We have a new roommate moving in. He has this gigantic bean bag thing that is awesome. I named it Charlie. Matt and I have been finding new ways to have fun with Charlie. Charlie is plenty of fun to just sit in, but today we discovered that it is fun to use it to block our other roommate in his room at the end of the hallway. I think I'm going to sleep in it tonight. It might be scary, because when you sit in Charlie, you are about 3 feet off the ground, so the chance for injury will be high, but I think it's worth the risk.
Last night Matt and I went out and got drunk. We didn't mean to. First, we went to Granite City. I usually go on Mondays with a few people from work because they have some good specials and we are members of the Mug Club. It was a great night, so Matt and I headed over to Sadie's and to sit out on the patio and have a few more drinks. While we were there, we got into an argument with the bartender. She had recently been propositioned by a patron (we go there a lot so we know this). His proposition was that if she went on a date with him, just a date, that he would sign his new Mercedes over to her. Of course the conversation turned to sex, and the question was posed: would you sleep with somebody if they were going to sign an expensive car over to you. Here's the kicker, it can be an attractive person that you would otherwise be willing to have sex with. I said yes, Matt said yes, the bartender said no, and another female in the bar said no. I understand that there are different ideals regarding sex: no sex until marriage, only sex in loving relationships, sex for fun. The different personal views on sex would lead to a different answer, but it seems that if you fall in the sex for fun category then you wouldn't have any qualms for accepting a car for something that you were going to do anyway. She didn't go on the date with the man.
I went 2-4 against DymondBoy last night. To be totally honest, he's as good as I am if not better. We played 2 matches again today and I went 1-1. I think that we both realized that it won't be profitable to play each other because he signed up for a $50 match and wouldn't join my $30. I did figure out how to beat him, but it won't last. Like I said yesterday, he shifts gears incredibly well, but his downside is his tightness. I know that he is bluffing occasionally, but he's very tough to play. How I rolled over him in the second match was to keep the accelerator pegged to the floor. I raised every pot and reraised quite a few of his raises. I bet most of the flops. The only time that I wouldn't bet or raise was when I was confident that he was trapping. The match ended like this: blinds were 100/200 and I had the lead at 14k/6k. I raised on the button with 34dd, he reraised and I called. I took a glorious flop of Ad 5c 7d, giving me a double gutted straight draw and a flush draw. I knew right away I was going with it and hoped that he had an A. He checked, I bet pot, he moved in and I beat him in the pot. He showed me a glorious T9o with no diamonds, making me nearly 69% to win the pot. The river brought the 7d and I locked it up. Even if he has an A, I'm still favored at nearly 56%. The only way that I'm boned is if he has a higher flush draw, but I was willing to take that risk. I really don't want to play this guy anymore. I can continue to play the same way, but I think that after a few more matches he would figure out a way to fight back and I'd be a dog again. This is why I will always prefer live play to the Internet. Honestly the guy is as skilled as Matt, but when I play Matt heads-up I can get a read on him and can usually beat him. Oh well. I also played a match last night when I was drunk. It was ill-advised, but I won. My bankroll is a shade over $360 right now, and in typical me fashion, I've stalled, but I'm sure that I will also crank out a streak of wins and get to $550 by the end of the week.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Monday, July 30, 2007
Apartment, Jobs, Links, Poker
I am homed. Homeful? Whatever the opposite of homeless is. Jeff and I were fated into an apartment. We both had a favorite in our head before we went up. Mine used Photoshop on their ad and Jeff's was full to the brim. I had an Apartment Guide with us and had already dog-eared some back-up plans. We started knocking them out. Everything either sucked immensely or wasn't available in the middle of August. Then we rolled into The Enclave. The tall, attractive lady that showed us the apartment (she was like 6'2" and wearing heels, bad idea) was very nice and the place looked awesome. Big bedrooms, big closets, washer and dryer, new appliances, modern looking, first floor. Oh, yeah, and 1 month free rent as well as a $300 gift card that we can use toward the deposit or rent or whatever. The fatness. We looked at other places out of some unfamiliar sense of adult responsibility, but we both knew we were getting that place. Of course we have to apply and get accepted and all that stuff, but Jeff has a job and I'm a worthless mooch that has overly kind parents so we should be good. Don't trip on my self-esteem.
Obviously now I need a job. I haven't heard back from Bank of the West, which I'm taking as a bad sign. Jeff heard back the next day when he got offered his job. I'm not sunk yet, I have several more banks that can shoot me down in Omaha. I still have Union Bank, TierOne, US Bank, First National, and Great Western Bank to get shot down by. Don't trip on my self-esteem.
Sorry for all of the links. I'm pretty bored right now.
I peeled off 2 wins last night in heads-up matches. I honestly don't remember much about them as they occurred around 2am and I was pretty tired. I don't remember them being very difficult, but I couldn't even tell you who I played. I just lost a match while I've been typing this. It drug on for over an hour. I've played this guy at cash tables before and I remember him being quite bad. I don't know if he's gotten better (it's been awhile) or he just plays differently in heads-up, but he beat me. He got lucky and caught a TTA flop with T9ss vs my AQo. He had reraised me preflop during a period of aggression and he led the flop. I reraised and he moved in pretty quickly for another 3k into a 12k pot. There's a better than 4:1 chance that he's bluffing or I have him beat here so I had to call. I hovered at 5k in chips until I finally found QQ and doubled through his A6o. He kept shifting gears quite nicely throughout and drove me back down to around 8k with blinds of 150/300; 50. He shifted to aggression again I decided to make a play. He had raised about 3 hands in a row, so I limped a button with 96o and decided to reraise no matter what. He of course raised and I instantly popped in my reraise, leaving me 5k behind. He pushed over top and I had to think. With him being aggressive, I don't want to play these blinds with only 5k because I'm going to have to shove a lot of hands and I don't like letting luck reign. If he doesn't have 66-AA or a hand like A9, I have the right odds here. I call all-in and he shows KK. Good game. I just dropped another as I was typing THIS portion to the same dude. I flopped and A and he flopped a set of 7's to cripple me. I got all in with AcJs vs his 9s9d. Flop KQ6 all spades and I miss my 16 outs. Go me. I also noted that in the nearly 2 hours that we've played each other in heads-up, I have yet to flop big on one of his big hands. It's no excuse, but a little karmic reciprocity would be sweet. He thinks he's got one on the line because he's playing me again, so hopefully tomorrow I'll post about reeling off 5 in a row on him. Probably not because his 35hh just face crushed my AK. Don't trip on my self-esteem.
Obviously now I need a job. I haven't heard back from Bank of the West, which I'm taking as a bad sign. Jeff heard back the next day when he got offered his job. I'm not sunk yet, I have several more banks that can shoot me down in Omaha. I still have Union Bank, TierOne, US Bank, First National, and Great Western Bank to get shot down by. Don't trip on my self-esteem.
Sorry for all of the links. I'm pretty bored right now.
I peeled off 2 wins last night in heads-up matches. I honestly don't remember much about them as they occurred around 2am and I was pretty tired. I don't remember them being very difficult, but I couldn't even tell you who I played. I just lost a match while I've been typing this. It drug on for over an hour. I've played this guy at cash tables before and I remember him being quite bad. I don't know if he's gotten better (it's been awhile) or he just plays differently in heads-up, but he beat me. He got lucky and caught a TTA flop with T9ss vs my AQo. He had reraised me preflop during a period of aggression and he led the flop. I reraised and he moved in pretty quickly for another 3k into a 12k pot. There's a better than 4:1 chance that he's bluffing or I have him beat here so I had to call. I hovered at 5k in chips until I finally found QQ and doubled through his A6o. He kept shifting gears quite nicely throughout and drove me back down to around 8k with blinds of 150/300; 50. He shifted to aggression again I decided to make a play. He had raised about 3 hands in a row, so I limped a button with 96o and decided to reraise no matter what. He of course raised and I instantly popped in my reraise, leaving me 5k behind. He pushed over top and I had to think. With him being aggressive, I don't want to play these blinds with only 5k because I'm going to have to shove a lot of hands and I don't like letting luck reign. If he doesn't have 66-AA or a hand like A9, I have the right odds here. I call all-in and he shows KK. Good game. I just dropped another as I was typing THIS portion to the same dude. I flopped and A and he flopped a set of 7's to cripple me. I got all in with AcJs vs his 9s9d. Flop KQ6 all spades and I miss my 16 outs. Go me. I also noted that in the nearly 2 hours that we've played each other in heads-up, I have yet to flop big on one of his big hands. It's no excuse, but a little karmic reciprocity would be sweet. He thinks he's got one on the line because he's playing me again, so hopefully tomorrow I'll post about reeling off 5 in a row on him. Probably not because his 35hh just face crushed my AK. Don't trip on my self-esteem.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Broke, Packing, Poker
I'm incredibly broke right now. I will be eating lots of ramen noodles and dollar menu items over the next couple of weeks. I despise not having money at all. Hopefully I hear back from Bank of the West on Monday or Tuesday because if not, it's crap job time again. Speaking of crap job, I have to work what will likely be my last shift in a couple of hours, and I'm actually sort of excited to work. Obviously I need the money, but I can see the finish line now as well.
I actually don't have to pack anything because I never really moved in. Most of my things are still in boxes. The only stuff I really have to pack are my clothes and my movies. I think I'm going to try and get everything in one run by just renting a U-Haul. It will beat driving my truck back and forth eight thousand times.
Yesterday was the dumbest day of poker for awhile. I played ridiculously well and nothing that I did worked out. I was seeing everything incredibly well and making hero call after hero call and getting drilled for it. I don't know how many times I made all-in calls on the flop or turn with bottom or middle pair and was right every time. However, flush draws and straight draws crushed my face. I think I played 7 matches and ended up 4-3. It was nice because I ended up topping $400 for the first time. It still somewhat feels like a loss though because I realistically should have gone 5-2 or even 6-1. I also did a rough calculation of my heads-up winning percentage. Over the last month, I'm sitting at around 58% in about 120 matches. If you chop off a bad run I had at the beginning of the month I'm at close to 65%, which is really good. In the $20 and $30 matches I'm probably close to 70-75% because I peeled off like 6-7 wins in a row. Hopefully I can be +2 before I go to work.
I actually don't have to pack anything because I never really moved in. Most of my things are still in boxes. The only stuff I really have to pack are my clothes and my movies. I think I'm going to try and get everything in one run by just renting a U-Haul. It will beat driving my truck back and forth eight thousand times.
Yesterday was the dumbest day of poker for awhile. I played ridiculously well and nothing that I did worked out. I was seeing everything incredibly well and making hero call after hero call and getting drilled for it. I don't know how many times I made all-in calls on the flop or turn with bottom or middle pair and was right every time. However, flush draws and straight draws crushed my face. I think I played 7 matches and ended up 4-3. It was nice because I ended up topping $400 for the first time. It still somewhat feels like a loss though because I realistically should have gone 5-2 or even 6-1. I also did a rough calculation of my heads-up winning percentage. Over the last month, I'm sitting at around 58% in about 120 matches. If you chop off a bad run I had at the beginning of the month I'm at close to 65%, which is really good. In the $20 and $30 matches I'm probably close to 70-75% because I peeled off like 6-7 wins in a row. Hopefully I can be +2 before I go to work.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Interview, Death, Missionaries, Poker
I had my interview with Bank of the West today. I think it went fairly well, but you never know until you get offered the job. They asked me to summarize myself in one word. One. From zygote to the small, neutral colored office I got one word. When the lady asked me the question the first word that popped into my mind was goofy. That actually fits pretty well. I went with happy instead. I should have said goofy.
I've been talking about death a lot lately. It's not something I'm bringing up, it just seems to creep into a lot of conversations that I'm having. Talking about death makes me sad, but not for the reason that you would expect. It saddens me that people can't let go. I've never had a close loved one die. My grandparents were all dead by the time I was 5, and I'm not really close to most of my relatives. My cousin LaToya died, my Uncles Rex and Kenny died, that's about it for family. Probably the death that bothered me the most was my friend Pat, a guy that I went to college with. I was pretty bad for a couple of days, but then life resumed as normal. I still think about him and talk about him from time to time, and I get sad when I do, but I end up smiling because he was the type of person that made me smile. I remember good things about him. This has been a preface because I have a couple of friends that haven't let go. My friends James and Matt lost their grandmother 4 years ago. They both still think about it every day. Every day. They've both admitted that in one way or another, it impairs their daily lives. 4 years. My ex is seeing a guy named Scotty. Scotty is also the name of her uncle that killed himself 7 years ago. When she was telling me about it she cried. She still cries about him sometimes. 7 years. She told me that her grandmother still isn't over it. Her grandmother cries a lot. She told me all of the different ways that the different members of her family cope. She said it would be very hard for them to take if she started to date new Scotty. She isn't sure how to tell them. I'm writing because I don't understand and I'm trying to. Part of me feels inhuman; unable to feel compassion. Part of me wonders if I've been missing something in life. Part of me wonders what it's like to not be able to let go. I might let go too easily. I have no way to find out. I don't really want to.
I went to The Simpson's Movie tonight (awesome). The cross guy was on the corner again telling me not to be gay or drink or smoke or have sex. Tonight, there were some people standing on the other corner with signs as well. They weren't yelling, they just held their signs. One sign said "Lincoln Secular Humanists." One sign said "God hates wet dreams. Zeus 10:5." Another said "If you don't believe in Zeus, you're going to Hades." I was happy.
Yesterday I went 2-0 in heads-up matches, leaving my bankroll around $384. The people were the same as all of the others, requiring nothing more than patience and top pair to vanquish. Today I played a marathon match against rivergirl06 that lasted well over an hour. I lost. I'm still sort of upset about it, but it was my fault in hindsight. rivergirl06 played pretty much exactly like I do, only tighter. I should've changed gears and opened up my game a lot and gotten more aggressive but I played the same game decided to just outplay her. I did. It took me until about 6k in chips to figure her out, but then I started rolling. I ran up to 13k and then took a bad one when I got cute with a flopped flush and got out flushed. That dropped me to 6k again, and I got beat down to 2k when I flopped top pair but got ran down on the turn and had to fold. I ran my 2k all the way back up to 12k again when I lost an AIPF with AT vs her KJcc. She raised, I reraised, she moved all-in and I made the hero call only to get bitch slapped on the 60/40. I got lucky the next hand with A8o vs AK to get back up to 8k, but then I busted with A6o vs JJ AIPF. At that point, the blinds were ridiculous. She raised, I reraised, and she moved in again. I knew it was strong, but with only like 2.5k left I had to call and hope for my 3 outer. It missed. I wanted to play another one against her but I was incredibly tired from having to wake up at 7:30 on 3 hours sleep to get to my interview, so I took a nap. I just played another match and got coolered on a JJ9 flop with JT vs AJ. Overall, I'm dead even at $30, but I have a good feeling that in the next couple of days I'm going to reel off about 4-5 in a row and then I'll be in business. Hopefully I get in 2-3 more tonight and come out ahead again. Go me!
I've been talking about death a lot lately. It's not something I'm bringing up, it just seems to creep into a lot of conversations that I'm having. Talking about death makes me sad, but not for the reason that you would expect. It saddens me that people can't let go. I've never had a close loved one die. My grandparents were all dead by the time I was 5, and I'm not really close to most of my relatives. My cousin LaToya died, my Uncles Rex and Kenny died, that's about it for family. Probably the death that bothered me the most was my friend Pat, a guy that I went to college with. I was pretty bad for a couple of days, but then life resumed as normal. I still think about him and talk about him from time to time, and I get sad when I do, but I end up smiling because he was the type of person that made me smile. I remember good things about him. This has been a preface because I have a couple of friends that haven't let go. My friends James and Matt lost their grandmother 4 years ago. They both still think about it every day. Every day. They've both admitted that in one way or another, it impairs their daily lives. 4 years. My ex is seeing a guy named Scotty. Scotty is also the name of her uncle that killed himself 7 years ago. When she was telling me about it she cried. She still cries about him sometimes. 7 years. She told me that her grandmother still isn't over it. Her grandmother cries a lot. She told me all of the different ways that the different members of her family cope. She said it would be very hard for them to take if she started to date new Scotty. She isn't sure how to tell them. I'm writing because I don't understand and I'm trying to. Part of me feels inhuman; unable to feel compassion. Part of me wonders if I've been missing something in life. Part of me wonders what it's like to not be able to let go. I might let go too easily. I have no way to find out. I don't really want to.
I went to The Simpson's Movie tonight (awesome). The cross guy was on the corner again telling me not to be gay or drink or smoke or have sex. Tonight, there were some people standing on the other corner with signs as well. They weren't yelling, they just held their signs. One sign said "Lincoln Secular Humanists." One sign said "God hates wet dreams. Zeus 10:5." Another said "If you don't believe in Zeus, you're going to Hades." I was happy.
Yesterday I went 2-0 in heads-up matches, leaving my bankroll around $384. The people were the same as all of the others, requiring nothing more than patience and top pair to vanquish. Today I played a marathon match against rivergirl06 that lasted well over an hour. I lost. I'm still sort of upset about it, but it was my fault in hindsight. rivergirl06 played pretty much exactly like I do, only tighter. I should've changed gears and opened up my game a lot and gotten more aggressive but I played the same game decided to just outplay her. I did. It took me until about 6k in chips to figure her out, but then I started rolling. I ran up to 13k and then took a bad one when I got cute with a flopped flush and got out flushed. That dropped me to 6k again, and I got beat down to 2k when I flopped top pair but got ran down on the turn and had to fold. I ran my 2k all the way back up to 12k again when I lost an AIPF with AT vs her KJcc. She raised, I reraised, she moved all-in and I made the hero call only to get bitch slapped on the 60/40. I got lucky the next hand with A8o vs AK to get back up to 8k, but then I busted with A6o vs JJ AIPF. At that point, the blinds were ridiculous. She raised, I reraised, and she moved in again. I knew it was strong, but with only like 2.5k left I had to call and hope for my 3 outer. It missed. I wanted to play another one against her but I was incredibly tired from having to wake up at 7:30 on 3 hours sleep to get to my interview, so I took a nap. I just played another match and got coolered on a JJ9 flop with JT vs AJ. Overall, I'm dead even at $30, but I have a good feeling that in the next couple of days I'm going to reel off about 4-5 in a row and then I'll be in business. Hopefully I get in 2-3 more tonight and come out ahead again. Go me!
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Carver, Work, BNSF Truck, Poker
The Carver book is starting to get better. I thought I may be warming up to it, but the stories are simply getting better. Now the stories have neat parallels that actually comment on the human condition. I just finished the story Fever, and at the end Carlyle waves goodbye to his housekeeper, goes in his house, and shuts the door. It is made very clear that he is waving goodbye to his former life and shutting the door on it. This is what I was looking for. The story before it had the same thing, and another one that I finished recently was good, too. If you're interested in knowing what I consider good Carver, let me know because my book is upstairs and I'm lazy.
One of my managers at work must have got wind that I'm going to quit because I'm getting "the Treatment." "The Treatment" is when they simply stop scheduling me. Oh well, I still get the discount. We'll see which one of us this hurts more.
Yesterday, I saw a Burlington Northern Santa Fe truck driving on West O. I was following it briefly before I finally got my chance to pass the man traveling at hourly speed, but I noticed something. On the back of the Tahoe (it was a General Motors SUV, but I'm not totally sure it was a Tahoe) there were stickers that said "Pinch Point." They were located on sides of the lift gate. They were also located anywhere on the vehicle where there was something that opened and closed. It made me sad. This is where we're at as a country. We've litigated ourselves into stupidity because the law can't assume that we know that things that close *might* be able to hurt us. To solve the problem, I say we simply start printing the following message on all doors sold in the US. Warning: Everything outside of this door (and inside, including this door) may cause injury or death. Maybe tattoo it on the inside of our eyelids, although somebody could see because they could get hurt reading the tattoo. Despite the mini-anger that flashed inside of me, I also smiled as I recklessly sped off because I pictured a giant pinching the truck all over.
I ended up going 2-2 in heads-up matches yesterday, leaving me short the $4 vig. I would've gone 3-1, but I was crushing a guy 16k/4k, he got all in behind and hit his flush, went all in next hand with QQ vs my TT and doubled, and on the last hand I flopped 2 pair, got it all in vs his straight draw, and he hit it. Pretty sick 3 hands. I won 1 match this morning before I ran errands, then I came home and polished off another victory which bumped me over $330. I JUST finished my first $30 match and got shit on. On about the 3rd hand, with me having a small lead, I had 93hh in a limped hand and we took an A94 flop, I bet and he raised. I thought maybe he had an A so I just called. The turn peeled a 3, he checked, I bet pot and he called. The river peeled a 5 and he moved in. He doesn't have a 2 here, and he's very unlikely to have 2 pair because he would be scared of the 4 straight on the board. He has only 1 of 2 hands (so I thought); either a lone A or the 26. The move in was too quick for the 26, I put him on a lone A and called. After that cooler, I was left with just a shade over 1k chips, and it was only a matter of time before he put me away. I'm playing the same dude again and I'm definitely going to throttle him because he's not very good. Tomorrow I'll post about how bad I skinned this guy in 2 more matches. Focker out.
One of my managers at work must have got wind that I'm going to quit because I'm getting "the Treatment." "The Treatment" is when they simply stop scheduling me. Oh well, I still get the discount. We'll see which one of us this hurts more.
Yesterday, I saw a Burlington Northern Santa Fe truck driving on West O. I was following it briefly before I finally got my chance to pass the man traveling at hourly speed, but I noticed something. On the back of the Tahoe (it was a General Motors SUV, but I'm not totally sure it was a Tahoe) there were stickers that said "Pinch Point." They were located on sides of the lift gate. They were also located anywhere on the vehicle where there was something that opened and closed. It made me sad. This is where we're at as a country. We've litigated ourselves into stupidity because the law can't assume that we know that things that close *might* be able to hurt us. To solve the problem, I say we simply start printing the following message on all doors sold in the US. Warning: Everything outside of this door (and inside, including this door) may cause injury or death. Maybe tattoo it on the inside of our eyelids, although somebody could see because they could get hurt reading the tattoo. Despite the mini-anger that flashed inside of me, I also smiled as I recklessly sped off because I pictured a giant pinching the truck all over.
I ended up going 2-2 in heads-up matches yesterday, leaving me short the $4 vig. I would've gone 3-1, but I was crushing a guy 16k/4k, he got all in behind and hit his flush, went all in next hand with QQ vs my TT and doubled, and on the last hand I flopped 2 pair, got it all in vs his straight draw, and he hit it. Pretty sick 3 hands. I won 1 match this morning before I ran errands, then I came home and polished off another victory which bumped me over $330. I JUST finished my first $30 match and got shit on. On about the 3rd hand, with me having a small lead, I had 93hh in a limped hand and we took an A94 flop, I bet and he raised. I thought maybe he had an A so I just called. The turn peeled a 3, he checked, I bet pot and he called. The river peeled a 5 and he moved in. He doesn't have a 2 here, and he's very unlikely to have 2 pair because he would be scared of the 4 straight on the board. He has only 1 of 2 hands (so I thought); either a lone A or the 26. The move in was too quick for the 26, I put him on a lone A and called. After that cooler, I was left with just a shade over 1k chips, and it was only a matter of time before he put me away. I'm playing the same dude again and I'm definitely going to throttle him because he's not very good. Tomorrow I'll post about how bad I skinned this guy in 2 more matches. Focker out.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Omaha, James, Wine, Poker
The decision has been made: I'm moving to Omaha. I'll probably move the weekend of August 11th. A kid from work wants to move there as well, and one of the jobs I applied for finally called me back about an interview in Omaha, so I'm going to call it fate and pack my things. And by pack my things, I mean take all of the boxes that I never unpacked and move them to Omaha. Hopefully I'll find a place by then but if not, I can always stay with my sister for a bit.
James pranked himself awhile ago and I never posted about it. He was shaving that wispy, shitty hair that grows out on the back of your neck when he had a random twitch in his arm. The twitch caused him to jerk his arm, which caused him to shave a quarter-sized chunk of hair off of the back of his head, about an inch or 2 behind his right ear. It has grown out enough now that you have to look for it to see it, but when I've been angry or down this past week or so, I'd look at it and laugh and feel better about the world.
I've been afflicted with insomnia lately. No matter how exhausted I am, I can't fall asleep. It has been getting ridiculous. The past 3 days I have gone to bed at 7am, 9am, and 6am. Last night I decided to fight dirty and polish off a bottle of wine around 1ish. This failed miserably. The only corkscrew we had in the house is the kind that requires muscle to yank the cork from the bottle. I don't have those, so I looked for a wing corkscrew to no avail. I drove over to Hyvee to discover that they don't have wing corkscrews either. I was tempted to drive to Super Saver on 48th and O to see if they had any, but decided on the sure thing and headed to Wal-Mart on 27th and Superior. I wandered briefly through the grocery aisles before it dawned on me that my item would be in housewares. I got over there, found one, and headed to the one lane that was open at 2am. It took about 10 minutes for me to get on deck, and then the guy ahead of me tried to pay with a credit card check. The lady tried to scan it but it wouldn't work, then we had to wait for the supervisor to come over. The supervisor said that they can't take it in a very curt manner and promptly deleted the transaction. Nobody said sorry. Nobody showed empathy. It was more of a "get the fuck out of line" attitude. I felt bad. In the long run, it's better for the guy. Those checks are on par with thievery and people never read close enough to realize that they're getting screwed. Typically, those "super checks" give you a special interest rate for 3-6 months, but then they treat your purchases as cash advances, reaming you for like 24%. Caveat emptor. The guy mumbled something about his credit card not working so they sent the checks (lie) but I felt bad. He was stuck waiting there for his buddy who had announced to everybody in the front 1/3rd of the store that he had to poop and that the front bathroom was closed. A simple little white lie from the supervisor would've made the guy feel better and not like a broke-ass. "I'm sorry, we just changed our policy yesterday," or "The machine seems to be broken and is not taking the check." Or, "I'm sorry, the cashier should have told you that we no longer take this form of payment. I'm really sorry about that sir." I'm pretty sure I would've hated living in the 50's, but there is a lot to be said for politeness and compassion.
I ran my account up to $299.10 last night. I would've topped $300 but I bubbled a $.50 SnG and then I cried myself to sleep. The $20 matches are easier to play, but more boring. It seems that everybody that I've played is uber-aggressive and really not perceptive at all. All I've done is wait patiently and trap and it hasn't failed me for 2 days. I played one match today and won it in the same fashion. A "lady" (I assume that everybody who plays online poker is male, not because I'm chauvinist, but because I know way too many men who use feminine names because men play differently against women) would raise pot preflop and bet pot on the flop EVERY SINGLE HAND. "She" never caught on that I would check-raise every time I flopped top pair or better. When I flopped top pair, I would check-raise the flop and bet pot on the turn and that usually ended it until, of course, "she" had made 2 pair vs. my flopped set and I won the match. Most people aren't this extreme, but nearly every person I've played at this level has done the pot/pot thing about 90% of the time. When I'm playing more passive opponents, I do the same thing, but I'm aware of my own table image. In these situations, if I raise pot preflop, the flop brings an A and I bet pot again and get called, I'm standing on the brakes. Not these MENSA candidates. Oh well, I shouldn't complain because I'm making money quickly, but I really did enjoy my little $5 matches where every hand was a battle. I can't battle because the other characteristic is that these people don't fold at $20. One match I had AKo and smooth-called the preflop raise. The flop came J72 rainbow and I check-raised and got insta-called. The next 2 streets got checked and my opponent showed 83o. Seriously? Playing people like this, there is absolutely no reason for me to make hero calls with bottom pair, so instead of battling, I get to wait. Hopefully $30 and $50 will be more interesting. This is a ridiculously long blog.
James pranked himself awhile ago and I never posted about it. He was shaving that wispy, shitty hair that grows out on the back of your neck when he had a random twitch in his arm. The twitch caused him to jerk his arm, which caused him to shave a quarter-sized chunk of hair off of the back of his head, about an inch or 2 behind his right ear. It has grown out enough now that you have to look for it to see it, but when I've been angry or down this past week or so, I'd look at it and laugh and feel better about the world.
I've been afflicted with insomnia lately. No matter how exhausted I am, I can't fall asleep. It has been getting ridiculous. The past 3 days I have gone to bed at 7am, 9am, and 6am. Last night I decided to fight dirty and polish off a bottle of wine around 1ish. This failed miserably. The only corkscrew we had in the house is the kind that requires muscle to yank the cork from the bottle. I don't have those, so I looked for a wing corkscrew to no avail. I drove over to Hyvee to discover that they don't have wing corkscrews either. I was tempted to drive to Super Saver on 48th and O to see if they had any, but decided on the sure thing and headed to Wal-Mart on 27th and Superior. I wandered briefly through the grocery aisles before it dawned on me that my item would be in housewares. I got over there, found one, and headed to the one lane that was open at 2am. It took about 10 minutes for me to get on deck, and then the guy ahead of me tried to pay with a credit card check. The lady tried to scan it but it wouldn't work, then we had to wait for the supervisor to come over. The supervisor said that they can't take it in a very curt manner and promptly deleted the transaction. Nobody said sorry. Nobody showed empathy. It was more of a "get the fuck out of line" attitude. I felt bad. In the long run, it's better for the guy. Those checks are on par with thievery and people never read close enough to realize that they're getting screwed. Typically, those "super checks" give you a special interest rate for 3-6 months, but then they treat your purchases as cash advances, reaming you for like 24%. Caveat emptor. The guy mumbled something about his credit card not working so they sent the checks (lie) but I felt bad. He was stuck waiting there for his buddy who had announced to everybody in the front 1/3rd of the store that he had to poop and that the front bathroom was closed. A simple little white lie from the supervisor would've made the guy feel better and not like a broke-ass. "I'm sorry, we just changed our policy yesterday," or "The machine seems to be broken and is not taking the check." Or, "I'm sorry, the cashier should have told you that we no longer take this form of payment. I'm really sorry about that sir." I'm pretty sure I would've hated living in the 50's, but there is a lot to be said for politeness and compassion.
I ran my account up to $299.10 last night. I would've topped $300 but I bubbled a $.50 SnG and then I cried myself to sleep. The $20 matches are easier to play, but more boring. It seems that everybody that I've played is uber-aggressive and really not perceptive at all. All I've done is wait patiently and trap and it hasn't failed me for 2 days. I played one match today and won it in the same fashion. A "lady" (I assume that everybody who plays online poker is male, not because I'm chauvinist, but because I know way too many men who use feminine names because men play differently against women) would raise pot preflop and bet pot on the flop EVERY SINGLE HAND. "She" never caught on that I would check-raise every time I flopped top pair or better. When I flopped top pair, I would check-raise the flop and bet pot on the turn and that usually ended it until, of course, "she" had made 2 pair vs. my flopped set and I won the match. Most people aren't this extreme, but nearly every person I've played at this level has done the pot/pot thing about 90% of the time. When I'm playing more passive opponents, I do the same thing, but I'm aware of my own table image. In these situations, if I raise pot preflop, the flop brings an A and I bet pot again and get called, I'm standing on the brakes. Not these MENSA candidates. Oh well, I shouldn't complain because I'm making money quickly, but I really did enjoy my little $5 matches where every hand was a battle. I can't battle because the other characteristic is that these people don't fold at $20. One match I had AKo and smooth-called the preflop raise. The flop came J72 rainbow and I check-raised and got insta-called. The next 2 streets got checked and my opponent showed 83o. Seriously? Playing people like this, there is absolutely no reason for me to make hero calls with bottom pair, so instead of battling, I get to wait. Hopefully $30 and $50 will be more interesting. This is a ridiculously long blog.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Balance, Work, Poker
I'm watching Saving Grace and, while I'm interested, I'm also bitter. I don't like overly religious things because I just feel like I'm being lied to. My theory is that if something is true, you don't need to convince me and keep reminding me. There's nobody holding Sunday gatherings preaching the benefits of gravity or oxygen. While it is different because we can indeed prove the existence of those things, the argument is still the same. The title for this section is Balance because I firmly believe that as a country we should require TV networks to show us both sides of every story. In response to Saving Grace, there should be some sort of anti-religious TV show. I haven't had very long to think this through so it probably doesn't make much sense, but I just feel that we don't have a chance as a society as long as there are people who are trying to coerce us into behaving differently. I stand behind free speech entirely but there are many, many gray areas.
They bought us frozen treats at work on Saturday. It was the first time I haven't hated working there in a long time because it was the first time that I felt the managers actually appreciated what we do. I always fail to understand how retail managers can't grasp the reality of their job. The realities of retail: 99% of your employees don't give a shit how the business is doing, after 6 months every employee is either underpaid or should be fired, doing just what is expected of them is the mark of a good part-time employee, and nobody really WANTS a career as a retail manager. With these things in mind, all a manager really needs to do is make sure people stay busy and that they are happy. Unhappy employees piss off customers and steal things. Happy employees actually stay busy during their shift and will actually do the things that you ask them. But what do I know, I'm only 25.
So I got my account up to $220 a couple of days ago, and have subsequently hovered there. I broke even on heads-up matches 1 day, another day, I crushed heads-up matches (going roughly 5-2) but got killed in a $2 rebuy for like $12 or more, a couple of SnGs and a small cash game. I'm +2 in heads-ups today and doing well in some small MTTs (Stud 8 and Omaha 8), so I could realistically top $300 tonight. I think I may have shifted my game plan a bit. Now, I think that once I hit $650 I'm going to chop $100 off and send it to Full Tilt and see how I do at the $.50/$1 NLHE heads-up tables. If I can maintain over there, I could realistically add about $300 a day, which would be nice. What would actually be incredibly nice is if I could pull all of this off within the next 2 weeks so I could delay getting a real job for a bit longer. I hope no family member is reading this. If they are, I really have been applying for jobs. I have the turn-down e-mails to prove it.
They bought us frozen treats at work on Saturday. It was the first time I haven't hated working there in a long time because it was the first time that I felt the managers actually appreciated what we do. I always fail to understand how retail managers can't grasp the reality of their job. The realities of retail: 99% of your employees don't give a shit how the business is doing, after 6 months every employee is either underpaid or should be fired, doing just what is expected of them is the mark of a good part-time employee, and nobody really WANTS a career as a retail manager. With these things in mind, all a manager really needs to do is make sure people stay busy and that they are happy. Unhappy employees piss off customers and steal things. Happy employees actually stay busy during their shift and will actually do the things that you ask them. But what do I know, I'm only 25.
So I got my account up to $220 a couple of days ago, and have subsequently hovered there. I broke even on heads-up matches 1 day, another day, I crushed heads-up matches (going roughly 5-2) but got killed in a $2 rebuy for like $12 or more, a couple of SnGs and a small cash game. I'm +2 in heads-ups today and doing well in some small MTTs (Stud 8 and Omaha 8), so I could realistically top $300 tonight. I think I may have shifted my game plan a bit. Now, I think that once I hit $650 I'm going to chop $100 off and send it to Full Tilt and see how I do at the $.50/$1 NLHE heads-up tables. If I can maintain over there, I could realistically add about $300 a day, which would be nice. What would actually be incredibly nice is if I could pull all of this off within the next 2 weeks so I could delay getting a real job for a bit longer. I hope no family member is reading this. If they are, I really have been applying for jobs. I have the turn-down e-mails to prove it.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
900, Michael Vick, Poker
I hit 900 visitors at some point yesterday. This 100 went fairly quickly, and now there's only 100 to go before I hit 1,000.
I'm already tired of hearing about Michael Vick on the news. I think what he did was awful, but some of the reaction is simply ridiculous. The clip of Senator Robert Byrd repeatedly yelling "Barbaric!" makes me cry for a couple of reasons. First of all, the man shouldn't be allowed to be a Senator. The man is 90 years old and has been in the Senate since 1958. There is no chance that he can have any idea what a person like myself or most of the readers of this blog want from government. He grew up in the era when TV shows had married couples sleep in separate bedrooms. Actually, he grew up in an era when there were no televisions. Those didn't hit the scene until he was around 20 years old. The second reason that I'm pissed about the Vick situation is that no Senator should give a shit about dog fighting right now. Dog fighting should rank around #3,492 on the list of things they have to worry about behind fixing Iraq, impeaching Bush (and then Cheney, Nancy Pelosi, Byrd himself, Condoleezza Rice, Henry Paulson, the Attorney General, and Dirk Kempthorne, making Mike Johanns the President; I could live with that), fixing relations with Iran, actually capturing Osama bin Laden, implementing National Health Care, planning for Social Security for the Baby Boomers, removing tax breaks for Big Oil, ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, passing real campaign finance reform measures, imposing term limits, and about 1,000 other things that I could rattle off the top of my head. Our founding fathers were incredibly anti-professional politician, which is all that we have any more. I'm pretty sure the reason that they were against it is because of things like this. When you've done nothing to do for the past 50 years except speak on the Senate floor, things like this might seem like they are worthy of your time. The reality is that the police, media, and the public will deal with Vick, you worry about running the fucking country. I don't understand how I'm 25 and sort of a fuck-up, yet these things make total sense to me and nobody else.
I'm in the process of donking off around $20 playing $.02/$.05 NLHE. I did really well in some tiny SnGs and went 1-1 in heads-up matches, but there is one guy at these tiny tables that has my number. He's not good, but when he's running hot, he's ridiculous. He won't fold any gutshot, flush, straight, whatever draw, and tonight, he was hitting. What is devastating is that when he actually wakes up with a hand, you're boned. He took around $10 from me in one hand because he flopped a straight with 45 on a 367 flop and I had QQ. It looks like I'll finish down around $17, putting me at $177. Oh well, that gives me something to work on tomorrow. Bed time.
I'm already tired of hearing about Michael Vick on the news. I think what he did was awful, but some of the reaction is simply ridiculous. The clip of Senator Robert Byrd repeatedly yelling "Barbaric!" makes me cry for a couple of reasons. First of all, the man shouldn't be allowed to be a Senator. The man is 90 years old and has been in the Senate since 1958. There is no chance that he can have any idea what a person like myself or most of the readers of this blog want from government. He grew up in the era when TV shows had married couples sleep in separate bedrooms. Actually, he grew up in an era when there were no televisions. Those didn't hit the scene until he was around 20 years old. The second reason that I'm pissed about the Vick situation is that no Senator should give a shit about dog fighting right now. Dog fighting should rank around #3,492 on the list of things they have to worry about behind fixing Iraq, impeaching Bush (and then Cheney, Nancy Pelosi, Byrd himself, Condoleezza Rice, Henry Paulson, the Attorney General, and Dirk Kempthorne, making Mike Johanns the President; I could live with that), fixing relations with Iran, actually capturing Osama bin Laden, implementing National Health Care, planning for Social Security for the Baby Boomers, removing tax breaks for Big Oil, ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, passing real campaign finance reform measures, imposing term limits, and about 1,000 other things that I could rattle off the top of my head. Our founding fathers were incredibly anti-professional politician, which is all that we have any more. I'm pretty sure the reason that they were against it is because of things like this. When you've done nothing to do for the past 50 years except speak on the Senate floor, things like this might seem like they are worthy of your time. The reality is that the police, media, and the public will deal with Vick, you worry about running the fucking country. I don't understand how I'm 25 and sort of a fuck-up, yet these things make total sense to me and nobody else.
I'm in the process of donking off around $20 playing $.02/$.05 NLHE. I did really well in some tiny SnGs and went 1-1 in heads-up matches, but there is one guy at these tiny tables that has my number. He's not good, but when he's running hot, he's ridiculous. He won't fold any gutshot, flush, straight, whatever draw, and tonight, he was hitting. What is devastating is that when he actually wakes up with a hand, you're boned. He took around $10 from me in one hand because he flopped a straight with 45 on a 367 flop and I had QQ. It looks like I'll finish down around $17, putting me at $177. Oh well, that gives me something to work on tomorrow. Bed time.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Stories, Vacation, Carver, Poker
I've decided to write a collection of short stories. This all started with cross-guy by the Grand. The longer I thought about what it would be like to meet him, the more I realized that I had met some very interesting people in my life. Each story will start out the same way, but I'm wrestling with a few things. One such issue is with cross-guy. I originally wanted to write that story from his point of view, but most of the rest of the stories will be from "my" point of view. If I write that story from his PoV, I have to write at least one other story from a different PoV, which I have no ideas for at the moment. Thoughts?
I'm going on some sort of vacation soon. I don't know where, I don't know when specifically, I don't know who I'm going with. I decided last night that I need to go on a vacation. Originally, I was going to a Rage Against The Machine concert in California with a friend from work, but that is falling through. I will not give up my vacation!
I'm around 230 pages into the Carver book now, and I think I've decided that I'm simply not impressed. He's not a bad writer, but I just don't think that he is very impressive either. When I finish the individual stories, I'm left with an incomplete, cheated feeling. I can't really access any of the stories, and Carver uses scenarios to comment on the human condition that just don't speak to me. Maybe I'm missing something.
The poker section today is small because I haven't played any poker for the past couple of days. It is likely good for me, but my degeneracy is really pressing me to play non-stop for like 3 days.
I'm going on some sort of vacation soon. I don't know where, I don't know when specifically, I don't know who I'm going with. I decided last night that I need to go on a vacation. Originally, I was going to a Rage Against The Machine concert in California with a friend from work, but that is falling through. I will not give up my vacation!
I'm around 230 pages into the Carver book now, and I think I've decided that I'm simply not impressed. He's not a bad writer, but I just don't think that he is very impressive either. When I finish the individual stories, I'm left with an incomplete, cheated feeling. I can't really access any of the stories, and Carver uses scenarios to comment on the human condition that just don't speak to me. Maybe I'm missing something.
The poker section today is small because I haven't played any poker for the past couple of days. It is likely good for me, but my degeneracy is really pressing me to play non-stop for like 3 days.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Kearney, Street Sign, Hastings, Poker
So I went back to Kearney. I'm sort of bummed as I didn't get to do any of my favorite Kearney things. Actually, I don't really have specific activities that I like to do, I have 3 foods I have to eat when I'm in Kearney or I'm angry. I have to eat Sax's Pizza, Nick's Gyros, and a Snickerdoodle's rolled sugar cookie. Those are delicious foods that I can't get in Lincoln. I did get to go visit the neat new park that they are still working on. It is called the EK and Mary Yanney Heritage Park, and it is fantastic so far. They have very well cared for grounds with a man-made lake, amphitheater, 5-story observation tower, and a water playground for kids. I forget all of the other things they are supposed to add on to it, and for all I know they may have scrapped some of the ideas, but it is very impressive right now. I enjoyed walking around it and spending some time up on the observation tower.
While I was in Kearney, I saw a hilariously vandalized street sign. Somebody slapped a round, red sticker on the nose of a deer crossing sign. Rudolph. Genius. I about ran off the road because I was crippled with laughter for about 15 seconds.
On my way back to Lincoln, I stopped off in Hastings to visit Brandon and Amanda. I got to see their house and we went to eat at a neat place called Sghetti's. It was actually a fantastic Italian restaurant. The food was really good and the service was excellent. Way above what I expected from Hastings, NE.
While I was in Hastings, we played poker at Brandon's office. There were only 5 of us, and we only played $.05/$.10 NLHE, but it was fun. I won something like $3.75. Retirement here I come. Other than that, I haven't played any online poker at all because my parents still have dial-up, and I couldn't do that to myself. I will probably get in some heads-up matches either tonight or tomorrow. I need to get to $220 so I can start making some actual money.
While I was in Kearney, I saw a hilariously vandalized street sign. Somebody slapped a round, red sticker on the nose of a deer crossing sign. Rudolph. Genius. I about ran off the road because I was crippled with laughter for about 15 seconds.
On my way back to Lincoln, I stopped off in Hastings to visit Brandon and Amanda. I got to see their house and we went to eat at a neat place called Sghetti's. It was actually a fantastic Italian restaurant. The food was really good and the service was excellent. Way above what I expected from Hastings, NE.
While I was in Hastings, we played poker at Brandon's office. There were only 5 of us, and we only played $.05/$.10 NLHE, but it was fun. I won something like $3.75. Retirement here I come. Other than that, I haven't played any online poker at all because my parents still have dial-up, and I couldn't do that to myself. I will probably get in some heads-up matches either tonight or tomorrow. I need to get to $220 so I can start making some actual money.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Carver, Megan, Poker/WSOP
I'm about 110ish pages into the Carver book and I'm still unsure how I feel about it. It has been unpredictable as there have been a couple of stories that I've read that I formed an ending for in my head that was vastly different than the actual ending. One annoying thing that I've discovered is Carver's use of repetition. I absolutely love repetition when I feel that it is used right, but Carver seemingly repeats things because he never had an editor. His dialogue tags get annoying as he'll dump three of them in the same paragraph even though there has been no change in speaker. I've still got around 400 pages left, so it is too early to say if the annoying things will be outweighed by the positives, but I honestly don't pick up the book with enthusiasm right now. I'll probably chunk off a hundred pages or so when I head to Kearney later today as there isn't much to do there. I'm only going to be there until around noon tomorrow, but I'll still be bored.
Megan started blogging again after a two month hiatus. If she keeps it up, she'll be reinstated in the blog link list. She has apparently moved, so pop over to her blog to see what she's up to.
I haven't played much poker over the last couple of days. I worked a split shift on Saturday and slept in between, so I only played 3 $15 matches going 1-2. I didn't play at all on Sunday despite a day off, nor did I get a match in yesterday, so I've been sitting here since 5:45am trying to get as many matches in as I can before I have to go run some errands and head to K-town. So far this morning I'm 2-1, leaving me at around $194 dollars. I seem to stall on the bubble of the next level, which is a part of my game that I need to examine. I would imagine that I just get a bit too impatient and want to jump into the next level, but I need to try and figure it out. More interesting to me right now is the World Series of Poker Main Event, which will finish today. For those of you who don't know much about it, the tournament is the largest in the world. This year, a shade over 6,300 people entered it making the first prize $8.25 million. 5 of the 9 people at the final table will become millionaires. The cliche surrounding the main event is that "a pro will never win it again," but I have a problem with that statement. Most of the guys at this year's final table can be considered pros. I think only 3 of the 9 actually have other jobs at all, and only 2 of them do not consider themselves pros. However, 1 dude that doesn't consider himself a pro plays in a majority of the major tourneys and has around $500k in tournament winnings, as well as a WSOP bracelet (meaning he's won a smaller tournament in the series). The only "pro" at the final table is Lee Watkinson. Why I throw quotes on pro is because he is the only person that most people would consider to be a pro at that table because he's the only one they've ever heard of. What I've noticed over the last couple of years is that even though most of the people aren't household names in the poker community, they still make their living playing poker. That's pretty much my definition of pro. Thus ends my rant.
Megan started blogging again after a two month hiatus. If she keeps it up, she'll be reinstated in the blog link list. She has apparently moved, so pop over to her blog to see what she's up to.
I haven't played much poker over the last couple of days. I worked a split shift on Saturday and slept in between, so I only played 3 $15 matches going 1-2. I didn't play at all on Sunday despite a day off, nor did I get a match in yesterday, so I've been sitting here since 5:45am trying to get as many matches in as I can before I have to go run some errands and head to K-town. So far this morning I'm 2-1, leaving me at around $194 dollars. I seem to stall on the bubble of the next level, which is a part of my game that I need to examine. I would imagine that I just get a bit too impatient and want to jump into the next level, but I need to try and figure it out. More interesting to me right now is the World Series of Poker Main Event, which will finish today. For those of you who don't know much about it, the tournament is the largest in the world. This year, a shade over 6,300 people entered it making the first prize $8.25 million. 5 of the 9 people at the final table will become millionaires. The cliche surrounding the main event is that "a pro will never win it again," but I have a problem with that statement. Most of the guys at this year's final table can be considered pros. I think only 3 of the 9 actually have other jobs at all, and only 2 of them do not consider themselves pros. However, 1 dude that doesn't consider himself a pro plays in a majority of the major tourneys and has around $500k in tournament winnings, as well as a WSOP bracelet (meaning he's won a smaller tournament in the series). The only "pro" at the final table is Lee Watkinson. Why I throw quotes on pro is because he is the only person that most people would consider to be a pro at that table because he's the only one they've ever heard of. What I've noticed over the last couple of years is that even though most of the people aren't household names in the poker community, they still make their living playing poker. That's pretty much my definition of pro. Thus ends my rant.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Best Buy, Best Friend, Best Poker?
So I've never been more sure that I'm quitting Best Buy in the very near future. Saturday morning we had a store meeting, and during the meeting we had individual department meetings. During our department meeting, one of our manages told us, in essence, that if we simply did what was required of us and nothing more that we would be fired. Wow. Everybody should read The Jungle by Upton Sinclair because things just never really changed. I wanted to say something to him, but all I could come up with was "Who the fuck do you think you are," so I just kept my mouth shut.
Last night I hung out with my best friend from high school. We lost touch in college, and I really haven't talked to him for probably 4-5 years. It was neat to see him. He's changed in many ways, yet he hasn't really changed at all. What I mean is, he's still the same person, just a different version of the same person with new interests and activities. I've probably gone through the same transformation. We only hung out and talked for around 2 hours, but we decided we need to hang out a few more times before he heads back to law school in a month. We'll see how it works out because we're both good at making plans and bad at following through.
I rolled it up a few days ago in heads-up matches. I played the same guy that kept out-lucking me and strapped on the patience. I smoked him 3 matches in a row, and then picked off a few other unsuspecting chumps as well. Following that rush, I played some $.02/$.05 NLHE and scooped $13, ending my day at $198. The next day, I played 5 $15 heads-up matches and went 2-3. I played the same guy, and while he's a decent player, he ran super hot. The first match he picked me off pretty easy because I was trying to figure him out but not catching cards. I won the second match in 4 hands when he shoved KJo preflop over my raise and I made the hero call with 55. Flopped a set, turned a boat, game over. The 3rd match was a ball-buster. I ran up to around 12k in chips and then got KK. I raised pot, he reraised pot, and I decided to trap. Flop came T52 rainbow, which was brilliant. I bet pot, he calls. Turn J, I bet pot, he calls, leaving himself around 3k behind and making an 8k pot. The river peels off a blank, something like a 4, and I think for a long time because I actually think the J made him 2 pair, but I put him in anyway. He calls showing a disgusting T5 for a flopped 2 pair. I grind back up to near even at around 8k when I flop bottom 2 on a J94 flop. I bet pot, he raised pot and I knew he had a J, so I just shoved. He beat me in the pot with J6o and the turn was the sickening 6. No river justice, and I'm down a match. I handled him again in the next match getting him to shove A-high into my flopped trips, and in the final match he boned me again. I put in a 3rd raise preflop with KTo and he called with Q9. Flop KJ9, and I bet pot, which was about half of my stack at this point. He calls, and the turn is a 9. He pushes in, and I go into the tank. He's likely to have a 9 here, but he could also a bad K, a bad J, or just A-high, so I call with a few seconds left on the clock and he shows Q9. Gross. I'm still at $180, so hopefully I peel off a few $15 matches and squeeze into the $20 by Tuesday when I head to Kearney. I'd like to finish next week at $400 so that I can be playing $50 heads-ups within 2 weeks. Go me!
Last night I hung out with my best friend from high school. We lost touch in college, and I really haven't talked to him for probably 4-5 years. It was neat to see him. He's changed in many ways, yet he hasn't really changed at all. What I mean is, he's still the same person, just a different version of the same person with new interests and activities. I've probably gone through the same transformation. We only hung out and talked for around 2 hours, but we decided we need to hang out a few more times before he heads back to law school in a month. We'll see how it works out because we're both good at making plans and bad at following through.
I rolled it up a few days ago in heads-up matches. I played the same guy that kept out-lucking me and strapped on the patience. I smoked him 3 matches in a row, and then picked off a few other unsuspecting chumps as well. Following that rush, I played some $.02/$.05 NLHE and scooped $13, ending my day at $198. The next day, I played 5 $15 heads-up matches and went 2-3. I played the same guy, and while he's a decent player, he ran super hot. The first match he picked me off pretty easy because I was trying to figure him out but not catching cards. I won the second match in 4 hands when he shoved KJo preflop over my raise and I made the hero call with 55. Flopped a set, turned a boat, game over. The 3rd match was a ball-buster. I ran up to around 12k in chips and then got KK. I raised pot, he reraised pot, and I decided to trap. Flop came T52 rainbow, which was brilliant. I bet pot, he calls. Turn J, I bet pot, he calls, leaving himself around 3k behind and making an 8k pot. The river peels off a blank, something like a 4, and I think for a long time because I actually think the J made him 2 pair, but I put him in anyway. He calls showing a disgusting T5 for a flopped 2 pair. I grind back up to near even at around 8k when I flop bottom 2 on a J94 flop. I bet pot, he raised pot and I knew he had a J, so I just shoved. He beat me in the pot with J6o and the turn was the sickening 6. No river justice, and I'm down a match. I handled him again in the next match getting him to shove A-high into my flopped trips, and in the final match he boned me again. I put in a 3rd raise preflop with KTo and he called with Q9. Flop KJ9, and I bet pot, which was about half of my stack at this point. He calls, and the turn is a 9. He pushes in, and I go into the tank. He's likely to have a 9 here, but he could also a bad K, a bad J, or just A-high, so I call with a few seconds left on the clock and he shows Q9. Gross. I'm still at $180, so hopefully I peel off a few $15 matches and squeeze into the $20 by Tuesday when I head to Kearney. I'd like to finish next week at $400 so that I can be playing $50 heads-ups within 2 weeks. Go me!
Friday, July 13, 2007
Sister, Foose, Picture, Poker
My sister called me at around noon. She and a friend are at Worlds of Fun, and they had gone on 3 rides. They are both nauseous and wanted to know what they should do. I told them to drink a bunch of water and go on more rides. I'm going to hell. I don't feel that bad, though, because my sister is nearly a decade older than I am and should know better. I do hope they don't puke and have a great time. I wish I was at Worlds of Fun.
I just watched an episode of Rides that featured the famed car builder Chip Foose creating a car from scratch for a prestigious auto show. The man is simply ridiculous. The amount of detail that was put into the car was beyond anything that I would ever imagine. Every nut and bolt on the car had special attention paid to it. It sort of bothers me to even refer to it as a car, because it is in a category of its own. Foose won the top award at the auto show, and there really isn't a nicer guy alive. He appreciates everything that he has achieved and always defers his praise to those who work with him. He is one mini-celebrity that I hope to meet some day. I really hope I can afford to have him build a car for me, but by the time I can afford it he'll either be dead or it will cost $5,000 an hour.
I left up my picture of the week in case nobody noticed. It is hilarious. It is a graphic depiction of the joke "Why is 6 afraid of 7?" Simple things make me smile, although I would argue that there is a lot of intelligence in it.
I crushed heads-up matches yesterday. I played all of the luckboxes that were crushing me over the past few days and strapped on my patient boots. They still got disgustingly lucky every time that they put their money in, but I made sure that I didn't put mine in without a big hand. In one match, my nemesis airfreshner beat me with A7 vs my AJ, K4 vs my KJ, and A3 vs my JJ all AIPF. I'm probably confusing some of the hands because it was the same story in all 3 matches; beat him down, get him in bad, he wins, repeat. I beat him 3 in a row and he wouldn't play me anymore, but hopefully he'll be back over the weekend. Today, I'm 1-1. One guy made me his bitch by just hammering at every pot. I know I folded a lot of winners and called with losers. That is covered in chapter 4 of my upcoming book on how to lose at poker. My next match lasted nearly an hour as I was playing a guy that has a really screwed down, squeaky game. The funny part is that at the end he called me a card rack. What he failed to realize was that if he checked, I bet no matter what I had. 90% of those times he folded. If he called, I knew he was trapping and just check-folded. I like people thinking that I'm terrible and have no clue what I'm doing because it makes it easier for me. I think my bankroll is sitting at around $154. I wanted to play until I was at $180 last night but Bugsy's was incredibly laggy and I decided that heads-up matches would be a terrible idea. Hopefully I can hit that today.
I just watched an episode of Rides that featured the famed car builder Chip Foose creating a car from scratch for a prestigious auto show. The man is simply ridiculous. The amount of detail that was put into the car was beyond anything that I would ever imagine. Every nut and bolt on the car had special attention paid to it. It sort of bothers me to even refer to it as a car, because it is in a category of its own. Foose won the top award at the auto show, and there really isn't a nicer guy alive. He appreciates everything that he has achieved and always defers his praise to those who work with him. He is one mini-celebrity that I hope to meet some day. I really hope I can afford to have him build a car for me, but by the time I can afford it he'll either be dead or it will cost $5,000 an hour.
I left up my picture of the week in case nobody noticed. It is hilarious. It is a graphic depiction of the joke "Why is 6 afraid of 7?" Simple things make me smile, although I would argue that there is a lot of intelligence in it.
I crushed heads-up matches yesterday. I played all of the luckboxes that were crushing me over the past few days and strapped on my patient boots. They still got disgustingly lucky every time that they put their money in, but I made sure that I didn't put mine in without a big hand. In one match, my nemesis airfreshner beat me with A7 vs my AJ, K4 vs my KJ, and A3 vs my JJ all AIPF. I'm probably confusing some of the hands because it was the same story in all 3 matches; beat him down, get him in bad, he wins, repeat. I beat him 3 in a row and he wouldn't play me anymore, but hopefully he'll be back over the weekend. Today, I'm 1-1. One guy made me his bitch by just hammering at every pot. I know I folded a lot of winners and called with losers. That is covered in chapter 4 of my upcoming book on how to lose at poker. My next match lasted nearly an hour as I was playing a guy that has a really screwed down, squeaky game. The funny part is that at the end he called me a card rack. What he failed to realize was that if he checked, I bet no matter what I had. 90% of those times he folded. If he called, I knew he was trapping and just check-folded. I like people thinking that I'm terrible and have no clue what I'm doing because it makes it easier for me. I think my bankroll is sitting at around $154. I wanted to play until I was at $180 last night but Bugsy's was incredibly laggy and I decided that heads-up matches would be a terrible idea. Hopefully I can hit that today.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Manley, Back Pain, Carver, Poker
Yesterday, Matt wanted to go driving because it was such a nice day. He has his mom's Mustang convertible down here, so we picked up Corey and just started driving east on Van Dorn. After about an hour, we were hungry. We intended to stop in Louisville for food, but we weren't sure where we were. We stopped in a city called Manley (village, whatever) and ate at the bar. I don't remember the name of it, and I'm not sure I even saw the name. Matt thinks it was called the Pit Stop. The food was delicious and cheap, a double bonus. Matt asked if they took debit cards, and the lady replied "Come on now, we're in Manley." Manley has 191 souls and no ATMs.
My back is trying to kill me again. I don't have the shooting arse pain like before, but my right leg feels incredibly weak. I really hope that I don't have back surgery in my not-too-distant future because I hate hospitals, but I really don't know how much longer I can stand this garbage. It's not that the pain is unbearable, it's that I feel like I'm 90. I couldn't run if I wanted to right now (not that I do), but I'm tired of being immobile once a week. Science needs to hurry up and find some sort of ridiculous technology that will just heal anything instantly.
I started reading the Raymond Carver anthology that we were supposed to have read for my Advanced Fiction class last semester. I read a decent chunk of the 500+ pages, but I don't remember where I stopped or what I read so I'm just starting over. I will comment more when I have read more than 20 pages.
Poker was awful today. The reason I was crushing people in the $10 matches yesterday was the same reason I got hammered today. I played several different people, but they all played the same. Overraise nearly every pot preflop and bet pot at the flop. This forced me to screw down my game and get squeaky tight, but I still couldn't dodge garbage. Every match ended similar to this: they would have a slight lead, somewhere in the neighborhood of 12k/8k, and I would find a hand like AQ. They would overraise and I would reraise. The flop would come Q-high with some sort of straight or flush draw, they would bet pot, I would move in over top, and they would insta-call. Then, they would hit their draw. A couple of times I was able to control the all-ins, but 3 different people figured out what I was doing and started moving in every hand. All I could do at that point was wait for a good hand like an AK or a pocket pair and move in, but I kept coming up empty. Oh well. After all was said and done, I was down $25. I want to play more tonight, but I won't play well because my back hurts too bad, so I'm going to watch some TV, read, and call it an early night. Tomorrow will go better.
My back is trying to kill me again. I don't have the shooting arse pain like before, but my right leg feels incredibly weak. I really hope that I don't have back surgery in my not-too-distant future because I hate hospitals, but I really don't know how much longer I can stand this garbage. It's not that the pain is unbearable, it's that I feel like I'm 90. I couldn't run if I wanted to right now (not that I do), but I'm tired of being immobile once a week. Science needs to hurry up and find some sort of ridiculous technology that will just heal anything instantly.
I started reading the Raymond Carver anthology that we were supposed to have read for my Advanced Fiction class last semester. I read a decent chunk of the 500+ pages, but I don't remember where I stopped or what I read so I'm just starting over. I will comment more when I have read more than 20 pages.
Poker was awful today. The reason I was crushing people in the $10 matches yesterday was the same reason I got hammered today. I played several different people, but they all played the same. Overraise nearly every pot preflop and bet pot at the flop. This forced me to screw down my game and get squeaky tight, but I still couldn't dodge garbage. Every match ended similar to this: they would have a slight lead, somewhere in the neighborhood of 12k/8k, and I would find a hand like AQ. They would overraise and I would reraise. The flop would come Q-high with some sort of straight or flush draw, they would bet pot, I would move in over top, and they would insta-call. Then, they would hit their draw. A couple of times I was able to control the all-ins, but 3 different people figured out what I was doing and started moving in every hand. All I could do at that point was wait for a good hand like an AK or a pocket pair and move in, but I kept coming up empty. Oh well. After all was said and done, I was down $25. I want to play more tonight, but I won't play well because my back hurts too bad, so I'm going to watch some TV, read, and call it an early night. Tomorrow will go better.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Book, Brushing Teeth, Poker
I finished Stranger Than Fiction today. The last several stories are really about how Fight Club changed Chuck's life. It must have been a weird time for him, because his greatest success to date came at the same time as the horrible tragedy of his father's murder. I mean, literally at the same time. The movie was in pre-screening when his father's body was found. I don't know how I would react if one of my happiest moments and one of my worst moments were mashed together in the same month. I'm not going to think about it.
James griped at me today. When I brush my teeth, I don't do it in the bathroom. I kind of wander. I'm also typically in my underwear only because I have just gotten out of the shower. Apparently this bothers him. He hasn't told me so before. I don't know why I walk around when I brush my teeth, but I just don't like standing in front of the mirror. If you ever notice, we kind of look like idiots when we brush our teeth.
I played poker until around 9am this morning. Probably around 14 total hours yesterday. I'm still sort of baffled. I played my first $10 heads-up matches and crushed. I went 4-1 in my first five, and that was only because I took several brutal beats in one match and couldn't outpace the luckbox. I had him down to around 7k in chips when we both got all-in on a flop of 984 with 1 club. I had 98, he had 96cc. The board came miraculous running clubs to shortstack me. I again got him down to around 7k when I flopped a straight with 46o on a board of 357. I bet, he called. The turn peeled a 9 and he moved in over my bet. I'm pot committed at this point, but I paused because I thought "There's no way he has 86." He did. I got back up to 8k when I got in against his flush draw on the turn, and since I'm telling the story you know how it ends. I did play like garbage in 2 matches this morning around 8ish and lost both of them. I played way too weak-tight and the guy just abused me. That was my cue that I was done for the day. I was still +1 in heads-ups and had taken in another $15ish from Omaha Hi/Lo, so combined with a few SnG and MTT losses, I ended the day around +$20 at $139.50. My next plateau is at $220, so hopefully I will hit that by Friday. When I hit that, I can bump up my heads-up matches and jump in a few $5 and $10 MTTs. I'm still not playing my A game right now, but I'm refreshed because I'm out of the rut I was in a week or two ago.
James griped at me today. When I brush my teeth, I don't do it in the bathroom. I kind of wander. I'm also typically in my underwear only because I have just gotten out of the shower. Apparently this bothers him. He hasn't told me so before. I don't know why I walk around when I brush my teeth, but I just don't like standing in front of the mirror. If you ever notice, we kind of look like idiots when we brush our teeth.
I played poker until around 9am this morning. Probably around 14 total hours yesterday. I'm still sort of baffled. I played my first $10 heads-up matches and crushed. I went 4-1 in my first five, and that was only because I took several brutal beats in one match and couldn't outpace the luckbox. I had him down to around 7k in chips when we both got all-in on a flop of 984 with 1 club. I had 98, he had 96cc. The board came miraculous running clubs to shortstack me. I again got him down to around 7k when I flopped a straight with 46o on a board of 357. I bet, he called. The turn peeled a 9 and he moved in over my bet. I'm pot committed at this point, but I paused because I thought "There's no way he has 86." He did. I got back up to 8k when I got in against his flush draw on the turn, and since I'm telling the story you know how it ends. I did play like garbage in 2 matches this morning around 8ish and lost both of them. I played way too weak-tight and the guy just abused me. That was my cue that I was done for the day. I was still +1 in heads-ups and had taken in another $15ish from Omaha Hi/Lo, so combined with a few SnG and MTT losses, I ended the day around +$20 at $139.50. My next plateau is at $220, so hopefully I will hit that by Friday. When I hit that, I can bump up my heads-up matches and jump in a few $5 and $10 MTTs. I'm still not playing my A game right now, but I'm refreshed because I'm out of the rut I was in a week or two ago.
Monday, July 9, 2007
800, Movies, Quote, Poker
The blog hit 800 today despite my lack of posts lately. I'm still shy of the 1,000 that I was gunning for by the end of the semester. Oh well.
On the 5th of July I went and saw both Transformers and Sicko. Both are highly recommended. Transformers was unbelievable. I grew up watching the cartoon, and I left the theater with the same sort of "Wow, cooooool," response to the movie that I had as a kid. Sicko was impressive for several reasons. The main one was how ridiculously well that the propaganda from HMOs and insurance companies has worked on us. While I try and stay more educated on the workings of the world than my peers, I still had some of the same false opinions about the state of health care in the world that were critiqued in the film. What was sad is that Michael Moore does such a good job of researching that when I talked to my educated friends about national health care, I got the uninformed, idiot answers that the movie was targeted at. Sad. We need national health care. If you disagree, you either work in the health insurance field or haven't seen the movie yet.
I'm still really against Stranger Than Fiction, but the book did nearly redeem itself with one single quote today. While talking about the genius behind the work of Ira Levin, Chuck was going on about the metaphors that he chooses as the basis for his books and how they are effective on society without being over the top. The fantastic quote itself concerned the books The Stepford Wives and Rosemary's Baby, and said "Your Disney-female-robot-sex-slave-hausfrau metaphor is even better than your big-dick-Devil-date-rape metaphor." Awesome.
I had 2 lucrative poker opportunities online in the past couple of days. I won around $60 in 2 sessions of $.02/$.05 poker. One night, I saw 2 guys playing NLHE at that level, and they were making ridiculous overbets at each pot, so I sat and waited. I didn't totally bust either one of them like I planned on doing, but I did end up peeling about $30 off of them combined. The next night I saw a guy sitting at an Omaha Hi/Lo table with over $100. I took another $30 off of him before I called it quits for the night. I've been goofing off playing small little $1 and $2 tourneys on both Bugsy's and Full Tilt, and I've been on a rush. I've moneyed in about 80% of the dozen or so tourneys that I've played. Granted, I've only won like $30 total in all of them, but that's a pretty good return on my money. I also went to the casino with Brandon on Thursday night making a whopping $20 over 3 hours. I'm feeling a bit out of it right now, so I'm going to end this post abruptly and awkwardly.
On the 5th of July I went and saw both Transformers and Sicko. Both are highly recommended. Transformers was unbelievable. I grew up watching the cartoon, and I left the theater with the same sort of "Wow, cooooool," response to the movie that I had as a kid. Sicko was impressive for several reasons. The main one was how ridiculously well that the propaganda from HMOs and insurance companies has worked on us. While I try and stay more educated on the workings of the world than my peers, I still had some of the same false opinions about the state of health care in the world that were critiqued in the film. What was sad is that Michael Moore does such a good job of researching that when I talked to my educated friends about national health care, I got the uninformed, idiot answers that the movie was targeted at. Sad. We need national health care. If you disagree, you either work in the health insurance field or haven't seen the movie yet.
I'm still really against Stranger Than Fiction, but the book did nearly redeem itself with one single quote today. While talking about the genius behind the work of Ira Levin, Chuck was going on about the metaphors that he chooses as the basis for his books and how they are effective on society without being over the top. The fantastic quote itself concerned the books The Stepford Wives and Rosemary's Baby, and said "Your Disney-female-robot-sex-slave-hausfrau metaphor is even better than your big-dick-Devil-date-rape metaphor." Awesome.
I had 2 lucrative poker opportunities online in the past couple of days. I won around $60 in 2 sessions of $.02/$.05 poker. One night, I saw 2 guys playing NLHE at that level, and they were making ridiculous overbets at each pot, so I sat and waited. I didn't totally bust either one of them like I planned on doing, but I did end up peeling about $30 off of them combined. The next night I saw a guy sitting at an Omaha Hi/Lo table with over $100. I took another $30 off of him before I called it quits for the night. I've been goofing off playing small little $1 and $2 tourneys on both Bugsy's and Full Tilt, and I've been on a rush. I've moneyed in about 80% of the dozen or so tourneys that I've played. Granted, I've only won like $30 total in all of them, but that's a pretty good return on my money. I also went to the casino with Brandon on Thursday night making a whopping $20 over 3 hours. I'm feeling a bit out of it right now, so I'm going to end this post abruptly and awkwardly.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Fishing, 4th of July, Poker
I'm not sure how I always get into situations like this, but here is my new fishing trip story. A friend from work invited me (I invited myself) to go fishing with him, and so James and myself went with him to this place that is out in the middle of nowhere. I mean really out in the middle of nowhere. The drive there involves using a couple of the roads that railroad workers use to drive alongside the tracks to do whatever it is they do, and the fishing spot is underneath a railroad bridge. We climbed down to the river, fished until around 11pm, and then climbed back up to the truck. We sat on the tailgate and shot the breeze for a little bit and then we decided it was time to head home. Only we were locked out. I laughed hysterically because I realized how totally and thoroughly fucked we really were. No point in getting mad because then I would just be stranded and mad. What had us really screwed was that there were maybe 2 people on the planet that knew how to get to where we were. Fortunately, we coordinated a glorious rescue with 1 of the 2 people and Matt who took a spare key to them before they made the hour plus drive to get us. We ended up getting home very early in the AM. Another amusing part to me is that I always have this little piece of me that thinks that people who hear some of my stories think that they are totally made up, and each person that I have along with me during one of my debacles is another source of verification. Vanity, definitely my favorite sin.
Today James and I lazed around the house until probably 8:30pm. We both said that we didn't want to do anything for the 4th, but we did this last year too. We ended up driving to Waverly and dropping around $100 combined on fireworks. We then came back and blew them all up with our friend Bauer. I'm not the dangerous kind of pyro I don't think, but I really love fire and blowing stuff up. There's just something fascinating about a flame that draws men into it and tries really hard to hold on to them. I can honestly say that I understand moths. Fire gets a bad rap, though. For all of its destruction, it is a necessary part of life. Fire can keep us warm, and fire cleanses things. If there weren't forest fires, forests would choke themselves to death with vegetation and rot. An old house burns down and a new one is built. Fire makes energy for our homes, runs big factories, powers our cars. No wonder ancient civilizations worshipped fire. I'm glad we have a holiday for it.
Poker has been dismal. I've been playing really terribly and I'm still not sure why. I was down $30 the other day playing nothing but heads-up matches, which means I was -6 matches, which is awful. You need to win 6/10 to break even because of the rake, and I have the ability to win 7 or 8 of 10, but I'm just off of my game right now. The weird part is that my MTT game is on right now. I'm guessing it's because I'm too LAG in my heads-ups, but the LAG play in the deepstack tourneys is allowing me to mass chips early and then increase my aggressiveness, further growing my stacks. I've played about 8 MTTs in the past couple of days, and I've moneyed in 4, bubbled in 2, got everything in with the best hand in 1 and got sucked out on, and 1 I just left in the middle of because it was only $1 and I was hungry. 2 of my money finishes were 1sts. Hopefully I can sort out my issues in heads-up and continue to find success in MTTs.
Today James and I lazed around the house until probably 8:30pm. We both said that we didn't want to do anything for the 4th, but we did this last year too. We ended up driving to Waverly and dropping around $100 combined on fireworks. We then came back and blew them all up with our friend Bauer. I'm not the dangerous kind of pyro I don't think, but I really love fire and blowing stuff up. There's just something fascinating about a flame that draws men into it and tries really hard to hold on to them. I can honestly say that I understand moths. Fire gets a bad rap, though. For all of its destruction, it is a necessary part of life. Fire can keep us warm, and fire cleanses things. If there weren't forest fires, forests would choke themselves to death with vegetation and rot. An old house burns down and a new one is built. Fire makes energy for our homes, runs big factories, powers our cars. No wonder ancient civilizations worshipped fire. I'm glad we have a holiday for it.
Poker has been dismal. I've been playing really terribly and I'm still not sure why. I was down $30 the other day playing nothing but heads-up matches, which means I was -6 matches, which is awful. You need to win 6/10 to break even because of the rake, and I have the ability to win 7 or 8 of 10, but I'm just off of my game right now. The weird part is that my MTT game is on right now. I'm guessing it's because I'm too LAG in my heads-ups, but the LAG play in the deepstack tourneys is allowing me to mass chips early and then increase my aggressiveness, further growing my stacks. I've played about 8 MTTs in the past couple of days, and I've moneyed in 4, bubbled in 2, got everything in with the best hand in 1 and got sucked out on, and 1 I just left in the middle of because it was only $1 and I was hungry. 2 of my money finishes were 1sts. Hopefully I can sort out my issues in heads-up and continue to find success in MTTs.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Travis Davis, Poker
My good friend Travis Davis was injured in a car wreck on the 1st. Travis was goofing around in the passenger seat and hanging out the window when the driver lost control and the car rolled. Travis was ejected, and is in critical condition at BryanLGH West. I don't know anything aside from what I read on the Lincoln Journal Star website. I want to go see him at the hospital, but I really can't go in hospitals. I don't really know why. I can go if it isn't for something important or significant, like when I had to take my mom in for her kidney stone. When somebody I know is ill or injured, I just can't go. I think part of it is that if something bad does happen, I don't want to remember them in the hospital connected to tubes and machines. From the reactions of others, Travis isn't in terrible shape and should be fine, but I stress this is just my interpretation of news stories and Facebook messages, so it is by no means legitimate. My thoughts and prayers are with Travis and his family, and I wish him a total and speedy recovery.
I feel weird talking poker now, but I have to do it for myself. I had a rough run yesterday in heads-up matches, and was pretty down on myself. After I posted, I signed up for a $1 7-Stud Hi/Lo MTT. There were only like 23 entrants, so I felt pretty confident as I'm a good stud split player. I started out super rough. I quickly ran my 2500 starting stack to over 5000, but then ran into rolled 3's with AA in the can. That put me down to around 3k again, and again I ran it up over 5k. Then the same person with the rolled 3's caught a boat on 6th to crush my AAKK, putting me back below 3k. When I lose a sick hand like that, I simply type "sick" into the chat window. There's no judgment, and I don't say anything else about it unless people bitch at me, which they unfortunately usually do. This particular a-hole kept telling me how bad I was and how they couldn't wait to bust me. To avoid going nuclear, I just muted them and buckled down, because by that time I was under 1k in chips and in deep trouble. I scooped the next 3 pots I played, and was up over 6k again when we hit the final table. From there I just cruised. With 5 people left, I had A2467 of diamonds on 5th and scooped a 3 handed pot which all but sealed it for me. Needless to say I outlasted the jackass, and I'm proud that I didn't say a word when he busted out. When it was down to 2, I took it down in 4 hands for $10.50 first prize money. I can now retire. When this was wrapping up, I joined a $1 NLHE MTT with 24 others. I played super LAG, playing probably 30% of the hands I was dealt and rode the subsequent chip roller coaster to the chip lead with about 15 people left. I was also making sick reads, which I don't always do well online. One such read was a super-aggro retard overraised in 1st position. I called with T4ss, and we took a J84 flop heads-up. He instantly bet out pot, and I put him on a hand somewhere from 33-AK, meaning that I was ahead. I called, and the turn peeled another J. He fired pot again, leaving himself about 4k behind with about 10k in the pot and blinds at 1/200. I thought for a few seconds, decided I was good, and moved in. He insta-called with 22, river blank, and I scoop a sick pot with bottom pair. I had a huge chip lead with 8 left, proceeded to blow all but 10k of it playing aggressively, and then went on an all-in rampage with blinds at 500/1k, 100. I scooped about another 10k without playing a pot, and then doubled up with KK vs QJ. With 4 left I regained the chip lead and took it down with minimal drama. Another $12.50, and I had more than erased the heads-up losses for the day. I've played a couple matches today and am 2/3, leaving my roll at $94. I've said it like five days straight, but it would be cool to get to $110 to play some $10 matches.
I feel weird talking poker now, but I have to do it for myself. I had a rough run yesterday in heads-up matches, and was pretty down on myself. After I posted, I signed up for a $1 7-Stud Hi/Lo MTT. There were only like 23 entrants, so I felt pretty confident as I'm a good stud split player. I started out super rough. I quickly ran my 2500 starting stack to over 5000, but then ran into rolled 3's with AA in the can. That put me down to around 3k again, and again I ran it up over 5k. Then the same person with the rolled 3's caught a boat on 6th to crush my AAKK, putting me back below 3k. When I lose a sick hand like that, I simply type "sick" into the chat window. There's no judgment, and I don't say anything else about it unless people bitch at me, which they unfortunately usually do. This particular a-hole kept telling me how bad I was and how they couldn't wait to bust me. To avoid going nuclear, I just muted them and buckled down, because by that time I was under 1k in chips and in deep trouble. I scooped the next 3 pots I played, and was up over 6k again when we hit the final table. From there I just cruised. With 5 people left, I had A2467 of diamonds on 5th and scooped a 3 handed pot which all but sealed it for me. Needless to say I outlasted the jackass, and I'm proud that I didn't say a word when he busted out. When it was down to 2, I took it down in 4 hands for $10.50 first prize money. I can now retire. When this was wrapping up, I joined a $1 NLHE MTT with 24 others. I played super LAG, playing probably 30% of the hands I was dealt and rode the subsequent chip roller coaster to the chip lead with about 15 people left. I was also making sick reads, which I don't always do well online. One such read was a super-aggro retard overraised in 1st position. I called with T4ss, and we took a J84 flop heads-up. He instantly bet out pot, and I put him on a hand somewhere from 33-AK, meaning that I was ahead. I called, and the turn peeled another J. He fired pot again, leaving himself about 4k behind with about 10k in the pot and blinds at 1/200. I thought for a few seconds, decided I was good, and moved in. He insta-called with 22, river blank, and I scoop a sick pot with bottom pair. I had a huge chip lead with 8 left, proceeded to blow all but 10k of it playing aggressively, and then went on an all-in rampage with blinds at 500/1k, 100. I scooped about another 10k without playing a pot, and then doubled up with KK vs QJ. With 4 left I regained the chip lead and took it down with minimal drama. Another $12.50, and I had more than erased the heads-up losses for the day. I've played a couple matches today and am 2/3, leaving my roll at $94. I've said it like five days straight, but it would be cool to get to $110 to play some $10 matches.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Tired, Picnic, Book, Poker
As predicted, I got no sleep last night because of my nap. I ended up getting around 5 hours, and am again exhausted. Tonight shall be an early night.
We had our work picnic tonight. It was somewhat lame. Ok, it was really lame. My first impression of Best Buy back in late 2004 was this: I hadn't worked there for very long but was invited to the Christmas party along with the rest of the store. The party was at Champion's. We bowled. We golfed. We go-karted. Afterward, we all met in the bowling alley for a drawing. The prizes? $50 gift cards. X-Boxes. Playstation 2s. A computer. A 42" TV. Tonight I won a magnetic dartboard. A magnetic dartboard that Best Buy sent for us to give away at a meeting but we kept it to give it away now instead. The best prize: a 4GB flash drive. Retail price: $68. I say retail price because we, of course, get a discount. They chose the one with the biggest discount. The really sad part to me is that we won a contest to give us $1000 for a party, and we already have money budgeted for the picnic. I would estimate the total cost of the party, including food and prizes, would be in the ballpark of $500. There's a reason that I don't bust my ass at work like I used to. There's a reason I can't wait to get the hell out of there.
Speaking of things I can't wait to finish, Chuck Palahniuk writes boring essays. I know they are essays, but John D'Agata writes essays, and I don't hate them. Palahniuk is actually writing about interesting things; combine demolition derbies, a Montana testicle festival, and walking around Seattle dressed in a dog suit. However, the way he has written about them makes me lose all interest. I'm cruising through it fast, but it's simply to be finished. Hopefully it will get better.
I'm not going to go into much detail about specific poker hands today, because I really don't want to have to put my fist through my monitor. I did put my money in bad in all of the heads-up tourneys I played today. I would flop two pair, bet it on the flop and turn, and somebody would hit a gutshot on the turn or river and put me all in. It happened in 4 of the 5 matches I played. In the 5th match, I was shortstacked because of a boat vs nut flush situation. I was down to 2k in chips (from a starting stack of 10k), battled back to 8k, got back down to 4k and had JJ. I raised pot preflop with blinds of 150/300, 25 ante, putting about a quarter of my chips in the pot. The flop came K72 rainbow, and my opponent checked. He is only around 30% to pair the flop at all, and slim to pair the top card, so there is roughly an 85% chance that I'm ahead in the hand. Having virtually no chips left, I moved in. He called me after some short thought with 77 for a flopped set, and I blanked out. Again, I put my money in bad every single time, but running into these scenarios heads-up this many times in a day is ridiculous. I'd peg it at around 600:1 for those things to happen in consecutive matches, which means it better not happen again for about 2 years. Well, I'm going to lose a bit more money tonight and then go to bed.
We had our work picnic tonight. It was somewhat lame. Ok, it was really lame. My first impression of Best Buy back in late 2004 was this: I hadn't worked there for very long but was invited to the Christmas party along with the rest of the store. The party was at Champion's. We bowled. We golfed. We go-karted. Afterward, we all met in the bowling alley for a drawing. The prizes? $50 gift cards. X-Boxes. Playstation 2s. A computer. A 42" TV. Tonight I won a magnetic dartboard. A magnetic dartboard that Best Buy sent for us to give away at a meeting but we kept it to give it away now instead. The best prize: a 4GB flash drive. Retail price: $68. I say retail price because we, of course, get a discount. They chose the one with the biggest discount. The really sad part to me is that we won a contest to give us $1000 for a party, and we already have money budgeted for the picnic. I would estimate the total cost of the party, including food and prizes, would be in the ballpark of $500. There's a reason that I don't bust my ass at work like I used to. There's a reason I can't wait to get the hell out of there.
Speaking of things I can't wait to finish, Chuck Palahniuk writes boring essays. I know they are essays, but John D'Agata writes essays, and I don't hate them. Palahniuk is actually writing about interesting things; combine demolition derbies, a Montana testicle festival, and walking around Seattle dressed in a dog suit. However, the way he has written about them makes me lose all interest. I'm cruising through it fast, but it's simply to be finished. Hopefully it will get better.
I'm not going to go into much detail about specific poker hands today, because I really don't want to have to put my fist through my monitor. I did put my money in bad in all of the heads-up tourneys I played today. I would flop two pair, bet it on the flop and turn, and somebody would hit a gutshot on the turn or river and put me all in. It happened in 4 of the 5 matches I played. In the 5th match, I was shortstacked because of a boat vs nut flush situation. I was down to 2k in chips (from a starting stack of 10k), battled back to 8k, got back down to 4k and had JJ. I raised pot preflop with blinds of 150/300, 25 ante, putting about a quarter of my chips in the pot. The flop came K72 rainbow, and my opponent checked. He is only around 30% to pair the flop at all, and slim to pair the top card, so there is roughly an 85% chance that I'm ahead in the hand. Having virtually no chips left, I moved in. He called me after some short thought with 77 for a flopped set, and I blanked out. Again, I put my money in bad every single time, but running into these scenarios heads-up this many times in a day is ridiculous. I'd peg it at around 600:1 for those things to happen in consecutive matches, which means it better not happen again for about 2 years. Well, I'm going to lose a bit more money tonight and then go to bed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)