Booze, Gallup, Visitors, Internet, Poker

I had an interesting night last night. Matt and I went to the Roadhouse which is by the state pen, and I effectively got drunk and dealt with several lingering life issues. I phoned a female that I'm somewhat involved with and told her that she needs to stop being an idiot and be with me or cut me loose (I'm biased toward myself). I also confronted a guy (in a very adult manner, I was proud of myself) that has been a dick to my ex-girlfriend lately. I told Matt why I think his life is stalled and how he can go about fixing it, and I just generally aired all of the dirty laundry that I let pile up in my head for too long. The fun thing is that despite all of the heavy emotional things that I dealt with last night, I actually had a lot of fun. There is something liberating about bearing all that really can't be topped. The bad part is that alcohol is typically required, and thus, I feel like garbage today. Small price.

I had a phone interview with Gallup on Tuesday morning which went well, but I'm not certain I'm going to get a call back. I'm not really superstitious, but I do believe in omens, and I got fairly sick right after I finished the interview which makes me think that I'm going to get an e-mail Friday that says "We appreciated talking with you but..." Hopefully I get it but it's not the end of the world if I don't.

My visitors to the site are increasingly international. I've now had visitors from an unidentified location in Africa (some island south of Cote d'Ivoire), Spain, England, Taiwan, Germany, Croatia, Mexico, China, India, France, Japan, Russia, and probably a dozen different states. Most of them just stop by for a few seconds because I popped up in their Google blog search, but I'm still happy to have had them click on my little corner of the Internet. I'm also excited because somebody who works for Shelfari actually read and commented on my blog, simultaneously impressing me with their commitment to their product and becoming my first random commenter.

My Internet connection at home has been atrocious lately. At first I thought it was my wireless, but I actually plugged my computer in and it is still awful. I tried to check my e-mail for 2 hours this morning and it kept timing out. When you see Time Warner's commercials about their super-speedy Internet and friendly customer service, just remember dear old Bret and how he was told "Sorry, we could fix it but it would be expensive so we're not going to" when he recently called about the poor connection.

I'm pretty much just terrible at poker now. Matt and I went on Monday night, and I had another 3.5 hour, -$200 session. Things started out wonderfully. I flopped a straight with 97o on a Td 8 d 6x flop on probably my 8th hand and led out getting one caller. The turn peeled off a 2c and I bet the pot again. The guy moved in over top of me for another $50 and I insta-called. He flipped over 86, the river bricked, and I was sitting pretty at around $375. I built it up to a shade over $400 just picking off pots (my table was incredibly easy to read) when a sickening hand came up. I was in the BB with QQ. A dealer named Boston Mike had limped in early position, a weak-tight player on the button raised it to $7, a station in the SB called, and I popped it to $27. All 3 of them called, and we took an 8c 7s 3c flop. I was actually pretty worried that somebody flopped a set here, but a quick read told me that Mike didn't and the weak-tight player didn't. The only concern was the station. I eyed him as he painfully played with his chips. It wasn't the forced pain of a flopped monster, he legitimately didn't like his hand, telling me that he didn't have a set. I was running through hands as he was deciding what to do, and my thoughts were thus: he didn't have AA, KK, or QQ because he would've reraised preflop. He also would've raised the $7 bet with JJ, TT, AKcc or AQcc, and he definitely doesn't have 88, 77, or 33 because he's not good enough to lead out with these hands. He's also not leading out any underpair like 66 or worse, so I put him on exactly 99. I briefly thought about 87, 83, or 73, but I just can't put him on one of these hands for the extra $20. As I'm thinking through all of this, he chunks out a $100 bet, leaving himself around $90 behind. I think for another fifteen seconds or so, reconfirm my thought of 99, and move in over top of him. Mike complains, thinks, and then calls all-in for around $150ish, and then the kid calls. I triumphantly flip over QQ, only to have my balls crushed when the kid flips over 87o. Mike had correctly deduced that his 52cc was a live draw and not up against a set, but I was just blindsided by the 87o. I can't blame the kid for calling really, because when Mike and the weak-tight player called, he's getting a shade over 4:1 on his money. I probably pitch the hand because it is unsuited, but I can't really get mad, but it sucks that I made the right read but still didn't put him on a better hand than mine. Matt was at the table and was pretty pissed that I called because he thought the kid flopped a set. He was also shocked to see the 87, but still contends that he would've pitched. Hindsight is 20/20. Now back at even, I steam a bit and try to outplay people every hand. I chunked off $100 with 62o on the button on a KKQ rainbow flop. I knew another weak-tight, inexperienced player at the table had flopped a Q, but he staunchly refused to fold after 3 pot-sized shells and scooped the big pot. I settled back down and tried to tighten up, but kept getting dealt playable hands that missed flops, and found myself at $53 when Mike asked if anybody wanted to put in blind with him. I set in the $53 UTG, Mike called, and 87o kid put Mike all in for another $60ish. The kid had JJ, Mike had T4o, and I had 75o. The final board was xTx45, which shipped Mike the decent sized pot and actually put a smile on my face because I wanted to see the a-hole kid go broke. He of course didn't and got up to cash out about 3 hands later which was a fantastic decision because he would have gone broke. I don't know what is wrong with my game, but something is broken that I can't identify, so for the foreseeable future I'm going to try to build my online bankroll by exclusively playing heads-up SnGs. I'm getting pretty disgustingly good at them, and hope to get my roll to around $300 by months end. At that time, I'll ship $100 over to Full Tilt and see how I can do at heads-up NLHE cash games.