Thursday, July 20, 2006

Four to Seven

Not too bad last night, went out in seventh. While normally I would be a bit more upset with such a low finish on the final table, not this time. During a bit over five hours of play, I won a total of four hands and only had two fold to me. I was getting craptastic cards all night long, but on those few occasions that I hit, I managed to get paid off on them so it was all good.

Not sure if I’ll be heading out to the game tonight. I am tempted and I do need some more points to get myself back into the top nine, as I just recently slipped down to tenth. To be honest, I’m surprised I stayed up as long as I did as I took about five weeks off (well actually more like only once a week). Have about six weeks to get myself back up there so I can play in the “Best of the Best” game at the end of August. It’s a special game for the top nine players that they do once every six months, the winner from the last one has a nice little trip to Vegas that he leaves for today…

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

That Was Fun

Was running a bit late to the WWdN last night, missed an orbit or two so I got to start just a bit short. Took me a bit to get going, won a few small pots and got myself back up over the starting amount. One hand that had two callers got to me in the SB so I completed figuring what the heck, they’re not great but for only 10 more…then Hoy makes it 100 to go. Buh-bye chips, I folded it as soon as it got to me. I limped one more time and Hoy did the same thing to me….at least he had a pattern.

Shortly before Level 2 I looked down at a KQs in the SB. Since it was just Hoy and me in the pot, I just limped and as expected Hoy made it 100. The flop had a K rags so I bet the pot and Hoy called. The Turn was a J so I bet again and he called and the River was yet another J. This time I checked and Hoy pulled a Hoy on me. I though about it for a minute and made the call. Hoy was playing A rag and was left with one chip, which was his all-in in the SB. Poor Hoy was out before Level 2 blinds. After that it seemed I was good in any pot that did not exceed 4x the BB, if it got over that amount it just seemed I was doomed to lose it. All in all, it was a fun game. I did have one too many by later on in the game and began playing my best drunken lemur game before eventually going out in 16th place.

After that, I naturally thought I just had to keep playing so I fired up a ring game, refreshed my drink and took about 10-15 minutes to donk off ½ my buy-in. Somehow I managed to realize that I had too much to drink to keep playing so I cut my loses and shut down the pc. Would have been better if I had shut down right after the tourney, but at least I did not lose my full buy-in.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Root Canal

Well it looks like I get to have a root canal done!! They did the preliminary work on it last week and they are getting the insurance authorization for the procedure. Guess I’ll be an indentured servant in a week or so, what fun!

Last night’s game was rather interesting. In the span of two and a half hours (the total amount of time I was in the game) by best hand was an ATo. I got only one pocket pair, 77, and they cost me several hundred chips. The lack of pocket pairs or any two decent overs was more than made up for by the seven times I was dealt Q9, four of which were sooooted. I was getting them so often I felt obligated to play them after awhile, of course they never hit. Oh, and that best hand I was dealt, you know that ATo, well that was also my last hand as I raised on the flop when an A appeared and it folded to the button who pushed and I called (by chance we had exactly the same amount of chips). He showed A6o and spiked a 6 on the river.

Don’t forget that the WWdN is tonight on PokerStars! Though a portion of our brethren is still in Vegas, a larger portion has returned so we should have a fairly decent turnout this week. Hope to see you there!

Monday, July 10, 2006

What a Weekend

Saturday I got to play tech support. One of my coworkers needed help with her PC and get her VOIP set up. After getting everything together and finding a power strip it looked like we were good, with the exception of having no mouse. I was hoping I would be able to muddle my way through without it, but it seems that getting the PC running was not in the cards.

Turns out, Windows would not even boot, not even in safe mode! What’s a person to do? I had them find me the system disc’s that came with the PC. The restore CD’s were all packaged together in a plastic bag. That’s right, all of them just thrown together in a plastic bag. They were so scratched up that they were unreadable. It also turns out that they got rid of the CD from their broadband provider that had the drivers for their DSL modem. Someone had told them that all the stuff from Yahoo that was included with the drivers on the disc was full of spyware that would slow their system down so they just trashed it.

So next weekend the saga will continue as I track down a mouse, keyboard, and Windows XP and hopefully get that sucker up and running. I should have her get the drivers and burn them to a CD while at work so we can get their broadband up and running.

Sunday was yard work fest. It was way too hot and muggy if you ask me, but the weeds were getting out of hand. Spent way too many hours out there for my comfort level. It was probably a good thing that I set up the min collapsible pool last weekend. I think it’s about 10 feet in diameter and about 3 feet deep or so. It was nice to take a dunk in the pool, even had the company of Guinness in the pool. Guinness our Rottweiler, not the beer, though that would have been nice too!

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Bubbles

Don’t you just love being the bubble? That’s right, you guessed it, yours truly was last nights bubble boy. I was hoping to double up against the big stack again; he had been playing a lot of hands and making too many raises and all-in calls, though sometimes he did actually have it. Anyhow we were five handed and I was holding pocket nines. I led off with a standard raise and then he reraised me so I just pushed. He was holding Big Slick and with the A on the flop I knew I was done. So off to the bar I went and Nancy the bartender was kind enough to pour me a Bacardi and diet, on the house.

Looks like this weekend I’ll be playing tech support for a friend with massive computer issues so it looks like I will not be hitting any of the live games. I actually think it may be nice to have a weekend without wanting to pound my head through the wall after taking a bad beat or a major suck-out. Instead, I’ll get to approach stroke levels as I try to figure out why the hell the computer is not doing what it should be doing. Wish me luck!

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

4th

Well I had a decent night on Monday, took 4th in the tourney. The follow up on Tuesday was not quite so good, got down to two tables but lost a huge pot pretty early on that crippled me. Oh well, das pokah. After busting out I sauntered over to the bar to finish my beer and catch the last 10 minutes of the World Cup. That first goal by the Italians in the last two minutes of the second over-time was just amazing. The next one that followed less than a minute later was not quite as impressive as the Italians had that poor German goal tender surrounded.

The fireworks were alright, the bar where we were playing had a direct line of site to the show, so that was cool. The TD gave us all a 20 min break to watch the show, but the blinds had to stay on the clock so we all faced the brutal 200/400 to 500/1000 jump in blinds when we got back. To help make up for it the TD announced that anyone who spent $10 at the bar during the next 30 min would get a bonus 1000 chip, not an easy task considering almost everything was on special for the 4th!! Everyone was fine with that, gotta keep the bar happy after all!

Gonna have to make another crack at a final table tonight, haven’t been playing in the live games as much over the past month, and when I have, I’ve been running cold. So here’s to turning on the heat and taking this one down tonight!

Monday, July 03, 2006

Quit Being Pissy

Another lousy weekend at the tables. Down a buy-in and two tourneys without a final table, ho-hum. Saturday was irritating because I made it down to the last two before going out in 12th when my KQs lost to pocket 4’s. Went to the bar until a spot opened at the cash table and the woman bitched at me for being pissy. At the cash table, I got my buy-in and there were a couple of stacks there, didn’t win a single pot. That’s right, not a one. Nothing but drawing hands and never made a pair. Any pot I was in had a stack that would call or raise simply because they could. Back to the bar and hear ‘quit being pissy’ again. I guess I was ruining her night sitting on the corner and being quiet rather than chatting it up with her and her friend.

Sunday was about the same. Just wasn’t getting the cards and the draws were missing and it was tough to induce a fold at the table I spent most of my night at. The blinds were up to 500/1000 and I was sitting on about 5500. When the BB got to me, the button min raised me. I figured he was trying to steal and I was holding a J9s, so I figured wtf, push. Turns out the button also had 5500 and he called. He was on a steal with Q7o, but since his raise was damn near ½ his chips he had to call. Blanks to the river and out I went.

As I head to the bar, there she is with her friend and I tell her I just busted out. ‘Quit being pissy.’ I was just going wtf. I just fucking busted out of the tourney less than 4.2 seconds ago!! Guess I should be doing cartwheels of joy the instant I bust out of a tourney.

‘You should just play to have fun, if it’s not fun quit.’
‘Everyone gets bad cards and loses so quit being pissy.’
‘I’m here to be social and have fun.’

Sorry, I play to win, and when I don’t I will be irritated, i.e. pissy, for a bit. The Sunday hand I busted out with I figured I was on a coin-flip at best. I was not upset by the play or the way it turned out, but I was still upset to lose.

Sadly, she is not there for the cards, she is there for the social aspect. It really sucks when she dumps one, two, or three buy-ins having fun. I for one am a bit better than breakeven at the cash games, but when you add on her fun, we are way the fuck behind.

She says she loves the game, so do I. Problem is, she loves the game as a vehicle and I love the game for the game. So I guess that means that once again tonight I’ll get bitched at for being pissy.