So, a funny thing happened to me on the way to the bar....

Well, actually, it didn't. I got to the bar. I ordered a beer. I got paged for work. Definitely NOT funny. Luckily, the Boathouse has wireless and I didn't have to orphan my beer. I just had to run out to my truck for my laptop. Twenty minutes later, my server is fixed, and I'm ordering another beer. Yea!

I played poker for the first time in a while last night. Played a little NLHE, low limits. I was recognized at the table by (what seems to be) a long-time reader. I didn't know I had any.... lol cudd517 was a really cool person, and we started quite the conversation. I feel bad that I never got a banner up for Pauly's coverage of the WPT LA Classic (which I still haven't caught up on - damn work getting in the way), but I pointed a few people there so they could get all the best poker coverage on the net. I made sure to tell everyone how much I sucked... :-)

I got killed with pocket As. Someone caught two pair on the flop and called my all-in post-haste. Oops. I bought back in as Al stopped by to say hi. I blame him. (hehehe) He was at the bar, drinking away while I was curled up in bed (sick as a dog). He was picking at me, telling me that he was getting the suckout switch flipped for me. I told him to make sure that it was flipped so that I wouldn't get sucked out on but I could suck out on other people. Shortly after, I did. I had AQ on a queen-high flop... and ran into pocket Ks. I bet, he raised all-in and I called. The A on the turn gave me the suckout. Thank God for the suckout switch!

I quit shortly after. Not because I was scared though. It was 9:30 and I was beat. I passed out for the evening. No beer involved. Very, VERY disappointing night.

I'm sitting at the bar now. After logging off the work network, I never shut down my laptop. I'm such a geek. I told Al and BigMike that I'd stay as long as my battery lasts or 8:00, whichever is earlier. I'm headed off to drink with Danielle. She's bowling tonight and needs someone to keep her company (i.e. in trouble).

I have my office to myself for one more day. The guy I share it with will be back from vacation on Monday. I'm actually happy about that... I've been having to cover stuff for him for the last week. He didn't expect anything to come up - and I've had 3 requests so far, along with a problematic hmc. (Don't ask, it's a geek thing. If you don't know, it's not worth the explanation because you probably still won't understand. I'm not being condescending, just truthful.) At least I can shut my door and sleep under my desk for one more day. Here's to Friday!

Happy Bunny Friday!

Time for the weekly posting! Yeah, I know... should be once a day, but is anyone really that interested in my life? Heck, I'm not even that interested.

I'm in quite a mood today. Why? Not sure. It's Friday, and the hallway where I work is quiet since it doesn't seem like anyone's here today. I don't have a boss right now - not just on vacation, either. He took another position and the guy they have coming in doesn't have a start date. (4 hour lunch, then leave early?)

I was just visiting in a co-worker's office, and he has some cool toys in there. (Not THOSE BOB-style toys, get your mind out of the gutter!) He has a collection of "It's Happy Bunny" stuff, including a little sign book that he keeps on his desk. I don't know if you've ever seen this stuff, but it's hilarious! Designed more for teenage girls, it's all about making fun of others, which of course I'm right there for. Most people have probably seen the shirts or other apparel but didn't realize it. It has this adorable little white bunny with a pink belly and nose. (I'd paste in a picture if I wasn't so completely worthless with this thing.)

My co-worker's desk faces the door, and he's got the sign book facing so that anyone walking through can see it. I picked the saying for the day today. I felt this was appropriate for my mood. It's "have a great day you worthless turd". Don't you wish you could tell more people in your life those sentiments?

On the website where you can get the merchandise, they have a t-shirt where you can put your own sayings. I think I'll be getting one for the tables... I'll find some appropriately dumb poker put-down for it. I think I'll keep the "worthless turd" part... it just appeals to me.

I actually played some poker last night. And I came out ahead! I can't believe it... I didn't drink that much last night, and that may or may not have been part of it. I did lose a buy-in or two here and there, but I had tables where I'd triple up. I went back to NLHE instead of Stud8. I love Stud (what woman wouldn't love a stud?) but I find that I feel the need for variety these days. Maybe it's just that after a dozen sessions of any game, I start feeling like it's all the same. I know I'm not meant to be a grinder, and it's also the reason why I like NL better than limit.

On the tables, I got talking to IlliniFan, and he mentioned their "Suck out on Leukemia" Tournament. It should be a fun tournament for a great cause! Most of us know that we're going to be spending the money on poker anyways, so come play for a good cause. I should be there, if I'm not too hung over from the night before.

I still had quite a time getting out of bed today. I think I just need a vacation. I'll be getting one soon.... Austin, here I come! I've made all my travel reservations for the SXSW music festival in March. I'll be seeing April and the rest of the crew then. They finally put the schedule up!

Ok, ok... people think I should be working or something now. Ugh. I guess if I want to keep this job, I probably should. Even without a boss, people still expect me to get stuff done. Have a great weekend all!

I'm a slacker!

Yeah, I know it's been a week since I've posted... a busy week. Work likes to give me a swift kick in the ass every once in a while, and it's been one of those weeks. It's good though... it means I'll be on the compensation continuation plan here for a while. lol If you're reading this, it means that I've haven't been forsaken completely by the blog-reading community. Woo-hoo!

During the random shifts in my schedule, I was able to fit in a little poker here and there. I still haven't been that interested in NLHE lately. I try every once in a while, but usually it's while I'm waiting for a seat in Razz or Stud hi/lo. I've become addicted to Stud, and not the Bobby Bracelet kind.

The other night, I was two-tabling low limit (.25/.50) on Full Tilt. One table wasn't doing so well, even though I was playing tight. After losing almost 2/3 of my buy-in, I left that one. The other table was rockin'! I took my $15 up to $50... and that was playing tight. I seem to play along the lines of Felicia, nut-peddling whenever possible. I tried for the scoop instead of just high or low in almost every case. I didn't always make it, but I think the starting hand selection kept me from losing money on hands I shouldn't have been involved with in the first place.

Last night wasn't as good on the $$-winning side. I was waiting for the Stud8 game to get going... When I checked the table, it was up to 4 players. The really cool thing about that was the amount of money one person sat down with. At this limit, most people buy in for $10-15, sometimes as much as $50. This person, in his infinite wisdom, thought that buying in for $10K might be intimidating. What happened? I told Al. The inevitable happened. The table became inhabited by bloggers, looking to help relieve him of that money. :-) I love you guys, but... it's not as easy to take money from people who know what they're doing! I was sitting with Al, Maigrey, Penner and on_thg. (Sorry guys, need to find links for ya. I'm SOOOO far behind!)

The $10K guy didn't last long. He stayed around for a bit, but he realized he wasn't going to get anywhere with us. He lost the $10 profit he'd made and a little more before he decided to go.

Maigrey and I kept getting into it. It seems that the girls are the aggressive ones... and I don't hold a candle to Maigrey when she's on her way. I stayed around for a little bit more, but the week was catching up to me and I needed to get home and get some sleep. (Yes, I was geeking it at the bar again.) I finished about $1.50 up, and it was fun to play with the other bloggers. I just don't want to have to fight them for the fishie money all the time. :-)

This weekend, we're supposed to have snow storms. I'm hoping it won't affect my night out on Saturday with Danielle (I'm oncall for work, so it means I won't be completely obliterated), since I'm looking forward to seeing a friend's band play.

My work obligations mean that I won't (shouldn't) be too hung over to play some tournaments on Sunday. Maybe I'll see some people I know playing in the tourneys. I'll be looking for ya!

This came across my desk this morning....

I haven't had much to post about lately, so when I saw this, I knew what I had to do.

Anyone who was with us during the June gathering in Vegas and had gone to La Salsa knows exactly how true the following statements are.

Enjoy!

____________________________________________



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Tourneys

I'm not great at tourneys. (I suck at poker in general, but tourneys are especially bad.) I have just enough luck to keep me in for a while, then I do something stupid to mess it up. I am trying to get better... so every Sunday, I try to play in at least one if not two tournaments. This past weekend was no exception.

I jumped into one of the $10 tourneys on FTP. I was out within the first half hour. I don't remember how or why, but I got beat. I wasn't happy about it, and at the time I think I thought I made a bad play. Man, I really need to get a better memory or start writing these things down.

I started looking at the tourney list. They had a freeroll coming up at 14:45 - one of the satellites into the Jersey Days Tournament. I was somehow able to get into it, since those things usually fill up within 30 seconds of opening. The remaining seats filled rapidly and we had 1000 people.

Tourney started how most freerolls start - several people going all-in on the first hands. The second hand, I folded 89s. We saw a flop... the remaining three 9s were sitting on the board. I could've easily doubled or tripled up with that hand and put myself in a great position.

I had a slow start, but I was able to build up my stack along the way. [Insert lots of boring folding and a few good hands, a double up in there somewhere, normal tourney stuff.] When we were down to 50 people or so, I made it into the top 10 chip stacks and stayed above 20th the rest of the time. Just before the final table, I'd called a short-stack's all-in with 2 pair but got trounced by a set. So, when we were seated for the final table, I was low. Not the lowest, but pretty darn close.

I ended up making it to 6th place when my decent-size pre-flop raise with AKo was reluctantly called - and my all-in on a 662 flop called - by a guy with pocket 2s. I sensed hesitancy in his pre-flop call, and when he checked post-flop I thought I could take it down. Oops. I ran into one of the few hands that wasn't going to lay it down for anything. I'd been getting respect before... I was hoping that I would this time.

There were probably about half a dozen bloggers cheering me on by this point... thanks guys and gals! Of course, only the top 3 would have a spot in the big tourney for the jerseys. I was really hoping to get one, too.

My whole point of the story (and I could make any short story long) is that if I pay more than a couple of bucks for a tourney, I can't make it past the first hour. If it's free or close to it, I get much farther. Maybe it's just that the good players don't bother with them, but I'll take the practice. One of these days, I'll be able to start making the money on bigger tourneys. One of these years, I'll be trying the WSOP tourneys... hopefully before my 40th birthday! lol