I'm heads up against Jim. He had me significantly outchipped, but I was happy to reach 2nd place, as I was (finally) in a position where I'd walk with a profit.

I went out with A8 vs Jim's A9, and that was all she wrote.

I am glad I managed to shove Shellmuth back in my pocket and get back to my game. My turn-around is proof that 1) my attitude can definitely derail my play, and 2) staying focused can absolutely turn things around.

I need to host a game soon. I've lived in the new house almost 9 months now and still haven't had a poker game. This summer, guys. I promise. How about a BBQ/poker game? We can call it, Carnivores' Delight!

Learned an interesting lesson last week at a poker game. NLHE, hosted by Ryan (a regular attendee of the Diamond games).

I'm in the big blind with two offsuit small cards. I see a flop in an unraised, multi-way pot. The flop is A-2-4.

It is checked to me.

I can't remember which two small cards I have. I think I might have flopped a straight.

Someone wiser than I might have checked their hole cards before deciding on action. I decide to check, and THEN check my hole cards.

I flopped the straight. And check-called the rest of the way, giving free cards that ended up allowing my opponent to catch up and make the 6 high straight.

Lesson: CHECK YOUR HOLE CARDS before acting! Sheesh.

That's the first bit of live poker I've played in a while. It's the first poker of any kind I played in April. Work has been a bit nutty.

You'll be glad to know that not only am I playing a SnG right now on Full Tilt, but I've only got 2 more weeks of work before my schedule dramatically decreases for the summer.

I'm still a ? re: Vegas this summer. Money's been tight. I'll try my damnedest!

My friend Scott who hosts the local Diamond game is holding a charity game this weekend to benefit the American Cancer Society. $20 rebuy NLHE. Jim of the Nice Table Games hosted it last year. We hope to carry on this tradition. Cancer is something that somehow seems to touch us all. If you haven't had cancer, you know someone who's been affected by it. I say we play some poker and kick this cancer thing to the curb! The way my crowd plays in rebuys, we should have a nice juicy donation by the end of the night.

Back to folding on Full Tilt...

What I did today on Full Tilt:

$20 SnG (single table):



$20 SnG (5-table):


Oh baby, step back, cuz I am on a roll!

That 45 player SnG was brutal. I folded until I was down to 8BB or so (awful ugly cards), then doubled up on an all in. Limped into the final table (though only 6 places paid), and managed to double up twice. I was 2nd in chips and feeling quite good, when I endured two awful suckouts -one right after making the money, and one 3-handed.

I'll recount the last one. It involved me having QQ, opponent having 22. We both flopped sets and get all in. He rivered the case deuce.

After all that, I *still* managed to come back from less than 5BB... FOUR TIMES 3-handed!

Then, to my great enjoyment, I knocked out the guy that kept killing me with the beats.

Next hand, got all in with QJs vs A8o, and lost. I'll take 2nd place! w00t!

Tonight I'm heading out to a party which I anticipate will be much fun. A good day all around!

Wow, that subject line makes me think of a commercial for Depends undergarments or something. It was really just meant to be a play on words, really! You know... sit 'n go... get it?

I played in a $20 single table SnG tonight on Full Tilt Poker (I suddenly had the urge to pull an Iggy but I will refrain). I took 2nd place. I rawk.

Mostly, this weekend was spent in downtown Chicago. A friend of mine from high school that I haven't seen in 12 years was in town. We checked out a show called Supernatural Chicago at the Excalibur night club, ate at a fondue restaurant called the Melting Pot (oh good!), visited the Hard Rock Cafe and had burgers at Ed Debevic's. Chicago really is a kick ass city. I need to spend more weekends downtown. I spend too much time tucked away in the suburbs.

Spring break is over and I go back to work tomorrow. Booooo!

I did a pretty dumb thing last week. It's the kind of thing that made me think, "well maybe if I don't blog about it, nobody will notice..." What you might notice, though, is that after a couple weeks of happy posts about my return to FTP, all of a sudden, there was silence.

So, I will air my dirty laundry.

From a measly $40, I pulled my online bankroll up to $400 playing 3/6 LHE. I was running good. I normally play 5/10 LHE at the casino, so I thought to myself... why not play 5/10 online? So I did.

And I ran bad.

Of course I didn't have the bankroll to sit that high. Hell, I didn't even have the bankroll to be sitting 3/6! But 3/6 is where I'm most comfortable online, and I tend to do well there. I shoulda stayed put!

So I blew all but $17 of my online bankroll in two very unlucky sessions at 5/10. I did come away with a mental note, though, that I think I could play comfortably there, if I had the bankroll to do so. I'll just say I don't feel afraid of taking another shot at it someday, as my losses were primarily attributable to bad cards and bad luck as opposed to bad play. (Of course, the statistical sample of hands is very small).

With the unmistakable craving to play some poker festering in my gut yesterday, I sat down to something I haven't played in a while: NLHE sit n' go's on FTP. I played one $10 SnG. I won it.

$50 does not a bankroll make, and it's not enough to sit down at 3/6. Today, I debated sitting down at 2/4 LHE, and decided not to. I'm currently playing in a $10 SnG

[[[[[[[ this post interrupted by a Comcast cable outage ]]]]]]]

Bastards!!!!!!

I blinded out of my 10 SnG while my cable internet was down for 25 minutes, and I'm down to 1,100 chips with blinds at 150/300 in the multi-table.

And.... now I'm out, in 17th place.

I am just not meant to play poker online, am I? If that's not a punch in the gut from the online poker gods, I don't know what is.

F$%king Comcast.

Let's see, what can I do with my remaining $20? Back to the drawing board....

This is why I <3 Full Tilt Poker. I received this via email today:

Dear phlyersphan,

Throughout the early morning on Wednesday, March 14th, many players experienced problems connecting to our Internet Service Provider that were beyond our control. We apologize for the inconvenience as we work with our ISP to implement safeguards to prevent this type of problem from happening again.

As a result of Wednesday's network outages, many of our players were disconnected from our site during play, even though some of our games and tournaments continued to run for several minutes.

If you were sitting at a real money ring game at the time of the outage, any money you had at the table has been returned to your account. If you were registered for, or were playing in a tournament that was voided during this period, your account balance has been adjusted in accordance with our tournament rules.

Additionally, to prevent you from being penalized if you were disconnected from a tournament that continued to run, we have compared your chip counts at times the disruptions occurred with your eventual result, and paid you based on whichever was higher.

For example, if you had 50,000 chips at the time of the first disconnections and only 30,000 chips at the time the tournament was voided, you will receive a payout based on a chip stack of 50,000. Conversely, if you had 50,000 chips at the time of the first disconnections and 70,000 at the time the tournament was voided, you will keep the payment you got based on the 70,000 chips.

Because you were impacted by our outage on Monday, March 14th, we have also credited your account with an additional $5 as a token of our appreciation for your patience during this period.

If you have any questions regarding the status of your account, please contact us at support@fulltiltpoker.com. Thank you for your understanding and we look forward to seeing you online.

Sincerely,

Full Tilt Poker

I received another system message when logging into Full Tilt Poker just now, saying that no SnG's or tourneys will be started until their network difficulties are resolved. It stated that they've been experiencing network difficulties for "several hours" now.

I count at least 12 hours. :-/

FYI...

Full Tilt Poker is having some problems tonight. The whole site went down for a few minutes, and connectivity has been shit ever since. I swear I've lost $50 just in hands that were in progress when I lost connection each time.

Sigh.

No hit n' run tonight. More like stumble the hell all over the place and go to bed.

JEEEBUS another network error message!! WTF!!!

You gotta work it, work it...

I'm working the hit n' run thing on Full Tilt. My sessions are no longer than 1 hour long. I've been 3 tabling the last few days, though sometimes I two-table when I'm also reading blogs or something during the downtime.

I learned a bit of a lesson yesterday that I will be incorporating into my hit n' run scheme. If you manage to score a 17BB profit in less than 10 minutes, take the money and run. Yesterday morning, I found myself up over $100 at $3/6 LHE in the first 7 minutes of play. I caught a couple big hands right out of the gate, and they held up in big multiway pots. I thought, "I should RUN!" but the greed took over. There's always that tiny voice in my head saying, "Hey, look how lucky I just got - maybe this is my Lucky Day!" It wasn't my lucky day, and over the next half hour, I gave back all but $30 of those sweet sweet big bets.

Lesson: When hitting and running, RUN after a big HIT, even if you've only been playing for 7 minutes.

It seems in tailoring my personal HnR rules, I'm going for a "whichever comes first" scenario: log off after a significant hit or one hour, whichever comes first.

My stats since I started this HnR routine about a week ago ($3/6 limit holdem, both full ring and 6-max):

Total hands: 799
VPIP: 22.9%
PFR: 3.88% (yeah, that number has not improved over the years)
BB/100: 2.92

This is, of course, a very small number of hands, but I haven't had a losing session yet, so I'm going to keep at it! It's been so long since I've had any confidence in my ability to be profitable online. It's nice to be finding my online game again, particularly since my return to the casinos went so horribly awry.

I'm playing on Full Tilt right now, and am observing a guy who seems to have some sort of system in place.

He starts at 3/6 limit and buys in for the default 10BB ($60). He doubles his money (or so) by playing crazy-insane aggro-donk. VPIP 64%, PFR 47%. As soon as he doubles, he leaves and logs into a table the next limit up, buying in again for the minimum. He did this on 3/6, 5/10, and 8/16, before starting over again at 3/6.

Anyone ever heard of such a thing? Bizzare. But he's making money. He's not at any one table for more than 10 or 15 minutes, and I'm sure people are more inclined to fold to him initially, not knowing if he's just on a hot streak or is really a maniac. And just when you get out your colored markers to tag him as a maniac, poof! He's gone! (I had jotted his name down in my scooby notebook so as to follow him to his next table, but that's when I discovered his little system).

It's definitely not "poker," but sure appears to be one way to exploit the nature of online play.

I've been dabbling online again with Full Tilt Poker. I'm trying a new "strategy." It's called hit n' run. This strategy is not new. I've just never believed it to be the "right" way to be, or at least no more right than spending hours at the same table online.

I sign on to FTP. Sit down to a couple 3/6 limit holdem tables. Double my money. Log out.

Why log out when I'm winning?

Because given time, at these low limits, the chips more often than not find some way to leak back into the stacks of the scoobies.

In the past, I was of the opinion that sitting for hours on the same online poker tables was the same as sitting for hours at the same live table. It's no different, right, besides seeing more hands online than live?

It's different. Players turn over so quickly at online tables that a table's makeup is almost never the same hour to hour. In a live game, the table can remain stable with the same players for hours on end. I sat at a table a few weeks ago for 10 hours, and in that time, only 2 of the 10 players had changed. That doesn't happen online.

So, when I happen to sit down and win money at a table, I don't assume that I'll continue to win money, because the table's makeup by the time I've won a chunk of change has likely already changed since I sat down.

Get while the gettin' is good.

I've got my name on a couple 3/6 waiting lists right now. I am watching the most glorious visual feat of my 32 year life thus far: NHL hockey in high definition on a gorgeous 57" TV. I <3 DirecTV, my HDTV, and the NHL Center Ice package.

Oh look, a seat is ready. Hit n' run, baby...

I hit up Empress today, hoping to continue the string of good vibes I was on from last night. Things started out well, and I was up $100 quickly. Then, I ran into the worst player at the table... again and again and again.

AQo. I hit the flop with TPTK. I turn trip Queens. I lose to Scooby's runner-runner flush, which he chased from the flop with no pair and only the backdoor draw with 2-3 of hearts.

ATs. I hit the flop with top pair, tens. I lose to Scooby on the river when he hits his 2nd pair with the T5 soooooted.

Another ATs. I hit the flop with top two pair, aces and tens. I lose when the board comes 3-4-5, and of course Scooby's K2 makes the straight. I mean, seriously? What are you chasing on a flop of A-3-10 when all you have is a backdoor straight draw? There's not even an overcard to hope for.

The guy was an absolute moron. By the time the afternoon ended, he had bought in for $1,100 at 5/10 limit. Unfortunately for me, he also moved a hell of a lot of my chips around the table as well.

I rarely went to showdown with less than two pair, and I just got picked off left and right. The Scoobys were biting back today.

I did get an opportunity to hang out a little bit with my friend Tilty McTilt. I haven't seen her in a while. It seems, though, that my reformed version of tilt (reformed from the Shellmuth days) is at least predictable. The primary symptom of my reformed tilt is that my starting hand selection opens up to include suited one-gappers ranging from 4-6 to 8-T. I don't know why, but that's me on tilt. Lots of limping with one-gappers.

I saw a ridiculous number of one-gappers late in the day today.

Needless to say, yesterday's profits are now just a frivolous memory, and my wounded pride will limp through the weekend pondering my fate.

I could really use a weekend in Vegas right about now.

Bow chick-a bow-wow!

Who's house? Run's house...

Yeah, that's right. I'm back in black.

I finally got seated at the 5/10 limit holdem table at Empress around 11pm. It turns out that I waited for a seat almost as long as I actually played, leaving somewhere around 3am. I'm glad I waited, though. Had I gone to Indiana, I would be sitting in a traffic jam on the Indiana toll road right now. (Even iPass can't save me in that case). Instead, I'm not only already home, but I've made myself a snack, pet the cats, and got into my pajamas. Life is good.

My night didn't start off on this chipper note. By the time I'd gotten seated, most of the table had turned over and players weren't nearly as loose as when I'd been observing. I was glad to take the 1o seat, though, as it had done well for the aforementioned sharky regular.

Since the table was a bit tight, I was playing a bit loose, and unfortunately for me I was nailing second-best-hand after second-best-hand (the ol' flopped straight losing to a flush bit, etc). By the time dealer Don arrived, I was on my way to coughing up a buy-in. With dealer Don, though, also came the proverbial loosening of the belts, and we were seeing a lot more people to the flops. Nice.

As I got low on chips, I weighed my options. The table had money on it. The money was moving around. It was definitely not time to leave. I hit up the ATM and stopped by the cage to get me some more reds. The cage cashier remembered me from my first buy in and asked, "What are you playing?" I said, "Poker." He said, "That's your problem. You should be playing blackjack." I said, "Oh hell no!" He informed me that he had given me the "lucky ones" this time, and sent me on my way.

I got back to the table just in time to play under the gun, and I took the hand. Bang bang! Bullets it is! I made out in a sick way, turning a full house against a couple opponents who called me down. I wish I could be more specific, but all I remember is patting myself on the back for my glorious timing as I scooped a nice $150 or so pot. Huey Lewis was on the radio.

That's the power of love, baby.

The family pots continued, and a few of my hands managed to hold up, bringing me to a 10BB profit for the night over 4 hours of play. Hey - I'll settle for "average." That's perfectly fine with me! Give me 2BB/hour any day and you'll see me dance a little jig through the tunnel and out of the casino. (This blog's namesake was on the radio as I departed this evening - and yes, I really did dance a little bit of a jig).

In the "plugging leaks" category, I only paid off one hand tonight that I shouldn't have paid off, where I knew I was beat but paid to see it anyway. In that same vein, every time I laid down a decent hand like TPGK to a coordinated board, I was right on and was absolutely beat. I went a little too far a couple times with low pocket pairs, but when it's 2 or 3 bet preflop with 8 people in, it's hard not to justify seeing the turn for five bucks.

Those Aces were the only big hand I saw. Lots of baby pocket pairs did a whole lotta nothing for me, but I'd rather that than get sucked out on.

All in all, a good night. I have to wake up in 6 hours to attend a webinar for work, and my hope is that I can get my ass moving early enough to get to Empress early enough to make it worth my while. (They close the poker room at 6pm on Fridays). It is so lovely to play poker 15 minutes from home. Hallelujah!

With that, I am off to dream of dancing sugarplums and Broadway on Fifth Street.

Cmon, someone leave! I'm next!



A guy that checked in AFTER me (though we both were on the board for the same time) just got seated before me, which kinda sucks, but we were chatting poker a bit over the past 3 hours and I fully expect to be holding a sizable chunk of his chips an hour from now.



The any-ace regular is still at the table, as is one of the sharky regulars. There's your usual "I'll pay ya off cuz I like you" guy, and a WPT champ with the hellmuthian shades.



If all remains as is, I'll be the only girl in the room. That's generally the way I like it.



The Bangles are on the radio. Hazy shade of winter. It certainly is.



Damn I just got all excited. They called a name... For 10/20, booo! Hehe



I am ready to rumble! My ass is going to appreciate getting off this wooden bench. My brain is going to appreciate something slightly more challenging than playing Brick Breaker on my Blackberry. My thumbs are going to appreciate not typing on this thing anymore!



I do <3 my Blackberry. Most certainly.



C'mon, chant with me: Give Shelly a seat! Give Shelly a seat! Throw me some mojo!



You guys rule. :)

One might think that my extended silence indicates that I've been seated at the only 5/10 poker table at empress.

Nope.

I'm 13th on the list now. There are a bunch of low stacks and cranky old men who look ready to leave.

Looks like I'll be pulling the poker night shift.

I originally hoped to be seated by 10pm, but I think I'm going to have to bump that to 11pm.

I've been waiting too long to give up now!

They just flew thru 3 names on the list. There is hope. Always hope.

I couldn't read any blogs. The cell signal in this dungeon is too intermittant to permit comfortable web browsing. So I'll type till my thumbs fall off.

There are an average of 7 people to each flop on the 5/10 table. Squishy! And the donkeys keep reloading. Normally that would be a good thing, but not now! I don't have a seat!

I'm 18th on the list after an hour. It's likely that a lot of the people on the list are phantom names, so realistically I'm probably 12th or so. Still, nobody is moving. My only hope is that these guys have wives waiting at home that will kick their asses if they don't make it home to tuck the kids into bed. My hope is that, come 9pm or so, the turnover will begin. I mean, hell - these people have to get up for work in the morning, right?

Chances are slim that I'll play poker tonight. I'm sitting at Empress right now, on the list for 5/10 holdem. Ninteenth on the list. 1-9. 19. They're running ONE table. Uno. 1. One 5/10 table, that is. The no-limit game is running, taking up what is normally the 2nd 5/10 table.

I could get in my car, drive the hour to indiana, and probably be seated and playing cards faster than I'll get my seat here.

I thought of going to indiana instead after work, but the lure of a quick drive home post-session sucked me in. Now I wonder if I'll get a session in at all.

I see some familiar faces at the table. I like that, because I've been rather successful at Empress in the past, and I'd love to see that nothing has changed in that regard.

This place is still smokey as hell. The air quality is atrocious. I can almost feel the cancer growing in my lungs as we speak. Anything for a juicy card game, though - right?

A rather bored and frustrated looking poker regular just shuffled by. He must be on the list, too.

If the 10/20 list was any better, I might ponder tiptoe-ing into that game for a swim... But that list sucks too.

I just burped out loud. Whoops.

I had a turkey sandwich down at the Empress deli when I got here. Besides being a little pricy, it wasn't a bad sammy.

I haven't heard a single name called for the poker room in 20 minutes. This is not good.

I think I'll read some poker blogs. I'll be back, if I don't die of boredome first!

With a new year comes a new poker spreadsheet.

For 2007, I decided to do a bit more analysis on my data. In my 2006 spreadsheet, I had the ability to view how much money I had won or lost on any given weekday as well as a $/hour rate for each weekday. For 2007, I further broke this up into locations. So, I can see how much money and $/hour I won at Resorts on Fridays, or at Empress on Wednesdays, for example.

I got to play around with the conditional sum wizard in Excel - something new for me. Aside from the apparent inability to just copy/paste a cell that was developed using that wizard, it worked quite well.

I hacked on my 2006 spreadsheet to make sure my formulas were working correctly, and in doing so I had some numbers to ponder.

My overall win rate at 5/10 limit holdem (brick-and-mortar, not online) in 2006 was $15/hour. At Empress, my win rate was $29/hour, and at Resorts, it was $-12/hour.

Hmmm.

That would seem to say to me, stop playing at Resorts! I do love the atmosphere there, and the joy of using my iPod is a big selling point.

What if... What if... I went back to Majestic Star (formerly Trump)? I've been boycotting them ever since Trump sold to MJ. In fact, I don't think I played at MJ a single time in 2006. I hear they have $5/10 limit now, though I haven't confirmed. I was in the black at Trump, too, back in the day.

That sure would mean a lot more hacking on my spreadsheet.

Well, that's not how I wanted to ring in 2007 on the poker front.

I couldn't resist the urge to play yesterday. I went and bought an iPass (the device that lets us use the open-road tolling on the tollways around here) and headed out to Resorts East Chicago (since Empress closes at 6pm on Fridays).

I have to say, I tend to fare better at Empress. I'm not sure exactly why. The Resorts $5/10 game has the same mix of fish and regulars, but I think as a whole the regulars are of higher quality at Resorts. Some may play very loose-aggressive, but they don't give their opponents action when they're on the defensive. I suppose that is the way to play LAG poker, but I certainly hate not getting paid off when I manage to spike a hand against them. I also seem to get much more unlucky at Resorts than at Empress. That's an intangible and probably a myth in my mind, but it seems real all the same.

I ended up dropping the requisite 30 big bets over 10 hours of play before calling it a night at Resorts. At one time, my final rebuy allowed me to earn back 10BB, but that dribbled away as I tried to catch a comeback wave. Howard Lederer once said, if you lose 30 big bets in a session, it's time to get up from the table. It's just not your day. That is my rule of thumb. Sometimes, I'll walk away at even a 20BB loss, but if the table is ripe... I'll stick around and use 30BB as my stop-loss.

This table was indeed ripe, particularly towards the wee hours of the morning. There's definitely something to be said for the strategy of showing up when the pool of players is good and drunk. I watched several people go from being decently solid players to absolute fools over the course of 10 hours.

The cast of characters remained relatively stable for my entire stay at Table #4. To my left was a guy named Patrick, who started out quite gentlemanly but seemed to be rather blatantly hitting on me by the end of the evening. Then came Bob in the striped shirt - a solid player who succumbed to what might has well have been an IV tap of Miller Lite into his veins. The 10 seat was a revolving door - but always had a girl in it. To my right was an old cranky guy (eventually replaced by Patrick), and to his right was "the west side" of the table.

The West Side was a bunch of apparent misfits who liked to chat it up. The 1 seat started off with a guy named Jesse, who was buying drinks for the entire table. He was on quite a roll to start out the night, but ended up felted by a guy I referred to as Earl in my head. Have you ever seen the show "My Name is Earl?" Yeah, Earl. You know. Jason Leigh's character. This guy looked just like him (a bit older and a bit less attractive, but there was a resemblance all the same), and he acted like Earl, minus the mission to become a better man.

To Earl's left was a guy whose name I cannot remember. He was a fireman and had apparently been in an accident of some kind, as he had horrible scars from apparent burns on his face and hands. He became the juiciest of them all as he got more and more drunk as the night wore on. Jim sat to Fireman's left - a quiet, sort of nerdy guy who quickly proved to be your garden variety calling station.

I don't think any of my opponents were particularly good poker players. Bob and Patrick were probably the best at the table, though Bob got worse as his eyes glazed over in alcoholic bliss, and Patrick got worse as he went on tilt from bouts of awful luck.

Jesse was a crafty player, and probably fared better at no-limit. In one hand, he raised preflop, and 4 of us saw the flop. It came an uncoordinated bunch of blanks, for which I'd flopped 3rd pair. It checked around, and the turn brought an Ace. When everyone checked to me, I bet out, representing the Ace, and Jesse raised me. I laid my hand down with a grin, smirking, "Nice AK. You got an extra $10 out of me." Sure enough, he showed me his AK. I said, "I know! Why do you think I folded?" with a smile. Most of the time, I think crafty play is wasted at these low buy in limit tables. Jesse did manage to get me to position-bet that Ace, though.

Earl racked up a sick number of chips throughout the night. Eventually, the guy was raising nearly every hand he was in, and was making mad hands with 45o and other such gems. It was his night, for sure. He was responsible for cracking my flopped set of 7's with 94o on a board that looked like 7-8-K-T-6. He went a long way for that gutshot, but like I said - it was his night. If I was hitting like crazy as he was, maybe I'd chase everything too. He also cracked my AA and my QQ - once with a straight with 86o and once with a wacky 2 pair. Earl was drinking CC and ginger ale like it was water, and I really wanted to stick around and get some of those chips back from him. His luck started to slow around 3am, and if only I wasn't ready to pass out from hunger, I might have played a little longer. Earl had about $800 in front of him when I left at 4am.

My table was a bit feisty. Patrick and Earl got into verbal sparring matches a few times, as Patrick took beat after beat from the Jason Leigh look-alike. After the cranky old man felted, we got a loud and proud African American fellow named T. He sure was fired up! He had some booze in him, and I'd venture to bet some wacky tobacc-y as well (since the aura of scent that surrounded him sent me back in my mind to many a Dave Matthews Band show). He was constantly yelling at Earl, and chattering about how the people at this table were idiots, raising preflop. "Why would anybody raise preflop?" he asked. "You have no idea what cards are coming! Why waste your money when you don't know if you're gonna hit it! Raising with 66. You people are fools!" (sprinkle in some F-bombs for flavor). Eventually his taunting turned to tilt, and he started raising every hand. I would have loved to consider him a blessing to the table, but he literally talked so constantly and so loudly that my left ear was ringing. (He sat directly to my left after Patrick moved to my right, trying to change his luck). Nothing against T - he was generally a very polite guy (aside from the repeated F-bombs) - but man... shhhhhhhhh!

I thought I was going to leave last night with a phone number in hand. Patrick was a nice guy, and I enjoyed chatting with him throughout the evening. He started out very polite, apologizing when his leg would bump mine under the table. By the end of the night, one of the dealers had assumed we were dating, and Patrick was making efforts to find reasons to squeeze my leg under the table. It was harmless flirting, but I was admittedly playing the cool-as-a-cucumber thing, maybe a little of the hard-to-get thing (maybe because I'm neither looking for any sort of serious relationship right now nor a poker room bootie call).

He was asking all of those get-to-know-you questions throughout the night, and at one point was trying to wrangle my words into some sort of invitation to come over to my house. To that, I laughed and said something like, "I don't know about an invitation, but if you're nice enough, I'll let you call me." heheheh I have to laugh out loud at myself sometimes. I was definitely acting like I was all that and a bag of chips, but what the hell. He was all about the Pringles.

At the end of the night, Patrick was down on his luck, and I really had to hit the road (as my commute takes a good 45 minutes, even with the glory of open road tolling). Around 4am, Patrick felted and went back to the ATM, and the big blind got around to me, I announced my departure from the table. I gathered my things and headed towards the cage to cash in my remaining chips. I ran into Patrick on the way. Here's where I thought he'd ask for my number, but instead he said, "Get home safely," and kept walking. I continued on, and as he passed me, he hesitated and said something like, "I'd hug you..." I'm sure there was supposed to be a "but..." on the end there, and as I looked back he looked awkward and confused. I waved and kept walking.

Maybe if I was looking for love at the casino, I'd have taken the lead and given him my number. The irony is not lost on me, however, that the last time I found love 4 years ago was also at a casino. That didn't work out so well. (Randy and I remain great friends, but I honestly thought I'd get a husband out of that deal - not just a friend). So, I'll paint myself flattered that Patrick was interested in me, and apologize to no one in particular for not at least giving Patrick an out there. I wouldn't have minded exchanging numbers with him. He seemed like a nice guy, and good looking for my taste. There's a tiny bit of guilt in the back of my mind for leaving him high and dry like that.

But not too much guilt. Here's a tip for the guys: I know it's 2007 and women can be equal to men and all that jazz, but 99% of the time it is STILL appropriate for YOU to do the asking for phone numbers! I may be a model of the modern independent woman, but damn it... I don't want to do all the work. Grow a set and ask for my number, if that's what you want.

And that concludes my day at Resorts. I'm itching to go back and see if I can't rectify that -30BB thing this afternoon, but there's a winter storm warning for the Chicago area, and they expect an ice storm this evening into tomorrow. That's probably not the wisest time to head out on the roads, but the worst of this is supposed to hit north of here, with only rain south of here. The dividing line of this storm is I-80, and I-80 is exactly the road I need to travel to get to the boats. I live barely on the south side of I-80. Should I stay or should I go...

I've hand to reinvest but I'm on my way back. Send me some vibes!!!!

Resorts update: it's not going too well. I'm hitting sets with my low pairs and picking up JJ+ preflop, but they're all getting crushed. There's money to be had if I could just outrun the scoobs.

I'm not out yet, and I will use the fact that I just heard uncensored Green Day on the lower deck as my inspiration to go kick some ass.

PS - I've managed to be nice, and even have a guy buying me drinks. Diet cokes, but hey... Drinks are drinks!

Waiting at Resorts East Chicago for my poker seat at 5/10 LHE. The ride here was incredibly smooth for a Friday rush hour, thanks to my shiny new iPass. I'm 7th on the list, and they've got 2 tables going. It doesn't sound like another table is opening for an hour or so, and likely I'll be waiting that whole hour. The list already has 20 names after me, so I think my timing was as good as it could have been, short of arriving at noon.

It's been a long time since I've been to a poker room. I'm trying to remember the last time. I definitely haven't been here since July, when I put my old house on the market for sale. That's been 7 months right there. I hope I remember how to do this!

Strategies?

1. Don't pay off people who likely hold the goods.
2. Raise my OESD's and flush draws.
3. Don't chase unless I've got the pot odds to do so.
4. Don't bother playing fancy against the scoobies. They're too ignorant to notice and they don't know how or when to lay down a hand.
5. Position position position.
6. Go after those orphan pots! I'm a good mommy to orphan chips, for sure.
7. Be nice. Stop glaring at people. You attract more scoobies with honey.
8. Smell like a girl. Yup, got that one covered. Mmmmm moonlight path.
9. Hide the Full Tilt Poker jacket. This is my first time here. Really.

The very nice security guard suggested I go sit down at one of the open tables instead of standing in the waiting area. I thanked him and took him up on the offer.now I can enjoy smoke free air while reading the CNN headlines.

I'm glad I remembered my iPod. It seems like it might be an iPod kind of night.

Is there nothing more important going on in this country than pop stars going wacko? And damn, does she look ugly as a bald chick. This might make me a horrible person, but there's something warm and fuzzy about one of the formerly Beautiful People turning ugly. Boohoo. Too much money, too much fame, too many opportunities to make your life and those of your children great. It must be rough.

A chatty and not handsome at all guy just sat down next to me. Oh lord. Here we go. Please call my name soon!

In my excitement to get back to playing poker at Empress, I forgot how whacked their poker room schedule is. They close at 6pm on Fridays (so much for today), and are closed on weekends.

Guess I'll have to wait until next week to play. :-/

Unless... I stop and buy that iPass I've been meaning to get, which would enable a much smoother ride to the Indiana casinos... and take me a road trip to Resorts tonight...

... can't.... resist.... temptation... must... play.... poker!

I played a little poker on Full Tilt last night. Warming up for my return to Empress, you see. Yes, my tax refund arrived today, as April said it would. I haven't decided if the magic day is today or tomorrow... or both. Thinking about it as we speak.

One of the problems I have with my game online is that I will pay off hands on the river when it's likely I'm beat. I do it because there are SO many scoobys online that I just have to make sure I'm beat. I just have to see it. And every time I pay off a turn and/or river bet when I'm certain I'm beat, I chastise myself for being such an idiot.

For what feels like the first time, I folded a hand last night and resisted the curiosity to see that I was beat. I paid off one street too many, but saved the bet on the end.

The game: limit holdem, $2/4. I had KK in middle position and raised preflop when action folded to me. The big blind called. The flop came Js 2s Ad. The BB checked. I bet out. My opponent hesitated, then called. The turn came Js 2s Ad [2h]. The BB checked again. I bet out. The BB raised. I should have folded here, but I called with a sigh. The river came Js 2s Ad 2h [Tc], and the BB bet out this time.

Hello, typical "I outflopped you and I'm sucking as much money out of you as I can!"

I folded on the river, saving $4.

This pattern is SO typical! The action on the turn clearly indicating the true strength of the hand, and the river bet by my opponent making it certain that my KK got outflopped. Or maybe out turned. I couldn't beat an Ace and I couldn't beat a deuce, and considering my opponent was in the blind, he could have had anything. True, he could have been drawing to a flush and missed, but my notes on this guy didn't give him that much credit.

I think another reason why I tend to pay off on the river on these hands is that in limit poker, the odds of being bluffed almost justify the call on the end, with as much money as there is in the pot by the river.

The true lesson here is, I should have folded to the raise on the turn.

I also managed to donk of $26 of my profits from the cash table in the $15k guarantee NL tourney. It was early in the tourney and I got myself involved in a pot with 55. I called a 3xBB raise preflop. The flop came T-9-2, and I bet out on the flop, trying to steal control of the hand and hoping I was against an AK or something that missed that ugly flop. My opponent raised me all in. I thought a bit, because this table was FULL of all-in moves in this first round of play. I was shocked at some of the scooby moves I was seeing... people pushing all in with 2nd pair, etc. I thought to myself, "This table is full of donkeys... I call." He had QQ.

I know better than to CALL all in. It's push or fold. If I'm not the one pushing, just call me the moron here for calling off all my chips on a hand where I could only beat a bluff.

I still left the tables with a small profit, which felt good.

Now, to take down Empress...

Did my taxes last weekend. I'm anxiously awaiting my refund (10-12 days, TurboTax.com promises!)

First on my list of things to do with my refund: check out the recently re-opened Empress poker room. Huzzah!

Soon, my pretties. Soon.

Well, the new Blogger didn't eat my template, but it sure effed up my DNS when I tried to use it's "custom domain" option.

Here's how I had this site set up before: I used Blogger hosting at a blogspot.com address. Then, I registered a domain, hellaholdem.com, and via my domain host's control panel, set up that domain to forward to the blogspot address. It worked, so I could advertise my site as hellaholdem.com, but the down side was that the address would always revert to the blogspot.com domain as soon as a visitor got here.

Well, the NEW Blogger has a "custom domain" option, where basically the redirect goes the other way. Anyone trying to get to the blog at the blogspot address would be forwarded to the hellaholdem.com domain. Blogger still hosts the blog, but allows for it to be displayed under the domain address via CNAME records in your domain's DNS settings. Sweet, right?

Yeah, if it worked....

It turns out that the redirect would only work for people going to http://hellaholdem.com. But you see - most people use http://www.hellaholdem.com. But that later URL (with the www) is broken in Google/Blogger's forwarding system.

There were some horrific looping domain alias solutions people had posted online, but it's really bad practice to set up DNS records that way.

So after 2 days of being offline due to Google/Blogger's broken DNS forwarding, I gave up and reinstalled "the old way."

Did anybody get the custom domain option to work for both root domain requests AND www requests?

The new Blogger didn't kill my blog! w00t!

Poker stories coming soon. I cannot wait to get back to Empress and live poker!!!!

In the meantime, there's a storm brewing in Miami....

Like the subject says.

That is all.

w00t!

Oh, that and Blogger is forcing me to switch to the "new" Blogger with my next post, and I expect it to tear my template to hell. So... hella here might get ugly till I have a chance to build a new template. Sorry! Blame the Blogger gremlins.

Yes, Virginia, there is poker on this blog!

I played a little of the poker stuff last night, as my friend Scott hosted a mini Diamond game. As I've said before, cash has been a little tight 'round these parts, so my mortgage was rooting loudly for me.

I was feeling good last night. Normally, when it comes to no-limit holdem, I'm a tournament kind of girl, but I haven't played a whole lot of poker lately. Instead, I've watched a whole lot of High Stakes Poker on TV. That had me in the mood to play a cash game last night. The tournament alternative was likely going to be a rebuy game, and of all tournaments, I like those the least. So I threw my hat in the ring along with my vote for a cash game.

A cash game it was. $1/2 blinds. The five of us (Scott, Ed, Jim, Randy and myself) bought in for $100 in Monopoly money each. We played for a while - nothing really notable, no big hands, but after a bit I looked at my stack, and I'd nearly doubled up. Funny, I don't remember doing it. Here's what I do remember:

OK, I just spent like 10 minutes trying to write out the hand I was in with Randy, and I just can't remember all of the details. I had JJ and flopped a set on a K high flop. I think I bet out the flop and he called, then I checked-raised the turn. I was a tiny bit afraid he had KK as we went into the turn, but thought by his reaction to my check raise that my set was good. I underbet the river such that he had 8:1 odds to call me, and... he did. He had QQ. That was probably my biggest pot of the night, though I vaguely remember taking a decent sized pot off of Jim as well with AK and top pair, Aces.

There were a LOT of offsuit aces that I folded preflop that would have hit 2 pair on the flop. Had I loosened up a bit more, I probably could have snagged a few more pots. That happened probably 4 or 5 times. Ahh, the hands that could have been.

I slightly more than doubled up my Monopoly moolah, and January will end in the black.

In other news, rumor has it that the Empress poker room may be open as early as this week. C'mon, W2, where are you???!!

BEAR DOWN, CHICAGO BEARS

Bear Down, Chicago Bears
Make every play, clear the way to victory!

Bear Down, Chicago Bears
Put up a fight with a might so fearlessly!

We'll never forget the way you thrilled the nation
With your T-formation

Bear Down, Chicago Bears
And let them know why you're wearing the crown!

You're the pride and joy of Illinois,
Chicago Bears, Bear Down!!

I'm suffering from a bit of a cold here in Chicagoland. 60 degree weather turned teens practically overnight wreaks havoc on the human body. The Sickness has reduced me to the couch for most of today, and by 6pm I was starting to feel like I might have stored up enough energy to sit upright. So I'm doing something pretty unusual for me:

I'm watching the Golden Globe awards on TV and playing some $10 SnG's on Full Tilt.

Well, I've only played one, and some early technical difficulties nearly led me to an early retirement. My laptop has a very sensitive touchpad. I was feeling too lazy to climb across the couch to grab my USB mouse out of my backpack, so I was using the very sensitive touchpad. As a result, I called a 395 bet (about 1/3 of my stack at the time) on a flop of overcards with 94o from the big blind. D'oh! (I folded on the turn).

I was down to the felt when Baz showed up, but because I was watching the Golden Globes, I didn't notice my trusty railbird until I had chipped up a bit. With Baz's luck, I doubled up a couple times and managed to take 3rd place.

In my final hand, I had A5c versus A5s. Of course, I lost to a flush. (This story couldn't end any other way!) 3rd place was nice, though. I'll take the profit!

I'm not sure if I'll play anymore, as my head is starting to hurt a bit, but thanks to Baz for the mojo!

/Boooooo. Cars just beat Happy Feet. Lame.

Nothing doing in last night's Bad Beat on Cancer tourney. I went out 27th, AJ vs A3 or A4... I can't remember which... but he/she hit the gutshot on the river for the wheel, and I had too much invested in the pot by that time not to confirm my gut feeling that I'd been sucked out on. Ce la vie.

I've finally received my invitation to switch to the new Blogger. I'm not sure if I'm going to do it right now. I've heard of people with custom templates having problems with the new version. I don't want to have problems.

Still no news on whether Empress Joliet has reopened up their poker "room." (Does 3 tables qualify as a room?) I should just pick up the phone and call over there and ask, eh? I'm definitely a bit antsy to play again. The next Diamond home game is in a couple weeks, so it'll be nice to resume those again.

There is definitely more poker in my future. Stay tuned!

Come check out Phil Gordon's Bad Beat on Cancer tourney on Full Tilt Poker tonight in... 11 minutes or so :)

Five bones.

I'm registered to play in it, while watching Clerks 2. I heart Netflix, and I heart Kevin Smith.

Just watched the intro. Fat people are taking over the United States. Look out, skinny. Here we come. Give us your pizza. ROFL!

A little birdy told me that poker is likely coming back to Empress Casino Joliet (which is about 10 miles from my house). The rumor was that it was supposed to return after the 1st of the year.

I'm absolutely SILLY-excited to hear this!

As a side note, I realized after consulting Google Maps today that Hollywood Casino (Aurora) is the same distance from me as the Indiana boats, BUT I could get there with zero road construction encounters. (The worst part of driving to the Indiana boats is getting stuck in the construction traffic on I-80 - and I do mean *stuck*). Something to keep in mind... I've never been to Hollywood.

If anyone hears anything about Empress, please let me know!! :) Thanks!

Happy New Year!

Tomorrow, this blog turns 2 years old. The cliche thing to do around this time of year is to draw up some resolutions for the new year. I thought I'd first look back at last year's resolutions, and see how many came to fruition.

Become consistantly profitable in the $200-max NL cash game at the casino

Not long into 2006 (and shortly after the Dec 28, 2005 KK Quandary, which led to my biggest single-hand cash game loss ever, $800), I decided to go back to limit holdem, which much better suits my playstyle. While I didn't accomplish this particular goal, I think I accomplished its intent, which was to become profitable in my casino cash game. During the first half of 2006, I was in the black playing $5/10 limit holdem at the casino.

Online poker goals: Learn to play "my game" online. Become profitable at the $50-max buy-in level of online NL cash games. Continue to work on my no-limit cash game.

After switching back to limit holdem, I was again relegated to the micro limits (ie. lower than $3/6 holdem). I've never had enough faith in my online game at the low limits to invest significant amounts of money to my online bankroll. 2006 solidified my opinion that there are just TOO many newbs and donkeys at the lower levels to be able to outrun their luck. I'd much rather play at a casino. With that, I spent much more time this year at the casinos and much less time playing online. Throw in the US prohibition of online gaming, and I haven't seen too much online poker action this year.

Focus more on each hand's story and my opponents and less on my own cards.

I still have trouble with this. I play my cards. I rarely have the ability to play in spite of my cards. I'll keep this on my list for 2007.

My final (and a bit lofty) goal for 2006: build up to $5,000 in my poker bankroll.

I got about halfway there. In July 2006, I decided to sell my house and buy a bigger one in a more expensive neighborhood, closer to all of the shopping and entertainment amenities of the area. I had about $2,500 in my bankroll at the time, and spent it all on fixing up my old house and buying stuff for my new house. Considering that was around the half-way point of the year, I might have been on target to reach my goal. I'm going to consider this a possible success.

Where does this leave me, heading into 2007? Well, Empress Casino Joliet closed their poker room, and my schedule currently doesn't allow for many trips out to the Indiana boats. I'm still not comfortable investing money in an online bankroll, so really it seems that poker will take a bit of a back seat to life for a while this year. I don't have the money to reseed my bankroll right now, though I'd like to do that at some point this year. I need to work a bit more than I did last year to afford my new house, and I'm OK with that.

My poker goals for 2007:

• Reseed my B&M bankroll and continue playing $5/10 limit holdem
  
• Learn to play the player and not just my cards
• Make it out to Vegas at least once this year
  

Yup, that's it. Keep it simple. Sometimes, life, family and work have to come before poker - but that doesn't diminish my love for the game. I still love the game of poker, and I'll carry that with me into 2007.

Here's hoping you reach all of your goals in 2007, whether personal, professional, or poker related. :)

Merry Christmas, and a hella Happy New Year to all! :)

This made me giggle this morning. I love posts like these, full of the random and often goofy-ass shit you hear only in Vegas...

Go visit Grubbette

I'm playing in the Full Tilt Bad Beat on Cancer tourney, but I fear I am not long for this world. With the arctic chilly cards I've had, I probably should have been out long ago. I'm 7 places out of the money right now (9 pay out of 98 entrants, I think it was). Booo.

Or not. April (CA) just popped into the chat, suddenly I had back to back AA and JJ - and doubled through both times! I'm 9/11 right now and 9 spots pay. Of course, this being a cheap charity event, pay is small, but considering how long it has been since I've actually played poker - I'll take whatever I can get!

At one point, there was this player I'd tagged as typical donkey style. (My literal first comment on him was, "Hee haw"). After a little while, I'd tagged his preferences, and threw a little salt into a wound when I bet him out of a pot in which I'd flopped a set. He then asked me if his 9 for 2nd pair was good. I replied, "9 was good." He said, "Damn you must be taking notes on me!" Ha! No... I just want you to call me down more! He got knocked out a few hands later, and I thought to myself, "Man, that sucks! Just when I figured him out and set out some bait!"

Isn't that how it should go, though? The donkeys shouldn't really be around long enough that you can play fancy against them, unless they're on a lucky streak. Sometimes I need to remind myself not to waste time getting fancy against the donkeys. Pound on donkeys with ABC and save the trickery for someone smart enough to be tricked.

One more person out and I'm in the money. Fingers are crossed. My cards are nasty ugly. But the new FTP interface is nice. I'm playing the Racetrack style with avatars. I had to re-download the client and re-install it, since for some reason it didn't want to do its usually in-place upgrade via the software update since I upgraded to Windows Vista. The new install, though, worked fine. I played next to Andy Bloch for a good portion of the evening. He's very polite, and generally quiet. Unlike when people like Phil Gordon play, there weren't a zillion teeny-bopper fanboyz badgering Mr. Bloch, which made the chat nice and tolerable.

Final table - nice! $2 profit so far :)

I miss playing poker in the casino. I miss it a lot. Sometime in 2007, if I'm not mistaken, the major construction on I-80 will be complete and I will once again be able to make it to the Indiana casinos in 45 minutes or so. As it stands, I'm lucky to do it under an hour 15, and I just don't have enough free time to make that trek each way. I miss Empress Joliet. A 15 minute drive is so much easier. I shouldn't complain; some people don't even have a casino within driving distance.

The only success I tend to have online is in NLHE SnG's and tourneys - but I don't like them so much, aside from the occasional game. My favorite game is limit hold'em, and I don't have the same success rate in that game online as I do F2F. I sure do miss the poker room.

Well, I went out in 8th place. Pushed with the nut flush draw (and as it stood, 2 live over cards). If I wasn't so sleepy, I might have tried a bit harder, but I was the shorty anyhow and at some point you must either play to win or go home :)

With that, I'm off to bed...

Apparently it's OK to trash people and talk about their personal problems on your blog, as long as you don't use names. This is the first and last time I'll ever read Michael Craig's blog, and you can bet his book is going right in the fireplace.

I can't even summarize in a decent or respectful way. This post is just sick.

Somewhere, It's Hammer Time - Part II by Michael Craig

Of course, parts 3 and later show bloggers in a very obviously over-compensated bright light.

The bloggers mentioned are referred to as Craig's "new friends," but where I come from, a friend wouldn't expose your worst moments to the world just to have something to write about.

I'm even more disturbed that PokerWorks.com approves of this sort of opportunistic bashing.

Kudos to SLB for being the first to comment on Craig's piece.

UPDATE:

Falstaff commented on Mr. Craig's post page that the things said in that post are no worse than things Mr. Craig has said about his other friends such as Mike Matusow. I find it noble that Falstaff would publicly post in defense of his blogging site-mate, but I beg to differ.

Just because it's "no worse" doesn't make it right. The "concern" expressed here is so thickly veiled that I'm inclined to find it more likely that Mr. Craig falls into the category of those with "no conscience" that would find this "funny." (Mr. Craig's words - not mine).

I wasn't at the blogger gathering this time around, but can piece together the faces behind the missing names based on tidbits from other trip reports. Does our "sobbing, hyperventilating" friend want the whole poker blogging community to know of her addiction problems? Maybe, but that's not Michael Craig's judgment to make. I wasn't there, and now I know. At least the detrimental effects of someone's behavior are limited to those who witnessed the event. Thanks to Mr. Craig and the almighty and constantly archived internet, many more people now know and will be able to research the fact for years to come.

That's the thing that irritates me the most about irresponsible posts such as this one. I'm not saying Mr. Craig is the only blogger to write such posts - but he's one of the highest profile bloggers to do so. As a professional writer, I would expect Mr. Craig to have the skills to focus his creative talents on things other than bashing people for fun and profit, and the common sense to be a little more sensitive to the implications of posting private details about peoples' lives on the internet.

I stick to my original notion that friends don't say things like that about friends. Obviously, the definition of "friendship" varies from state to state and blogger to blogger.

(Waffles, however, said it much better than I ever could).

In honor of Al and the stories of degenerate gambling and debauchery that are about to occur (and that I will miss) in Sin City, I listened to my entire catalog of Anthrax tunes last night.

Dude I miss Judge Dredd.

Good luck in Vegas, you lucky bastards.

I'll be reading :)

I need some cash to materialize ASAP, or else my face will be (mostly un-noticeably) absent from Vegas next weekend.

Where, oh poker fairy, have you been?

I bought a new house 3 months ago - a bigger, better, nicer house! A lovely house! A spacious house!

It's kicking my ass.

Why can't I be a DINK ("dual income - no kids")? Being a SINK is fuckin' hard sometimes. At least I have nobody to clean up after. And Xmas shopping will be WAY cheaper this year, sans-boyfriend.

Pray for the poker fairy to visit and stick a grand under my pillow if you want to see me in Vegas... though I did just RSVP for the June event, and I WILL have money by then!

Geek claims he's not clever, but this had me laughing my ass off this morning:

Goodbye, Jim Leach. [sic] "You click your mouse, you lose your house," indeed.

I must apologize for skipping over all of the "live-blogging politics" posts from yesterday. Yes, I did my civic duty and voted yesterday (go blue!), but - live-blogged politics? I think I would rather stick pencils in my eye than READ about the minute by minute projections of each state. It's hard enough watching it, and at least then you get pretty colors on TV for stimulation.

Poker has been scarce around here lately. My new mortgage is kinda kicking my ass, so I withdrew more money from Full Tilt to pay some October bills. I plan to make it out to Vegas in December, though I have no idea how I'm going to pay for it. That's the joy of having the attitude I have. Me to Self: Ahhh, just go. You'll figure it out.

I know this has nothing to do with poker, BUT since many of my fellow poker bloggers are users of Googles Blogger.com (or Blogspot.com)...

I read a few days ago that (finally), the blogger beta is fully cooked, and that account migration will be available "really really soon" for all blogger users. (See Blogger Buzz post). I'm also reading tons of reports of various bloggers across the webosphere switching over.

How the hell do you switch? I want to switch!!

I read somewhere that there should be a link in your Blogger dashboard, but I don't have one.

Have any of you switched, or seen a link that allows you to switch to the new blogger beta version? If so, how? Where? Help!

The Great Space Coaster touches down in Indiana for some live WSOP Circuit Event coverage! Check out the World Series of Poker web site today or tomorrow for Spaceman's live coverage of the event. w00t!