Some Tuesday night 'Mashin

For some reason on Tuesday work just seemed really stressful. I dunno what my deal was, but I was just feeling the pressure all day on Tuesday and was, frankly, a little angry with the world. As the clock hit 5:00PM I knew there was only one cure for this little temper of mine, and that cure was Chumash. I hadn't been there since the $200+20 tournament in March and I was definitely feelin the withdrawal symptoms.

I came home from work, made the necessary adjustments to my back account, headed to the ATM, and was off to the casino. They have a Tuesday night tournament at Chumash which is a $30 buy-in with 1 rebuy for $20 and 1 addon for $20. The only problem with this tournament, and pretty much every tournament at Chumash, is the Chumash blind structure. The blinds start at 25-50, and you start with 500 in chips. You get 1 rebuy for 500 at anytime, and if you make it to the end of the second level you can addon for another 1500. From there the blinds go from 100-200, to 300-500, to 500-1000. Not exactly a forgiving blind structure. I don't really like playing these tournaments, but I enjoy live play so much, and it's so convenient of a drive that I will play the Tuesday night tournament every now and then. I think I've played this one a total of 6 times, and the third time I played I won it for $1300. Other than that I haven't made it past the first hour. It's just an all-in tournament so whatever. I had already planned on losing the $70 for the tournament and bringing a buy-in for the 2/5 NL game ($200), and if I lost that I was goin home. My goal was to hit $600 ($400 profit) at the cash game, and if I hit that I was goin home.

So after the half hour drive I walked through the sliding glass doors and rode the escalator up to the main gaming floor as I made my way to the back to the poker room. Upon my entering the poker room all of the dealers were ecstatic to see me after my long disappearance. The floor man came up and gave me a handshake and asked how I had been and where I had been and so on. I registered for the tournament, chatted with some of the dealers, and took my seat. Early on in the tournament I had tripled my stack, but by the end of the second level I was back down to even. I added on, and with 30 seconds left in the 100-200 round I married myself to a hand, flopped top pair and pushed, and lost. No big deal, I was planning on that. So with only half of the tables open thanks to the tournament taking up the other half, it was gonna take a while to get into a NL game. I put my name on the bottom of a long list, took a buzzer, and was off to play some blackjack :).

I know I know, don't play blackjack on a poker trip, but being in that casino after so long was so refreshing and I was in a good mood, so I figured I'd take $100 to the $10 blackjack tables and give it a shot. I found a pretty dealer with only 2 guys who seemed like they knew what they were doin, so I sat and waited for a new shoe. In one shoe I was up $50, which was better than losing. I didn't want to play for long, I just wanted to get my fix. But I was either going for over $100 or getting back to even, so leaving with $50 wasn't an option. We played through half the shoe and then one of the guys decided to get up and leave. I played his seat as well as my current one for about 9 hands. We played through most of the shoe before picking up 2 new players. We entered the new shoe and about a quarter of the way through the pretty dealer was leaving. I was at $220 total, and decided $120 profit was fine by me for 20 minutes with a pretty girl and a couple of good shoes, so I colored up and headed back to the poker room.

I got there before my name was even close, but noticed that they would be starting a new table. I didn't make that one, but shortly afterwards a seat opened on an ongoing table. That was good for me; since the max buy-in is only $200 the new tables were usually short on cash. I came to the new table seeing a couple of big stacks and took my seat for $200. Since I hadn't played live for so long, it took me a couple minutes to get comfortable, but I was doing alright. The table was a very loose passive table. Almost every hand there was at least 3 limpers, while only 2 people usually made it past the flop. I like this kind of game since I love postflop play. It allows me to see lots of flops and catch lots of draws. I enjoy outsmarting my opponents postflop, so this table was ripe for my taking. I was up to $300, then back down to $200, then back up to $300, then back down to $200 all within the first hour. I made a few bad calls to confirm my suspicions, but here's a couple interesting hands that occured throughout my time at the table.

With my stack at about $280 an interesting hand came up. I posted the big blind and watched 4 players limp, the SB completed, and I looked down at the Kh10h and checked. The flop was a beautiful Kd-Ks-8s. Knowing that the table was so loose preflop and so tight postflop, I decided to bet out to give me a better idea of where I was. I fired $20 into a $30 pot. I got one caller while the rest of the table folded. I had played with this player numerous times before, and knew he could have easily had KQ, KJ, as he could have had a flush draw. I wasn't worried about 88 because he was the kind of player to raise his mid pocket pairs to thin the field preflop. All my thinking processes were sent home for the day when the 10d hit the turn. I decided to check, maybe representing a flush draw or even an 8. To my dismay he checked behind. Now the 9h hit the river, and with no flush out there, and still thinking he may have had KQ or KJ, I bet $35 into the $70 pot. Low and behold he announced raise! :) :) :) He pulled the $35 plus another $75 out of his $205 stack, leaving him with $95 behind. Now as I was sitting there with the nuts I had to figure out a way to get the rest of his money in the pot. With $125 already invested in the pot you would think it would be easy to get him to put his remaining $95 in, but that's not always the case. After a minute of thinking though, I figured he would only raise me there with KQ, 99, or 88. So in any case his money was goin in and I pushed it. He insta-called as I announced that I had the nuts. He paused, looked at his cards, and as I was pulling in my last bet, he tabled his cards. K-10.

Oh come on that's not necessary. We chopped the pot and took a $10 profit each after the rake. Everyone got a good laugh out of that and we played on.

About half an hour after I sat down a real donkey had come into the game and was sitting 2 seats to my left. He obviously was very amateur-ish, but thought he was the shit, both on and off the table. I knew I was going to have fun with this guy when I saw him calling a raise with Q-6 offsuit just to watch him catch 2 pair, then acting like he was the best player in the world. Every time he was loaded he would flat call a bet on the flop, then raise the turn. His patterns were apparent, to me at least. I knew he was mine. And it happened on this hand.

With my stack at $240 after missing a few raises, I limped in MP with the QJd after another limper before me. The kid directly to my left raised to 20 and the donk called on the button, as did I and we saw the flop 3-handed. The flop came up A-A-Q. Instantly I thought I was done with the hand, but right away I reversed my decision and put on my thinking cap on; I was here to play poker. I checked to the raiser on my left, who bet $25 and was insta-called by the donk on his immediate left. I looked at the kid to my left, who was in a dead stare at me, trying to figure me out from an earlier hand where I had him confused. I decided to raise to 60, leaving $35 more to call. The kid squirmed for a minute before throwing his hand away, while I got an immediate call from the donk. I still wasn't worried about that, cuz if he had it I'd find out on the turn. The turn was a blank, and I bet $65. He gathered some chips and.........called? No raise, no Ace. The river was another blank and I pushed in $95 more and all-in, to which I got an insta-call once again. After he insta-called my river bet, I second-guessed myself for a split second as I said "Ace is good...." He tabled his hand: Q-10 offsuit. I flipped over my QJ and scooped in the pot as everyone at the table was in awe.

The kid to my left, the original raiser, was jumping out of his shorts. He couldn't believe I did that, and blah blah blah. Whatever, kid. It was the right move in my mind and I had marked my target and got him, this donkey who called me all the way down. I had a read on him and I wasn't about to let go of that hand against that player, simple as that. I trusted my read (FOR ONCE) and was right, and it paid off.

I only played for 2 and a half hours total, and I left with $600 and change. I had made back my tourney buy-in plus an extra $50 at the blackjack tables. I left the table with $620 and two red chips on the side. It felt leaving good leaving that card room. I set a goal, I reached it. I had discipline enough to walk away, even though I could have easily made another $400 at that table. But I told myself before I even got there that I would leave at $600, and I did it. I finally started trusting my reads, and it payed off big time. Not to mention a little "free money" from the blackjack tables made this a very enjoyable trip.

I went back last night, and I'll tell you all about that trip soon. You'll enjoy that one too, I promise :)

The most exciting game of Challenge ever

On Saturday night I experienced a Cinderella story end to one of the most exciting games of Challenge......ever. I know I'd tell you how much I hate Challenge, but first let's start back on Friday. In case I haven't brought it about clearly enough before, Uncle Paul holds our monthly home game tournaments in Simi, and he usually will have crazy quarter dealer's choice games in between the tournament weekends on randomly chosen weekends. Although we only buy in for $20 at first, with 6-8 people we usually end the night with around $300 on the table at the end of the night. He and his wife Dena are two of the coolest people in the world. They have a great family with their 2 kids, a nice house with a beautiful back yard and great pool, and of course the family dog. They have a pretty nice life and it couldn't happen to a better 2 people.

So I get a call on Friday from Dena asking what I was doing, as they were going out to dinner for her birthday that night. I have to work Saturdays from 9-1, so there was no way I was going to go out to Simi that night and come back at night, cuz I would've been tired at work in the morning and I hate that. I was, however, going out to Simi on Sunday already. So, of course, I had to ask if Paul was having anything going on Saturday. Dena hands the phone over to Paul and immediately he told me that if I wanted him to then he'd get the guys and we'd have ourselves a crazy quarter dealer's choice game. I laughed and told him if HE wanted to, since it was his house, then I would come out and play. Again he told me that if I wanted to have HIM hold a game, then he would do it. Basically he was trying to coerce me into being the backbone of the game so that we wouldn't have to feel bad about having the guys over on what was supposed to be a quiet Saturday night around the house. Knowing that either way Dena wouldn't care, I took the initiative of telling him to gather the troops. Game on!

I had planned on staying around Santa Barbara a little bit after work on Saturday, but had decided that instead I would head out to Simi Valley right afterwards and hang out with Paul and Dena and the kids for a bit. I love their kids, they're just awesome little kids. Their son is just learning how to use his motor skills at the ripe old age of 1 and a half, it's great fun. Also The Hat is in Simi. The Hat, in my opinion, is one of the greatest establishments to ever come to Simi Valley. The food is to die for. Love it. Anyways I decided to grab The Hat and head over early to hang out with the family. So off I went and everything went as planned.

Paul and Dena and I played darts for a little bit leading up to 7 o'clock and then it was time. Everyone bought in we played a range of games: 3 Card Guts, 4 Card Guts, Kings and Littles, Beat the Dummy, Do You Want It, Baseball, Anaconda, Chowaha (a new one I brought this time), and a couple others. Of course the one game that was played, which I HATE so very, very dearly, was Challenge.

Now usually we will play with a 5 dollar cap, since everyone only buys in for $20 at a time and it's a friendly game. Therefore, this game will usually last a while. Now the previous time we had played, Paul decided that he wanted to play a challenge with no max, and a 7 mark win. Since there was no max, by the 10th round it was costing everyone $10 to make a challenge. That was half of the buy-in, so the five of us left at the game were very hesitant to jump in, since it IS possible for someone to sleep their hand and wait for someone with a weaker hand to declare. With that aspect of the game at hand, when it gets to the later rounds of a no cap game there is very seldom anyone declaring in because they don't want to get snagged by a sleeper unless they have the nuts. This REALLY irritated me, since we were endlessly putting money into the pot building our stack of markers, but no one was willing to go in for the marks to win. I was very visibly frustrated, as Darksy will surely tell you, since there seemed to be no end in sight, making the game utterly pointless. The others disagreed, as the majority of them there have been playing this game since they were kids, and they loved it. I didn't usually have a problem with this game, but with everyone just waiting to get the nuts, and the challenges getting more and more expensive, it takes the poker aspect out of it.

Well I made my thoughts on this particular game well-known, and coming to this weekend's quarter game I knew that those who were there last time (or within the city's block) would remember my distaste. So everything had gone well throughout the night, and although we had played Challenge once, we played it with a cap and a small enough mark-quota that it was not irritating in the least bit. That was fine. Then when Dena came out at around 1 AM, we knew it was time to wrap it up. We decided to play 1 more round, and it would end on Paul's deal. We made it through the next 2 deals and with 2 deals left I was up $50 on my $20 buy-in. So with $70 in front of me, Joel decided he wanted to play 4-Card Guts, with a wild card. 4-Card Guts is a variation of 3-Card Guts.

3-Card Guts

Guts is a match pot game, where everyone antes at the start of the game, and after that the winner takes what's in the pot, and anyone else who has stayed in the hand must replace the pot with the same amount of chips. Every loser must pay the pot, which means if there is 3 players in, and the pot is $4, then the winner takes the $4 pot and the losers repay the pot with $4 each, making the pot for the next hand $8.

Everyone gets three cards, 2 face down, and 1 face up. The players are all aiming to shoot for the best 3-card poker hand, the hands ranking as in 3-Card Poker, where straights beat flushes. The twist to this game is that the highest up card is always in automatically, and must face off against any stayers regardless of the other 2 face down cards.

Here we see that the highest card is up is the As, therefore that person is automatically in. The other players look at their cards. After everyone has seen their cards they all hold their cards up in the air just off the table's surface, and someone counts to 3. At 3 whoever doesn't want to play their hand will instantaneously drop their cards. Whoever wants to play against the high card AND any other callers, will hold on to their cards. Everyone drops or hold their cards simultaneously, so you never know who will be in or out (besides the high card, of course). Once anyone or everyone has called, the cards are turned over.

In this shot here we see that the 4 up-card has paired and the hand is now a pair of 44. The As has turned over a 4 and a 7, and has a hand of A high. The pair of 44 would collect the $3 pot and the A high would repost the $3 pot. The deck is shuffled and redealt for another hand. The game continues until no one calls the high card. However if there are multiple callers in a pot, the next hand will be large and will usually, in turn, make more callers come in the next hand. So as you can see, there is always lots of action in this game.

So there's the explanation. It's a pretty easy game to understand and to play, and is always fun. However instead of 3-Card Guts, Joel wanted to play 4-Card Guts with a wild card. In 4-Card Guts only three cards still play, however with an extra card things really change. In 3-Card Guts pairs are good most of the time for a win, whereas in 4-Card Guts flushes might not win even half of the time, so it changes the game drastically. Now 4-Card with a wild card is even crazier. Usually I love this game, except for the fact that I was high card almost every single time!! And not only that, but I don't think I even had as much as a pair on any of my high cards. So I went from having $70 in front of me in that game to having $35. Still up $15 on the night, but that still sucked, as it is just one of those dumb-luck games.

So that finally finishes and now it's Paul's turn. No doubt Paul had remembered my hatred of Challenge the last time we had played, so he turns to me with a big smile and says the last game of the night will be Challenge. We were to play with no cap and we were playing to 10 marks. Another deadly boring game was about to arise, but this time Paul said that the markers were playing for face value. We play for quarters, so instead of each marker representing $1 payoff, they only represented .25 payoff. That would make the game much easier (looser) to play, but still guaranteeing that a good game would come out of it in the later stages.

Well we played and played and played. There was four of us there: Paul, Joel, Manny, and myself. We played this one game from 1:20 AM to about 2:30 AM before we had even come close to ending it. I had taken an early lead to 4, while Joel had 2, and Paul and Manny both had 1. But Joel had been getting A-2-3 or A-2-4 every hand. Usually this is what you're looking for in a full game, and in a 4-handed game if you land these you're golden for both the 3-low and 5-low. The problem with Joel getting these hands, was that I was getting A-2-4 when he had A-2-3, and I was getting A-3-4 when he was getting A-2-4, so my chips were sliding to Joel on numberous occasions. With him on fire and constantly declaring for the 3-low and 5-low, Joel had built his marks to 9 while mine were still at 4 and Paul and Manny's were still at 1 each. Enter anger here. I started out pretty strong, and in a matter of 15 minutes Joel was one mark away from winning the game.

At that point I had told myself that I was going to win this game just to win it. I started calling Joel's hands no matter what I had, just so that he couldn't catch the last leg. Paul had made a couple of calls to save the rest of us too, which was much appreciated by me since I dearly wanted this game. Eventually I ended making it up to 7, 8, and finally to 9. With Joel and I tied at 9 Paul and Manny started working their marks up also. I didn't want to call Manny or Paul, as their marks were inconsequent and I only needed one mark to win. However, with Joel constantly putting in for the lows, I had to keep paying him off to prevent his winning the whole game. At one point he had declared 3-low and was called by Paul and Paul lost, meaning Joel probably was going to go for 5-low and not get challenged. Sure enough he put in for 5-low. I looked at my hand: K-Q-J-10-10-8-5. My low hand was 5-8-10-J-Q..........but I couldn't let him win. So I payed him off and kept myself alive.

After a few more rounds around the four of us, Paul and Manny had been working and eventually, they both hit 8 marks!! In one hand Joel went 3-low that I called off and payed him, Manny went 5-high and marked it, and Paul went 5-low and marked it. Now since I had payed off Joel I had no more chips in front of me, except for the ONE CHIP that I had to add to the the mark stack, which was now at 32 chips, or $8 total. Everyone was at 9 marks and only needed one mark to win the game!! For a game of Challenge this is insane. Usually two people will be battling it out for the win, and everyone else will be trying to catch up, but usually there's two people out ahead in front and one of the two will win. The hand that I now had my last chip in went like this.

Joel was directly to my left and would be first to act. He passed, Manny passed, and Paul passed. I looked at my cards and found A-4-5. Usually this is a pretty weak hand, however with everyone only needing 1 mark, there is usually just straight forward play. There's no reason to sleep any hands, since if you get called you get $8, and if you don't then you collect the whole pot and win the game. So with everyone passing I put in for 3-low. With no chips left it meant I'd have to reach into my pocket and pull out more cash if I lost, which I haven't had to do at Paul's quarter games..............................ever. Well with everyone only 1 mark away, it really was go time. Joel stared at his hand for what seemed like forever. He finally passed and Manny re-evaluated his hand and passed it on to Paul. One person away from winning the $35 pot. Paul oohed and awed at his hand, shifting cards from front to back and back to front. The suspense was building as he had started to pull his 5 cards out of his hand a couple times, only to put them back in. Finally he folded and I won! I won the damn game! I won Challenge!! They shipped the $35 in quarter chips over to me and I finally won the game.

I payed Joel off numerous times, especially in the later part of the game, which cost me a lot of money. I think I got payed once, but had to give it to Manny on the hand afterwards, so all told I ended up even on the game, even though I payed Joel $35 throughout. It felt good to win, but only because I told myself I would do it. I still hate that game though.....With no cap I hate it.


In other news I finally made it back down to Chumash for a small session for the first time in forever. I'll blog it next time, but until then...

Bankroll: $This is irrelevant now, I'll bring it back after my trip to Vegas in December. Yes that's right, I'll have to wait until December.

An Explanation of Challenge and the Boys of 318

In my next post I'll tell you about my weekend, but first I'd like to explain my distaste for a certain home game we play at Paul's called Challenge. I won't tell you why I'm so upset with the game at this time, but let me explain this heathen game to you all. You will need to understand it for my next blog entry.

It's a guts game, where you challenge the hand of anyone that declares if they are in. Each player antes and posts one chip in front of them. These chips are markers that represent the cost of a challenge, that is if someone declares that they are in for that hand, the loser must pay the winner of the showdown the amount of dollars equal to the amount of markers that are out. These markers increase by one every round. If someone declares that they are in and they are not challenged, then that person gains a mark. A mark is a seperate chip that represents how many points that person has towards winning the game. In each round of challenges, there are 3 hands to play. Each player is dealt 7 cards. The first hand you must declare whether you're in or you're out is your best 3-card low hand, A-2-3 being the best hand one can have. Starting from the left of the dealer and going clockwise, each player declares whether they're in or out. If one person declares that they're in, there is an option for every player at the table, starting from that person's left moving clockwise all the way back around to that player, to challenge him. The person with the best 3-card low hand is paid by the loser. If there is more than 2 people, only the person with the worst hand pays the person with the best hand and the middle man doesn't have to pay anything. After that hand, the betting and challenging starts again, this time to make the best 5-card poker hand. One more round of betting and challenging occurs for the best 5-card LOW hand. After that the deck is shuffled, another marker is added and the cost of challenging goes up that dollar. Another round of 7 cards is dealt and the betting starts over, each round the person who goes first will be the person to the left of the previous one. The winner of the game is the one who reaches the predetermined number of marks. The winner collects the entire pot, which consists of everyone's ante, everone's markers, and everyone's marks.

Confused?!?

Here, let me explain further.

Let's say the game is 5 bucks, 7 marks cap. So the most anyone can pay anyone else if they lose is $5 a challenge, which means the most amount of markers that will be out will be 5, and then 5 markers from every player is pulled into the pot. In order for the game to be over, a person must get 7 marks, and then that player rakes the entire pot. For this example we'll say that there are four players: Joel, Manny, myself, and Paul.

At the beginning of the game, every player antes into the main pot once. That is the only time the players must ante. However, every player must place one chip in front of them, which will represent the round that they are on, as well as how much the challenge is worth. Therefore this picture
represents that it is round one, and it represents that should one player want to challenge another, it will cost them one dollar (1 chip = 1 dollar, regardless of the value of the chip in-game). So say Joel's first to act, if Joel says that he's in for the 3-card low, Manny passes, I pass, and Paul wants to challenge him, then the 2 players switch cards with each other to see each other's hands, and then they give the cards back; if Joel has A-2-5, and Paul has A-2-3, then Joel must pay Paul a dollar and no marks are given. If Joel passes on the 5-card high, Manny declares that he's in, I pass, and Paul passes, then the challenge is back to Joel. If Joel passes then Manny "marks it" and he now has 1 mark out of 7 necessary to win the game (and the pot). This is done one more time for the 5-card low, which starts on Joel again to pass or play. After that everyone adds a chip to their marker stack and the challenges will cost $2 for that round. This time Manny must go first in all 3 hands.

Therefore, this picture here

represents that is round 4 and this person has 2 marks. So if any challenges are called it will cost the loser 4 dollars. This shot shows 2 marks out of the 7 it will take to win the pot, which includes everyone's antes, everyone's marker chips, and everyone's marks.

Ok so that's Challenge. Any questions still?

Take a break, go grab a drink, come back to reading in five minutes.
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K you ready?

On Wednesday night the guys got together for a TINY poker game and some disc, disc meaning Ultimate Frisbee, a SoCal favorite among college students. Usually one wouldn't expect a game of disc to be too physically demanding or to be a strenuous activity. However, get a bunch of college guys together for a sports game and find out what happens. I was introduced to disc at the University of California Santa Barbara by Joe and his roommates last year, the occupants of dorm 318 in Fontaine Blue. Joe, Max, Sonny, and Stokes made up the most incredible team of frisbee players ever to be on one team; they were deemed 318.

Around my initial travelings of the UCSB campus (or frickin city would be a better term), I had heard ramblings of the game the week before where 318 remained undefeated as it took on the quarter's latest challengers. It became apparent that this team of unbeatables were quite the perfect mix. Max was an all-state champion runner, the fastest on the field at all times; he couldn't be caught but he could catch as well as any other. Joe was the wiley man; not as athletic as Max (then again no one was), but he would jump and dive for any disc near him, whether it was intended for him or not. Joe was often the arguer for 318, disputing with the other team whether or not goals, catches, or physical contacts were legal. Sonny and Stokes were both computer gamers through and through; neither of them were as athletic as Joe, but they both had their specialties. Stokes could throw a missle of a disc, and could be counted on to throw game-winners every time he was given the chance. Sonny was a little over 6-foot, and while he was under 150 pounds and looked like a rail, he had the height advantage over the rest of the field, giving him the ultimate reach up, over, and around the opponents. By themselves they were different athletes with different skills, but together they were the ultimate team, they were......318.

For an entire year of 2004-2005, they were undefeated. Players were brought from different universities on the weekend, cheaters came and were defeated, and even the school's best athletes couldn't compete. 318 were the gods of UCSB disc, and no one will ever forget their legacy. Unfortunately for the UCSB disc die-hards, the boys of 318 were disassembled over the 2005-2006 break and weren't to house together again this season, bringing an end to their consistant triumphs on the field.

On Wednesday though, a challenge was brought by a UCSB dorm to reassemble the broken team for another bout of this wonderful game, and so it was done. Sonny is no longer in Santa Barbara or the surrounding area this year, though, so I got the honor of filling in for him, and like the almighty Sonny I had the height advantage over the field. Joe and I headed down to the campus to pick up Stokes and Max, and we were off to the game. We had to find an open field, since the one which was usually used to play on was going through construction. We headed to a field a ways down, and were lucky enough to find one with fresh cut grass and lighting for an adjacent bicycle lot. The light allowed to us to see more than the other field, since there was NO light on that one. In either case we played with a light up disc, so there was no problem there. The jackets were thrown on the floor and lined up for goal markers and we were ready to go. The four of us took on a mixed group of 4 fine competitors who had all taken their shots time and time again at 318, but had ended up on the short end every time.

They fought hard, but we fought harder. We decided to play to 10, which would make for a long and fair game. As was usual for a game of this caliber, there was a little roughing going on. On both defense and offense there was quite a bit of physical contact, and we played our hearts out. The game ended in a 10-4 victory for 318, so a rematch to 4 would be played. 4-1 was the final score as 318 and I dominated the other team. The legacy was defended and it was shown that although 318 was no longer on campus as a whole, they were there on the field, and that's what really counts.

It was a pleasure to play with the guys of 318. They're like the Z-Boys of disc.


Before that match though, The 8 of us played some poker. I was (of course) dominating the amateurs (except for Joe), and when were down to 3 I had another player dominated with my A 10 to his A 5, but when the board came A-2-2-4-J, we chopped it up and I ended up losing to that same player when we got heads up on the end, thanks to his seemingly endless luck.

In recap, the disc was tough but the honor was worth it.

Next time I'll explain why I hate Challenge so much. ;)

Bankroll: $400

Unleashing and Unloading

Nowadays money means everything and nothing. You need a lot of it to live, but a lot of people have more than they know what to do with it. This holds especially true in Southern California, where Mercedes and Jags and BMWs swarm the streets like ants and homes open at $1 million on a regular basis. $200 jeans and $1,000 boobs can be seen on every woman, and guys can be seen every day with a new $10,000 toy. I don't have a problem with any of this, of course. Girls can have torn jeans and fake boobs and guys should be able to have power boats and this and that, my only problem is that it all costs so much. What happened to the days when money used to be able to buy stuff?

Cars selling for averages of $30,000, gas breaking $3 a gallon and continually growing? Condos opening for $1 million and homes becoming not even affordable? Give me a break. I'm sure it's different in the mid US and out in the east, but around here it's kinda dumb and it's getting to the point of rediculousness. Without money nowadays, you are nothing. Those who say money can't buy happiness are no longer living in the current times. Without money, and lots of it, you can't buy a house, you can't have a nice car, you can't own nice things, you can't buy your significant other nice things, and without that how can you possibly be happy? The American Dream is becoming harder and harder to live in certain parts of the country. The American Dream used to be that one could come to America, find a job, and be able to buy a house, start a family, and support that family. Those times are quickly becoming hard to come by.

What that means to me is that things that I grew up thinking were almost automatic in the course of life are no longer so. Luckily for me I have a few opportunities in life that might make these things possible for me, but unfortunately it will take much more work and determination than the generations before me to make it happen.

That's just a little snippet of me unleashing my brain fury. I won't write more about it now cuz if it doesn't bore you it might lead you to believe that I'm a blubbering idiot, neither of which I want to happen. :)

Now....onto life. Last weekend I went back out to Simi to visit some friends and enjoy Easter with a family I hold very dear to me. First, after hangin out with Mitch and his brother and his brother's wife for a bit, I headed out to Woodland Hills to see none other than Darsky. I arrived at about 1 AM and about 10 minutes later the chips and cards were broken out and him and I were headed to the felt for our 3rd ever heads up match. I was pretty tired from the day and the week before, but I was definitely ready to play cards against a very worthy opponent. Going into the match I had a 2-0 lead on him in all time HU matches. We each grabbed a drink and we were off.

I started off taking some small pots and kept chopping away. I was catching some draws and trying to extract maximum profit, but that's hard to do against Darsky. I hadn't played against a REAL opponent for a while (both in the fact that it wasn't online and that he actually is a good player), so I felt good throughout the match and played well (I think, we'll see what he has to say about that...). The hour and a half bout ended in a KidCrash victory and a 3-0 record overall. Almost immediately after that match the clock said quarter till 3 AM and my stomach said that I was hungry. A quick mention of that and off we went to Jack in the Box. We went back to his place and watched some Mitch Hedberg while we ate. God that guy is hilarious, but on this particular DVD it seemed like the crowd just wasn't feelin his stuff. Towards the end of his show they started lightening up, but for the most part they weren't laughing. I dunno why, cuz everyone I know thinks that he's hilarious.

We refueled with food and more drink, and decided to showdown one last time for the night. This time we decided on a game of H.O.R.S.E. I slowly gained the lead again, and it looked as though I might be headed for another victory, but no!! About an hour in Darsk started gaining momentum! He started catching and I started calling...and soon after that the match ended in victory for Darsky and my undefeated streak came to end. It was a sad, sad point....actually I'm surprised it didn't happen earlier, as he really is a first class player.

At that point it must've been close to 5 AM or later, and I was dead tired. Dar offered me a pillow, a blanket, and a couch, and I was more than happy to take it. I slept and I slept hard on that couch, and I thought the morning would never come until I received a phone call from Casey. I was supposed to meet him and his family at his parents house for Easter, since they were having a big get together. Casey's my longest-time friend (since we were 3) and hanging with him is always a blast. His family is like second family to me, and they have always been there to help me out. They've given me food, advice, support, and at one point they opened their home to me when I needed it most. I cannot express how much these folks mean to me, and it felt good to see them again. That went well, and since their house is always full to the brim with good food I knew going into the day that on an occasion like this I was sure to gain at least 10 pounds.

I devoured some food, chatted with Casey, his girlfriend, his girlfriend's family, and his family, and it was just good times. We must've eaten for 2 hours straight. For starters there was about 6 different kinds of crackers, 6 different kinds of cheese, 6 different kinds of chips, 6 different kinds of dip, veggies, fruit, more veggies, and some tasty ourderve(sp?) concoctions. Then they brought out the good stuff. Honey baked ham, BBQ ribs, honey ribs, egg/potato salad, regular salad, BBQ beans, beef kabobs, pork, corn, BBQ beef, and I know there was a few more things, but I can't remember. ON TO DESSERT!! Homemade cherry cheesecake, chocolate mousse, chocolate covered strawberries, Dutch apple pie, some kind of Jell-O thing, and a couple pies which didn't even get opened. I'm not sure how they let that happen...... Overall it was a really great time and it was with the best company you could ask for. After all that eating it was time for some excercise.....

Casey and I decided to hit the driving range to hit a few buckets. That felt really good also since I don't think I've hit a ball since last summer!! We were there for about two hours, and of course we had to hit the putting green for 10 shots of betting too (that's mandatory at golf courses nowadays, isn't it??). After that we went with his girlfriend (Summer) to one of her friends house for a little, and from there we hit up Nick's house. Nick is a friend in the same category as Casey, although not nearly as extreme. The three of us grew up and went to school together. His parents are pretty wealthy and through the times we were growing up and even now, they've been pretty generous with their stuff. We hung there for just a little bit, but it was good to see Nick again. After that we took off back to Casey's and I hung out and watched a few episodes of Family Guy before leaving at about 12:30. I realized that I had an hour and a half drive back home, but the good weekend made the drive seem like nothin.

This week I got absolutely nothing done that I wanted to, thanks to.......well thanks to myself. I've been feelin pretty lazy all week, and it bums me out at the end of the week that I've accomplished nothing. But oh well, there's still tonight! I'll be heading back out to Simi this weekend for another session (or 2) at the range, and to see some family and friends once again. I'll be blogging that, but not before I tell you guys about some disc with the guys from 318. I should be writing some this week so come back now, ya hear!

Until next time.

Bankroll: $400

And now, your feature presentation

I decided to play a couple MTTs the other night on UB and I gotta say, I suck. I really do. Either that or I just don't know how to get lucky. In both I got about half way through and pushed with a small-ish stack with AQ vs 88 and AJ vs 99, both hands in which I hit my A on the flop. Against the 88 he hit a third 8 on the turn, and against the 99 he hit his third 9 on the river. All I have to say is.....craaaaap. I did win some HU freeze outs though, so that’s good. I really like playing HU, especially against Darsky. I’ve played probably around 50 million hours of HU against Joe, and we can kind of have a feel for each other’s play, which is good cuz it keeps us out of each other’s way in ring games and MTTs. Darsky is more unknown to me though, plus I have him 2-0 in our HU history. I’m sure that will change though……..

With that being said I think I like playing tournaments a lot more than cash games. I do like the convenience of a cash game, but I really enjoy the tournament strategy more. I will admit that I have some work to do on my NL cash game play, as I usually only double up when I play (although I've barely played NL cash games), while I see others raking in 5 times their buy-in. Is that weird? I can play the limit games, but the extreme ups and downs of limit can get to you a lot quicker than no limit sometimes, and can have a longer lasting effect. If you lose all of your money in a NL in an unlucky hand (which I've been known to do as well) you steam about it for a little while afterwards, but are playing again and winning again so it doesn't usually have a long effect. When you're on a downswing in limit though it can go on for weeks and months, and really have an emotional impact on a person. I understand that extended downswings happen in NL, but to me it just seems like NL is measured in shorter terms.

I haven't been playing much, I'm pretty tired of playing online. Life has been cruisin along on a personal level, though. I ended a long-standing relationship with one of my ex's last week, and that was tough. We were together for more than 3 years, and since we broke up over a year ago we've had a good talking-level relationship and made quite good friends. However after some deep and thoughtful deliberation, we decided to stop talking. While it could takes weeks and months to get into what that relationship was like, I hope she does well and I hope she's happy, and that's all I have to say about that. The Monday after that happened though I got some incredible news, which unfortunately I can't share with you all because of the privacy of the situation, but I can say WOW what an opportunity this is for me! I'm really excited about the new prospect and perhaps in time as the situation evolves I can explain it and show how awesome it really is. It's put me in a great mood recently and will continue to do so for quite some time :)

I've been getting back into graphic stuff recently, and I'm havin a lot of fun with that. What a surprise to say that it all has had to do with poker so far :) I found a poker chip forum a while ago and have been frequenting it more frequently lately. I've been helping people create their own custom poker chips, and have had a little bit of kickback from it (not money, just a few of their own custom chips, but I do enjoy collecting things, so it works). But I am getting some of my art mind back and hopefully I can keep finding things to do with it so I don't dry up again.

I haven’t really been doing much lately though, so I haven’t had much to write about. I really like writing this stuff and hopefully I still have some readers out there. I’m planning on reading a lot next week, both about the new secret news, and about poker as well. Actually I only wanna read one book next week for poker, and that’s Zen and the Art of Poker. I received it a while ago and read a couple pages, but haven’t gone back to read it yet. I heard somewhere that it was a good book to read, and back to the book I shall go. It’s about controlling yourself at the table, not behavior-ily (?), but moreso emotionally. I tend to be pretty active at the table, I play pretty LAG and I talk like you wouldn’t believe, which is both good and bad. Maybe if I try to get into a Zen state of mind I can take my poker skills and shave off the excess stuff that isn’t needed. So we’ll see what happens with that.

I have some plans for this weekend though so I should have some stories to blog out next week. Also, I need a haircut.

Bankroll: $440

Please enjoy the music while your party is being reached.

Update coming soon I promise. I even have it drafted already....

Until then here's a quote for all poker players to enjoy:
I believe in luck. How else can you explain the success of those you dislike? - Jean Cocteau

This is not the greatest blog entry in the world...

This is just a tribute.

Well I haven't been up to much lately. I haven't played any poker since last "we" talked, so nothing new to report there. I almost played a couple tournies this week, but it was late the times that I thought about playing and I knew I didn't want to sit there for hours, so I quickly dismissed the thought. Other than that, nothing's been happening. I still haven't made it back to the Hideout yet, so I'm sure they probably think I'm dead or something. Alas, I am alive, so fear not Hideout peeps.

On a productive note, I'm thinkin about getting back into graphic design, or I might start focusing on writing again. I don't know, I've dabbled in both and I have quite an interest in the two subjects. I'll probably just start fartin around in the two areas and see what happens, and maybe look at what I can get into at the college. Who knows, I'm lazy.

I might be throwin some stories at you guys this week, so keep your eyes peeled. Not necessarily poker stories, but I haven't figured it out yet. Darsky put up part 2 of his vegas trip from last weekend. His stuff is always a good read, so check it out if you haven't yet.

Until next time.

Bankroll: $439

PS - And +1 to whoever gets the title of this entry.

A sad, sad week

Well last week I pretty much lost my ass. My whole week went like the HH's I've been posting, and boy that hurts. The thing that sucks is that I don't really feel like playing now because I don't have a bankroll. If I had a real bankroll I could survive the downswings and build it back up, but with only 2 sit-ins left it kinda feels like I will be playing differently. I don't really know why since I still have a 9-5er and poker money doesn't intefere with life money right now, but I still feel like I might be playing differently, scared perhaps.

So I won't play for a bit, no big deal. I still have a life (believe it or not), so I doubt I'll be bored. Plus DoD:S is kick-ass. Also I haven't been to the Hideout for a long time now, perhaps I'll make some time this weekend.....

Oh also, last night Adam and I were deemed our aparment complex's beer pong champions. It was a tough battle, the first bout ending in a tie. But we came back in round 2 to dominate Wasan and Randy in a 3 to 1 lead before I sank the game-winning shot. Randy had a chance to tie it up as we gave him an uncontested bounce shot, but as that went sailing past the 3 cups there was no way they could win. It was sweet, sweet victory. Almost as good as Taco Bell.

Bankroll: $439