Sunday, December 31, 2006

Happy New Year and Which Hero, Which Villain

Seems to be a theme here.

Your results:
You are Iron Man
























Iron Man
85%
Spider-Man
75%
Hulk
70%
Batman
60%
Green Lantern
55%
Supergirl
45%
Catwoman
40%
The Flash
40%
Superman
40%
Robin
30%
Wonder Woman
25%
Inventor. Businessman. Genius.


Click here to take the "Which Superhero am I?" quiz...



Your results:
You are Lex Luthor


































Lex Luthor
88%
Dr. Doom
75%
Apocalypse
73%
Magneto
71%
The Joker
66%
Mr. Freeze
61%
Riddler
59%
Green Goblin
57%
Kingpin
56%
Juggernaut
53%
Two-Face
53%
Venom
52%
Dark Phoenix
47%
Catwoman
42%
Poison Ivy
34%
Mystique
25%
A brilliant businessman on a quest for world domination and the self-proclaimed greatest criminal mind of our time!


Click here to take the Super Villain Personality Test

See the flop...

Saturday, December 30, 2006

Happy Birthday to Me

See the flop...

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Who's the Best Sox?





Not I, it would seem.
See the flop...

Friday, December 22, 2006

WPBT Winter Classic Day 3 part 1: Tourney Time

I ended up getting six hours sleep on Friday night, which had to put me in the top decile for tourney entrants.

On the way over, I picked up these babies from the eyewear shop in Caesar’s mall. Normally I need prescription sunglasses, but I’m getting Lasik in the New Year so these were an early birthday present to myself.

When the tourney started I found myself for the second year in a row directly to Joe Speaker’s left. Last year, we had an insanely TAG preflop table and no real confrontations, not seeing any flops until after the first blind increase. The result was that no one from our table got busted for awhile and no one got anything resembling a stack. It didn’t happen quite that way this year.

First hand of note for me was fairly early on in the first blind level. Byron, who’s tightness may qualify him for certain societies, opened the 25-50 blinds in first position for 200. It folded around to me in the small blind. I looked down and saw that hand you’re supposed to play like aces. Of course, I don’t like to play aces the same way every time. Normally, in the small blind facing an UTG hand I’ll probably raise 70-80%. But sometimes, particularly if I think the big blind will fold, I’ll consider smooth calling. So that’s what I did.

The big blind cooperated as did the flop, which came down AT6, all diamonds. This was not so great if Byron held real aces, but was a pretty good flop if he held many other premium hands. I checked my “set” and Byron obligingly led out for 300. I did one last self-sanity check, failed, and raised him up to 1000. Byron entered the tank, smelled out my monster, and finally folded, telling me later he had laid down AJ. I of course dropped the hammer as hard as I could. This was much fun (though Byron got revenge with interest two days later).

I then got a run of actual cards and began chipping up, gathering about 7000 before my next big hand came up.

In middle position Fuel opened the pot for 150 with another 4500 or so behind and a quite tight semi-short stack (the guy giving out PPA schwag) who I don’t think bought the add-on, and had about 2000 behind, raised him to 400. When it folded around to me in the BB, I remember thinking to myself, I am not sure I want to play this hand out of position in this situation. I then remember seeing fishhooks and thinking, ah crap, for 250 more, don’t I have to?

It was somewhat marginal situation as there was a good chance Fuel would push or raise significantly to get heads up if he had anything and I’d have to muck, as I was nearly certain my hand was not the favorite against the other two and fairly sure it was not the best against PPA guy’s.

After brief a think however, I decided the chips each player had behind (particularly Fuel) and a firm commitment to myself to let my hand go absent a hitting a set made a call justifiable. To my relief, Fuel completed the action behind.

I had put on my new specs, which as I might of mentioned are not prescription, which, as you might deduce, left my vision somewhat less than 20/20. When the flop came, I was nevertheless able to make out the beautiful jumping jack of spades as the door card. I did, however, blur the other two cards, seeing an eight of spades and another eight. Having flopped a boat, slow play was clearly in order.

Fuel obliged first, making it 600 to go. I expected PPA to push or fold at that stage, and was surprised when he called. I was prepared to call behind and hope for another spade when it dawned on me that one of the eights was in fact a nine. Yikes! No more slow play for me, I figured I’d raise enough to get Fuel off any light draw he might have and pick up the rest of PPA’s stack, so I made it 2000 to go. I was a little surprised at that point when after brief hesitation Fuel pushed. I was even more surprised when PPA folded, leaving half his chips in the pot (he later claimed to have kings, which made his fold quite correct as he had to put at least one of us on a set and was being offered only 5:1 odds with at most 2 outs twice—still most people won’t make this lay down here if they made the initial call). Facing a 2000 or so raise from Fuel, I suppose I could have given brief thought to whether he held QT, but, to be honest, I pretty much insta-called (With ten outs twice my call still would have been correct so nothing lost in not considering that possibility).

When he flipped over AQs for the nut flush draw, a gutshot, and two close to worthless overs, I can’t say I was ecstatic. But I wasn’t exactly crying to myself either with a 2:1 lead to win a giant pot.

My hand held up, I became table chip leader (maybe even tourney chip leader for a few minutes), and I also got rid of a player I hadn’t been too happy to have been seated with in the first place.

Sometime along the way on the first table, I got an unexpected opportunity to practice my excuse for Hungarian when Mr. Subliminal came up to me and asked me about how I had come to be throwing in his mother tongue into a poker blog. I knew he is a homeless bum living out of a shopping cart and blogging out of libraries, but he's a Magyar to boot? There must be an interesting story there (or a few)--I'm sorry that we lost the chance to "talk later" as promised.

Back to the action: I kept on getting good cards, and had begun to bully a bit, when this pony-tailed punk was seated on my right. I’d never met Superstoner before and that perhaps a bit rash first impression was melded, a bit prematurely, by our first hand. I was under the gun and came in a bit light with a raise when he popped me for a significant re-raise. Did I mention this was his first hand at our table? Against the big stack?

Pony-tailed punk!

It folded around to me. I growled and mucked, thinking I’d just found my next confrontation to come. Later he claimed to have aces (who knows?), but given the fact that was his last aggression toward me in about 40 more hands, I am fairly confident he had something. Also, I suppose he may not be a punk. I stand by my observation that he has a pony-tail.

Two orbits after the first hand however, when, under the gun, I found actual aces. I tried to remember exactly what I done the first time and put in the same bet. I saw him look and think about it for a moment (he told me later he had considered a move, but couldn’t justify it with the rags he was holding). Oh well. It folded all the way around to Speaker, who simply smooth called me. The flop came jack high and he checked to me. I led out and he folded. I showed my hand, and he showed his. As the man said, he knows how to play AK against an under the gun raise.

Sometime after the first break I got moved to another table. Among other, this one initially featured Weak Player, Iggy, Lucko, Change100 and Grubette (AlCan’tHang, Smokee and Derek joined later I think). The other big stack was Daddy, though he and I never got in a confrontation at this table.

I don’t remember whom exactly, but at some point, someone with a short stack in the cutoff push into my aces (I remember the face but not the name). He showed QT and flopped a straight. I still had an above average stack but I lost much of my mojo.

I got some back when Weak opened from early position and 200-400 blinds with 1300 or so, and Iggy in middle position pushed with about 4200 behind. It got to me and I had a sickening feeling when I saw Hilton Sisters. I put both of them on a fairly wide range but was pretty sure I had the best hand. Feeling quite vulnerable, I pushed. I had about 17k to Weak’s 13k, and he went into the tank. He eventually folded, later claiming AK. Interesting choice, clearly correct if he puts me on AA or KK, marginal if he puts me on my hand. Against my range there, I suppose AA-QQ and AKs, it’s probably correct, less so in pure pots odds and more so in tournament survival mode.

Iggy tabled AJo, and to Weak's and my dismay, an ace flopped. We were both quite relieved however when I resucked-out on the turn, earning boos from dwarflovers on the rail.

I played on, making a marginal call against Change100’s short stack UTG push when I had 88s in the small blind. I’ve played with Change100 online a few times and have her read as an aggressive player who is not about to blind out so I felt I was getting favorable odds against her range, particularly with the antes and the blinds. I did take one look at Grubbette and her stack in the BB to make sure I wasn’t opening myself up to something ugly—she only had a few more chips than Change100, so I pulled the trigger. We ended up heads-up with my snowmen holding against Change100’s AJ. I got a cool bounty with a leaf theme that I wore for the rest of the evening. Imagine my surprise when someone asked me if I smoked that shit…what kind of nutter smokes plastic?

Rimshot.

Blinds were by this time huge so even with the pots I was winning I was really just treading water.

I then made the one decision of the tourney that I am pretty sure was a mistake. I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but Lucko and Smokee had been jawing since the latter had sat down. I have to admit it was getting to me a little as I was expecting them to make moves—this seems part of each of their games, talk enough smack and show enough crap so that when they really have a hand, you’ll make a dumbass call.

This time, Lucko pushed early position preflop with about 12.5k into my 15k, with blinds at I think 400-800, 100 antes. He was just talking about not having a hand, and when I looked down and saw 88 again, my mind froze and I made a stupid push (it was really more of a call, but I figured I was committed anyway). It folded to Al Can’tHang, who with a short stack 7k or so and a hangover needing rest, decided to come along for the ride (Lucko has different stack numbers in his history, but I am nearly sure I am correct because I distinctly remember how much I had when the hand finished—my numbers make my play look worse if anything). We tabled our hands and I was the dumb monkey with 88 versus Lucko’s 99 and Al’s AQo. I was despondent to hear an 8 had been folded so I was drawing super thin--I sucked out in a major way however when the board four flushed, happy to basically get my chips back from the side pot as Al had a higher flush and Lucko was out of luck.

This was the first of two times that Lucko had me calling a big bet behind that weekend, the other was in a cash game at the IP later that night, though there it turned out I just barely had the correct odds to call, unfortunately for him the dealer didn’t cooperate either time. Having played live with him now for a few sessions, I have a new found respect for his game. It was my debate with him that set off CC’s post on the Weak-Tight Blogger theory. I think he over-generalizes—there is a wide range among blogger playing styles and many poker bloggers simply do not play weak-tight. In my mind, it’s not just a matter of bankroll, it’s also a phenomenon mirrored in the regular poker world among players who study the game. Weak-tight is a natural stage that many players go through as they expand their knowledge of the game and their playing experience. Some get through it quickly, some get past it too quickly and fall back to it, but few skip it entirely.

Anyway, back to the main story if you're still with me. I survived that hand and we played on at the table for a few more hours with the blinds, finally consolidating to two tables. I was fairly short stacked when I got there, with about 9k and an M of maybe 6. The blind structure in the tourney started out good but from the middle, it really went nuts with even big stacks playing effectively short. This is not meant to be a complaint against the organization (thanks April!), I understand for the money, Caesar’s structure was a reasonable balance between some play and having us there all night.

I did get lucky however in being sent to the penultimate table without all the big stacks. The other table had Daddy and -EV and just a lot of chips--we had Waffles, Irish MikeJim, California April, Toby from About.com and Vinnay among others. Not an easy table, but nobody had a monster stack, and a few players seemed to be distinctly in survival mode. Accordingly, I had to kick it up a notch. I started pushing in to any unopened pot with anything resembling a hand. Toby was doing the same thing plus a little more, as I think her opening standards were lower. From the outside however, I must have looked like the bigger psycho as I kept on getting cards good enough for the job--despite what people may think, I didn't once push with total rags while short stacked.

Once we got down to seven handed, this lead at one point to me going all in seven hands in a row. After the sixth hand without a showdown, I was on the button with KQ of diamonds. I thought for a moment figuring it was getting more and more likely I'd be called, but then again, I still needed to double up or grab the blinds, and KQ is definitely the kind of hand I'll push first with 9k and blinds of 1k-2k and 200 antes.

April folded her small blind, leaving it to Mr. 24 Off Unstable Dude in the big blind. He peaked down at his cards and looked disgusted. He started bitching to himself something about "knowing he was going regret it". I knew then I had a customer--and was pretty sure I was facing a coin flip. Sure enough, after more grumbling, he called and tabled tens. That was about two or three pips higher than I expected with the speech, but the odds were almost the same.
The door card was a lovely lady, which held up nicely. I was very happy to more than double up, though I must say I was disappointed not to get the full Waffles treatment right then and there. I suppose I’ll have to take his “CoxLover” post as a rant substitute.

That got me the momentum to make it to the final table—I started making less than all-in raises and continued to chip up. I did once find “aces” under the gun and pushed. It folded around to Irish MikeJim in the big blind, who thought for awhile and mucked. He steamed a bit when I tabled the beauty.

After Toby busted in 11th, I brokered a buy-in rebate save for 10th (sorry Toby, your welcome Byron) and we were all relieved to have at least cashed. Byron soon busted out on the other table, and when we consolidated, I found myself a middle stack with about 30k. Daddy was the big stack with about 85k, Veneno was hanging in there, especially after she laid a lovely KT-AK beat on –EV. We lost VinNay, Mattazuma and April. The blinds were patently insane, 2k-4k with unwieldy 400 antes, and I, as was most of the table, in push or fold mode. I acted accordingly and managed to chip up with some blind take downs.

The practical end for me came after I got up to about 42k. With six players left, in second position I found AK and raised it up to 12k. Veneno, who had laid down 77 face up to me an orbit before, pushed. It folded around to me and I had her covered by a measly 3k. If I fold, I have 30k chips left and an M of less 4. That’s back to the red zone, and after all, I do have a premium hand. I am pretty sure she has a pocket pair, there is a slim chance she has my hand or a weaker ace, and a very slim chance she has AA or KK. I’m just not about laying that hand down with the blinds as they were. I saw the chance to double up and be a close second to the chip leader, with the Golden Hammer at arm’s length, and I took it. She held TT, my hand didn’t approve, and I was crippled. No regrets.

Two hands later, with barely more than a big blind under the gun, I looked at my first card and saw an ace. Good enough and without looking at the second, I pushed my few remaining chips all in. Veneno and Daddy (in the big blind) both called me and checked down to the river. My other card was a deuce, and the river queen created a split main pot as IGHN against two QT offs.

Sixth place it was, disappointing at the end of course, but at the same time I was happy to have a decent cash given how short I had been and how slim I had been drawing against Lucko.

Congrats to –EV for taking the whole thing down.
See the flop...

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Day 2: Started Ugh, Finished Fine

11:30 Vegas time on Friday morning, after four hours of addled sleep I woke up with the overwhelming feeling that I’d rather not have. I thought I was going to avoid this this time, and I suppose it was improvement from July. But. I. Hurt.

I could not get back to sleep. So I undertook to shovel, shower, and schlep myself downstairs (a few others eshes as well I am sure). At the Geisha bar, I think were the brothers MrGrupp and Penner.

Feeling the dire need for a grease injection, I peeled off Penner and we marched up the strip. I’m not sure I was really providing coherent conversation, but I very much appreciated the camaraderie though I envied his human-normal hydration levels.

One Big Mac later, we resumed our northward march, taking a gander at the new Venetian poker room on the way to meeting up with Gracie and Maudie’s crew for brunch at the Wynn. Little did I know the feelings of pain and illness I felt as we walked through were not just my hangover but premonitions of my last session in Vegas—but enough of that now.

Onward to the Wynn I lurched with Penner (he wasn’t lurching). We then picked up strings of bloggers, including the soon-to-be Gigli and the entertaining author
of the red and green squiggles that adorn this piece as I type, and a long list of others as we filed into the buffet. I am afraid post-golden arches and inter-death haze I really wasn’t up to getting my money’s worth; I grabbed the most expensive looking food I could see but there was really no way I was getting more than one plate’s worth.

I sat across from Linda, and the Quiet Lion soon took the seat to my left. I managed to chat with him several times over the weekend—I personally found him funny as hell, though he had an odd, sick and twisted just this side of offensive sense of humor. I wasn’t present for the most egregious exchange that has been reported in the blog-o-sphere, and it sounds like he may have crossed the line. Poor attempt at humor or straight up deuchebaggery I will not deign to determine. Nevertheless, having heard the quotes, the offended people have every right to be offended, even if it was just an own-goal attempt at a joke.

Back at the IP, I shuffled up to my room for a desperately needed nap if I was to have any chance at catching the mixed games. I put a call into GCox, to whom I’d offered the second bed in my room as a small cost defrayal, to get him to grab his key. I drifted off, leaving the door ajar so he could get in without waking me up. 45 minutes later, from 10 feet outside the room, he phoned me. Doh!

He rolled on in for his own crash nap, especially since his night had tracked my own without the 4 hour sleep interlude. I drifted off, bliss—until THIS. Three times.

I’m not sure if I verbalized it, but I am sure thought crossed my mind to ask Gary if he felt his cell phone would work as well after bouncing from our tenth story balcony.

Lesson learned, I employed earplugs for the rest of the trip. Notwithstanding this, Gary was a pretty damn good roommate, particularly as I think that two hour naptime was the longest he spent in the room the whole weekend.

Since true sleep didn’t seem to be in the cards (pun intended), I put on my favorite shirt (if anything happens to said shirt, Mrs. SoxLover is the top suspect) and we headed down to see who was at the IP poker room. I saw a seat open at the 1-2 table to the right of Dawn and Karol, across from Falstaff, who greeted me with an insult (forget which one, they still blur) and next to some quiet dude with black hair intensely studying the table. Gary, you’ll be surprised to learn, hit the bar.

I played fairly tight, only blowing off chips a few small dust-ups with Karol, while I noticed a pattern emerging from the guy on my left. Dawn would bet, he would raise. Dawn was getting steamed, and I too got the feeling he might be coming in light. After awhile of this, the following hand came up. Dawn limps in middle position, I have QT sooooted and limp in behind her. Quiet guy makes it 15 to go and I can feel the daggers being eyed from my left to my right as it folded around to Dawn, who, with a scowl and a hiss, mucked her cards. I decided I would test my theory and see a flop.

Flop was AQ6 rainbow. I checked. Quiet guy makes it 20 to go. I thought for a little and made it 60. He went into the tank and finally mucked. Aha I thought, he was full of it! “Now maybe he’ll cut that shit out”, said Dawn.

Later, he told me he folded a weak ace. Oh, it turned out he was no Muggle, he was VinNay, one of our own, albeit a very quiet one of our own. We were to meet again on the final table the next day.

I ended up stuck a small amount for the session, and we cabbed it over (Gary and some others) to the MGM to find the blogger mixed games. These are a lot of fun since it’s a rare chance to play live games that I spend a lot of time playing online. HORSE is not my absolute favorite as I detest LHE and don’t really like O8, but all three stud games I love. (SoxLover’s ideal mixed rotation would be REST: Razz, Stud Eight, Stud High and Triple Draw, but despite my personality type, the world does not always run according to SoxLover.) I played the 2-4 HORSE for a little while, but when I realized a partial blogger 4-8 HORSE table was forming, I made the jump.

The only blogger I remember being there when I sat down initially (apologies if I forgot someone) was Toby. She was there with her beau, and I’d met them both at the Crackhouse tourneys back in the day.

I figured a random table would be soft since most people don’t play these games enough, but after a little while at my table, it became clear that most of the non-bloggers who had joined in did in fact play these games quite a bit—English accents were a big tell. It seems most people seeing the 4-8 on the board saw it as a great opportunity to get cheap practice for the much higher limits rotation usually is spread at in live rooms.

The table was tight and there were only a few obvious mistakes. Fortunately, the deck hit me and I was able to capitalize. I actually quartered some guy in a genormous stud 8 pot when we had the exact same low, very unlikely but nicely lucrative, especially as we had a couple of others along for the chase until 6th street.

Veneno/Al Can't Hang eventually joined us, with V playing the LHE and O8, and Al playing the stud games. This considerably loosened the table.

Later, the Quiet Lion and one of affiliates, a Simon something-or-ruther sat down with Michael Craig. I never mixed it up with the Lion, but he seemed to raise every single pot Michael played. It took awhile for the guy in between them to wake up to this pattern.

I hadn’t immediately realized Simon was with the Lion, but I did realize he knew what he was doing. We got in one big dust-up O8 hand when we both flopped the lock low, he with a straight redraw and me with a nut flush redraw. He got there, and worse yet my low got counterfeited on the river, ouchie. But I was able to rake in enough in various and sundry razz and stud hands to have a nice double up of my buy-in, that despite me missing a switch from razz to stud and capping 3 ways on third street with 7 hi. Oops.

In the meantime, Carmen showed up to compliment my awesome shirt and have it photographed for posterity. At the bar, Iggy later offered $125 to give the shirt to him off my back, but that was not nearly enough to part me from something the sight of which puts Dawn on autotilt (that plus the barman denied Iggy’s request to let me go shirtless, sorry ladies).

Pokered out for the night, I cashed out and went over to the bar to hang out with the gang. I kept it mellow, not trying to keep up with the general state of inebriation as I had the night before, and enjoyed the scene, chatting with Carmen, Iggy, Karol, Don, Joanne and others. It was a nice scene.

My favorite highlights were the Iggy-Karol GOP intramural debate and, of course, Waffles.

Favorite quotes from the dueling elephants were too long to repeat, but one riff included “it’s time to stop drinking the Kool Aid”, one of my personal lines as well. Nothing like a reference to mass suicide for a good chuckle!

As for Waffles, well, it was quintessential Waffles. Three marines at the bar, one of them making repeated attempts to, um, get to know Carmen and Love Elf, notwithstanding the fact that the latter had had a brand-new shiney rock on her finger placed there several hours before by the angriest man in poker.

After one last pass by a drunk Marine at Love Elf, and Waffles let the following rip:

"Don't you have some people to go kill?"

Luckily enough, the corporal was apparently too drunk to actually hear him as Don and I scurried in to stop what seemed to be imminent mayhem.

And that was the last highlight for Day 2 as I avoided the temptation to stay up with the crowd playing craps at the IP and got a full six(1) hours sleep as a prelude to the tourney.
See the flop...

Who me?








Dictator- ENTJ

86% Extraversion, 60% Intuition, 63% Thinking, 80% Judging

Have you no soul? It's clear you have no heart and that your blood runs
cold, but really, do you have even one redeeming factor?


Sure. You're a natural born leader. So was Hitler. You just don't like people, do you?


You don't play games. You take charge. And there's very little room for
mistakes in your world. You're forceful, intimidating and overbearing.


Heard of the word "patience?" Trust me, it's a word and it's something
you're sorely lacking. Believe it or not, you're not always right.
Learn to have some patience for those who think differently from you,
knobflap.


From the way people's knees knock when they see you, you should have
realised by now that you're not exactly a "people-person." You're more
of a "people-eater." You just ain't tuned into people's feelings and
probably couldn't care less whether you were anyway. Maybe you're not
from this planet but the rest of us are.


Sure, you're intelligent. So what? You have some semblance of power. Big deal.


At least people LIKE the rest of us.

*****************








My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
free online datingfree online dating
You scored higher than 98% on Extraversion
free online datingfree online dating
You scored higher than 35% on Intuition
free online datingfree online dating
You scored higher than 56% on Thinking
free online datingfree online dating
You scored higher than 94% on Judging


Link: The Brutally Honest Personality Test written by UltimateMaster on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test


Of course, Mrs. SoxLover is a Crackpot...I guess she'd have to be.
See the flop...

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

WPBT Trip Report, Surviving Day 1

First session up: the flight out.

Worked a half day from home on Thursday before heading to Newark for my 4:20 flight. Hit an unexpectedly good flop when checking into the electronic kiosk I was offered a seat on the 3:20—30 minutes to get through security and I was off early. Managed to double up when the window seat next to my middle seat remained empty after the cabin door shut. One Ambien and five hours of soon to be ridiculously scarce sleep later, we touched down in Vegas.

Second session stuck: the taxi ride.

Making it down the terminal in no time flat, I emerged to find the cab stand line all five (seven?), super-long rows full—ugh, AKQ flop holding 99. Thirty minutes later, I got pointed to my waiting minivan cab. Raring to get along to the IP (yes, it is a strange thing to rare to do), I step on the door jam with my back and jump in, nearly cracking my egg shaped had as it slammed into the top of the door. It. Really. Fucking. Hurt. Blood involved. Cut still healing. One-outer for sure.

Third session…bah, I can’t hold this up for the whole trip report.

So I got to the IP and checked into my luxurious palace of a room. Well not so much. But it was clean. I’ll say that much.

Down to the poker room I went, with plans to meet Weak and Miami Don. As I walked past the smaller but definitely better new IP poker room, Falstaff hailed me with one of his customary insults. I kind of lost track of which one it was that time as he seems ready with an endless supply but I am sure it typically well thought out and apropos of yours truly.

Falstaff was playing 1-2 and I joined him, soon to be followed by Don and Weak. It was good to meet Don again, this time for longer than the 30 seconds I had at the last event, then enjoying my own version of Vegas dysentery.

When time came for Pauly’s opening event, we flipped over to the Geisha bar and met oodles of bloggers, including of the new people most notably, for me at least, Mr. Low Limit Grinder himself. He looked about what I expected, though I must admit the tail through me for a loop—reminded me of high school too. We had agreed to share a room together for Friday and Saturday to save a few extra bucks and it turned out to be a pretty good deal for me as I think he spent all of 45 minutes sleeping for the rest of the weekend. I hope he is alive to read this.

The bar teemed with bloggers as midnight arrived. We began drinking in earnest. All the usual suspects. Two prominent candidates for the drunken Lewey did pull away from the pack, the stories for which I will leave for others to tell. I will only say that I was glad to find out the mystery of why FTrain and I were redirected away from the casino level men’s room.

I think I did managed after some interlude to find my way back into the poker room, at which I somehow found myself seated at my only 2-5 game the whole weekend (I had planned not to play much “serious” poker over this trip). Fortunately, the IP 2-5 is a retarded 300 max (especially retarded given that the 1-2 is 200), so there was only so much damage I could do to myself. Penner was three off to my left and I avoided giving him too many chips. I did manage a three overcards to my hand raise, reraise all-in push bluff that worked against some annoying guy two to my left (annoying generally defined in this context as someone who always raises me). He got up soon thereafter and, after looking down and seeing that I was somehow up 100, looking around and determining in my then current state I just might be the mark remaining, decided to join Penner in 2-4 limit, a game only bearable when lit like a roman candle.

He was on my right and dutifully chased every draw, most memorably cracking my top pair with a rivered fill of his 73o. So, I lost 80 at 2-4 table in less than hour, a hard feat indeed, but it was all good.

Back to the bar and around 7, deep in the corned of the brain, I remember having told myself that night 1 in Vegas need to end before sunlight became involved. Last summer, soon after this state on the analogous date, Garth and I got the brilliant idea to play the Binion’s 10:00 AM tourney. Notwithstanding the sleep I got there at the final table , getting to bed at 3:30 that afternoon had cost me Friday night mixed games and had lead to the previously described gastronomic conditions on Saturday. It even lead to me ordering Earl Grey Tea will spectating FTrain’s championship run, resulting in Joe Speaker’s everlasting disdain.

So I crashed...
See the flop...

Saturday, December 02, 2006

Take your $1 and Shove it Where the Sun Don't Shine

This happenened to me deep, I mean deep, into the 100+9 shorthanded table tourney.

I chipped back up near the bubble.

Then I got AK suited all in against JJ.

I had been chip leader for a hour earlier.

I won $0.
See the flop...