Hella Hold'em

Really? It's WSOP time again? Here's how woefully behind I am: I still have 2 new episodes of the 2008 WSOP on my DVR to catch up on. Where does time go?

As is obvious by the crickets around here, my spring trip to Vegas led to me losing my meager bankroll, and I haven't been back to the casino since! Now that my summer schedule is opening up a bit, hopefully I can change that sad, sad fact.

I've seen a handful of poker bloggers post lately about losing interest in poker. It's understandable. The "new car smell" has worn off, and the buzz has hit the bug zapper. In some cases, it's a matter of priorities; it's hard to find the time for poker when so many other things appear higher on the list. In other cases, I think some people just get sick of losing. Not everybody can be good at poker, or even break-even at it, and losing over time gives a good beating to the psyche and the wallet.

Me? I'm still interested. I do struggle to find time to play, and I do struggle to find money to play (those other "priorities" often result in me spending my bankroll on other things). But, on the whole, I still enjoy playing, and I still enjoy learning new things about the game. I still think about the game and its nuances, and still study books and the players on TV and hand histories. I just don't do all those things as often as I did a few years ago.

Home games don't come around as frequently as they used to. Friends that used to run regular games now run them annually, if at all. The lousy economy has busted up the chances of getting a pick-up game together in my neck of the woods. Tough times. Still, there are a handful of us that still love this game and savor the opportunity to get together and throw some chips around.

And maybe that's how it should be. The world sort of filters out the player base for us.

Well, that was certainly a most unlucky trip to Vegas - for me, anyway. April did quite well, at least until we got to the airport. Her wallet may be fat but that burn is gonna hurt for a while! Let's hear it for idiotic coffee shop employees and ignorant airport security people!

Anyway...

A majority of my time was spent at MGM playing 1/2 NLHE...

Tuesday night, I was fairly unlucky but playing well. I was down a buy in after two ugly QQ beats. I made it out before the river, but the damage had been done. Lesson learned: 6x BB preflop raise, not enough at these tables.

Wednesday, I was getting killed. I found myself all-in early with KK vs KK, only to get flushed out by a 4-flush onboard. Sound familiar? Just like the QQ at Majestic a few weeks ago... there goes another buy-in.

Mind you - I don't push all-in preflop with these hands, but when someone comes over the top of me for all of it preflop, it's not likely that I'm going away... KK Quandry be damned.

By dinner, the donkeyfish were in my head. I was down 2 1/2 buy-ins on the trip, and having not been up for a single moment to that point, I was feeling run over. I'd succumbed to passive, scared play and I knew it.

April and I headed to dinner at the American place in NY NY, and between her and Randy on my texts, they screwed my head back on straight. My losses weren't unrecoverable, and tomorrow was another day. Wednesday night, I played 3/6 limit with April so I could have a few drinks and just chill. Straight-up math based decision making is actually relaxing to me :) That table was crazy too, and I was splashing around playing way too many hands - but I knew it couldn't ding me for any more than my $100 buy in, so I enjoyed myself a bit.

Thursday, I went back to NL ready to play my game - and play my game, I did. I made good reads on people and made some good plays. I felt good about my game on Thursday. Still, for the 11 or so hours I played, I still ended the day down 2 buy ins, finishing off the rest of my trip bankroll and leaving me fairly despondant over the whole ordeal.

While I would certainly change how I played for the last couple hours before dinner on Wednesday, it didn't cost me much more than walking away would have. I've soul searched for quite a few hours since Thursday night, and there isn't a whole lot I could have changed. I tried beating myself up over my play, but for the most part, I don't think I could have done much better. To illustrate my luck, the one set I flopped with a pocket pair (out of 17 pocket pairs held preflop), I got flushed out by a guy that had called my preflop raise with J4 and my flop bet with bottom pair, four's. That's just how it went. Too many calling stations and not enough players that played close enough to the rules to be "predictable."

I do have a few plays that I've stored in my memory banks as notches on my belt - good reads and good plays with good outcomes that I am proud of myself for. After spending hours dissecting the bad outcomes, I'm going to move forward focusing on the good.

Variance be damned, right?

April and I took a short break from the tables Thursday to check out the dolphins and baby cats over at Mirage. I forgot my good camera in the hotel room (I know, duh... the one thing I wanted to bring my camera for!) but took a couple pictures and videos with my camera phone. They will suck but I will post them anyway! I uploaded the video to YouTube yesterday and it's still not showing. Maybe it was too large. I'll have to check. Java, the baby leopard, is friggin adorable!

We also checked out Mirage's poker room (3/6 limit) and I was not impressed. The chairs were uncomfortable, and the tables were the old ones with no cup holders. Our particular table had been leaned on so many times on the player side that it was permanently slanted away from the dealer. I guess playing at MGM spoils a person... though I may need to find a different "nice" poker room, because I realized this week that as much as I love playing at MGM, I've had a grand total of one winning session there that I can remember. ONE. That's not a very good ratio. I've probably played there more than a dozen times.

Even more baffling is that I'm continuing to have really decent success at the online .50/1.00 NLHE tables. Yeah, me. How bizarre is that?

Ahh, well. And so it goes.

Oh - we didn't play at Excalibur's digital poker tables. We did stop and look at them and... well, it looked like playing online. After watching a few hands, I really had no desire to even try them. I don't go to the casino to stare at a computer screen. I go to play cards... with actual cards... and actual chips...

Another random note... I've been having so much friggin trouble with Postgres SQL and Poker Tracker that I think I'm going to give up on it and go buy Poker Copilot for the Mac. All I really want are basic stats and the HUD, and I can get that on the Mac. PT has better stats, but it runs dog slow for me, when it runs at all. So, back to Happy Land! Back to the Mac!

I'm off to concentrate on this 90-player SNG I have running on Full Tilt. I'm 3rd of 16 and top 9 places are dancing happy. I'm working on becoming a dancer.

I'm gearing up mentally for a Vegas poker trip next week. What does that mean? Mostly, trying to forget how horrendous work has been this week, and how awful it will be when I return to likely hear that our CMS could not be restored from its recent crash and database corruption incident.

Nope. Those things will soon evaporate into the ether as I slip into my Happy Place. Temporarily, at least.

I plan to print out some tournament schedules. Any suggestions? I prefer NLHE tourneys that aren't complete crapshoots. Is there anything going on lately in Vegas with a decent structure? Low-stakes... like <$150 buy in... Suggestions welcome!

Mostly, though, I'll probably play the $1/2 NL cash games... likely at MGM. Any suggestions for a good 1/2 game at other casinos?

I'll probably try the not-so-new-anymore electronic tables, since I'm staying at Excalibur. Hey, it's close to MGM and for $41 a night, it may as well be the most luxurious suite on the Strip! I'm curious about the dealerless tables, but I have a feeling I will prefer having a live dealer (for the same reasons I prefer sitting at a live game over playing online). You just can't replace a good dealer. Sure, maybe I'll see a few more hands per hour at an automated table, but the personality of a dealer, the crowd control aspects that dealers offer, heck... just holding actual cards and shuffling actual chips... I'll try it out, but I doubt I'll favor it over having a live dealer.

I'm playing a tournament on Full Tilt Poker right now... an actual, 700+ person tourney. Haven't played one in ages. I've done lots of 90-seat SnG's, but haven't hit up a real MTT in a while. Maybe I'll get lucky :) I rarely have enough time to commit to these tourneys, but this evening is a wide open space full of whatever the heck I want to do. I thought of napping.

I don't really have any plans for my trip, other than to play poker :) Tues-Fri, March 24-27. I may go so far as to dig up some poker room reviews and maybe expand my horizons a bit... or not. I am, after all, a creature of habit.

Ya know, I've seen this situation on TV a zillion times, but just now experienced it for the first time: there's a raise, a re-raise, and a third raise in front of me. I'm holding AA. No way you're all outdrawing me. All in. Fold fold fold. Not a bad outcome.

Cash table, not the tourney. Folding a lot. It's funny how at one table I can be at a 33 VPIP while at another I'm at 13, all in the same session. LOL! Actually, I'm at 15, 16, and 33 over 5o hands at each of 3 tables. :)

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was trying out Poker CoPilot for the Mac. It's decent, but not anywhere near as robust as PokerTracker. Of course, PT's Mac version will likely never come out. So now, I'm testing out the latest PT, running Windows as a virtual machine on my Mac via Parallels. It's OK. PT gets a little sluggish at 3 tables and won't even run at 4 tables (well, the HUD won't run, which is my main concern). But, as has been established previously, it does some great number-crunching.

So we'll see what happens when this trial ends. I'm not yet sure which way I'll go. Do I forego the awesome number crunching for the joy of running flawlessly smooth under Leopard? My main desire is for the heads-up display. We'll see.

Here's a little bit of a poker nugget that's been around for a while, but that I've just finally come to know as true (and exploit). Back in the day, I spent a whole lot of time slow-playing when I flopped big-ish hands. I thought, "I don't want to scare them away!!" Of course, occasionally this is a reasonable approach, when it's unlikely they're holding anything they can call a bet with, and a free card is unlikely to decrease the value of your hand. But most of the time, especially at these low limits, you're giving your opponent way too much credit to think that betting actually scares them. They aren't that sharp. If you're holding what will be the likely winner, bet away. They'll call anyway. Only a few are strong enough as players to lay down top pair or two pair. They will call. Make the extra few bucks while you can (cuz a few hands later, you'll get sucked out on by that same calling station phenomenon!) :)

I am quite proud of myself right now. I just bullied the table captain out of a hand. Even better, I think it's a girl. Ha. Take that. Don't f with my raises, beyotch. TYVM, JJ.

My mouse hand is getting sweaty.

Tables are getting frisky. People are doing some whacked out stuff. I'm in push or fold mode in the tourney.

2nd break, I'm 224 of 331 remaining, 25% or so under the average chip stack. Not bad for seeing hardly any flops! Chip and a chair, baby.

I am curious. When my heart feels like it is beating in my throat, can you actually see my throat throbbing?

226th out of 1,170. Not bad I guess. No $.

Damn it! The best fish just got busted off my best table!! Nooooo! And my other table has turned over and a bunch of short-stacks sat down. Booooo. Methinks it is break time.

Farewell for now!

Is it any surprise that of the money I lost on the ring games tonight, more than 100% of the total loss (offset by some winnings) was with AA, KK, and QQ?

Nope. In one case, we were all in preflop and I was crushed (that was the QQ - up against KK). In the other two cases, I was pushing hard on undercard boards to players that flopped draws... and caught on the end. One could argue that they shouldn't have been in the hand for the 4xBB raise in the first place, but at the low limits, not only do a) players not know what the heck they're doing, and therefore can't be expected to play "properly," and b) raises look like a paltry amount of money anyway. A 4xBB raise, even at a 2/5 game, looks a lot scarier than $4.

And so it goes...

It's supposed to hit 70 degrees here in Chicagoland tomorrow. Have I ever mentioned that I despise Chicago winters? Tomorrow, I will be on cloud 9, and today's brutality on Full Tilt will be a distant memory...

Can't beat a nice little hit n' run... Full Tilt ftw!

Vegas in 13 days and counting...

I'm re-reading Gus's book, since a few of his one-liners were serving me well until I forgot them. (Read Harrington's Vol 1 on cash games, then made the mistake of playing limit for a few sessions... how quickly the bad habits return! Like a reflex...)

Ya know, I feel like I play decently regularly on FTP, and I only have 13k points. I want a friggin FTP hockey jersey. Granted, I spent 10k or so points or so at one point, but sheesh. STILL not enough for the jersey? Can a girl catch a break? I coulda bought the jersey 10 times over by now, or hell - they're all over eBay. But I want to EARN one!!! Pipe dream...

I can't find my battery charger for my tag-along camera and it is pissing me off.

Now, bed.

My friend Ed made the money in the Saturday night tourney at Majestic last night. Haven't heard yet how he did.

I treaded water for a few hours and left down $18...

23 days till Vegas....

Never thought I'd say this, but limit holdem is like playing bingo.

Shoulda sucked it up and made the drive to Majestic!!! Went to Empress instead. (Hi, Don!!!)

I hear that Four Winds Casino has a bad beat jackpot over $300k right now. That's just plain sick, folks. I also hear they're all electronic - those new fangled poker machines.

I may need to go see some cheap flops at Four Winds sometime soon.

I finally got out to play some cards last night. I haven't been to the casino in ages.

FYI - For anybody in the Vegas area, I will be in town March 24-27 to play some poker. It looks like my friend might not be accompanying me, so I'll be flying solo... meet me in Vegas!! Hell, I've got a room at Excalibur super-cheap, if anybody wants in.

Anyway, back to the Majestic Star trip... oh how I've missed that place! It really is my favorite place to play around here (Chicagoland) - though I haven't yet checked out the new Horseshoe Casino poker room, which I hear is a lot like a Vegas card room. Somehow, though, Majestic feels like "home." I've logged more hours there than anyplace else, and it's just a friendly sort of place. The down side: it's nearly an hour drive from home. That can suck. But the boat that is local to me (Empress) only has a few tables, and most of the tables run a limit game (5/10). I played that limit game for a long while, when I was playing limit. These days, though, I'm doing the NL thing for now, and the only NL table they run is a little over my head right now (as I basically am starting from a 1-buy-in bankroll). Back when I played there, they only ran NL on one table, and it always had a giant waiting list. Since I don't do any of the other gambling activities offered by the casino, waiting hours on end for a poker seat can be brutal.

So, I was glad to be back at Majestic.

Even moreso, it was almost like I was playing with friends. The guy to my right for most of the night was a dead ringer for Mr. Geek and Proud. Srsly. Since he's been posting all those pics of him wearing different t-shirts, his mug was fresh in my mind - and this guy could have passed as his twin. I knew it wasn't him, though, when he whipped out a lame ass non-smart cell phone. No way Alan would be caught dead using such a primitive device.

I played for a little over 4 hours. On the whole, my hands pretty much sucked. I saw a less-than-average number of flops, and saw even fewer showdowns. Still, I enjoyed the mental stimulation of observing the other players, pegging them as one sort of player or another, noting tells and nuances and quirks. That's something you just don't get in full force playing online. Sure, you can note things like, "blind steal attempts 4/5 times" or "will call down all the way with overcards," but those sorts of things are like observations of blatantly obvious facts. Picking up on physical subtleties is much more "rewarding" so to speak. It feels like you've become privy to information that few, if any, other people at the table have access to. (The $200 max buy in NL game is not the most sophisticated game in the joint).

I managed to profit a whopping 2.5BB per hour - enough to buy lunch. LOL! But I will not buy lunch with it. Hey now - that's a 5% increase to my bankroll!! I've got a date with poker come Thursday night, when my friend Ed will be joining me at Majestic (I think... haven't hammered out the details, but it's a tentative plan). A 5% increase. I'm not scoffing.

I lost two big hands last night, one of which has me irked. The one that doesn't have me irked is part of the risk in playing low to mid suited connectors and seeking a flush... sometimes, you're just going to be up against a higher flush. I lost the minimum possible, as I sensed the guy wasn't going away. I pulled a check-behind on the turn when my flush hit - glad to hit the flush but not wanting to play for an uber pot, as my flush was 4-high in my hand. Called his river bet and he had the nuts. That's whatcha get for being Tricky McTrickster, buddy. You certainly lost a bet there.

The other hand, I ** once again ** broke the advice that is pounded into my head from Harrington's cash games book: Big hand, big pot. Small hand, small pot.... and an overpair is NOT A BIG HAND!! It was a little more complicated than that, so maybe my reasoning was justifiable - though in retrospect, I still think I should have played it differently. I'm just not sure that I am capable of playing it the way it probably should have been played.

I had QQ preflop. The table was pretty wacky. We had a whole lot of 7 and 8 handed flops. On a previous hand, there were actually 6 people that saw a flop after a preflop raise of over 7xBB. These people just liked to see flops, regardless of the upfront cost. (Three of the people in the 7x hand went to showdown, and 2 pair got cracked by a straight - two of the players split the pot, having called the preflop raise with various flavors of 4-7 suited).

So, on the button, after 5 people had limped in, I looked down to see QQ. I deemed it impossible to push anybody out of the pot with a raise, and with SO many people ready to come to the flop with me, my instinct was to play this as any other smaller pocket pair. It's almost as bad as having JJ. It's just not the strongest hand in the world, and the tendencies of my table put it at even greater risk of getting cracked. So I stuck with a "small hand, small pot" mentality (even though that mentality is really designed for post-flop decision making).

The blinds came along, and we went to the flop 8 handed. (Yeah. Sigh). The flop came all hearts, undercards. I held the Q of hearts. The guy in the 10 seat said, "Hmm I think I have the Ace of hearts..." as he checked his hole cards. He was a very friendly guy - I enjoyed chatting with him - and he had a giant stack in front of him after a fantastic run of hitting 2 pair on the river with such cards as Q4 of clubs and A2 offsuit (out of the blinds). Several people at the table were actively pissed off at him and were gunning for him. (Poor Alan's Clone took a beating at the hands of Mr. 10 Seat, tilting so bad that at one point, he threw his cards into the muck with great force, hitting the dealer in the face).

The other oddity of my table (aside from the overwhelming tendency to see flops at any cost) was the extreme passive play post-flop. Many streets would check around, only to wind up at showdown with somebody who checked down top pair all the way. So when it checked around to me (ALL the way around - that's SEVEN checks in front of me!), I threw out a continuation bet. If there were hearts around, they'd stay, and I wanted that information. Surprisingly, the field thinned to all but one - Mr. 10 Seat, who had previously mused that he thought he might have the Ah. Now, he mused often about his cards, and in 3 separate instances had been musing the opposite of what he actually had (and in one instance, mused truthfully).

The turn came a black undercard, and he checked. I checked behind. I did not want to see a 4th heart. At. All. (Should I have bet there? I figured, if he did have the Ah, he wasn't going away, and I did not want to make this pot any bigger).

The river... a heart. Undercard. I've now got the Queen high flush, and 2 cards in the deck beat me - the King of hearts and the Ace of hearts. Mr. 10 Seat was fully capable of bluffing, and in fact liked to do it on the river after playing all passive-like. He was also sleep deprived and should have been in bed hours ago.

He bet the river, about the size of the pot. So many thoughts went through my mind. It was entirely possible that after my turn check, he figured he could push me off the hand. It was entirely possible that he was bluffing. It was entirely possible that he had a smaller flush. It was also entirely possible that he had it.

I cut out my chips behind the line, and said (while looking at my chips), "Two cards beat me, sir... are you holding one of them?" I then looked up at him and repeated myself. I REALLY wanted him to do something with his hands, because his hands were always shaking when he actually had a hand. But he wasn't moving, and he wasn't speaking.

In the end, I listened to the devil on my shoulder that was saying, "Only two cards beat you!!" And I called.

And he had the Ace of hearts.

I suppose I lost the minimum, with the turn check. But I think I could have lost even less had I abandoned ship at the flop. A continuation bet there makes more sense if there were fewer people to the flop, but practically the entire table was there with me. SOMEBODY was likely to have the higher hearts. Still, I don't think I could have come to the conclusion that it was OK to check that flop after the entire table checked around, and when the brick hit the turn, I'm not sure that either a) I wouldn't call somebody's bet in front of me, or b) I wouldn't bet myself if it checked around again. I'm fairly certain b) would have absolutely happened. So I was losing a bet on the flop or turn either way.

The river call is where I could have saved myself a chunk of change, but... hitting the flush, I'm still not sure I can envision any scenario whereby I'd actually lay it down. To an all-in bet, yes - I think I'd have folded. But not to a pot sized bet.

Should I have laid it down on the river? Would that have been too conservative a play?

I don't really feel that I have an answer for this one. Therefore, it will continue to irk me...

At any rate, I won back most of the chips I lost to Mr. 10 Seat in a later hand, where I rivered a set of Aces with my pocket Aces. He was all apologizing as he cut out his chips to call my raise, because he had once again hit a bullshit 2 pair... but a set beats 2 pair, and that pot negated the damage from the QQ hand.

Mr. 10 Seat gave away half of his beautiful stack before the night was done, most of it trickling away on river bluffs in the last hour I was there. It was tough to leave. I was pretty sure all of those chips were leaving the station before long. But, I had a friend with me that wasn't playing, and I'm fairly certain he was bored out of his skull by that point. It was late, and with an hour drive home ahead of us, I waited until the next dealer change and then called it a night.

I didn't scoop a fortune, but I came out ahead and was VERY happy with how I felt at the table. There are times when I really shouldn't play poker. Sometimes, I'm just "off." I get nervous. I get afraid of monsters under the bed. I get paranoid. I doubt my instincts (which I'm coming to find that really, instincts are just our subconscious mind's way of feeding us information based on past experiences, and the myriad of patterns of hands we've seen over time). It's been a long time since I've played at a casino. It was entirely possible that I'd find myself out of my element - particularly since I was playing NL. If you recall, I pretty much retired from NL cash games years ago - in the same season as my KK Quandary hand. Yes, that was over 3 years ago - but it sure stung, and it spoke to weaknesses in my game and in my understanding of how cash games differ from tournaments. [For reference - KK Quandary Part 1 and KK Quandary Part 2]. I still can't tell you why I decided to fire up an NL cash game on Full Tilt a couple months back - and it has been a very positive experience online thus far. Somehow, though, I find myself back in the NL realm.

Spending most of 2008 away from poker has afforded me the opportunity to come back at it with fresh eyes... and though I wasn't trying to "change" my game, really, I am playing differently now. I can't really explain why or even what I'm doing that is different, but I feel different and I "see" things I didn't see before... almost as if some of that book knowledge has finally translated into "habit" or unconscious actions. An example: I don't forget to consider position when making decisions anymore. I don't even consciously think about it - whereas when I did remember it before, I would then stop and think, "OK, where is the button?" Now, somehow, I just always know where it is. My brain is logging that information without me having to think about it. That's just one example, but that's the sort of thing that's going on. Some of the basics are now out of the foreground of my thinking and into the background. It's allowing me to concentrate on the subtleties of the game and I feel like I'm noticing more things and making better decisions as a result.

At any rate, I'm going to try again on Thursday, so if any of you Chicago peeps find yourself out and about, hit up Majestic Star :) I'll be there...

I'm having a hard time playing offsuit ragged Aces. Like - not as in, I'm losing with them - as in, I keep folding them preflop. A9 offsuit even, unless I'm in the button or cutoff.

I don't know what the deal is. I guess it will run its course. At least I'm not getting out-kicked.

After last night's little knockdown, I kept at it. Plugged away, did not tilt, did not cry... and in the hour following, reversed the damage and logged off in the black.

It felt good.

I'd love to play now, but alas, I must leave for work.

One of the areas with which I'm feeling some growing pains is in the whole "big hands, big pots - small hands, small pots" theory. Well, not in the theory itself, but in the re-classification of hand values in a deep-stack cash game (as opposed to a tourney where the blinds are a greater portion of your stack, and always rising). It can be perfectly appropriate to push all in preflop with a premium pair or even AK, but deep stacked in a cash game - well, I'm still adjusting to the fact that overpairs, top pair, two pair - even trips don't constitute hands that you really want to be playing with any majority of your stack at risk.

I took one on the chin tonight and it kinda stings a little. My opponent "followed all the rules" so to speak - he did everything perfectly to make me think what he wanted me to think. And I did. And in the process, I pot committed myself with top pair, top kicker (turned into trips on the river, where I fell into the trap and took the lead betting, and was too far in to give it up to a min-raise).

Was conscious of the fact that the pot was getting too big for a TPTK hand - it DID cross my mind. But online, so many things fly through my head, and sometimes I only truly consider what I'd thought AFTER a play is made. The pace is fast and frenzied, even with only a couple tables up. So, I acted first, considered later - and lost a little chunk. It stings a bit.

However, I know what I did wrong, and I will consider my errors while SLOWING DOWN next time...

In other news, I'm trying out Poker Copilot for the Mac. There's really no good (and currently supported) poker tracking/HUD software out there for the Mac, since Poker Tracker appears that they will NEVER get their Mac version out the door... until I found this gem. It's working well and gives me everything I need. I'll carry out the trial but this one is a likely purchase.

My dear friend Poker. I neglected thee in 2008. I have foregone the usual "new year's resolution" post, for several reasons. First of all, there is not much to look back on in 2008, save for a few random sessions online. No real study of the game. No diligent practice at my game. No real substance to my poker life.

To kick off 2009, though, I got sparked. The annual Trojan Wars game (for which I beg forgiveness for failing to produce a proper write-up... I just wasn't in the mood to take notes!) got me back into the swing of things, thinking about poker, studying my game, and really jonesing to play.

I placed 8th out of 30-something people at the Trojan Wars game, 2 paces from the Holy Land. I would not have done anything differently. I'm generally not a fan of rebuy tournaments, though I'm also generally not a fan of passing up live game opportunities. The rebuy portion of the tourney was the usual donkified push-fest, and the freeze-out portion had incredibly fast-raising blind levels (moreso in amount than time, but I'm not a fan of 15 minute levels, either). But, as a rebuy, it is what it is, and like I said, I wouldn't change anything in my play really. It's still one of my favorite games to play at, as Ryan runs a well organized ship and I can give a hearty thumbs-up to the food and drink and snackage.

I've been reading a bit and playing a little on the ring game side on Full Tilt lately. I have discovered that over the past year, my game has morphed a bit. In some ways, I wouldn't recognize it (though you'll never see me going off on some LAG-fest... it just ain't in me!) I like what it has been lately.

I read Negreanu's part in his collection-of-players poker book, Power Hold'em Strategy. I haven't read the rest of the book, but most of it did not get good reviews. I love Daniel, but this one is probably better saved for a read over a coffee while sitting at the book store.

I have to say, I've gotten the most little brain-nuggets from Gus Hansen's "Every Hand Revealed." I certainly don't play as loose-aggressive as he does, but there's math behind his style and that's what I identify with. I may even read it again for good measure - and I'd have paid twice as much as it cost for the book. Good read.

I'm also reading Harrington on Cash Games Vol I.  I'm finding that he makes some arguments I hadn't considered before, and some of those have made it to the table with me. Maybe his books are so dense that they need to be read more slowly.  That could be.

So, with all of this renewal of interest in poker (and with some much-needed reorganization of finances and - well, I got a couple more jobs to bring in more money), I've booked my first poker-centric trip to Vegas in... forever. It has been years! I will be heading out there over spring break, March 24-27. If anybody will be around, give me a holler. My cell phone number has changed since the last time I was in Vegas but email is the same - drop me a line or twitter me and I'll give you the new digits. I plan to play a lot of poker that week! And if I come home profitable, you might just see me at the next blogger event :P

Tomorrow's the big game, the annual Trojan Wars. I'm not quite sure the last time I played real, honest-to-goodness live poker - probably at last year's Trojan Wars game, since Scott stopped hosting the Diamond games (or I stopped getting invited? I haven't heard of any games, anyway).

I've done a lot of reading in the past few weeks. Some of it is brushing up, some of it is new takes on old ideas. I'm running a single table sit n go right now before bed on Full Tilt Poker. I'll probably run a couple more tomorrow. Warm-up's.

Hmmm. I wonder if my iPod earbuds are in the center console of my car. Somebody remind me to check before the game.

A lot of people with Iron Man badges on FTP seem to be... idiots. Well, I'm sure as humans they're just fine, but, I mean, they seem to make idiotic poker plays. Is it just me?

And what if you're an Iron Wo-man?

Har har har! I crack myself up :)

I prefer to play using the "confused" goldfish face (my avatar on Full Tilt)... not so much because I'm confused (though sometimes that is true... moves at these low levels can be truly baffling!) but mostly because I think that's the cutest version of the goldfish.

Refreshing my math in between hands...

I love when a flop takes all of the guesswork out of the game. FOLD!

Hmm. Didn't fare so well in that first one. I'm trying some stuff that's a little out there for me, but oddly that's not where I'm losing my chips. One more before bed.

I really wish Poker Tracker would come out for Mac. It's been rumored forever, but, sigh... looks like never.

Probably shouldn't have started this 2nd run... brain is getting tired... until next time...

Yes, another evening of a little poker. Gotta get ready for the upcoming Trojan Wars!

1 - single table SnG (NL)
1 - 90 player SnG (also NL)

Here we go!

Folded a suited connector to a late position preflop raise, because nobody else was in the pot with only the blinds +1 after me...

Sailboats! Limp. And a joker goes all in on hand #2. Whatevs. Moron.

AND he got a caller! JJ vs 99, and 99 sucked out with a set on the turn. Wheee! Sunday night is dripping juicy.

I know you don't really want my play by play. Poker is just the background music to which I blog.

Let me hit shuffle on the iPod... OK. Ben Folds, nice.

I've been getting back into the bird watching thing. Ironically, I get more interesting back yard birds in the winter than in the summer. I get some Canadian visitors, and the birds seem to appreciate my efforts more. They'd better appreciate the heck out of me in the morning, because the wind chill will be below zero by the time I go out there tonight and refill the feeders. I've got some feeders and some suet and a heated bird bath out there for them. Most of last winter's visitors arrived by this week - the song sparrows and the American tree sparrows and the dark eyed juncos and the downy woodpeckers. And of course I've got the usual suspects, the European starlings and the house finches and house sparrows and mourning doves. Today, the American goldfinch pair that was here last winter stopped by. I love birds. I signed up to count them for Cornell's Project FeederWatch again this year. Good times :)

I've been folding junk hands ever since those sailboats....

QQ, PFR EP 4xBB... everybody folded. Hmm. One of those days?

Anyhoooo... I'm working on getting a second teaching job. I'm in a sort of training/evaluation process whereby I'll get the job if I "pass." It's not so much that I want to work more, but the finances dictate the rules these days. The nice thing is that I work in an industry that booms when the economy is down (higher education), so the security of my job is something I generally don't have to worry about. It's nice to have something NOT to worry about, for a change.

Just picked off a bluffer and doubled up in the single-table game. Now he's going all aggro. Oooh - 77, massive preflop raise, then checked it all the way down because a K flopped. That's all the notes I need on that guy.

Ben Folds, to Tesla, to Nine Inch Nails. That's why I love the iPod.

I'm also a fan of cheddar Chex Mix.

This year seems to be an unusually early onset of the snow and cold in Chicago. I'm not a fan of winter, particularly here. There was a weather advisory earlier about the potential for a big snow storm Monday night into Tuesday, but it doesn't look like we're going to get it. Or, we are going to get the precipitation, but they think the temperature will remain in the mid-30's, so it will be rain. That is good. I'm not ready for big snow.

I'm waiting for my new coat to arrive in the mail (thanks, Mom!) It is rated to keep me warm down to -20 degrees F. At least that covers 3/4 of Chicago's winter. :-/ I will head south, someday!

I've been playing a lot of Ultima Online lately. There's a meetup next August in Austin, Texas, that I hope to make it out to. I know some peeps out there that I wouldn't mind seeing :) The conference itself is free, and does not require a bankroll (which is the one thing that makes it more likely that I'll find a way out there versus to Vegas). I could get there and back roundtrip for under $200 in gas at today's prices. It's insane. One day, I'm spending $90 to fill my tank, the next - $30. Seriously. Wild. I am not complaining and please let gas stay cheap, oh gas gods!

Wow, I just remembered that I had meant to go work on revising one of my art projects for my final portfolio. (I'm taking an art class this semester). Whoops. Let's hope I go long and deep into this tourney :) Otherwise, it's back to art homework, booo!

This art class has been quite an experience. Generally, I don't "do" art. I do computer art and photography, but I don't draw or paint or sculpt or anything like that. Some portions of this class were computer based (and those were the only portions I was at all comfortable with). The drawing and painting... not so much. It was good for me to go through all of it, though - being critiqued for things I have next to no confidence in. I will pass the class. I'm not sure I'll get an A (which sucks, because my "major" is photography and for a non-major course to kill my 4.0 GPA, well that sucks, but I'll live). You see, I'm taking the photography program at the school I teach at.. for fun. We get free tuition as a benefit, so why not?

Knocked out of the single table game. Aggro boy raised me preflop with his 87s, and I pushed all in with my KQ. He flopped two 7's. Yowza! Have fun, check-it-down aggro boy...

I find that I'm lacking the motivation to celebrate Christmas this year. I haven't put up my tree or any outside lights, and probably won't. I haven't sent out Christmas cards. For 9 years running, I've been writing an annual newsletter of my family's events. I usually send it out with my Christmas cards... but I'm not really doing Christmas this year. Could I possibly skip the newsletter? I don't have much to say though! Not much happened this year, and what did happen was not of the good times/happy new year type of stuff, and I certainly don't want to send out a downer of a newsletter. But next year, when I'm getting ready to write the newsletter, will I regret the gap in newsletters?

Yeah, I know. I over-analyze things.

This 8-5 offsuit, however, does not require any additional analysis.

Wow, this has just been a trickle-down effect, watching my stack dwindle away while I fold. I guess I won't be hitting the big money tonight. Never say die, though! Just because I'm down to 8 BB doesn't mean I'm out!

See that? Doubled up.

For the record, I'm months behind on my blog reading. FYI.

And... out. 25th place. Gah.

Oh well. I suppose, art homework it is.

Hail, my fine feathered friends! This fine gobble gobble anniversary is upon us, and I am SO looking forward to a fantastic meal tomorrow that I can't even describe my glee!

I just received notice of the next Trojan Wars game at Ryan's place after the new year. I must say, I have been slacking in the poker department. I've been so busy with work lately that I think I forgot how to play poker. Well, that's an exaggeration, but I'm also very much looking forward to a live home game, and Ryan puts on one of the best. If you're in the Chicagoland area and are interested (and I know you!), give me a holler...

In anticipation of the Trojan Wars game, I've taken it upon myself to fire up FTP this fine Thanksgiving eve, and the holiday has most definitely brought the push-monkeys out of the woodwork. We'll see how gobbley good I can do...

I had an insane urge to chug orange juice a little while ago. I'm not sure what that was all about, but I obliged the urge.

I've got 2 games going on Full Tilt: a single table turbo sit n go, and a 90 player turbo deep stack sit n go. I know, turbo and deep stack kind of contradict each other, but I actually kinda like the format. Nothing exciting going on in either game just yet.

I always receive a lot of "recipe exchange" emails this time of year. I'm not much into cooking; I prefer simple. Here are a couple simple recipes that are sure to be hits - especially for those who don't have much time to spend in the kitchen:

Super Simple Cranberry Sugar Cookies

1 15.6-oz. package Pillsbury Cranberry Quick Bread & Muffin Mix
3/4 C. butter, softened
3 T. sugar

Heat oven to 350° F. In large bowl, combine quick bread mix and butter; mix well.

Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

Flatten balls to 1/8-inch thickness with bottom of glass dipped in sugar.

Bake at 350° F. for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown.

Cool 2 minutes; remove from cookie sheets.

Makes 3 1/2 dozen cookies.

And... my personal favorite - I just made this one and it is freezing as we speak:

Frozen Peanut Butter Pie

* 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
* 1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
* 1 cup peanut butter
* 1 cup milk
* 1 (16 ounce) package frozen whipped topping, thawed
* 2 (9 inch) prepared graham cracker crusts

1. Beat together cream cheese and confectioners' sugar. Mix in peanut butter and milk. Beat until smooth. Fold in whipped topping.
2. Spoon into two 9 inch graham cracker pie shells; cover, and freeze until firm.

I swear, the peanut butter pie is to die for! Melts in your mouth...

Did I ever mention, I don't like to raise preflop very often? Sometimes that hurts me.

I woke this morning to a cat's claw piercing the flesh on top of my foot. That was mildly unpleasant. Now, it itches like crazy! (the foot, not the cat).

I've suggested to my family that we try something new this Christmas. Instead of buying gifts for everybody, we should put all of our names in a hat. Everybody gives $50 to the hat, and the person whose name is drawn gets to choose what charity all the money gets donated to. We'd pick everybody's names so we'd know who gets to pick next year, and the year after, etc, and then we'd just keep doing that. Cheaper than shopping for everybody individually, and it goes to a good cause no matter who gets to pick. A friend of mine does that with her family, and I really like the idea. (The younger kids of course would still get gifts - this would just be amongst the gift-giving adults).

Got knocked out of the single table SnG by way of passively calling off all my chips.

I need to get into my comfy pajamas. I think that might be the problem.

/time lapse

Ahhh nice and comfy now! It is not helping the fact that I am getting blinded out, though. With not much life left in me, I will wrap this up wishing everybody a Happy Thanksgiving holiday and a restful weekend!

You are Judgement

Happiness, Content, Joy.

Judgment is related to the Hebrew letter Shin, which is fiery and spiritual. A break from the past, going forward.

With Fire as its ruling element, Judgement is about rebirth or ressurection. The idea of Judgement day is that the dead rise, their sins are forgiven, and they move onto heaven. The Judgement card is similar, it asks the resurrection to summon the past, forgive it, and let it go. There are wounds from the past that we never let heal, sins we've committed that we refuse to forgive, bad habits we haven't the courage to lose. Judgement advises us to finally face these, recognize that the past is past, and put them to rest, absolutely and irrevocably. This is also a card of healing, quite literally from an accident or illness, as well as a card signaling great transformation, renewal, change.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Posted by Dave Matthews to Twitter at 12:40pm 10/6/2008:

I find the state of American politics heartbreaking. And the dominant news coverage suffocating, panic inspiring, septic mis-information.

Ditto.

Killing time, sorta.

Hitting up a turbo SnG on FTP. What am I killing time in anticipation of? Nothing really. There's probably something good I could watch on the TiVo. I plan to play some Ultima Online at some point today. I need to do bills. Maybe I'm procrastinating that.

Really, I'm just looking to engage my mind in something distracting from what is otherwise known as "real life."

Speaking of UO - if there are any UO players out there, I'll be in Chicago at the UO Town Hall Meeting at Dave & Busters on Oct 18th. Come out and meet up! I'll be wearing a t-shirt advertising my UO web site, UOCraft.com. Look for me!

Folded 62o and K6s. Wheee!

I've got one single-tabler going, and am registered in a turbo deep stack knockout 90 player SnG... waiting for that one to fill.

I reluctantly turned my furnace on today. It's 61 degrees in here, and while I sleep very well under such conditions, i don't do well during the waking hours. My hands were so cold it was getting hard to type, and that's all snuggled up in my trademark of 3 seasons clothing staple, the hoodie, and my fuzzy duck slippers on. So I endured the grungy smell of that first run of the furnace about an hour ago and am feeling much better now, as are the cats, who were following the sun around the house in various windows to keep warm earlier today. I need to buy a new filter for my furnace. I'm currently running without one, thus contributing to that funky odor (which has since burned away).

Quack quack. Limped in EP with ducks. No raisers. Let's see a flop! Sweet, set on a K82 board. La la la results to follow, as I must concentrate now.

WOW. Set over set over set. And I'm out. Set of 8's, set of 6's, set of 2's. (The 6 came on the turn). Holy hell. Only online, baby! Out in 8th.

Would you believe it actually occurred to me that maybe I should fold when the guy after me immediately called my pot bet, and the button raised me way too big? There were 2 flush draws out there on the turn. Sorry guys - I'm just not good enough to lay down a set on an otherwise uncoordinated board. I'm taking that river card versus a draw most days.

Oh well. 90 player game is still filling up. Time for a beverage break.

And, we're off!

So how about that VP debate the other night! Hmm, yeah, I don't do politics on this here blog, or pretty much on any of these here blogs I ramble on. Not that I didn't watch it... or that I don't have opinions. It seems to me that unless you're debating politics with a friend, colleague, or otherwise with a decent bit of knowledge on the subject, most peoples' opinions are rooted in things they've heard other people say as opposed to actual personal conclusions they've drawn. As such, it's really hard to have an educated debate on politics with most people. Maybe it's just the people I encounter and spend time with. I enlightened a friend of mine recently that your singular vote for president doesn't actually "count" in terms of literally affecting the outcome - one person's vote doesn't really decide the presidency, and that a president can actually lose the "popular" vote (the hand-by-hand vote count) and still win the presidency. (Ahem). He hadn't paid attention in government class and didn't know what the electoral college is. He does now. He now deems our whole voting system "unfair." LOL! Yeah, sometimes it feels that way....

I'm no expert on politics by any stretch, but I am proud to say that in every election (I vote in most every election I'm eligible for, local, state, and federal), I do my own fact-finding, read up on the issues and the candidates at hand, and come to my own conclusions. I generally don't vote straight-party, and I'm comfortable with my contributions to the processes that make this country great.

Ugly rag cards so far in this SnG.

Well that was more political yammering than I can handle in one blog post. Moving on...

I could really use one of those back scratching sticks. I have awfully dry skin pretty much all seasons except summer (worst in the winter), and it has begun... itchy back!!! Bah.

Seems that I can't hit a draw to save my life...

So I installed VMWare Fusion, as mentioned in my last post. It works a lot more smoothly for me than Parallels (which makes me a little unhappy, since I paid for Parallels without testing it, and really don't want to fork out more money). I can't play UO very well on it, though - it seems to handle the graphics fine (unlike Parallels), but the ping times are just awful. I guess running through a virtual network card is just ugly for online gaming. I can't find any sort of support documents about improving the performance of the network card through virtualization, so if anybody has any advice, please holler! I will buy VMWare if I can get its network performance up a bit.

&$*#&($# I'm having one of those days where I make the right plays at the right times and luck is just F'ing me royally. Got a scooby all in, JJ vs his top pair 10's with 1 card to come, and he hits the third 10. Waaa. <10BB left.

I miss live poker.

And, I'm out with top pair 10's (AT suited) when I pushed on the flop (pot was 210 and I had 410 left). Got caught by a guy who slow-played KK preflop. Wheee!

Ahh well. At least I was distracted for an hour or so... sorta.

Hello, again, my pretties!

I'm here waiting for a 90-player SnG to fill up, and in the meantime (and beyond), I will hang out and ramble with you all.

It's likely the 2nd to last beautiful day of 2008 in Chicagoland. Tomorrow will be nice, and after that, we drop into the 60's and below, probably for the rest of the year. We've had 2 of the most gorgeous weeks of weather I've ever experienced - so you'll all have to remind me of this when I'm bitching in a couple months that Chicago weather sucks, and that we never get any moderate temperatures - just freezing cold into boiling hot, skipping over anything resembling spring or fall.

Ahh, we're full. Let the games begin!

I've been catching up on the WSOP on the TiVo. There was a segment where Ray Romano was saying that it's nice to have something that makes your heart pump. I still get that feeling when playing poker. I just don't have as much time to play as I used to. However, I'm glad it still makes my heart pump, so to speak.

I love Ray Romano. I never watched "Everybody Loves Raymond" when it was on, I think because it was on in first-runs before I had a TiVo (and thus, pretty much before I watched TV on a regular basis). Now, I watch it whenever I catch it, and every episode cracks me up. He looks good with a little gray :)

Ouch, set over set, FTP classic - good thing it wasn't me.

Joy, I've got the every-hand-min-raiser at my table.

I had my first hummingbird ever come to my back yard bird feeders yesterday. Totally stoked. Yeah, I like birds. What of it?

I don't necessarily like 3-9 suited.

I do like the smell of exhaust from a dryer drying clean laundry.

I've been back in Ultima Online again. It'll be 11 years this November that I've been playing that game... effectively, a third of my life. Crazy. There's a new expansion coming out in 2009 that I'm totally looking forward to. They really have a brilliant business model. There's no end-game, so it's a subscription based cash cow, for all intents and purposes. Many players have multiple accounts (including myself). And so it goes, cha-ching, month after month. Compared to the big guys like World of Warcraft, the subscription base of UO is minuscule, around 100,000 subscribers - but I've never found a MMORPG that is anywhere near as flexible in terms of making it whatever you want it to be. WOW is built on the "kill stuff" premise. You can kill stuff in UO, but you can also build a life for yourself crafting or gardening or working as a merchant. There's a vibrant PvP community, a respected roleplay community, and just a great variety of things to do. As long as UO exists, I will play it.

Hovering right around average in chips...

I bought Parallels, the virtual machine software, so that I could run Windows within OS X on my Mac. I had hoped to be able to play UO on it, but it's just not quite fast enough in video rendering (even though it says it can play games - UO isn't one of the listed "official" games that it supports. I thought it might work anyway, as UO's video demands are much lower than some of the games on the list). I've heard that VMWare Fusion works better, and I probably should have tried them both out before I spent $50 on Parallels. I will get use out of Parallels anyway, as it makes it much easier for me to test web sites in IE (barf-a-roni), and it gives me easier access to MS Office (they use it at work, so sometimes I must play nice and be compatible). I had been running Vista with Bootcamp on my Mac, but it's a bit of a pain to have to reboot and boot into Windows for the few things I use it for, because then I don't have my web bookmarks, or access to my documents or my iTunes or anything that lives on the Mac side. I may try VMWare Fusion. We'll see.

I'm getting tired of folding decent hands to raises, but I'm out of position and too likely dominated. Still, it's annoying.

Wow - I'm watching a video tour of VMWare Fusion, and already I see a feature that makes me want it: it can run my existing Bootcamp installation right within OS X! I won't have to reinstall Windows! (again!!) They've got an academic discount, $39.99. TYVM, career! Hmmm this is intriguing. Still, I will download the free trial and test it before buying - but this looks quite promising. Kudos to VMWare's download site too - I'm pulling over 1,000 KB/sec down. Nice.

Card dead...

Might as well install VMWare while I fold... Down to 11xBB... Gotta move soon...

So, Dave Matthews had joined Twitter.com, and holy cow does he post some funny stuff! He's @DaveJMatthews - lots of funny pictures, and nuggets of wisdom like only Dave can do... lovin it.

My hair is getting long. Not long, relative to people with long hair, but long relative to the length I've had it for like the last 8 years. It's longer than it's been in a long time. I wish it would grow faster!! I need a dye job, too. Oy.

Big time push of fold mode. Nothing to push with. Oooh, A3s. Here we go. Damn it, 2 people all in in front of me. FOLD.

Owie antes hurt!!

So I finally got sick of the spicy Italian sandwich at Subway. Trouble is, nothing else is really calling my name there. i've given the chicken bacon ranch sandwich a few days in court, and it hasn't really sold me. I feel lost without a signature sandwich. *sniffle*

AQo, I'm pushing regardless...

2 callers. Nada on the flop. And... I'm out, in 34th place.

Time to go play with VMWare!