Monkey Around

Well it has been a bit since I scribbled here last so I figured I could take a moment a post. Nothing new to report. Man that was easy!!

The job search continues to go slow, several hits on the resume, lot’s of phone interviews, a few live ones, but nothing leading to an offer thus far. The temp jobs are not too bad; I’m getting paid about the same as my last job, but sadly no benefits at this time. If I remember correctly, you need to work at least 1,000 hours in a nine-month period to qualify or something crazy like that.

As for the poker front, haven’t been playing much online at all, just the tourney formally know as the Wheaties (WWdN), now know as The Monkey Tourney. It fills the spot nicely but is quite a bit smaller with only 20 or so players and usually about 16 showing up on any one night. Still Tuesday night on PokerStars, still starts at 8:30 pm ET, still only $10+1, and yes, the password is still Monkey. I also have started a nice little Monkey Hammer web album, so far they are coming in slow, but then again it takes a bit to get used to taking screen caps.

Last nights game was kind of fun in a different way for me, I actually got to play host. As you all know, playing host carries with it enormous responsibility. Keeping track of who takes out the bounties so next weeks games are named and set up properly and doing the write-up for the website. Having never done the write up before, my fellow players advised me that it should either be funny or ghey. I think I may well found a good balance between the two. Here is my favorite excerpt from The Monkey Tourney website write up that I did, inspired by all the stories and news clips going on over that baseball homerun record thingy. It is virtually all a lie, except for the part that is true:

In all, it was an excellent game, but not without controversy. After playing a record breaking 756 hands, 65 pony boy took down the game. But this event has been overshadowed by rumors and allegations that pony boy had been using performance enhancing substances, namely ginseng (for energy and stamina) and ginkgo biloba (a memory enhancer).

Listening to ‘the man on the street,’ the prevailing opinion is, “It looks like poker has finally got its wish. It will now be viewed as a sport, performance enhancing drugs and all, just like cycling and the Tour d’ France.”

According to officials, Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), who introduced H.R. 4777, the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act into the SAFE Ports Act at the last moment in 2006, will be requesting hearings into this matter on Capitol Hill when Congress returns from its August recess.

So what do you think, funny, ghey, or both?

Outside of the Monkey, the rest of my poker has been live in the bar games. I have been doing much better in side games that develop after the freeroll tourney has completed. I had been getting worried about my cash game because for quite sometime, I was feeling lucky if I just broke even. Then I had that moment of clarity, I realized that because I was worried about the job situation and the tightness of the funds, I was too afraid to lose anything in the cash game, and my game suffered. Once I realized that, I just pretty much gave up on the cash games.

Now that I have been working assignment regularly for awhile now, I am much more comfortable. Nowadays when I sit at these (low buy-in) cash games I typically cash out two or three buy-ins up, so I can feel good about that. Once I have a ‘real’ job I can get back to setting up and building a bankroll for the live games and move to one of the big games in town.

For the bar games, the buy-in is quite low and quite light based on the game. Buy-ins are $20-$40 and the game is $0.50/$1.00 NLHE, usually 8 max due to the size of the tables and the traffic in the room. It’s a bit whacked, I know, but it is run in a bar, so most people are playing with either a real good buzz or are smashed, the place is full of other drunken people, and we also want to keep it friendly. Still, buy the end of the night there is typically between $300 and $700 on the table.

With a bit of luck, one day soon I’ll be back into full bankroll management/development mode and not just playing with that little bit left over from last week mode.