Nancy Drew

If you are not interested in long, boring, poker-related blogs, skip to the previous blog. If you are interested in angry, slightly depressing poker tales, keep reading.

So I went to the casino again tonight. I was feeling really well, and sat at sort of a dream table. There were only one or two people at the table that I didn't recognize, which means that I had a pretty good idea of how everybody played. Most of the players are fairly decent, so it looked like it would be a good and enjoyable night for me overall. My very first hand I was dealt Ks8c in the BB and saw an unraised flop with 4 other people. Flop comes Kxx rainbow and I bet pot. 2 callers. Turn peels off a second heart, and I pop another pot bet out. The next guy to act says "Pot, pot, huh?" I reply "Probably some sort of tell." They both fold. I'm so witty. A couple of hands later, I'm dealt AJo in late position. An old guy on my right that I don't recognize makes it $10, I call, and the SB calls. Flop Ad 6s 2d. SB checks, old guy bets $10, I raise to $35, SB calls, old guy folds. turn comes another 2, SB bets $50 and I go into the tank. Hands I'm afraid of: 66, AQ, AK. AK or AQ he is leading out on the flop because of the diamonds, or he is at least check-raising. 66 he is check-raising the flop and then checking the turn because he boated. I decide I'm good and move in for another $25ish. He calls and shows A5o, drawing dead to 3 5's or an A or 2 for the split. River is his miracle A, and I have to chop the $250ish pot instead of scooping it. I fold a couple of rounds and then get dealt AThh in the BB with 4 limpers. I decide to make it $5 straight to build a pot in case I hit the flop. Old guy calls saying "not enough to make me fold," and I know he has some sort of connectors. Flop T84 rainbow. I lead out $30, folded to old guy who makes it $60. I instantly know he has T8. I actually said it in my head. The problem is that my mouth said "All-in" right after that, he calls. I say "You have T8" before he flips it over, and sure enough, he shows T8, and I brick out. I rebuy another $100, and play a couple of hands, getting up to around $120 again. I'm dealt 9s8c in the steal position, and the hand gets folded to a decent player immediately on my right. He pops it to $10, and I instantly recognize the steal, so I call. We take the A56dd flop heads up, and he bets $15. This is a weak bet, and I again say in my head "He has nothing, raise." So I call. The turn is an offsuit 2, and he bets $28ish (something odd and weak looking), and I again say in my head "He has nothing, raise." So I call. The river peels an offsuit 9. He thinks forever, asks me for a count ($65), counts out $65 of his own, plays with it, looks at me, looks at the board, thinks some more, and then checks. I think I have the best hand here, but I know I should move in because he will definitely fold if I do. So I check. He flips over Q9o, meaning that if I had listened to myself at any point in the pot, I would've won. But I didn't. I took another flop or two and missed to get down to around $30 when I felted again. I limped with T9o in EP. A late position caller, the SB and I took a flop of 8c 6c 3h. The SB checked, I checked, and the button bet $7. The SB called, and I thought for a minute before I sent the chips in for something like $26 more. I put both of them on draws or weak pairs, assuming that I would have 2 overs, a gutterball, and possibly running clubs. The button looked me up with 98o and I bricked out to get felted again.

I'm really not sure what is going on with me. I have been ridiculously card dead for nearly a month now. In over 45 hours of live play at the casino, I have been dealt AA exactly one time in a bounty tournament, and zero times in a cash game. I have had KK exactly 3 times, one of which was against AA that cost me $500 on a 225 rainbow flop. I've had QQ and JJ several times, but anybody that didn't skip this section knows the roller coaster that those hands are. Card deadness aside, I'm inside of other peoples' heads. I simply know what is going on at all times. Which is amazing considering that I keep doing the exact opposite of what I think I should. 2 of the last 3 trips I should've cleaned house for probably $300-$400 per trip, but both times I ended up -$200. The only thing wrong with my game right now is me, and I'm not yet sure how to fix me. I'm contemplating doing something mildly stupid in the coming week, but I won't disclose it yet. Let's suffice it to say that it involves a game that I shouldn't sit at for several reasons, the biggest one being that I don't have myself under control. I'll see how I feel in the morning.

Job, Mom, Poker

So I called back about my job yesterday, expecting to get the brush-off since they didn't call me when they were supposed to. Turns out they are just waiting to hear back about times when they can interview me again, so they are supposed to call today. At this rate, I MIGHT be working by July. I'm sure the parents will love that.

I got a hilarious phone call from my mom yesterday. I just missed a call and called her right back and my dad answered her phone. My parents still pay my cell phone bill because I don't have a big boy job, and my dad said that my phone bill was really high because of all the text messages I sent last month. I'm normally not a texter, but for some reason became one last month and knew that this phone call was coming. My dad puts my mom on, and I get this conversation:

"Bret, be honest with me, how long have you been texting?"
"Um, seriously? For a long time, like a year I guess."
"Why wouldn't you tell me? You can tell me these things."
"Are we talking about heroin?"
"What? Heroin?"
"Yeah, because... I have no idea what is going on. (Laughter)"
"Bret, this is not funny, this is serious. Don't you trust me to tell me these things anymore?"
"Wow. You're right, I'm sorry. I have a texting problem."
"It's not a problem honey, we can just add it on the bill. You just should've told me."

After I hung up I think I laughed for about five solid minutes. My mom was incredibly hurt by the fact that I wouldn't share such intensely personal things with her such as why I would send a text to somebody rather than just call them. Sigh. I love my parents.

I went back to the casino to play poker for the first time since the "Introspective" post and I did fairly well. I'm still ridiculously card dead, but I made $150 in around 5.5 hours, so I can't argue. I got really lucky in an interesting pot. A guy that had been flopping sets every time he had a pocket pair had limped up front, a fairly tight player had raised in MP, I called with JTcc, and Sets McGee called. The flop came J84 rainbow, Sets checked, MP bet $25, I called, and Sets called. The turn was a 2, and Sets led out $35. MP looked pained and finally called, and I was in the tank. Sets had slow-played everything to this point, and he hadn't played it like this, so I put him on either an under pair or total air. Since MP was a decent player and had such a hard time calling, I put him on a hand like TT or 99, and decided to move in for another $100ish after about 2 minutes. Sets pitched it and MP looked pissed, however, he then said "I can't fold this" and my heart sank because I already knew that he was about to flip over AA. He did, but the river was the miracle J to ship me the +$300 pot. I hovered between $300 and $400 for the next 2-3 hours by just flat out stealing pots here and there, and then caught a mini run of cards that kept getting crushed. I would raise with like AJo, KQs, 88, etc, and either get re popped or totally miss the flop in a multi-way pot that I couldn't bet at. I'll take the $27 an hour though, but I'd like to go back to late April where I was making over $100 an hour consistently.

Out of Place, Poker

I went to Omaha last night to hang out with my buddy Mike for his birthday. We went to eat at Cheeseburger in Paradise (delicious), and then we went to the Reel Martini Bar. It was fun, but I definitely felt out of place. I was one of the very few people there that isn't in med school. It's amazing how people form their little groups that become like family. Everybody was incredibly nice, and I actually knew a couple of the other people, but I definitely didn't feel like I was a part of the group. I'm sure this won't be the last time it ever happens.

I've taken the last two days off of poker. I still don't feel like I could play a solid game right now, so it's best to just avoid the casino. To get my fix, I'm playing tiny little $1 and $.50 tournaments online. They are incredibly funny, because everybody thinks that they are the best player in the world, and people get into heated arguments over like $5. I wish I had these peoples' lives so my biggest concern was some 19 year old making a dumb play that cost me $2. Oh wait, I sort of have that life...

Introspective

Chelsea asked in response to my last blog if it was fair to say that poker was the #1 love of my life. I said that it is right now, but no matter what, I will always love it, and here's why. I went to the casino again tonight with Matt, and things started out very well. After about 2 hours, I was up nearly $300. I got wrapped up in a large pot and had to fold, but not before it cost me about $200. I stopped playing this game to play a tournament, but got busted out of it when I put all of my money in when I could only lose to 2 cards. At this point, I was pretty even monetarily, but I decided to play the game I was playing before again. When I sat back down, I saw the table very clearly. When I say this, I mean that I pretty much knew what each person had in every hand. You may be skeptical of this, and that's fine, but it really is true; you can know what somebody has even without seeing their cards. This would normally be a very profitable scenario for me, but for some reason I decided that I needed to lose. It wasn't a conscious decision, but I realize after looking back that this is exactly what I did. People would give little speeches or stare me down and I would know that not only was I beat, but that there was no way that they were going to fold, and I would shove a pile of chips into the pot anyway. I don't know why I did it, but it is why I love poker. I ended up losing $200 on the night, but I'm going to learn something priceless about myself when I eventually figure out why I sometimes feel like I don't deserve to win. When I do that, I will be able to spot when I'm about to do it or am doing it and stop it. Nothing else can teach me lessons like this. In scenarios in life, I maybe would've sabotaged myself for a promotion by saying something stupid to my boss or showing up late for work, but I could've blamed it on external factors. When I'm sitting above the felt, I am the only thing that I have control over. I can't control the cards, I can't totally control the other people, but I have total control over myself. If you choose to dive into the game of poker, you're choosing to tangle with all of your personal garbage and demons. I've got more, so I'll probably go back tomorrow.

Poker, Job, Blog

We went to the casino last night to play poker, and are headed back there momentarily. It still sort of amazes me how much I enjoy playing poker, despite the fact that I've spent several thousand hours doing so. It's just such a mental joust that it keeps me interested for longer than my usual five minute limit.

I heard back about my job yesterday. Things look good for me to get hired, but I'm super-bummed about the salary. The annual salary is around 20-30% less than they actually told me, which I'm having a REALLY hard time digesting. It went from a good paying job to probably less than I'm actually worth. It's an arrogant statement, but I paid more for a Wesleyan education for a reason, right? Kurt, one of my friend's fathers, once said something that is very true. He said that everybody is underpaid after six months. That makes me extremely hesitant to start off being underpaid, because in six months I would just be getting straight fucked. We'll see, I have a couple of days to think it over before they call me back to set up another interview.

Blog readership is down since school let out. I need to lure Chelsea's Internet friends over here somehow...

Dreams Again

Had another funky dream last night, but I don't remember this one as vividly as some of the other. Here are the things I remember:

Casino in some remote location that took a long time to drive to
Ex-girlfriend and entire family at casino, including substitutes for siblings
Homer Simpson
Some sort of war
No. 9
An ancient bravery trial that I've never seen before
Airplanes
Gasoline
Difficult jogging track that went uphill
An Indian family (from India)
Car theft
Naan
Strange city that I've never been in
Murder? (Not sure if the guy died)

This is about all that I can remember for certain. I wish I remembered this dream better, because it obviously has a lot of interesting things in it.

I'm supposed to run errands today, but I waaaaaaaaay overslept, so we'll see how much I get done.

Update

Haven't posted for a bit. Finals week was okay. I finished everything that I needed to for my current classes, but didn't finish the Research Methods paper or my Senior Thesis. Bummer. Oh well, I have 8 million hours of free time now to finish them. I'll probably start cracking again this week if the library is open.

Finally got a full 8 hours of sleep last night for the first time since like Tuesday of last week. I've been pretty bad to my body this week; lack of sleep, lots of booze, too many cigarettes. On the agenda this week: stop smoking, sign up for a membership at the YMCA a block from my house, cut back on drinking.

Also on the agenda: get oil change/required maintenance on my truck, play a TON of poker in Omaha, go see Cake in Council Bluffs, go to Pirates of the Caribbean, look for a new car on the intertubes, rehang my punching bag. Wow I have a busy week ahead of me.

At some point, I will hopefully have another interview with ITI. I had one today (sort of, ask me for the long story, or don't), and they said that they were going to call to set up another interview. It kind of stinks that I may not get my opportunity to try and live as a professional poker player, but the job sounds like a lot of fun, with lots of travel, and it pays pretty well, so I'd be a mental defect to turn it down if offered. Now I must eat and get ready for work. Regularity shall return to the blog this week.

Dream, Finals, 600

I had a trippy dream again, and thought you would all enjoy. Chelsea and I were going on a date. There was a comedian in the basement of the library. We were walking to the library and there was a terrible storm that looked like it was about to drop numerous tornadoes and lightning was everywhere, but Chelsea was unconcerned with it. When we got in the library, the ground floor was a weight room. We navigated through that to the stairs, but there were no stairs. To go up or down, you had to climb on something that looked like the bottom end of an egg beater. This neat metal thing stretched all the way up and down the five or so floors of the library. In the basement, there was this big Gothic theater with only maybe 30 padded metal chairs. Before the comedian would perform, we all had to climb to the 3rd floor because he demanded that we all went to the bathroom first, and the only bathroom was on the 3rd floor. As we were climbing, I was all of a sudden riding in the backseat of a car. Quiller was driving, and one of his roommates was in the passenger seat. We were driving past all of these odd houses. I remember one house was made to look like the Flintstones house, another was up on a giant white column. Quiller lived amongst these in a shithole of a house. When we got there, we found a shredded jersey that was apparently Chelsea's, and everybody thought she was dead. All of a sudden, Quiller's dad showed up with the cops and said that she had faked her own death. It was still storming terribly. Right as he was about to say why she had faked her own death, my alarm went off. I was very unhappy. I wanted to know why she faked her own death.

I'm almost done. I have a paper due at 7:30am that I am finishing now, and I have a test at that time as well. Then, Trivial Pursuit...

I also hit 600 posts at some point this evening. This last hundred added Malaysia and Taiwan to the viewers, which is neat. Most likely though, the last few visits came from me bouncing around from computer lab to computer lab. Oh well, I'll take it.

Nothing Really

I haven't posted in several days, and felt the need to. Nothing much has been happening. I haven't gotten as much done on school stuff as I wanted to, but over the years I've learned to make schedules with slack time built in because I know myself too well, so I'm still in decent shape. On Wednesday I'll probably be pretty screwed.

Friday night I went to a going away party for my friend in Fremont. He's moving to Wichita to take a new job. It was fun, and I hope for the best for him. I'm really glad he took this position, because Wichita is not that far away. Some of his other potential promotions were in west Texas or far eastern Iowa, and a few other distant locations, so this works out best for me. People should plan their futures around what works best for me, because that way my life is less stressful.

I asked for truck repairs for graduation, and my parents are thinking that they might just trade my truck in and get something different. I have a few cars in mind that I like, but as with everything in life, they don't like what I like. I always sound incredibly ungrateful explaining things like this, because having my parents buy me a car is a wonderful luxury that most people my age don't have, however, it sucks not having much say in fairly significant life decisions (I feel that large purchases are major life decisions, I'm probably wrong). What sucks is that the few cars that I like are actually well thought out, responsible choices. I'm not asking them to buy me a brand new Mercedes or anything of that nature, but I think a practical all-around car for me is a 4 door, all-wheel drive, post-2000, mid-mileage car. It's something that will last me a while and will be versatile (people carrying, all-year mobility). My parents instantly assumed that I just wanted something sporty and flashy on the basis that I'm immature. While that is a very good assumption based on my personal history, I'm actually starting to grow up. I don't get the chance to show them very often, so it's not really their fault for not knowing, but it is frustrating nonetheless. They'll probably show up with a car one day soon and take the keys to my truck as is the norm. I think psychologists call this Family Dynamic. Dynamic implies change.

Well, now to start cracking on scholastic stuff. I probably won't post again until Wednesday or Thursday.

Macbeth, Sleeping Pill, School

I think Macbeth did murder sleep. I didn't get much sleep on Sunday or Monday nights (a combined six hours I think), so my game plan was to get home from class at 10:00 on Tuesday morning and just go to sleep and wake up whenever. What I actually did was lay (lie?) in bed until 9:30pm wanting nothing more than to pass out but being unable to. I was so tired I couldn't function yet I couldn't just fall asleep.

My solution was to get a sleeping pill from one of my roommates. He has this prescription strength stuff that I cannot remember the name of, but I know for a fact is very, very strong. I took about 100mg (1/4 of a pill) at 11:00pm so that I could wake up for my 10am class. I fell asleep around midnight. I woke up at 4pm today. For those of you playing the home game, that's 16 hours of sleep. The REALLY sad part is that I still feel like I could just go back to bed right now. The things preventing me from doing that is that I've already lost a very needed two days of working time for school projects and that my body is actually sore from being in bed so long. Note to self: at that stage of sleep deprivation, drugs are a BAD idea.

School is still crushing my skull. In the final nine days (I may be off, my brain is still trying to lead me to bed, thus making it untrustworthy) before school is out, I have: 2 large research papers to finish, 1 not-so-large research paper to finish, 1 small paper to finish, 2 stories to revise, 1 journal to do, and 1 graduation party to plan. I also have a test to study for, but it really isn't going to be hard, so if I don't get actual study time, I'm not concerned. Oh, and I have to write a short paper stating what grade I should get in my Advanced Fiction class, including justification. And a short paper explaining what research I did for my stories. None of it is incredibly difficult, but it all takes time, and the last few grains of sand are beginning to fall through the hourglass.

Posting will be spotty over the next week and a half.

Yep, 500

Workshop went pretty much as expected. I'm cool with it though, because I think for the first time in my writing career I know exactly how to fix my story, or at least exactly what to do next. Usually I leave workshops with a vague idea of what I should and could do with the story, but no real concrete direction to head towards. This time, I know exactly where I'm going to start revising, what I'm going to revise and so on. I'm actually looking forward to revising a story.


I passed 500 visits today. This last hundred added visitors from India and Switzerland. I haven't had a return visit from a foreign visitor yet, but hopefully one of them will accidentally click on a link to my blog again.

The Squeeze

This is the time of year that crushes the life out of students, and likely takes years off of the life of students, too. College is structured very poorly in that all of the classes have major projects and such due at roughly the same time of year. Ideally, the students would be working on these things all year long, however, the reality is that we get crushed right before the end of the semesters. It won't be long before college faculty and administrators realize that a major change in the way we go about education is necessary. If it is a long time before the change, I will strongly encourage my kids to forgo college if they don't need it (not becoming doctors, lawyers, mechanics, etc.).

Personally, I'm best under pressure. I absolutely hate it, but a lack of time forces me to stop questioning myself and act on my gut. My gut is good. The problem is that this time of year forces me into such a downward spiral of self-loathing that it gets ridiculous. I hate not having any time to do what I want any more.

I finished my story around 3:30-4ish today and dumped it in the box. I think it is good, but I think it drones on in some places. A lot of that was trying to fill pages. I'm not sure, but I think the story was supposed to be even longer than it is. There is room for expansion, but I didn't discover this until I was finished. Oh well, we'll likely spend 80% of the time talking about the few places where the underdeveloped story lines seem to stick out. So it goes. Keep your heads up, we'll all get through it. And then we should barbeque at my place.

Fiction Research

So I've always done a little bit of research for every story that I've written, but this one is crushing my face. As you all may know, I'm writing about a guy in Lincoln buying a Triumph motorcycle and then riding it to Sturgis. I randomly searched eBay and found a 1973 Triumph Bonneville T120 for sale in a place called Elginburg, Ontario, Canada. I decided to have my character fly out there, get a mechanic to fix the minor things wrong with the bike, and then have my main character drive it the 1600 miles from Kingston (city near tiny Elginburg) to Sturgis. After all the research I did about Sturgis, I decided not to have him make it. Even from the beginning of the story, the whole idea seems like a long shot, and I thought it wouldn't feel right if Wyatt (main character) made it. Rest assured, it will still feel like a triumph even though he is going to break down.

The thing that is crushing my face right now is that I'm totally unfamiliar with EVERYTHING in my story. It is actually starting to piss me off because I'm writing one or two sentences, and then I have to look something up on the Internet. I know Michael said that this wasn't necessarily research, but I'm not going to call a random person in Kingston to ask about the city and airport, a random person in Detroit, Chicago, Minnesota, and middle-of-nowhere South Dakota to ask about their respective areas. Also, my not-research is producing some fairly authentic sounding material. It just sucks because at this rate, I will be done at 10am, but I won't have slept. I like sleepy. We are friends. I'm good at it. Sigh.

Research Paper, Story

I spent over 4 hours in the library tonight entering data for a research paper that I have due soon, and it was the opposite of fun. I've said before and I will say again, I enjoy writing creatively about 300 million times more than writing scholarly type material.

Because of said research paper, my story will come in on Wednesday morning. I will put it in the bin around 10ish as well as e-mail it out to everybody. My research for that story is interesting. I really didn't know anything about Sturgis before I started this story, and while I still really haven't scratched the surface of the event, my childlike ignorance is gone now.

I promise a lengthier post when I actually have some free time.