SITTINGtheAPPLE

Golf, Poker, and ... Business?

2010-07-15T22:59:00.000-07:00

Yet another Vegas trips looms in the mist. August sixth marks the date of departure, and the Father Man and I will pack up the SUV and blast out into the hundred-plus-degree heat in the dead middle of summer. I hope the air conditioner doesn't crap out again.

Contrary to any other Vegas trip I've driven, there will be a stop up front this time around. A two-day pre-gamer in Mesquite, Nevada is booked from the 6th-7th. Father Man and I are meeting up with two good friends of his to hit the yellow links out that way.

I haven't golfed since the beginning of last winter, and hadn't even picked up a club in the same amount of time. I went to the range the other day for two buckets of balls only to find: 1) I can only hit the ball straight one out of every two buckets; and 2) my knuckles aren't in as good of shape as I previously thought. I awoke the next day with pins and needles hounding the middles of my phalanges. With as much keyboard/controller/camera action as I see on an every-day basis, I didn't think shooting a round with a club in hand would hurt. I definitely felt the after effects.

The good/bad news is that on our second day of the trip we'll be golfing Wolf Creek, a PGA Tour stop. Considering that I can't even shoot par at the 9-hole POS in Mexitown, Ventura, I have no idea who thought it would be a good idea to book me a tee time in a stop so grand that I'll be walking the greens that pros have slopped around on for the past decade.

The problem with the first two days, even aside from possibly being thrown off the golf course for sucking so bad, is that the only hotels and casinos around are small, and third-rate at best. It's not until the third morning that we venture from Mesquite to the City of Broken Dreams.

The first couple days we get into town will be awesome. The usual antics and degeneracy will occur. Father Man will get drunk, I'll follow suit. We'll hit every video slot with every zany bonus round that we can, while we whistle, hoot, and hollar at the drink girls to bring us beers faster than we can hit the "SPIN" button. The big opening tips always help.

From there we hit video poker machines. That elusive 50-play payout is around the corner. Father Man once put $300 into a $1 100-play machine during a friend's bachelor party. With a beer in one hand, he wrapped his other arm around his good buddy. "Whatever I win," he said, "I'll give half to you for your wedding present." As if he already knew what was coming, he hit the button one time and smiled before the virtual cards even flipped over. That hand, he won $6,000.

Since that time Father Man has been fighting age and illness. In any past trips since those fading years, he's been shortstacked, short-healthed, and struggling to hang like the wolf he once was. His gambling hasn't gone much better. Without the zest or youthfulness he once brought to Sin City, the rowdiness and general camaraderie necessary to have a fully successful Vegas trip have been absent, as have the wins.

Recently his health has started to shape up. While his pot-belly may be the only shape he'll ever be in until his last breaths, at least he has full control of motor functions, muscle control, and the ability to "gambol!" Well...muscle controls aside from shitting his pants. I don't think he's ever known how to not do that.

With an influx of energy and regaining youth, bowling, golf, and Vegas trips are starting to occur more frequently. Hopefully this will be the trip where he and I blast each other of the sky in drinking wars, laugh so hard we can't breathe due to a huge payout, and come home more hungover and with more cash in our pockets than we've experienced in the past two years.

Then again, we're in town for a business convention for the last two days. Pretty boring? Perhaps. But then again working for oneself has crazy advantages. Showing up for a convention hungover out of your mind, shirt untucked, with blurry speech and slurred vision -- not something a boss would be happy to see. Self-employed and showing up that way next to the Father Man? Well I wouldn't have it any other way.

________________________________________________________________________________

By the way, Operation: Robusto is dead. Click here or simply scroll down to see the last, burnt-out message for that one.

Operation: Still Busto

2010-07-15T22:33:00.000-07:00

Once again broke and so over trying to build a bankroll out of pennies that I can't even blog about it.

Missed a nut-nut draw in Omaha Hi/Lo to someone who called with...a broadway straight draw with no low. I even overbet the pot, because I figured, hey, even at penny-stakes people have brains.

No. They don't.

So I reloaded $10 on Tilt to try to change things up and sat a NL game. Got stacked with two pair to a set on the turn.

GG me. Don't expect me to ever blog about penny poker again. Ever.

Ever.

In other news, I won $50 playing Pauly's used-to-be-often-but-not-so-much-now cash games the other night, so all in all in poker related gambling numbers, I'm dead even over the past couple of months.

Operation: Robusto - session nothing
Bankroll: nonexistent

Running Bad = Playing Not

2010-06-22T10:08:00.000-07:00

After getting my soul crushed two days in a row last week, I haven't even wanted to open up PStars lately.

I have no stats and no poker tracker, as I really have no desire to keep such information on hand. I started this thing just wanting to play some cards, and thought I was off to a good start. Unfortunately, the tides have turned, and they've turned hard.

The plays I loved to see in the beginning weeks started winning against me, and I suddenly hate every move of every penny player with a fire defeated not even by our sun.

Downtick, downturn, turn off.

The one thing I do feel right now is the urge to gamble. After seeing my odds turned upside down time and time again over a two-day span, the only thing I want to do is flip. I definitely veered off of my plan when the cards starting acting against my favor, and I played a few bigger games and tournaments out of steam that I shouldn't have - my petty penny bankroll has paid.

If I want to play real cards and try to keep on track to build my bankroll, I need to rest again and realize my rules once more before I jump back into the games

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OPERATION: ROBUSTO - Session(s) Whatever

Gain/Loss: -$22.18
Tournament Gain/Loss: -$11
-------------------
Total Bankroll Increase/Decrease: -$16.93
Total Bankroll: $23.07

The Glorious Nosedive: An Illustration

2010-06-18T21:44:00.000-07:00

Wha...but...ah...WHY??

2010-06-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

My FIRST hand at the table (and yes, I do post my blinds no matter what seat I come in to first hand at a table)...I had to stare at this hand for a while in the hand replayer...

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 747499
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (UTG): $1.00
UTG+1: $0.76
UTG+2: $0.95
MP1: $7.04
MP2: $7.16
CO: $2.00
BTN: $6.55
SB: $0.84
BB: $2.08

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is UTG with A J
Hero raises to $0.08, 6 folds, SB calls $0.07, 1 fold

Flop: ($0.18) 8 9 J (2 players)
SB bets $0.06, Hero raises to $0.20, SB calls $0.14

Turn: ($0.58) K (2 players)
SB bets $0.06, Hero raises to $0.30, SB calls $0.24

River: ($1.18) 3 (2 players)
SB bets $0.26 all in, Hero calls $0.26

Final Pot: $1.70
Hero shows A J (a pair of Jacks)
SB shows A Q (high card Ace)

Hero wins $1.62
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I just don't ever remember a time where that was a play in my bag of tricks...

Anyways, hacked out a small win after being up a bit. I finally got caught in multiple hands going on at the same time. I usually can handle it 12 tabling, but last night was the first time I got too confused, and it ended up costing me some bucks. Probably should've been up another $6 on the night, but a win's a win. I'll take it for now.

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OPERATION: ROBUSTO - Session 14

Gain/Loss: +$1.79
Tournament Gain/Loss: $0
-------------------
Total Bankroll Increase/Decrease: +$16.25
Total Bankroll: $56.25

Session 13

2010-06-08T00:05:00.000-07:00

Fear not my frantic followers (or at least friends, of which I know there's at least 2,) for your boneheaded blogger is back at the keyboard.

Session 13, as unlucky as it should have been in statute alone, was another slow grind. I profited just over one buy (shortstack, ldo), and still am finding myself in tough situations.

Restarting a bankroll at penny stakes is a difficult task once one has had the taste of having thousands of dollars in front of him in a real live game. Not only am I having to relearn the game from a new player's standpoint, but I have to be able to apply my knowledge of hand strength, which is proving to be quite difficult. Without reads, calling all in with a marginal hands, or oppositely trying to put an opponent all in holding a marginal hands, is extremely difficult. It's even more difficult when your opponent doesn't even understand the strength of his own hand.

At penny stakes, all of a sudden Jacks are Aces, and an inside straight draw is worth a whole stack with only a few blinds in the pot. In one shot you could be in with middle pair and have your opponent drawing almost dead, and in another be drawing dead with TPTK. There is, of course, the ability to take online notes, but with so many players at this low of stakes, how useful can those notes really be?

I followed a note I had on one opponent, and lost the hand. Bad note taking? Probably not. Hard to take notes on a guy who doesn't know what he's going to do from situation to situation? Probably.

When jumping into multitable sessions, a poker player, and especially a penny poker player, starts to adhere a certain formula to the hands that he's willing to see. When he's in seat 8 with one limper and pick up AJ offsuit, and he has six other tables blinking at him with his action clocks counting down, he needs to have a solution ready before he even sees the table pop up in front of the other 20 tables.

I've started to do this, and not at all intentionally. I do this because I need to in order to keep up, and I do this because I already have a base knowledge of the plays I have "available" to me, and because the more hands I see at this low of stakes, the more I learn about what works. Here. At these stakes.

Of course these sames moves would me crushed if I were to jump into a 10/20 game again, but at the penny stakes, the moves work.

Then there are hands that I have no idea what's going on. Like this:

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players - View hand 743596
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP1: $2.99
MP2: $1.91
CO: $1.35
BTN: $1.85
SB: $1.36
BB: $2.24
UTG: $3.00
Hero (UTG+1): $2.26

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is UTG+1 with Q A
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.08, MP1 calls $0.08, MP2 calls $0.08, 1 fold, BTN calls $0.08, 2 folds

Flop: ($0.35) A 3 9 (4 players)
Hero bets $0.24, MP1 folds, MP2 folds, BTN calls $0.24

Turn: ($0.83) 7 (2 players)
Hero bets $0.66, BTN raises to $1.32, Hero raises to $1.94 all in, BTN calls $0.21 all in

BTN shows 2 2 (a pair of Twos)
Hero shows Q A (a pair of Aces)

River: ($3.89) J (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $3.89
Hero wins $3.74
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

All of a sudden, deuces are aces...

So when I see hands like that, I have a hard time folding hands like this:

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players - View hand 743605
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $0.82
UTG+1: $2.41
MP1: $2.11
MP2: $0.77
CO: $3.00
Hero (BTN): $0.84
SB: $3.34
BB: $0.71

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is BTN with J J
UTG calls $0.02, UTG+1 raises to $0.10, 3 folds, Hero calls $0.10, 1 fold, BB calls $0.08, UTG calls $0.08

Flop: ($0.41) 7 3 Q (4 players)
BB checks, UTG checks, UTG+1 bets $0.20, Hero calls $0.20, BB folds, UTG calls $0.20

Turn: ($1.01) Q (3 players)
UTG checks, UTG+1 bets $0.54, Hero calls $0.54 all in, UTG folds

UTG+1 shows Q A
Hero shows J J

River: ($2.09) 5 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $2.09
UTG+1 wins $1.99
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of course being short stacked doesn't help me get away from hands like the Jacks. In so many cases, I find myself painfully calling, just to see that I'm way ahead, and then there are cases where I feel at ease (not good, but only at ease) putting my chips in when I THINK that someone might be overplaying or overbluffing their hands.

This is where player data trackers come in handy. In that case you automatically get a read of every opponents playing style even if you don't even remember their user ID. I don't want to do this, though. I don't want to download tracking software.

We learned the hard way. We learned with our money, our losses and pain, and sometimes we even learned when it wasn't our money on the table. When we were at Chumash grinding short stacked no limit games with a bunch of Goleta-tards, we didn't have a numeric readout above every players' head showing us how often he raised preflop or how many times he's been to the flop tonight.

We learned through feel and painful calls and positive reinforcement when we knew we made a good play.

And for that reason I won't be downloading tracking software anytime soon, or in the later future.

I'm learning again, and I'm learning more about my own discipline that, at many times, I never thought I had.

We learned through hands like this, which I like to call "Oops, Nice Hand, Sir":

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 743669
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $1.65
BB: $1.25
Hero (UTG): $3.16
CO: $2.08
BTN: $2.99

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is UTG with 9 9
Hero calls $0.02, CO raises to $0.10, 3 folds, Hero calls $0.08

Flop: ($0.23) 3 8 K (2 players)
Hero bets $0.18, CO calls $0.18

Turn: ($0.59) 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $0.46, CO calls $0.46

River: ($1.51) 9 (2 players)
Hero bets $1.48, CO calls $1.34 all in

Hero shows 9 9 (three of a kind, Nines)
CO mucks J K

Final Pot: $4.19
Hero wins $3.99
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So here's to looking forward, building bankrolls at penny stakes, and (hopefully soon) meeting up in Vegas to play some real cards - cards where I don't see Seat 2's VPIP or showdown win percentage.

Here's a few more hands to precede Session 13's results:

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 743672
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP2: $2.28
CO: $1.13
Hero (BTN): $1.13
SB: $0.88
BB: $1.81
UTG: $1.52
UTG+1: $2.93
UTG+2: $0.78
MP1: $3.70

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is BTN with K K
3 folds, MP1 raises to $0.04, 1 fold, CO calls $0.04, Hero raises to $0.16, 2 folds, MP1 calls $0.12, CO calls $0.12

Flop: ($0.51) 2 5 8 (3 players)
MP1 checks, CO checks, Hero bets $0.36, MP1 calls $0.36, CO calls $0.36

Turn: ($1.59) 5 (3 players)
MP1 checks, CO checks, Hero bets $0.61 all in, MP1 calls $0.61, CO folds

Hero shows K K (two pair, Kings and Fives)
MP1 shows J K (a pair of Fives)

River: ($2.81) Q (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $2.81
Hero wins $2.71

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 743673
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $2.22
BB: $1.48
UTG: $1.69
UTG+1: $1.69
UTG+2: $1.61
MP1: $0.65
MP2: $5.07
CO: $0.81
Hero (BTN): $0.92

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is BTN with 3 3
UTG calls $0.02, 5 folds, Hero calls $0.02, SB calls $0.01, BB checks

Flop: ($0.08) 5 3 A (4 players)
SB checks, BB bets $0.10, UTG raises to $0.20, Hero raises to $0.44, SB folds, BB calls $0.34, UTG raises to $1.67 all in, Hero calls $0.46 all in, BB folds

UTG shows 5 5
Hero shows 3 3

Turn: ($2.32) A (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($2.32) 2 (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $2.32
UTG wins $2.22

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players - View hand 743674
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP2: $1.00
CO: $5.73
BTN: $5.20
SB: $2.00
Hero (BB): $0.96
UTG: $2.91
UTG+1: $3.39
MP1: $2.15

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is BB with A J
3 folds, MP2 calls $0.02, 3 folds, Hero raises to $0.10, MP2 calls $0.08

Flop: ($0.21) 7 9 T (2 players)
Hero bets $0.16, MP2 calls $0.16

Turn: ($0.53) 4 (2 players)
Hero checks, MP2 bets $0.74 all in, Hero calls $0.70 all in

MP2 mucks T J
Hero shows A J

River: ($1.93) 8 (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $1.93
Hero wins $1.88

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 743678
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG+1: $0.88
UTG+2: $2.34
MP1: $0.79
MP2: $1.07
CO: $2.78
BTN: $4.34
SB: $3.14
BB: $3.04
Hero (UTG): $1.18

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is UTG with A J
Hero raises to $0.08, 1 fold, UTG+2 raises to $0.24, 6 folds, Hero calls $0.16

Flop: ($0.51) 9 8 Q (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG+2 checks

Turn: ($0.51) 4 (2 players)
Hero bets $0.32, UTG+2 calls $0.32

River: ($1.15) 8 (2 players)
Hero bets $0.62 all in, UTG+2 folds

Final Pot: $1.15
Hero wins $1.10

Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 7 players - View hand 743680
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $3.88
SB: $2.26
BB: $1.45
UTG: $2.07
UTG+1: $2.44
MP: $3.00
Hero (CO): $0.85

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is CO with T T
UTG calls $0.02, UTG+1 calls $0.02, 1 fold, Hero raises to $0.12, BTN calls $0.12, 2 folds, UTG calls $0.10, UTG+1 calls $0.10

Flop: ($0.51) K 3 5 (4 players)
UTG bets $0.14, UTG+1 folds, Hero raises to $0.28, BTN folds, UTG calls $0.14

Turn: ($1.07) 8 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $0.45 all in, UTG calls $0.45

UTG shows 5 6
Hero shows T T

River: ($1.97) 4 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: $1.97
Hero wins $1.92
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OPERATION: ROBUSTO - Session 13

Gain/Loss: +$2.28
Tournament Gain/Loss: -$1.10
-------------------
Total Bankroll Increase/Decrease: +$14.46
Total Bankroll: $54.46

Session 12 Update

2010-06-02T15:50:00.000-07:00

Learning learning learning. Relearning.

I feel like when I did when I first started playing poker at 17. I was a student of the game, a hobbyist, and very quickly an addict. Nowadays I'm so addicted to anything, really, although lately I haven't been able to get the strategy of poker out of my mind every day - which is good, because I really am learning things about the IDEA of poker, and not so much worrying about the beats I take along the way.

Joe's rounding again...he'll thank me for that.

Session 12 was a wild one. I started up a decent amount right off the bat, and then all at once took some beats and was put in a few awkward spots and was back down to even. Then I picked up AA, AQ, AQ, AK, AK, KK, and JJ within a single round through all 12 tables. I think I picked up one buyin with them all, and then lost a buyin with JJ. I wouldn't normally stack myself with Jacks, but I had my reason this time around.

All in all, even though it was a wild ride, I managed to pick up a few bucks.

OPERATION: ROBUSTO - Session 12

Gain/Loss: +$6.22
Tournament Gain/Loss: $0
-------------------
Total Bankroll Increase/Decrease: +$13.28
Total Bankroll: $53.28

Quick Update

2010-05-31T13:17:00.000-07:00

Finally have good news to write home about! I popped up an hour's worth of sesh on Friday before the holiday weekend, and pulled in solid profit. I decided to 12-table again and found myself in a great zone. I'm probably going to be 12-tabling regularly, as it feels a lot better than four tabling Sit-N-Go's, and I really think I'm a better cash player than tournament player anyways.

I still might switch over to Sit-N-Go's at later levels if I think I can constantly beat them, but I still don't have enough SNG strategy knowledge to make it a full time thing yet.

I'll probably play again tonight, and hopefully end up with some good results again. I honestly think I can beat the cash games, even though I'm currently short stacking.

OPERATION: ROBUSTO - Session 10

Gain/Loss: +$9.80
Tournament Gain/Loss: $0
-------------------
Total Bankroll Increase/Decrease: +$6.67
Total Bankroll: $46.67

Starting to See

2010-05-26T23:18:00.000-07:00

Well, after a rough couple of sessions I've really seen a few things. Things have happened to me that I've never had happen to me in such short succession.

I've been out flopped, out flushed, out sucked, and out fucked.
I've been turned over, bent over, turned inside out, and torn a new one.
I've been out setted, out straighted, out played and no longer feel straight.

My view on poker right now is far different than it was a week ago, and that alone shows significant improvement of my understanding of the game. I've been focusing on single table sit-n-gos, but I'm still not sure I have them figured out.

Session 6 was pretty rough, with a 5 buy-in downswing. I thought I was playing well, but just didn't have the timing or the moves to make consistent cash.

I spent a few days over the weekend trying to find a set sit-n-go strategy, and was almost positive that I'd have a great week. The first two SNGs I played after my brain sesh I took first-first, and felt pretty good.

After that, again, things went sour. Granted, not as sour as they had gone during Session 6, but still not very well. In these instances, however, I felt that I was playing well. I felt I had control over the games, and things simply hadn't gone my way. I started understanding a few things about the game of sit-n-go, as opposed to my only real experience, which was cash game poker.

Over Session 7 and 8 I'd lose 60 cents and 70 cents respectively.

Coming into Session 9 I once again felt focused, ready, and willing to let good things happen. Four tournies in that all changed. Again. I started feeling antsy, felt like people were making just the worst moves the world had ever seen, and I was starting to feel like I was owed something. When I started this "challenge" last week I knew I wasn't going to be able to be a constant winner if I let my emotions get in the way. And already, in my eighth session, I was getting that way.

After taking a break, I decided I either: didn't know enough about SNG strategy, or I simply am still not disciplined enough to make it work. So, as any reasonable gambler would do when losing, I switched games...

I popped up four $.01/.02NL cash games on Stars, and bought in for a small stack of $1. Normally I only like playing cash games with 100BB, but in this scenario, where I'm trying to limit my buyins comparative to overall bankroll, I didn't have a problem playing with only 50BB.

After a few rounds of nothing really happening, I had my first chance to double up, getting it in on an Ace-high board with AK:
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Poker Stars $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (SB): $0.78
BB: $0.76
UTG: $1.69
UTG+1: $3.94
UTG+2: $1.82
MP1: $1.13
MP2: $2.84
CO: $2.00
BTN: $2.39

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is SB with A K
1 fold, UTG+1 calls $0.02, 5 folds, Hero raises to $0.12, 1 fold, UTG+1 calls $0.10

Flop: ($0.26) 4 A 8 (2 players)
Hero bets $0.20, UTG+1 raises to $3.82 all in, Hero calls $0.46 all in

Hero shows A K (a pair of Aces)
UTG+1 shows T A (two pair, Aces and Tens)

Turn: ($1.58) J (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($1.58) T (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $1.58

UTG+1 wins $1.53
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A similar hand happened on another table, and just like that my mentality was in the toilet. All over again, I felt dejected. Run down. Beat up.

I felt like I had to keep my head down, and just pushed through the beats. Instead of shying away I charged full steam ahead into the crap that kept blinding me. Instead of playing four tables, I did something I've never done before. I went to six tables, which I've done a couple times. And then, out of nowhere, I got a wild hair to jam up my monitor to 12 tables.

When I've played online in the past, it's been for decent money and money that meant something. I've never thought of playing this many tables, even though I know a lot of online poker gurus do this all the time at all levels. Not only do they play twelve tables, but even triple that amount. For me, though, this was a new experience.

I finally understand the reason for multicolor decks...

I ended up just buckling down, finally playing straight, and ended up almost even on the night, after a half day struggle to gain ground.

I think I might stick to short stacking cash games for now, just until I can truly get a grasp of what's going on. I see now that there's so much less poker going on in an SNG than there is in a cash game, and in order to consistently beat those I'll have to really internalize a specific strategy and stick to it. I still have some learning to do for STTs, and while I brush up on that I'm almost positive that I'll be mega multi tabling cash games for a bit. I know that short stacking isn't the right thing to do, but if I want to gain ground in my bankroll self-challenge I'm going to need to stick to strict BR percentage buyins.

Right now it feels like I know nothing about this game. This game, that I've won and lost thousands of dollars from in the past, that I've spent years of my life talking about, thinking about, and playing, and sharing. This game that I've loved and hated and loved and hated again. It feels like I know not a tick of knowledge. It feels like I should be winning, but I'm not, and there must be something to that.

But I'll keep myself in the game, I'll learn, and I'll play more. And more. I'll eventually gain enough to up my buy-ins, and eventually be playing the $25s with a full bankroll by December...hopefully.

OPERATION: ROBUSTO - Session 9

Gain/Loss: -$0.13
Tournament Gain/Loss: -$0.30
-------------------
Total Bankroll Increase/Decrease: -$0.43
Total Bankroll: $36.87

Can't Run Any Worse

2010-05-18T01:00:00.000-07:00

After a fun Friday session of one-table sit-n-gos I was feeling pretty good going into today's games. I had just come out of two final exams for my first semester back as a full-time student, and things were feeling pretty good. Session 4 had raised my bankroll up to $42.85, and I was ready to play some cards. Unfortunately, cards were not ready to be played.

Over the hours of play I put in at single- and multi-table sit-n-gos, the pokerverse exacted every two-outer it could muster up. Here's just a couple:

Poker Stars $1.00+$0.20 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t100/t200 Blinds - 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter
SB: t3380 M = 11.27
BB: t685 M = 2.28
Hero (UTG): t5155 M = 17.18
CO: t1550 M = 5.17
BTN: t2730 M = 9.10

Pre Flop: (t300) Hero is UTG with K Q
Hero raises to t600, 2 folds, SB raises to t3380 all in, 1 fold, Hero calls t2780

SB shows T Q
Hero shows K Q

Flop: (t6960) 2 Q T (2 players - 1 is all in)

Turn: (t6960) 7 (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: (t6960) J (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: t6960

SB wins t6960
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Here's my final hand of that tournament a couple minutes later:

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Poker Stars $1.00+$0.20 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t200/t400 Blinds + t25 - 3 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: t4235 M = 6.27
Hero (SB): t1875 M = 2.78
BB: t7390 M = 10.95

Pre Flop: (t675) Hero is SB with K A
1 fold, Hero calls t200, BB raises to t2000, Hero calls t1450 all in

Hero shows K A
BB shows 6 A

Flop: (t3775) 2 7 4 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Turn: (t3775) 6 (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: (t3775) 5 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: t3775

BB wins t3775
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On this next one I know I should have put him in on the flop, but I had so many tables flashing at me I got all discombobulated. It's gonna take me a bit to be able to smoothly function with more than four games open.

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Poker Stars $1.00+$0.20 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t25/t50 Blinds - 7 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (UTG): t2210 M = 29.47
UTG+1: t2430 M = 32.40
MP: t1705 M = 22.73
CO: t2905 M = 38.73
BTN: t1575 M = 21
SB: t2375 M = 31.67
BB: t300 M = 4

Pre Flop: (t75) Hero is UTG with 4 4
Hero calls t50, UTG+1 calls t50, 2 folds, BTN raises to t200, 2 folds, Hero calls t150, 1 fold

Flop: (t525) 8 4 J (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets t250, Hero raises to t500, BTN raises to t950, Hero calls t450

Turn: (t2425) 6 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets t425 all in, Hero calls t425

Hero shows 4 4
BTN shows K K

River: (t3275) K (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: t3275

BTN wins t3275
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I also decided to create a new User ID to create a new image, both on the tables and in my own head. I figured I'd create the new account and transfer everything over. There'd be a couple days' wait on the transfer, so I added an extra $10 to my new account to finance another round of sit-n-gos for the session. This brought my total bankroll contribution amount from $30 to $40.

Feeling good and refreshed, with a new User ID and added bankroll, the beatings continued.

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Poker Stars $1.00+$0.20 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t75/t150 Blinds - 7 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: t960 M = 4.27
BB: t9170 M = 40.76
UTG: t4508 M = 20.04
UTG+1: t3267 M = 14.52
Hero (MP): t2670 M = 11.87
CO: t3100 M = 13.78
BTN: t3325 M = 14.78

Pre Flop: (t225) Hero is MP with A K
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to t360, Hero calls t360, 2 folds, SB raises to t960 all in, 1 fold, UTG+1 raises to t3267 all in, Hero calls t2310 all in

SB shows T Q
UTG+1 shows Q J
Hero shows A K

Flop: (t6450) 6 6 8 (3 players - 3 are all in)

Turn: (t6450) 4 (3 players - 3 are all in)

River: (t6450) Q (3 players - 3 are all in)

Final Pot: t6450

UTG+1 wins t3420
UTG+1 wins t3030
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And although this isn't so bad to deal with, it was surely a fitting end to the night.

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Poker Stars $1.00+$0.20 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t100/t200 Blinds - 4 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: t3865 M = 12.88
SB: t3630 M = 12.10
BB: t4285 M = 14.28
Hero (CO): t1720 M = 5.73

Pre Flop: (t300) Hero is CO with J K
Hero raises to t600, 1 fold, SB calls t500, 1 fold

Flop: (t1400) T K J (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets t1120 all in, SB calls t1120

SB shows Q K
Hero shows J K

Turn: (t3640) A (2 players - 1 is all in)

River: (t3640) 3 (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: t3640

SB wins t3640
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There were about 25 other hands like this throughout my sessions, and perhaps I should have realized that it "just wasn't my day" a tad earlier than my 20th game in. Now that I've had some time off from the game, my whole mentality has changed. I'm taking the beats less emotionally, I'm looking at things more subjectively, and on the whole I'm trying to be less superstitious.

I definitely realize that when I first started getting into poker, I took everything super emotionally. Even if it was just the luck of the draw, I held vendettas against people and against the cards themselves, which lead to me trying to force plays that had no business even being thought about. In live play I didn't experience this so much, but I can't even count all the wasted dollars I stacked off after taking four beats in a row.

If I'm going to succeed in trying to build a bankroll, as trivial as my challenge seems, I'm going to need to play with a level head.

After going through what I did today, I think I'll stick with the less emotional and subject approach to the game, but perhaps next time I get a superstitious feeling...I'll trust it.

OPERATION: ROBUSTO - Session 5

Bankroll addon: +$10
Tournament Gain/Loss: -$7.90
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Total Bankroll: $44.95
Total Bankroll Increase/Decrease: +$4.95

Operation Mouse Break Begins

2010-05-13T22:44:00.000-07:00

After an inspiring second session in Operation: Robusto, my third session showed me why I'm busted in the first place. During a day where nothing could go right, everything went so extremely wrong.

I did not get paid on any hands that I hit, except for one. Shortly after that, and by shortly I mean two hands after that, I lost it back holding AA on a Q-high board.

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Poker Stars $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 693504
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

MP1: $4.00
MP2: $10.00
CO: $12.05
Hero (BTN): $11.10
SB: $8.95
BB: $10.25
UTG: $10.20
UTG+1: $5.45
UTG+2: $5.10

Pre Flop: ($0.15) Hero is BTN with J Q
UTG calls $0.10, 5 folds, Hero calls $0.10, 1 fold, BB checks

Flop: ($0.35) J 8 Q (3 players)
BB bets $0.20, UTG folds, Hero raises to $0.85, BB raises to $2.60, Hero calls $1.75

Turn: ($5.55) 2 (2 players)
BB bets $3, Hero raises to $8.40 all in, BB calls $4.55 all in

Hero shows J Q (two pair, Queens and Jacks)
BB shows 8 Q (two pair, Queens and Eights)

River: ($20.65) K (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $20.65

Hero wins $19.65
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And two hands later

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Poker Stars $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players - View hand 693514
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $4.00
UTG+1: $10.00
UTG+2: $12.20
Hero (MP1): $20.50
MP2: $8.90
CO: $10.00
BTN: $9.95
SB: $5.50
BB: $5.10

Pre Flop: ($0.15) Hero is MP1 with A A
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $0.40, 1 fold, Hero raises to $1, 5 folds, UTG+1 calls $0.60

Flop: ($2.15) 6 J Q (2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $1.60, UTG+1 raises to $3.20, Hero raises to $19.50 all in, UTG+1 calls $5.80 all in

UTG+1 shows Q Q (a full house, Queens full of Jacks)
Hero shows A A (two pair, Aces and Jacks)

Turn: ($20.15) 5 (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($20.15) J (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $20.15

UTG+1 wins $19.15
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After losing two and a half buy-ins I decided to end the night with a few single table Sit N Go's. I thought that perhaps I would switch my Operation: Robusto strategy over to a Sit N Go format. This would allow me to gain more buy-ins for my money, as well as satisfy the cravings for action that I used to get playing cash games - I always found the element of eventually having to shove a mediocre hand in a tournament appetizing.

Here's the first hand of the first Sit N Go I played:

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Poker Stars $1.00+$0.20 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t10/t20 Blinds - 9 players - View hand 693517
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: t1500 M = 50
SB: t1500 M = 50
Hero (BB): t1500 M = 50
UTG: t1500 M = 50
UTG+1: t1500 M = 50
UTG+2: t1500 M = 50
MP1: t1500 M = 50
MP2: t1500 M = 50
CO: t1500 M = 50

Pre Flop: (t30) Hero is BB with K Q
UTG calls t20, 1 fold, UTG+2 calls t20, MP1 calls t20, 3 folds, SB calls t10, Hero checks

Flop: (t100) 9 K K (5 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG bets t420, UTG+2 calls t420, MP1 folds, SB folds, Hero raises to t1480 all in, UTG calls t1060 all in, UTG+2 calls t1060 all in

Hero shows K Q (three of a kind, Kings)
UTG shows K 6 (a full house, Kings full of Sixes)
UTG+2 shows A A (two pair, Aces and Kings)

Turn: (t4540) T (3 players - 3 are all in)

River: (t4540) 6 (3 players - 3 are all in)

Final Pot: t4540

UTG wins t4540
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A rogue 6 came to screw me out of all the hope I gained after Session 2, and suddenly 7 years of bad beats, steamed bluffs, and angry nights came flowing back to me. I can remember a few times running up a stash on Full Tilt in mid-limit Limit Hold'em, and a few sessions of live poker where I went home with a pocket full of cash that I couldn't even believe. Sadly enough I can remember more instances where I've been slashed up by such a bad run of cards that it would shake up even his holiness the Dalai Lama.

I was feeling pretty pumped up about this "project" at the end of Session 2, but after going through my past poker history in my head I can't help but feel a bit irritated after Session 3. I always laugh at people who take only a couple hours of poker playing results to heart - as I write this I can't help but join those people in damning the poker gods for mere minutes of bad running.

I am thinking of switching to $1 Sit N Gos instead of only having 3 buy-ins to $10NL, and now a weekend looms in front of me in which I won't be able to play for days. I'll use the time to mull the decision over, but it feels like I'm leaning towards SNGs just because I want to play cards, and I don't want to lose the $30 in a single Session 4.

I decided to play down to my original $30 in $1 SNG buy-ins. In one I pushed all-in preflop on the bubble with AJ vs chip leader's 79dd. Board came out 82Q98, and the turn sealed the deal to put me at 0/2 in SNGs on the night.

My third single table Sit N Go I managed to catch 1st for the only winning game of the night.

OPERATION: ROBUSTO - Session 3

Gain/Loss: -$30
Total Bankroll: $33.85
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Tournament Gain/Loss: + $0.90
Total Bankroll: $34.75

Operation Robusto Begins

2010-05-13T11:25:00.001-07:00

After making it through my first semester back in school, and pulling in enough money to pay bills and eat by working from home, I've decided it's time to start up a tiny bit of poker playing again.

After a little discussion with lifetime friend/poker playing partner/ex-degenerate (read: in the weeds) Joe, I've decided to take a super small stake and try to build up a bankroll online. I'm only taking a $30 starting roll and playing $10NL on Stars. Most people would call that stupid, and say that I'm stupid for trying to put any weight behind what I'm doing. At some point I may have agreed. But for now, I want to see if this will work.

If I lose it, I put the project on hold for another time. If I win and manage to make it to some higher games, then I might be back in money-making territory. And if I get bored, I'll cash it out and have a fun weekend in Vegas at least!

It's been two sessions of play, and I've already had to relearn some things about the game of poker. I made two stupid, stupid moves on Session 1, and it cost me the night's profit. During Session 2 I hit a few hands, and managed to play the hell out of these Aces:

Poker Stars $0.05/$0.10 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $9.55
SB: $10.65
BB: $10.00
Hero (UTG): $13.35
UTG+1: $5.10
UTG+2: $10.00
MP1: $11.00
MP2: $10.00
CO: $14.30

Pre Flop: ($0.15) Hero is UTG with A A
Hero raises to $0.40, 5 folds, BTN calls $0.40, 2 folds

Flop: ($0.95) 3 5 3 (2 players)
Hero bets $0.70, BTN calls $0.70

Turn: ($2.35) 8 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $1.60, Hero calls $1.60

River: ($5.55) 7 (2 players)
Hero checks, BTN bets $2.70, Hero raises to $8.20, BTN calls $4.15 all in

Final Pot: $19.25

BTN shows 8 T (two pair, Eights and Threes)
Hero shows A A (two pair, Aces and Threes)

Hero wins $18.30

Of course in this case I can thank the Button for floating the 810dd and trying to hit, but after the raise on the river he tanked down to his time bank and reluctantly called.

I did stack off with QQ against KK on a 10-high board, but at the end of the night the session proved that I still know how to play the game. A little bit.

Anyone who still finds the link to this blog floating around in cyberspace can feel free to comment, ask questions, or just read. I was getting a lot of readers back in '06, but I haven't played a hand of poker for quite some time. Hopefully with a little retraining and a little luck from the online poker gods, I'll be able to really get this blog back to its true meaning - sitting the apple.

OPERATION: ROBUSTO - Session 2

Gain/Loss: +$38
Total Bankroll: $67
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Tournament Gain/Loss: -$7
Total Bankroll: $60

NFL Week 9 Football Bets: Aftermath

2009-11-09T17:27:00.000-08:00

Well of course it had to happen. With a steady inflow of winning bets since week 1, I posted my bets on the internets for the first time this season and was instantly bitch-slapped by the NFL. I wasn't even close to winning any of my cards at any point of the weekend, and with one last chance at redemption on a Monday night showdown between the Steelers and the Broncos, I'll let myself have the secrecy of my hopefully weekend-saving card for the night.

But I will say this, I hope the Steelers win by a little and I hope both teams aren't throwin any bombs tonight...

NFL Week 9 Football Bets

2009-11-06T13:40:00.000-08:00

I've profited a bit of money off of my original deposit for this football season. I don't know how much I've won yet, but I should figure it out. I'm interested.

Unfortunately I've lost most of it to random bouts of online blackjack. It's just as bad as the continuous shuffle I got beat down by on the cruise ship. Bastards.

Anyways, I've stuck with a style so far and it's been working. I've been playing 3- and 4-bet parlay cards (2 at most), as well as a single game 2-bet parlay for sunday and/or monday night games.

Here's my cards NFL Week 9:

Nov 08, 2009 Combination

1 San Diego at New York Giants
New York Giants - 5.0 (1.91)
2 Tennessee at San Francisco
San Francisco - 4.0 (1.91)
3 Detroit at Seattle
Detroit + 10.0 (1.95)
4 Green Bay at Tampa Bay
Tampa Bay + 10.0 (1.91)

Bet Type:
Combination
Valid Selections:
4
Bet Price:
13.58
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Nov 08, 2009 Combination

1 Miami at New England
New England - 10.5 ( 1.91)
2 Washington at Atlanta
Atlanta - 10.0 (1.91)
3 Houston at Indianapolis
(Over/Under) Over + 47.5 (1.91)
4 Arizona at Chicago
(Moneyline) Arizona (2.25)

Bet Type:
Combination
Valid Selections:
4
Bet Price:
15.66
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Nov 08, 2009 Combination

1 Dallas at Philadelphia
(Over/Under) Over + 47.5 (1.91)
2 Dallas at Philadelphia
Philadelphia - 3.0 (2.00)

Bet Type:
Combination
Valid Selections:
2
Bet Price:
3.82
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Let's see how this goes.

The Shortest Vegas Trip Yet Pt. 1

2009-11-05T13:30:00.000-08:00

I recently took a trip to Vegas. I recently came back from Vegas.

After experiencing many life-changing events over the course of the past two months I was feeling a bit stressed. And whenever I feel a bit stressed I feel a bit of an urge. As we all know, this urge is one of great importance.

This is a feeling we all get. This is a feeling gamblers get quite often. I haven't gotten this urge for quite some time. And by quite some time I mean I haven't gotten it for at least three days. This urge, my friends, is an urge brought on by being cornered by life. This is an urge that forces you to escape into the middle of the desert, whereupon after hours of driving on one- and two-way roads for almost 5 hours you discover the lights of the land of the lost.

Lost wages. Lost souls. Found souls.

The Father Man had made an attempt to drag me out there a week prior. Due to numerous restraints I had to decline. Two days passed and then I regretted my decision. Three days was ok. Four days was tough. And on the fifth day I broke. The sixth day was for driving. The seventh day was for full release.

We took off at about 9PM with plans to meet with Ben, one of the founding members of the Syndicate. Ben is also in Vegas every month. He spends a maximum amount of time in the casino, and is comped in almost every establishment out there. After spending his four day comp in the new Wynn Encore, he was switched over to a free stay at the Palazzo. We would meet him there and post up for a couple days.

First we hit the obligatory pre-trip gas station. Full tank, drinks, and some McDonalds for dinner. Of course, we were too busy getting things done before the trip that there was no time for food.

I got the luck of being full-time passenger, and as such, as soon as we hit the freeway onramp I took the liberty of taking off my shoes. I was in for a fun time.

Midway through the trip I posted a quickie from the desert on Life's Luck via the iPhone, which I've quite fallen in love with. The chariot finally pulled us up to Sin City at midnight and a half, a four and a half hour drive.

We arrived at the Palazzo, valeted the beast, and took up to the reservation counter to get our room keys. Actually first we hit the head, as all LA drivers must do after downing drinks on the way into the City of Lights.

We dropped our overnight bags in the room and took to the safe with everything we wouldn't want to be carrying around. Who knows what gets lost in Vegas? I've made sure to make use of the room-provided trip in all of the various Vegas trips I've taken over the years. Without safes I would've already exhausted 14 wallets, 45 replaced credit cards, 14 replaced health insurance cards, and an uncounted amount of cash (although most of that gets lost before I leave every Vegas trip anyways).

Father Man jumped on the phone with Ben while I popped open the automatic window drapes to get a night time view in. Turns out Ben was already a full night's drunk and was eating some second dinner downstairs at the Grand Lux Cafe. I enjoyed a nice lay on the couch in front of the tv while we waited fifteen or so for him to come back up to the room.

He finally showed up. I jumped into the bathroom for a quick spritz and a powder, Ben changed shirts, and FM stood by.

I grabbed my "stash" and we head down to the casino. If you didn't read that last part with any kind of inspection, the word stash is quoted because there wasn't much of one to be had. I had recently quit my job, and with debts and fees that need paying on a monthly basis I shouldn't have even been going at all. I managed to rack up a grand worth of debt on the Alaskan cruise alone. But...when the urge strikes, a man is defenseless.

So there I was stuck in Vegas with $360.

$360.

An Amazing Opportunity with the Syndicate Pt. 1

2008-05-22T10:18:00.000-07:00

In all the craziness of the recent times of my life, I once again found the perfect three-day escape. Every time I leave Vegas it seems as though the only thing I want to do is go straight back. I realize that I'm not the only one with this feeling, nor am I even one of a select few, but I can't help but love that place.

Three weeks ago I was given the amazing chance to be part of an age-old crew that has come together for decades to form outstanding feats of gambling glory: the Syndicate. The Syndicate that I'm referring to consists of my father and a large group of rotating friends, who, in their younger years, went to Vegas almost every weekend to take on the casinos and have the time of their lives. Some still go pretty regularly, but as the older generation dies out the tradition is being taught and handed down to the next in line.

The object of the Syndicate is very simple: everyone puts in the same amount of money on a certain gambling venture, and if there's overall profit then everyone splits what comes of it. If everyone loses, then it's on to the next game. A lot of the time this consists of everyone putting in a certain amount of money into a single machine, whether it be slot or video slot, while one person takes the chair and tries to dominate that specific game with his fellow members cheering on in rally. This isn't to say that table games are not on the ballot, because they are, but the exception is that craps is rarely , if ever, played for the Syndicate. While most of the time the group will lose, if you use the extended currencies to hit a hot machine the big payouts tend to even everyone out.

This latest adventure pitted two old-timers and a first-timer (myself) against the wonders of the City of Lights. The father and I headed out on a Friday noon to meet up with the other, Ben, who would likely be in full swing. Ben is still a Vegas junkie. He's a monthly visitor and, luckily for us, he and his brother play enough and high enough that they get comped wherever they need to. This weekend it at the Palazzo. I was excited to check it out, as I was staying next door at the Venetian during the Palazzo's soft opening but failed to go in.

While we would be staying at the "new definition of luxury", we needed to head to the Orleans first so we could hit up the daily 7PM tourney. The two of us got there barely before the tourney started, so we said a quick hello to our third member and quickly bought in for $105. Before we started the tournament I learned a few rules about the Syndicate.

Rule #1: There must always be either 3 or 5 people in the Syndicate. The odd man must have final say over a tied vote.

Rule #2: Always have faith, the Syndicate will prevail!

Rule #3: Drink a lot.

Rule #4: "Details". (This'll be more clear later in the story.)

So we all grabbed a couple drinks and headed to take our seats. After a few hours of play I was pretty standard stacked, but doubled up right before the first break. The three of us found out that I was the biggest stack of the Syndicate's three horses, yet in my mind Ben was the favorite to pull through the weekend's first victory.

Eventually I ended up blinding down and found myself with about 11k with the blinds at 1000/2000/300. There was a break and blind increase in a few minutes so I was hoping to double up again like I did before the first break. A few hands later UTG raised to 6.5k while I looked down at AKo in the hijack. I obviously snap shoved for the rest of my short stack and got called 3 ways behind. I was up against AKo in the SB, 1010 UTG, and for some reason the 40k stack BB called my RR and then called the UTG's 35k reshove AI with...KJo. So I was drawing to chop with a case K or one of two Aces, but neither fell and the 1010 picked up a healthy pot.

I was out before the second break with no cash, but looked over to see Ben, the group favorite, on the rail. We scouted out Father-man to check his status as the tourney went into the second break, and it looked like his stack would be in trouble after the break was over. The Syndicate's first investment looked weak.

The two of us found a drink girl and a Texas Tea machine, and decided to play some two-way action as we each plugged a $20 into the famed machine. Now this is where I caught my first glimpse of the beauty of a function like the Syndicate. Even on a low budget you can play and drink for a long time and still have a ton of fun. You triple your play-time on any machine, and when the play hits you get fun money given back to you. There are a few times in my first trip with the group that we ended up hitting big payouts when were down to our last 1/3 of the buyin. Without buying in for triple or split action from the Syndicate, one would more than likely walk away after the first $20 or $100 without success. The Syndicate, my friends, is a group founded on the idea of success.

While this was not true action in the sense of our ring, we both played and hit the bonus, for which I picked three spots that were the lowest payouts on the board. Mark one for Chris being horrible at gambling this weekend. We bottomed out and hit the bar and then the rail again to watch our third player play on. He eventually broke before the cash and we hit our first loss of the weekend.

It was time for some more drinks so the three of us grabbed 'em and took off running. The casino was about to be our bitch for the night, we were convinced of it!

We munched up a Chinese food dinner before we roamed the casino floor for a while. Unfortunately, hours of drinking and pumping machines full of twenties at the Orleans resulted in nothing more than lighter pockets. At the tail end of our session we landed on another Texas Tea machine that took us up to almost even with a four-spot bonus that hit pretty big right off the bat. We cashed out, shipped the split profit from the game, and decided to head back to the poker room to take advantage of their 11PM $80 tourney.

After the drinks that were in me, and facing a small field of four short-handed tables, my brain almost considered this tourney a locked win in favor of me. My fingers had different plans though. I lost about half my stack in the first two orbits, and got into a couple quarrels with a kid who thought he was God's gift to poker. There he was at an hour-to-midnight wearing a beanie, sunglasses, and a pair of headphones, playing the best poker of his life.

Ben was again knocked out before me, and I lasted about half an hour before I pushed my stack with 27hh UTG. The kid called with 38o and, as fate would have it, 8-high held across the board. Obviously the Gift made sure that the table heard that he KNEW 8-high was good, he knew it! So...my plans for this tournament didn't pan out.

I was fearless in my defeat, however, because I knew that the video poker bar was feet away! After watching some nub falling over as he walked away from the same bar, I sauntered up and pounded some $20 drinks while I played free video poker. Right at the end of my third drink I hit a couple full houses and shipped back a double-profit. My losses were shrinking, this was good news.

This is where things got a bit hazy. The drinks didn't stop, the gambling didn't stop, but somewhere along the way my memory began to cower away. The Syndicate fought hard throughout the night and from the evidence of the morning after we were only down $160 from gambling, and only around $100 each from tipping. We loaded our bags from our car into a cab and took off to the Palazzo to top off the night.

Part 2 is going to be a mix of story-telling and "fill-in-the-black" memory, but I'll do the best I can to recall it all in my next post.

I know that I have yet to continue on the other Pt. 1 I started about my birthday trip in December, but I feel like writing this one now while it's fresh. Bear with me here, I just started writing again ;)

And be sure to check out Splendid Simplism for daily updates on my life that aren't gambling related.

There's a Place to Gamble, and There's a Place to Complain About Life

2008-05-13T19:00:00.000-07:00

I feel like I created this blog to tell stories of degeneracy and (a now recognized failure of) gambling domination, but lately all that's come from Sitting the Apple is a bunch of self-loathing and gray matter that's more accurately described as mental excrement than ingenious brainiacal amazement. Therefore, I created a new place to put my daily whines so I can keep this blog for its intended purpose: the GAMBOL!

I'd like to lead you now to: Splendid Simplism. I can only hope that the title exorbitantly explains the confusion I seem to currently be in. Whereas here I will hopefully eventually sit the apple, there I will freely sit in a corner of my mind and unleash the hells that I face outside of the gambling world.

Never stay gone from Sitting the Apple too long, though, I have many unwritten tales of Vegas that I see coming to life in the near future...

Time to Clear My Head

2008-05-01T10:06:00.000-07:00

After a painfully empty-handed release day on Tuesday, I received the controversial Grand Theft Auto IV yesterday. The game was kept on a "hush-hush" level throughout it's production and all the way up to its release date. While there was obviously a lot to be expected of this masterpiece, I wasn't really sure what I could want out of a next generation console.

I decided to preorder it merely days before it was released since I had barely paid any attention to it at all. I had to pop in GTA: San Adreas when I first thought about buying the latest installation, and within an hour of replaying one of the funnest games I played on the XBOX, I knew I'd have to have to have its 360 cousin. Now, after putting in a night's worth of playing time, I'm glad I kept in the family.

This is a huge game. The physics, the game engine itself, the graphics, the gameplay, the storyline...all top notch. Adding in the online multiplayer function and it's variety of MP game modes really puts the double icing on this cake. This is going to end up being one of the most sold games out there, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a bunch of younguns putting their entirety into this game, regardless of the fact that it's marked for mature audiences only.

Once I got the game and plugged into it my mind seemed to get put on hold, which is a welcome treat. When I start thinking about things I tend to way overthink. Whenever I'm faced with a decision that pertains to a change in my life, it 1)is usually an unnecessary, self-imposed conundrum, and 2)something to take my mind off of my continual boredom both in the working world and at home.

It's an oddity in my life that's been occurring for a couple years now that I can't really explain. Prior to my advancement into a salary position I was a happy-go-lucky guy. Things were different before I was a fully employed dream child for a small company, and somewhere along the way a switch was flipped that turned the lights out over my general contentment. I don't remember a distinct thing that happened to make me feel the way I feel now and have been feeling for 2 years, but I've been fighting to find a way to get back to that state of mind since the day it changed.

I don't think I'm as troubled as I've come off in Sitting the Apple lately, but I'm sure it seems like it. My worries come in spurts, and I'd rather them not come at all. I'm a happy guy, I don't normally stress about much, and I try to live a care-free life because it's easier and less troublesome that way. Something's holding me back.

While it's true there have been times in the recent past where I've felt better and happier than I had in a long while, I still haven't really reached the point where I'm not worrying about things anymore. I recently found out that I'm in more financial distress than I thought, and I'm facing a decision in the near future of either keeping part of my life the same or starting all over in a new place.

As previously stated in this blog, I'm thinking heavily of Option #1: moving to Vegas for a temporary period of time. While many around me are telling me that I won't like living there, and that I simply like vacationing there, I understand their concerns but completely disagree. There are very few people who know me down to the bone and who I have shared many dark times with, and even in the gray period of my life right now they tell me I'd survive out there because of who I am. I believe that.

On the other hand, do I really want to leave the security of a paycheck? The fact that I finally owe a substantial amount of money to my credit cards is making me a hermit in the ocean of freedom. I obviously don't want to move to a new place with accumulated credit riding my coat tails, and relatively while I try in vain to pay down in full my current debts I don't want to move to a new place with no set job while I have no cash in my pockets.

Another option is to hump the job for the paychecks, move to a better place and, dare I say it once more, go back to school. The reason I've been in this state is that I made a bold move to leave my comfort zone and move to Santa Barbara three years ago. It was a new place, a new job, and a fresh start. I didn't know anybody out here, had no friends at first, and spent the better part of my first years here inside or in a casino. Downtown Santa Barbara's entertainment is defined as drinking. Unfortunately for me when I arrived in SB I still had years left before I was legal to drink in public. The one thing I could do is go to the local Indian casino, which allowed gamblers as young as 18. So as any reader of my blog can imagine, that's exactly what I did, and I did it often.

By the time I was able to go out and socialize downtown I was already too miserable to go out and bullshit with random people. I did take a more solid stance in hanging out with my friends in the town over a half an hour away, and thankfully I met Steph. She's definitely changed my life and although we're a drive away from each other, I'm glad we're JUST a drive away from each other.

So that leads to Option #2: move to Ventura and get a place with Steph. This would be a great decision for me mentally outside of work, but I would still face a financial dilemma. I will have my debts paid off by the time it's time to leave my current apartment, but I'll be left on the short end of the money stick and will WANT to get into a full-time job ASAP. So the question at that point is do I stay with my job and make the drive daily twice a day? What's supposed to be a 25 minute drive either way turns into an hour-long trudge northbound in the morning, and the same Hellish drive southbound at 5. And wouldn't you know it, those are exactly the directions I need to go at those times coming and going to Ventura.

The benefits of living in Ventura again would be tenfold. All of my high school friends are there, my best friends are there (with the exception of that lucky bastard who's living in Hawaii right now), and my girlfriend's there. There's stuff to do, the cost of living is acceptable and not completely retarded, there's still a beach if I want to go it (LOL SoCal), and I'm familiar with the area. The reasons I'm unhappy where I am now is basically because I'm living in the exact opposite scene of what I just described.

I don't really want to go through the hassle of getting another job if I'm moving close enough to stay in this office. For as much as I complain about this job, it seems in my mind that if I settle myself in a better living scenario most of my mental troubles will fade away. Of course only time will tell that.

So for this coming weekend, as the thoughts pile up and become trapped, I'll do what any sensible person in my situation would do: go to Vegas.

Something's-Ah Brewing

2008-04-14T14:11:00.000-07:00

I was pretty quiet last week due to deep thought...and drinking. Moreso deep thought. I've been strongly and seriously considering moving to Vegas, and I have a lot of research to do if I'm going to continue to put any kind of commitment to the idea.

My lease ends in September, and with any bullocks so should my current job. The paycheck is nice to have on a regular basis, but obviously it's just not enough and just not worth my time.

My thoughts are that either I'll just head out for a year or two and give it a shot so I can stop thinking about "what would be" every day of my life, or I might actually get a job that'll land me in management before long and maybe stay for a while. Either way I'm going to be looking to get into UNLV with a transfer for when I'm done with the City of Dreams.

I'm really, really bored with life right now...so...this is a strong possibility.

OMG OMG OMG I Won the Lottery

2008-04-01T13:53:00.000-07:00

IMPORTANT NOTE: the date.

On a serious note, I did buy a guitar yesterday. When I think about it it seems that my biggest urges to gamble come to me when I'm at my lowest points of boredom. Considering I have YET to get back into school for night classes I find myself ultimately useless and braindead for the most part of my days, both at work and at home. I figure if I have so much free time why not try to do something I've always wanted to do?

This was, of course, another impulse buy. I probably spent about an hour thinking about it, and then instantly jammed out to get it. Oddly enough when I compare my decision to gamble to my decision to buy this guitar it seems that there's more merit in buying a guitar than there could ever be gambling.

I started cheap and opted for an Epiphone Les Paul. While I've been told to start learning on an acoustic, living in an older apartment with paper-thin walls doesn't seem like the best place to learn to play an instrument. The guitar sounds fine, and I'll no doubt begin an addiction to guitars as I have with everything else that interests me in the least.

So now here I am, a guitar, an amp, and a pair of headphones, ready to rock the pants off the world. I can only hope I'll put as much time and effort into learning this as I had put into learning poker back when I started. On second thought, that didn't work out too well, so I'm gonna hope for a little more effort with this thing...

Overheard On My Couch

2008-03-31T15:20:00.001-07:00

"You know why you like blackjack so much? It fits the swings of your personality exactly."

True.

And So Ends...

2008-03-30T22:25:00.000-07:00

...one of the most mentally tough weeks I've yet to have in my young life. On the plate this week were decisions of occupation, location, and determination. To this point I have yet to make any choices, but they are there to be made!

It's come to my attention recently that my current job is making me sad. It's making me bored, mad, and depressed. I'm not making any money, most of the time I have no work to do, and most of the time I'm there I daydream about what I could be doing instead and I constantly berate myself for not being in school.

One of the worst parts of the whole thing is that three and half years ago I only meant for my job to be a stepping stone. Unfortunately it became the #1 thing in my life and everything else disappeared. While it's true that it did get me out of the worst situation I'll admit to ever being in, I only meant for it to be a temporary rescue.

Now I'm so derailed from my original goals that I don't feel like I'll ever get back to where I thought I would be. What did I want to be doing? I wanted to be playing poker. I wanted to be graduating. I wanted to be doing something useful. I wanted to be instantly bettering my life so that I had a bright future ahead of me early, and in the process building myself something so awesome for the future that no one would have thought I could have done it.

And now, instead of the microwave wealth that I had so insistently believed in, I'm here in a dead-end job that won't stop promising me grand things for the future. I'm 22. I want it...NOW.

So taking all of this into account I'm strongly thinking about leaving this place when my lease ends in September. Where to...where to is the question. I could return to Ventura where my friends and my girlfriend are, where potential school futures lie if I want to drive out to CSUCI every day...where...mental normalcy lies?

Or there's the LA area...I don't know if I'd cut it out there though. I seem like a cool enough cat but I'm not sure that would suit me. Then again, I've never thought about it and I really have no idea how things go out there. Maybe I'm overthinking it.

Then on the other side of the map there's...need I say it...Vegas! Yes. Las Vegas, my golden land. I could just head out there and wing it! Crash some couches for a week or two, find a place, get a job. Maybe a dealer. Maybe a fuckin janitor. Maybe another office clerk, but in a place I would love more than anything to live in.

Of course if I did that I could play every day. My bills would be cut in half if I moved out there, and of course there's UNLV. I would love that. I would love to be able to play all the time, to get back into the game! Wouldn't I? Sure, until I sat at the table and lost my first buyin. Then it's back to Hell.

Ugh...of course Steph would die if we had to live in Vegas. I would live.

Whatever happens I still don't know what I truly WANT. I have no frickin clue what it is that I'm lookin for in life. I have ideas sometimes, but they leave my mind as soon as they come. I'm pretty sure I have ADD. I have no medical proof but

Hey I won playing blackjack today! $250 profit from a quick-decision $50 deposit.

And after all that it seems that at my ripe age of 22 I shouldn't have to face the decisions that I put on myself, but I can't help it. I don't know if I'll be bored if I'm either not worrying or celebrating something.

There was once a point that I was calm. I went to work, had a decent day, brought home a paycheck, and stayed inside not spending money and just layin around. That got boring quick.

There was once a point more recently that I thought I was an alcoholic. I went to work, had a balls-out shitty day, went to the bar, brought home a buzz, and stayed inside getting drunk until I passed out. That got boring quick. It was a drain on my wallet too.

And now here I am deciding what's next. I could go sky-diving. Does that cost money?? Damn!

I could...well shit no I couldn't everything costs money. Which brings me to the lesser worries of my week: finances...again.

I've always been good with my credit. Since the day I had my first $500 limit credit card in my freshman year at CSUN I've been good with my credit. In fact there were seldom times where I wouldn't pay off my cards in full. My car was the biggest purchase I had yet to make on credit when I was 20, and seeing as how the creditors saw fit to slap this first-time buyer with 9% APR I've been aware of just how badly interest bones you, the consumer, the borrower.

Because of my financial awareness I've paid my credit cards in full every month up until two months ago. With about half of my available credit in use because of frivolous spending (boredom-based obviously) my credit score has dropped to 731. That's not bad...but it's not what it was!! I want it perfect I want it all I want this I want

Damn I shouldn't have played those $100 hands, I could've cashed out for more...

that. But now I'm finding out that America's favorite past time is spending money one doesn't have. I now face an $1,100 purchase that I can't force myself to not make. It's not even important, this thing that I want, but I HAVE to have it. And why shouldn't I? I don't currently have the money obviously, or else there'd be no decision. But why not charge it and pay it off like most people do? What's a few credit points?

Being so young and without experience, I have no idea what a few credit points are worth. As far as I know 731 is sufficient for now, and in the current state of America's economy I'm assuming 731 is above and beyond what certain lenders are looking for. But I have no idea. I really want to buy this...

I'm always biased towards myself when it comes to making big purchases, because I know how much I've lost lifetime at gambling and how much stuff I could've bought with the money. Of course that doesn't bother me when I'm gambling. Why not? Who knows...ask a gambler. I'm not one.

I guess I could hit the BJ tables again and try to get that other $200 that I was up back...

I Don't Understand

2008-03-29T20:12:00.001-07:00

Why people do this:

Full Tilt Poker Game #5834419458: Daily Double - A (43720589), Table 92 - 20/40 - No Limit Hold'em - 21:32:06 ET - 2008/03/29
Seat 1: cazoo (1,750)
Seat 2: Chuu Len 13 (4,200)
Seat 3: Emmanuel83211 (4,105)
Seat 4: corn013 (1,500)
Seat 5: John_Salami (965)
Seat 6: jstidwell (3,290)
Seat 7: MAUIMOON (2,495)
Seat 8: Kid Crash (5,175)
Seat 9: SyphonSoul (1,620)
jstidwell posts the small blind of 20
MAUIMOON posts the big blind of 40
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Kid Crash [9d 9c]
Kid Crash raises to 140
SyphonSoul folds
cazoo calls 140
Chuu Len 13 folds
Emmanuel83211 calls 140
corn013 folds
John_Salami calls 140
jstidwell folds
MAUIMOON folds
*** FLOP *** [6h 8d 2s]
Kid Crash bets 400
cazoo folds
Emmanuel83211 folds
John_Salami raises to 825, and is all in
Kid Crash calls 425
John_Salami shows [4h 3h]
Kid Crash shows [9d 9c]
*** TURN *** [6h 8d 2s] [3s]
*** RIVER *** [6h 8d 2s 3s] [3c]
John_Salami shows three of a kind, Threes
Kid Crash shows two pair, Nines and Threes
John_Salami wins the pot (2,270) with three of a kind, Threes
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2,270 | Rake 0
Board: [6h 8d 2s 3s 3c]
Seat 1: cazoo folded on the Flop
Seat 2: Chuu Len 13 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: Emmanuel83211 folded on the Flop
Seat 4: corn013 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: John_Salami (button) showed [4h 3h] and won (2,270) with three of a kind, Threes
Seat 6: jstidwell (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 7: MAUIMOON (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 8: Kid Crash showed [9d 9c] and lost with two pair, Nines and Threes
Seat 9: SyphonSoul didn't bet (folded)

Or why shit like this happens ALL THE TIME:

Full Tilt Poker Game #5835001729: Daily Double - A (43720589), Table 92 - 60/120 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:20:39 ET - 2008/03/29
Seat 1: cazoo (1,768)
Seat 2: Chuu Len 13 (4,225)
Seat 3: Emmanuel83211 (4,290), is sitting out
Seat 4: corn013 (3,980)
Seat 5: FullTilter20 (2,396)
Seat 6: jstidwell (710)
Seat 7: MAUIMOON (3,773)
Seat 8: Kid Crash (3,247)
Seat 9: SyphonSoul (3,771)
MAUIMOON posts the small blind of 60
Kid Crash posts the big blind of 120
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Kid Crash [Ac Ad]
SyphonSoul has 15 seconds left to act
SyphonSoul raises to 247
Emmanuel83211 has returned
cazoo folds
Chuu Len 13 folds
Emmanuel83211 folds
corn013 folds
FullTilter20 calls 247
jstidwell folds
MAUIMOON folds
Kid Crash raises to 1,000
SyphonSoul raises to 3,771, and is all in
FullTilter20 folds
Kid Crash calls 2,247, and is all in
SyphonSoul shows [Jc Jh]
Kid Crash shows [Ac Ad]
Uncalled bet of 524 returned to SyphonSoul
*** FLOP *** [9c 8d 6d]
*** TURN *** [9c 8d 6d] [Js]
*** RIVER *** [9c 8d 6d Js] [8h]
SyphonSoul shows a full house, Jacks full of Eights
Kid Crash shows two pair, Aces and Eights
SyphonSoul wins the pot (6,801) with a full house, Jacks full of Eights
FullTilter20: wow i had a J
Kid Crash stands up
cazoo stands up
Chuu Len 13 stands up
Emmanuel83211 stands up
corn013 stands up
FullTilter20 stands up
jstidwell stands up
MAUIMOON stands up
SyphonSoul stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 6,801 | Rake 0
Board: [9c 8d 6d Js 8h]
Seat 1: cazoo didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: Chuu Len 13 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: Emmanuel83211 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: corn013 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: FullTilter20 folded before the Flop
Seat 6: jstidwell (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 7: MAUIMOON (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 8: Kid Crash (big blind) showed [Ac Ad] and lost with two pair, Aces and Eights
Seat 9: SyphonSoul showed [Jc Jh] and won (6,801) with a full house, Jacks full of Eights

And I can't help but laugh at this "FullTilter20: wow i had a J".

These are the reasons why I don't play on a serious basis anymore. There are so many things I can say about these two hands alone, let alone the swongs I faced in the Daily Double today, but it'll make my brain explode if I try to figure out why people play the way they do.

On the other hand...I sure do miss Vegas.

Sitting the Life

2008-03-19T20:30:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about starting another blog to link with Sitting the Apple and using StA for poker and gambling stuff from here on out, but considering my current and near future state of unplay, that doesn't really seem like a good idea for right now.

I miss being "in the game". I don't miss just playing poker, but being a gambler in the sense that every day my livelihood depended on or somewhat required that I gamble in some sense. Losing or winning hundreds of dollars a day when my paycheck was only hundreds of dollars itself was an exciting feeling.

Many people don't know what it's like to be a gambler. Maybe you call it addiction, maybe you call it a lifestyle. Obviously people view the two with complete conviction that they're individual belief on the subject is correct. There are many people nowadays, thanks to the poker boom and having gambling glorified by the media, that know the ups and downs of being a gambler too well. I started when I was 17.

Being a waiter and walking away with cash from tips every night meant that I had a paycheck behind to pay for my car and that I had enough cash to do what I wanted. I was privileged in the fact that I had more money than most of friends as a working junior. It's because of this that started me playing poker. On a regular basis I would leave form work, go home and change, and head to the Indian casino while I talked to my girlfriend on the phone. As far as she was concerned, I was laying in bed.

Gamblers hide the truth for many reasons. In current times young people hide the truth that they're winning money (for those that do win) for a living simply because people ask too many questions and offer advice on life when it wasn't asked for or appreciated in the first place. I hid it because I knew people would disapprove of a 17 year old gambling.

Lying also means that you're in it alone. You go sit at a table, buyin, and get a rack of chips and prepare yourself for the next few hours. For me it meant that I had three or four hours of play before the poker room went dead, and I'd have to return home just to fall asleep for a few hours before waking up late for school, or missing it altogether.

So I would play alone. I would make friends with those who would frequent the casino because I could talk to them. They understood. In most cases, those guys are worse off than I could ever be. But not me, it wouldn't happen to me. So I would play alone. I would lose some pots, win some pots, and in the end it felt amazing to know that no one else that I knew had an idea of where I was or what I was doing. It was freedom in the most unstable sense.

Many people don't know the feelings you experience as a closet gambler. When you are at a point where you can't tell anybody, everything becomes empowering and distancing. When you lose you have no one to console you. When you win, you know that you can't tell anyone, but you have money in your pocket and YOU know where it came from.

Of course the life of gambling consumes you. Eccentric red and yellow casino carpet fills the halls of your mind when you dream, and the sound of jackpots and shuffling chips blast your ears until you wake up. You can't wait for the next coin flip.

As your gambling evolves and becomes more of a part of you, you learn the scenarios by heart. You know what it feels like to lose it all and you know what it's like to walk to that cage with a handful of black chips and the relief and happiness that follows as the cashier rips hundred-dollar bills onto the granite countertop.

It's an amazing feeling, when you're eating dinner at 3AM and realize that you just accomplished a great financial feat by winning in one night three times the amount of money that you would have to work for for two weeks. Knowing that you either played great, played smart, or just got lucky while you count in your head over and over again the wad that's in your pocket...that's a fun feeling.

On the other hand when you're eating dinner at 1AM and realize that you just lost everything you'd worked for for the past six days, and have now just recreated for the umpteenth time one of the worst financial disasters in your life, well that's an amazing feeling as well. It hurts. It hurts mentally, it hurts emotionally, but you already know the feeling well because you've been there before. You've been in that same seat twenty times before, and each time you realize you'll have to borrow money to pay rent you tell yourself the same thing, "never again."

Throughout the past 4 years of my life I've known what it's like to borrow money, to lend money, to hide from the skeptics and to emerge from my social cave and to throw it in their faces when I've won. I've been complimented, criticized, questioned, and encouraged over the years. In the end, though, I didn't come out on top.

It's the rush that I miss. It's the joy of victory and the thrill of the gamble. I don't miss the feeling of knowing that I fucked up, but I do miss the overall rollercoaster of emotion.

I decided to quit gambling a long time ago; I obviously didn't. I operated in a no-I-shouldn't-ok-one-more-time mode. There came a point where I lost and couldn't get it back, either because I was broke or because I was so afraid to lose more that I couldn't force myself to place another bet to win it back. When I had finally had enough I made a promise to myself and to those who had seen the damage that it caused that I wasn't to gamble again until I had enough money to do so without consequence.

The past couple times I've truly gambled were times of inebriation and celebration. They were times where I had money to lose, save for the last one-night relapse I had. On that night I didn't lose what I couldn't afford, but the alcohol and general absence of the game from my life brought me to lose all but what I needed to survive.

It was at that point where I realized how much I loved and missed it all. As I sat in that diner seat at 5AM, knowing that I had done it again, I remembered the feeling. I made the necessary vow to myself to not do it again, but why not this time? I have a stable full time job that allows me to live life now. I have money to lose if I want, and I can still pay bills, rent, and go out to eat and buy household goods without hesitation.

I want badly to get back into that life. But I want it to be better this time, I want it to not be the wrong kind. For years I let it run my life in a bad way. I started to not have fun with it all and that's when things were the worst. I stopped having fun with it and started depending on the win. I'm over that way of thinking, and if I ever get back to that way of life I'll make sure it's different this time around.

Three-Step Shinny

2008-03-16T14:55:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things to do when I'm messing around and playing blackjack for fun is to play a step-style bet pattern. I start with one minimum bet and should I win press the bet for a specified amount of hands. If I don't win, I place another single unit bet and try again until I finally hit a run. This betting strategy obviously has nothing to do with skill besides knowing the basic strategy for a 6-deck shoe, and any wins that come from it are purely lucky.

Usually the number is set at 5 or 6 hands. On a $10 bet, this results in either $160 or $320 profit. Of course, winning 5 or 6 hands in a row at blackjack isn't really a plausible win rate, so the profit amount on such a betting strategy is minimal in the long run and is obviously something I would never do on a regular basis. This is purely for fun to see if I can pull it off, and if I do and for some reason I can get this done in under five bets, then obviously the payout is an added bonus to my mental satisfaction.

As Joe and I sat around the apartment with drink in hand on Friday night lamenting the fact that we never play poker anymore, the thoughts of this fun and money-wasting scheme crept into my mind. Of course going to play blackjack after drinks wouldn't be a smart idea for two young 20-somethings who barely pass rent every month.

Why not play poker? We were good at it at one point, and even if we weren't we managed to survive a couple years before we lost it all, and that's enough to make me believe that we can win. Well if don't have the money to waste playing blackjack, we certainly don't have the money to play in a casino-stakes environment. If it were online sure we can play $20 buyins and not worry if we lose.

The problem is that over the past two years we would deposit money online, win while we were sober, and then go into an alcoholic, overextending, shot-taking, donkey-tilting poker bender and lose all we had won in one night. We made an agreement not to do that again after it happened for the fifth time.

So...we had alcohol, we had finished some good dinner, what then would we do? I wanted to play my step betting for fun, while we both have been itching to play poker for a while. Neither of us can really afford to blow money at a casino, but we could play for a little bit. Why not combine the both? How about a step-program shortstack extravaganza?? A Countdown to Robusto.

We made ourselves one more drink before throwing $100 on Full Tilt and devising a step plan. The strategy was to shortstack a 20 big blind stack at 6-max starting with a $20 buyin at the $.50/1NL table. When we got to $40 off of that buyin we'd move to a $1/2 table, after a double-up to $80 we'd go to $2/4 and shortstack until we got to $160+ and then quit. We had five shots at this to see where it would go. If we hit $160 and quit we'd start over again with $20 buyins and do it again.

This isn't anything new, but mostly when stuff like this happens it's a busto needing to reclaim some lost cash by not stopping until he's fully bankrolled again by the end of the night, or losing it all back trying. We were trying to find a happy medium.

The fun part with something like this is that if you can get your money in good and run well, you can profit just as easily as you could with any other run-good gambling. Also, with such a short stack part of the goal is to actually commit yourself to hands that you normally wouldn't force yourself to go busto with, and see what happens. As the Phils like to say, "gambo gambo!"

Here's a couple fun ones from the Countdown to Robusto:

Full Tilt Poker Game #5639095452: Table Cherokee (6 max) - $0.50/$1 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:15:11 ET - 2008/03/15
Seat 1: Kid Crash ($20.30)
Seat 2: Moukar1 ($110.75)
Seat 3: nuK1 ($100), is sitting out
Moukar1 posts the small blind of $0.50
Kid Crash posts the big blind of $1
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Kid Crash [Qc Qd]
Moukar1 raises to $2
Kid Crash raises to $5
Moukar1 raises to $110.75, and is all in
Kid Crash calls $15.30, and is all in
Moukar1 shows [Td Js]
Kid Crash shows [Qc Qd]
Uncalled bet of $90.45 returned to Moukar1
*** FLOP *** [3h 6h 5s]
*** TURN *** [3h 6h 5s] [9h]
*** RIVER *** [3h 6h 5s 9h] [Jh]
Moukar1 shows a pair of Jacks
Kid Crash shows a pair of Queens
Kid Crash wins the pot ($40.10) with a pair of Queens
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $40.60 | Rake $0.50
Board: [3h 6h 5s 9h Jh]
Seat 1: Kid Crash (big blind) showed [Qc Qd] and won ($40.10) with a pair of Queens
Seat 2: Moukar1 (small blind) showed [Td Js] and lost with a pair of Jacks
Seat 3: nuK1 is sitting out

Full Tilt Poker Game #5639212349: Table Egret (6 max) - $0.50/$1 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:25:04 ET - 2008/03/15
Seat 1: pheno ($133.50)
Seat 2: luv4uladies ($142)
Seat 3: martijnvdb ($100)
Seat 4: binxer123 ($113.35)
Seat 5: Kid Crash ($35.60)
Seat 6: Litko ($114.70), is sitting out
binxer123 posts the small blind of $0.50
Kid Crash posts the big blind of $1
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Kid Crash [Ad Jh]
pheno folds
luv4uladies raises to $2
martijnvdb folds
binxer123 folds
Kid Crash raises to $5
luv4uladies calls $3
*** FLOP *** [5s Jc 7s]
Kid Crash bets $7
luv4uladies raises to $14
Kid Crash raises to $30.60, and is all in
luv4uladies calls $16.60
Kid Crash shows [Ad Jh]
luv4uladies shows [Ks Jd]
*** TURN *** [5s Jc 7s] [Kc]
*** RIVER *** [5s Jc 7s Kc] [Tc]
Kid Crash shows a pair of Jacks
luv4uladies shows two pair, Kings and Jacks
luv4uladies wins the pot ($68.70) with two pair, Kings and Jacks
Kid Crash is sitting out
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $71.70 | Rake $3
Board: [5s Jc 7s Kc Tc]
Seat 1: pheno didn't bet (folded)
Seat 2: luv4uladies showed [Ks Jd] and won ($68.70) with two pair, Kings and Jacks
Seat 3: martijnvdb (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: binxer123 (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 5: Kid Crash (big blind) showed [Ad Jh] and lost with a pair of Jacks
Seat 6: Litko is sitting out

Full Tilt Poker Game #5640285945: Table Quetonia (6 max) - $1/$2 - No Limit Hold'em - 2:06:40 ET - 2008/03/15
Seat 1: king_rithy ($64)
Seat 2: jbl3rd ($162.35)
Seat 3: phidddle ($540.90)
Seat 4: Hasu_Ninja ($200)
Seat 5: Kid Crash ($46.20)
Seat 6: NiceBigJohn ($385.20)
Hasu_Ninja posts the small blind of $1
Kid Crash posts the big blind of $2
The button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Kid Crash [Kd Kh]
NiceBigJohn folds
king_rithy raises to $4
jbl3rd folds
phidddle folds
Hasu_Ninja adds $1
Hasu_Ninja folds
Kid Crash raises to $10
king_rithy calls $6
*** FLOP *** [4d 6h 5s]
Kid Crash bets $12
king_rithy raises to $54, and is all in
Kid Crash calls $24.20, and is all in
king_rithy shows [Qd 7d]
Kid Crash shows [Kd Kh]
Uncalled bet of $17.80 returned to king_rithy
*** TURN *** [4d 6h 5s] [Jd]
*** RIVER *** [4d 6h 5s Jd] [3h]
king_rithy shows a straight, Seven high
Kid Crash shows a pair of Kings
king_rithy wins the pot ($90.40) with a straight, Seven high
Kid Crash is sitting out
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $93.40 | Rake $3
Board: [4d 6h 5s Jd 3h]
Seat 1: king_rithy showed [Qd 7d] and won ($90.40) with a straight, Seven high
Seat 2: jbl3rd didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: phidddle (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: Hasu_Ninja (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 5: Kid Crash (big blind) showed [Kd Kh] and lost with a pair of Kings
Seat 6: NiceBigJohn didn't bet (folded)

Full Tilt Poker Game #5639262596: Table Lamb (6 max) - $1/$2 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:29:23 ET - 2008/03/15
Seat 1: Kid Crash ($38)
Seat 2: drfeelgood133 ($622.60)
Seat 3: ripkeniv ($166)
Seat 4: le_kiki ($207)
Seat 5: jprewis ($370.50)
Seat 6: adyar ($197)
ripkeniv posts the small blind of $1
le_kiki posts the big blind of $2
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Kid Crash [9d 9c]
jprewis calls $2
adyar raises to $9
Kid Crash calls $9
drfeelgood133 raises to $41
ripkeniv folds
le_kiki folds
jprewis has 15 seconds left to act
jprewis folds
adyar folds
Kid Crash calls $29, and is all in
drfeelgood133 shows [Ad Qd]
Kid Crash shows [9d 9c]
Uncalled bet of $3 returned to drfeelgood133
*** FLOP *** [2c 6h 5c]
*** TURN *** [2c 6h 5c] [Ts]
*** RIVER *** [2c 6h 5c Ts] [5h]
drfeelgood133 shows a pair of Fives
Kid Crash shows two pair, Nines and Fives
Kid Crash wins the pot ($87) with two pair, Nines and Fives
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $90 | Rake $3
Board: [2c 6h 5c Ts 5h]
Seat 1: Kid Crash showed [9d 9c] and won ($87) with two pair, Nines and Fives
Seat 2: drfeelgood133 (button) showed [Ad Qd] and lost with a pair of Fives
Seat 3: ripkeniv (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 4: le_kiki (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 5: jprewis folded before the Flop
Seat 6: adyar folded before the Flop

Full Tilt Poker Game #5639422581: Table Goldspur (6 max) - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:43:18 ET - 2008/03/15
Seat 1: Bullseye900 ($86.50)
Seat 2: StKolbe ($354.95)
Seat 3: Century2005 ($150)
Seat 4: smallboy3215 ($554.40)
Seat 5: Kid Crash ($96.80)
Seat 6: thelilbearbeeny ($557.60)
thelilbearbeeny posts the small blind of $2
Bullseye900 posts the big blind of $4
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Kid Crash [Jc Js]
StKolbe folds
Century2005 folds
smallboy3215 folds
Kid Crash raises to $12
thelilbearbeeny raises to $40
Bullseye900 folds
Kid Crash raises to $96.80, and is all in
thelilbearbeeny calls $56.80
Kid Crash shows [Jc Js]
thelilbearbeeny shows [Kc Ah]
*** FLOP *** [Qc 8h Ks]
*** TURN *** [Qc 8h Ks] [3d]
*** RIVER *** [Qc 8h Ks 3d] [2h]
Kid Crash shows a pair of Jacks
thelilbearbeeny shows a pair of Kings
thelilbearbeeny wins the pot ($194.60) with a pair of Kings
Kid Crash is sitting out
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $197.60 | Rake $3
Board: [Qc 8h Ks 3d 2h]
Seat 1: Bullseye900 (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: StKolbe didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: Century2005 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: smallboy3215 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: Kid Crash (button) showed [Jc Js] and lost with a pair of Jacks
Seat 6: thelilbearbeeny (small blind) showed [Kc Ah] and won ($194.60) with a pair of Kings

Full Tilt Poker Game #5639642796: Table Goldring (6 max) - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 1:03:08 ET - 2008/03/15
Seat 1: bosshagz ($226.60)
Seat 2: homeboi49 ($96)
Seat 3: GiVeMeTheCake ($449)
Seat 4: NigelWinters ($448.30)
Seat 5: kevy34 ($62.50)
Seat 6: Kid Crash ($95.95)
kevy34 posts the small blind of $2
Kid Crash posts the big blind of $4
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Kid Crash [7c 6h]
bosshagz raises to $14
homeboi49 folds
GiVeMeTheCake folds
NigelWinters folds
kevy34 folds
Kid Crash folds
Uncalled bet of $10 returned to bosshagz
bosshagz mucks
bosshagz wins the pot ($10)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $10 | Rake $0
Seat 1: bosshagz collected ($10), mucked
Seat 2: homeboi49 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: GiVeMeTheCake didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: NigelWinters (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: kevy34 (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 6: Kid Crash (big blind) folded before the Flop

Full Tilt Poker Game #5639646782: Table Goldring (6 max) - $2/$4 - No Limit Hold'em - 1:03:31 ET - 2008/03/15
Seat 1: bosshagz ($232.60)
Seat 2: homeboi49 ($96)
Seat 3: GiVeMeTheCake ($449)
Seat 4: NigelWinters ($448.30)
Seat 5: kevy34 ($60.50)
Seat 6: Kid Crash ($91.95)
Kid Crash posts the small blind of $2
bosshagz is sitting out
homeboi49 posts the big blind of $4
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Kid Crash [7d 6d]
GiVeMeTheCake folds
NigelWinters folds
kevy34 folds
bosshagz stands up
BubbleBoy87 adds $400
Kid Crash raises to $12
homeboi49 calls $8
*** FLOP *** [7s 6s Ad]
Kid Crash bets $16
homeboi49 raises to $84, and is all in
Kid Crash calls $63.95, and is all in
homeboi49 shows [Jd Ah]
Kid Crash shows [7d 6d]
Uncalled bet of $4.05 returned to homeboi49
*** TURN *** [7s 6s Ad] [7c]
*** RIVER *** [7s 6s Ad 7c] [4h]
homeboi49 shows two pair, Aces and Sevens
Kid Crash shows a full house, Sevens full of Sixes
Kid Crash wins the pot ($180.90) with a full house, Sevens full of Sixes
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $183.90 | Rake $3
Board: [7s 6s Ad 7c 4h]
Seat 1: bosshagz is sitting out
Seat 2: homeboi49 (big blind) showed [Jd Ah] and lost with two pair, Aces and Sevens
Seat 3: GiVeMeTheCake didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: NigelWinters didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: kevy34 (button) didn't bet (folded)
Seat 6: Kid Crash (small blind) showed [7d 6d] and won ($180.90) with a full house, Sevens full of Sixes

Some hands sucked. Some hands made me lozl. Some hands made me fist pump. Overall by the end of the night I had two shots at the $2/4, the first one I flipped JJ vs AK and lost. The second one I got in the right position and held up. After $100, playing all night, and losing and winning some the final tally in my cashier was...$100. Night having fun, playing some cards, gambling, and of course drinking, and I broke even. Good enough for me!

While it might be a little while before I get back into the game, I have a feeling that I will be back to gambo in this style a bit more.

To Blog Again...

2008-03-13T13:27:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged or played poker in quite some time now. While this won't be a full entry, it will be a reminder to myself that I do like writing, despite the fact that I often find myself too lazy to do so. I have plenty of uncompleted entries and ignored titles in my Blogger queue, but to see the day in which they all come to fruition seems to be more and more of a distant hope as the days at work pass.

To quit or to push through.

To drink or to stay sober.

To spend or to save.

If I don't write out the hassles, the hassles seem to build up. Perhaps it's time that I truly start writing. Perhaps it's time to make something of myself and maybe to rejoin society as a successful member and contributor instead of a 22-year-old office drone who rarely does good by anyone and who thrives on mediocrity.

To write or to stay the pen.

Return to the City of Dreams Pt. I

2008-01-10T00:10:00.000-08:00

For the fifth time in 2007, I traveled Eastward towards the Strip. This time around we gathered nine of my closest friends, packed into two cars (and one airplane as it was), and took to Sin City to drink, gamble, eat, drink, and drink. The occasion? The holidays. My birthday. Our friendship.

For the holidays I hadn't gotten anything for anyone. For the past year I've been living in a financial funk, never really digging myself into a hole, yet never really building a monument above monetary ground either. I didn't even start excavating land for that matter.

For the coming new year I had cleaned the slate. My credit cards were paid off, my bills were straight, I had a budget all ready and set up, and everything looked good leaving December. The only problem was that up to the holiday season I still had a revolving balance of zero dollars in my bank account.

I had been living a breakeven life on ground zero for the past year, and because of that I had no funds for the holiday season. I had my sister's present and that was it. So before we left, me and the two roommates decided that Christmas in our apartment would consist of spending time with each other in Vegas.

I had also made a commitment to hang out with John Cruz, my buddy who now deals at Planet Hollywood. I had been out there numerous times during the year, and I had seen him on a few of the trips, yet I hadn't really spent as much time as I had wanted to. One of my goals on this trip was to make sure I saw him at least twice, as I always promise to hang out with him when I'm out there, yet I've barely spent any time with him when I'm in Las Vegas.

Across the ocean, Casey and Sommer had moved to Hawaii to attend school and I hadn't seen either of them for months. When we gathered in Vegas in July for Casey's 21st, we made a vow to meet up with them there when they returned from Hawaii in December. They took off to the islands, I went back to my boring desk job, and we texted, talked, and e-mailed our way through the months. We'd finally have a chance to hang out again when December rolled around.

Along with my roommates and Casey and Sommer, Mitchell and Darsky, who seem to be my Vegas staples were going with us. And Steph and I finally got to spend some real time together, devoid of our work schedules and 30-mile spread. Despite the fact that it was going to take me down to my last available dollar for the trip, I was ready to head out to my favorite city with my favorite people for America's favorite time of year.

We made reservations for a couple rooms at the Venetian to accommodate us all. This trip would be the first time I spent any money on a hotel room. All of my previous trips had been purely poker trips, and although I hadn't stayed at any hole in the walls, I certainly had yet to stay at any reputable casino. We were able to get a decent rate since we were going during a slow weekend, and since we were splitting rooms it wasn't even very expensive.

Because I was treating Steph this time around we had made dinner plans for six of us at the Bellagio on one of the nights. Although I do enjoy the general higher quality of food in Vegas, I had yet to have a nice dinner anywhere on any of my trips. We made plans to eat at Sensei, and afterwards (for another first) I got Steph and I tickets to KA at the MGM.

Regardless of the fact that I had been to Vegas multiple times already in '07, this trip was different and I really felt like I was going out for a vacation. My previous trips I felt pressured to do well in poker and not lose any money at all, and obviously when you try too hard at anything you'll end up failing, which I inevitably had all year. However, this time around I was ready.

I had saved enough to pay for the room for Steph and I, pay for food, and to gamble at a level that was comfortable enough to satisfy my mind and not make me feel like death if I lost it. Finally I was really excited to relax, have a good time, and focus more on having fun and being with friends than trying to take the casino or run over the poker table. It was the way most people see Vegas anyways.

At noon on Thursday it was time to gather the troops and head out. We hopped in our cars and after an hour in the right direction and a couple stops to pick people up, our two-vehicle caravan was on the way to what we knew would be four days of drinking, gambling fun.

A Little Break From Thinking

2007-12-07T08:51:00.000-08:00

I figured I'd write a little update for any readers out there since I haven't posted anything in a while. I have a couple things mid-work, but nothing finished or written enough to post.

For the most part of the past few weeks I've gone into a little mental vacation. With the addition of the cat, thoughts of my birthday Vegas trip in a couple weeks filling my head, and starting to finally come into range of being financially comfortable for the upcoming year, I've been able to relax and chill out for a little bit.

Last game at Paul's I won the $20 rebuy tourney, and on the next game I'll be collecting the $100 Darsky will be owing me, barring he wins both tournies in one night and I don't point cash in either. I've lost a little overall sports betting on the NFL now (those tricky professionals), but my miniscule gambling ventures over the past couple months has kept me in the black.

In two weeks we'll have a group of ten armed with alcohol and good spirits heading to Vegas, as we've rounded up the troops for my birthday celebration. Along with my birthday, Casey and his girlfriend Sommer will be returning from their semester in Hawaii so we'll be celebrating that as well. We've booked a couple suites at the Venetian and I'm sure it'll be a blast for all involved.

Anyways, like I said I have a couple posts half-written so if I get around to it in the month of December I'll post them up.

Until next time.

A New Member Joins the Family

2007-11-12T09:21:00.001-08:00

Time has been flying by at slow speed lately. Every day at work I seem to find myself more and more bored, dazing off and wondering when the next Vegas trip is gonna be and pondering if I'll ever find art to hang on my bedroom walls that I actually like.

I think about what games I'll bet (and most likely lose) on the upcoming weekend, what I'd like to do later in my life, and if there's some new music out there that I'd instantly fall in love with should I somehow find a way to discover it. I think about how I never go to any concerts nowadays. I think about how I never play poker seriously on a regular basis anymore.

I think about when payday is, I think about my delayed raises, and I wonder about how I can triple my yearly salary by the snap of a finger by stumbling upon some great get-rich-quick plan that no one else in the past two decades has ever thought about (we all think about that, don't we?)

I think about if I could have made it in on the felt if I would've put more study and discipline into the game. I wonder if I'll ever be able to man up and put some time and effort into writing or graphic design to actually do something for myself in life. I think about how little I have to do to get back to school within a reasonable amount of time so I don't end up like more than half of this uneducated country of ours, who struggle day in and day out to grind themselves a living in a shit job. I then think about how lazy I am and quietly turn my attention back to my work monitor for more mindless internet browsing.

Yay.

And then at the end of the week and at the end of the month, I wonder where my money went and how it's already halfway through football season. For as much time as I spend doing nothing, life sure seems to be going by a lot faster nowadays. I find excuses for why I haven't been blogging regularly or why I haven't done my full closet's worth of laundry in a month. I'll figure it out...next week.

Last weekend, after I spent the majority of my week doing as I described above, I went to Ventura on Saturday night for some time with Steph and her friends over some drinks. When I showed up at her house she had a huge, awkward smile on her face. She quickly came out of her room and slammed the door shut behind her.

I knew something was up, I just couldn't tell what. Maybe she was hiding a mess. Maybe she was hiding another guy. Maybe she was hiding...a fart?

I asked her what she was doing and she said nothing, but then I heard a distinct jingling sound that could only be a small pet. She opened the door and I saw a beautiful little kitty with a black eye patch. I've wanted the specific cat for a while, so I could call him Pirate (eye patch obv).

"Holy cow, did you just get him?"

"Yeah," she answered shyly. "He's Pirate. He's yours."

I was ecstatic! I've been wanting a pet for some time now, but our apartment won't allow dogs unless they're small, like cats. I'll never be the sole owner of such a dog, so I've been thinking of getting a badass kitty for a while. The one I would've picked out for myself is the exact one she found and adopted for me.

I went to pet him and he immediately took to me. Right off the bat he was the most loving cat I've ever seen. I took him home the next morning and he's been a blast to have around ever since.

To get on a real sappy note here, since I've re-met Stephanie, I've been happier than I've been in a long time. Before we started dating, I had found a subtle ground in life that allowed me to contently sail through it. Ever since I fell for Steph I've been better than fine, and I find myself thinking of her (and now Pirate of course) in times of mental peril.

Furthermore, here's some pictures of the badass:

And in his best Firefox impression:

Philly Loses Again

2007-11-05T09:22:00.000-08:00

I must have the thickest skull of any person I know. The lessons I am supposed to learn over and over again just never go through my head. By any stretch of imagination it takes far too many repeated failures in a single area for my body and mind to reach an understanding of something so simple that even the most obviously imbecilic child on the planet could grasp in a New York minute.

Unfortunately for me I live in Philadelphia time, and apparently I trade Philadelphia money in an NFL market that is far wealthier than Eagles fans. I did okay last weekend (editor's note: since when did the correct grammatical way of writing the word "okay" switch to "OK"?) when Green Bay pulled an overtime win and I hit my underdog card for a decent payday.

Although this is only the third weekend I've been sports betting, I've won on the only weekend where I bet on my instincts. This weekend I put too much trust in numbers and hearsay to lose 2 seemingly "sure-win" cards, while having my one instinct card go to the wayside when I let my personal preferences get in the way.

My inexperienced eyes saw a lot of opportunity in Teaser games this weekend, so I decided to go bigger than usual. I ran a six team 6-point teaser across the morning and afternoon games, and for whatever reason I tacked on Philly +9.5 to finish off the card. The morning started off with Washington and San Francisco getting good overage lines thanks to the Teaser points. Into the afternoon I had Houston +9 and Buffalo +7.5 which both would've on the moneyline, as well as having New England bumped up to even money.

Because of all of these games, I had 10u going in based on my read on the league and my study of the numbers. At the last second I added on Philly for no other reason than my love for the team. The analysts said no, the numbers said no, my brain even said no, but on one partially inebriated noon my heart said yes and I pulled the trigger on tacking on Philly +9.5 at home against Romo-mania. 10u to win 70u.

Well, I was weary going into the Sunday night game, and when McNabb fumbled the first snap of the game I tore my card up and knew that I had no shot whatsoever to even come close to the inflated spread. My dreams of going big on this particular weekend were brutally shot down by my favorite team, and not for the first time.

While I admit that I was toxicated when I ran that specific card, overall I didn't listen to my gut and therefore lost on all counts. I ghost watched the picks that I would've made, and had I followed through with what I truly wanted instead of listening to words and numbers that came from outside sources, I would've won on the weekend and covered the 10u loss that I endured last night.

Although I have a very fresh and unexperienced sports betting mind, I think that if I stick to what I do know, I can come out ahead by a decent margin by the end of the season. For now, it's back to the drawing boards for next weekend, and maybe a little "get well soon" bet on the Monday night game tonight.

Until next time.

Go Pack Go!

2007-10-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

I'm not a Green Bay fan, but I was sure rooting for them to win last night. Brett Favre is a legend in the game, and everyone knows it. Anyone who denies that he is clearly has no idea what they're talking about.

Not only does he play the game great, but he plays with more passion, more emotion, and more love for the game than anyone in the league right now. He shows that he's happy when he's winning, and he shows that he's determined when the Pack are trailing.

Putting your heart, not just your body, into the game is something that should not go overlooked nowadays. The league is too full of crybabies and spotlighters. Receivers prance around like idiots in the endzone and linemen chop invisible trees when they do their job and make a tackle behind the line. Players complain about salaries, and when they can't do that they complain about their teammates.

Favre stays out of all that. When he throws for a touchdown the only celebration you'll see from him is his index fingers pointing in the air as he runs to his closest teammate to give them a hug, all the while shouting with happiness, proud that both he and his team can play the game. He's a true player, a true lover of football.

With all of that being said, #4 wasn't the reason I was happy to see the Packs win last night. Because they did take the W I score my weekend saving underdog parlay card, hitting for a +4312 to recover some loss on other games and come up with a decent profit. It's still small beans moneywise, but I'm workin my way up.

I would've hit for another smaller card if Tennessee would've covered the seven points, which was easily doable. The Raiders put up 14 penalties for 100 yards and had two turnovers. On top of that, they are just a horrid, horrid team, and I was shocked and pissed that the Titans couldn't capitalize on their opportunities in game.

I refused to bet the Philadelphia game this weekend, mainly because I've made a vow to not bet their games for the rest of the season. I'm tired of sitting at home watching my team and money get blown by boneheaded plays and faulty formations on field. I wasn't gonna do it again this weekend.

I headed over to my dad's house this weekend to enjoy the one thing that I can about the Philadelphia Eagles: they'll destroy the Minnesota Vikings every time they get on the same field.

After a horrible first half of the season, I've become quite the dejected Eagles fan. The defense is battered and the offense is not even mediocre. They had a rough start to the season and coming off of a bye week they crushed the Detroit Lions, putting up 56 points total with Kevin Curtis accounting for 221 yards in the receiving lane and Brian Westbrook running for 110 yards.

I was excited to see them win, and from the central NFL hub that is my father's house, I was able to keep track of all of my games and bets thanks to his NFL Gameday package. This weekend we have Paullywood Park coming up, and I'll probably stay at my dad's again on Sunday so that I can channel-change the day through while I either win or lose some more money.

All in all, it was a pretty good Sunday, with my weekend betting culminating in an overtime win by the green and yellow.

Until next time.

Damn You Philly...Damn You

2007-10-23T21:28:00.000-07:00

Another weekend in the NFL has passed and like a broken spring in a set of gears, another Philadelphia fan has shot out of the They'll Be Okay clock and has landed in the bucket of Maybe Next Year among his fellow sprigs. Football. It's wonderful. It's painful.

This weekend's loss at home against the Bears hurt a little extra, because as much as I didn't want to bet on the Eagles, I had them holding up two of my remaining parlay cards well into Sunday afternoon. Everything looked good. Everything looked fine.

1:30 left in the fourth quarter, Philly up by 4. Chicago has no more timeouts. Deep in their own territory. Philly just don't let them in the endzone for a minute and a half. Simple stuff. Here we go!

1:00 left in the fourth quarter. Griese airs one out and completes to midfield. No problem. They have no timeouts and a field goal won't do. The Eagles know it, they know that all they have to do is for sixty seconds keep the Bears out of the endzone and they go 3-3 and have a small shot in the division.

0:09 left in the fourth quarter. I'm crying on the couch, cursing the Eagles through my tears for the amount of money I would have won on the two cards. Instead I'm left punching the couch cusions for two hours straight because I end up losing money in the end, thanks to Philly giving up a game-winning touchdown with :30 left.

I'm not the only Philadelphia Eagles fan ready to look ahead to next season. I'm sure there a few who started before I did. And I'm not the only one who lost money thanks to the Eagles this weekend, nor did I lose more than anyone. But the feeling of needing my team to win in order to have a shot of coming into playoff contention later this year coupled with the fact that they were all that stood between me and a healthy win pushed me over the mental sports fan cliff.

Obviously this isn't going to keep me from betting the games again this weekend. I need redemption! This past weekend I would've won despite the Eagles draining loss if I had listened to my guts instead of the numbers and the "experts". But, like I'll be tempted to do, I listened to the voices outside of my head and it cost me. I have a new strategy coming this weekend, and hopefully I'll be able to pick up a little bit of cash.

In other gambling related news, I'm currently planning my birthday trip to Vegas. There should be a decent group of us getting a few suites at the Venetian and doing the Vegas thing the weekend before Christmas.

What does that mean? Everyone will have just finished up Christmas shopping and will be awesomely out of cash, so it looks like the small weekends in Vegas will continue for a little while longer.

I've started to enjoy small weekends in Vegas, as the last trip with my dad turned out to be another unforgettable experience in Sin City. The stories I hear on a regular basis about his past times in Las Vegas make me love it even more. This trip was a little more personally enjoyable, as it was not only another vacation, but it was a fun time spent with my father, which is something I haven't had in a long, long time.

I'm going to write that trip report soon, and will probably be putting up a Vegas section to this blog. I'm also thinking of starting a new, possibly joint, blog about my Vegas trips instead. I'm also currently trying to redo Sitting The Apple's layout, which is part of the reason why there's been a huge lack of updates.

In the end, I'll tell you I'll keep trying to update. But I'll slack, you'll get mad at me, call me names, and then come crawling back once again to this wonderful outlet of my mind and useless ramblings. At least I update more than Darsky... and I work so at least I have an excuse you long-haired freeman!

Until next time.

Pendulur Sickness

2007-10-17T08:30:00.000-07:00

For the past while now I've been in and out of small bouts with sickness. It's been nothing close to extremely sick until today, but up until today it's been more of a constant state of soreness and misery than actual illness. Of course it all started with a phone call into work to play hooky. And wouldn't you know it by the end of my day at home I actually was feeling sick. It's just the perfect kind of irony that keeps me straight.

My crappy chair at work, where I spend all of my pointless hours during the day (which is all of my hours during the day), has been causing me a lot of soreness to my neck and back. The life of a paid internet browser is tough, there's no doubt about it.

I haven't really felt like blogging for a while, mainly because of my personal mental state. I've fallen back into the whole "I shouldn't be working" mentality, but with every thought of quitting comes a contrary thought and reason why I should stay.

I just took another small getaway to Vegas though, so I'll be writing that up soon and will hopefully have something for you all to read. I'm not sure how many readers I still have after leaving this thing dry over and over again, but as soon as I get out of this mental slump I plan on getting all those lost readers back.

Until next time.

This is the Game I Am Currently Sucking At

2007-10-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

With my makeshift year 2000 sound setup. New one coming soon.

Living in High Def

2007-10-02T10:17:00.000-07:00

Whether it be poker or technology, I try to pretend like I know what I’m doing. I know very little in some areas of both, but in whole I really have no idea what I’m talking about. Although from time to time I may sound like I fit in with the niche that has been created around either field, it’s only because I get caught in the right conversations with the right people who just happen to ask such the right questions that I can squeeze out answers with what limited knowledge I do have.

I have a fancy phone with cool gadgets, a decent laptop with fancy gadgets, and a massive amount of poker related things, mostly books and an insane amount of assorted poker chip sets according to any sane person. But in reality, I let the hype of these things take place of the actual understanding of putting any of it to use. Don’t let this deter you from thinking I’m a hard and true badass, cuz I definitely am, but I know nearly nothing compared to the world of knowledge that surrounds both poker and electronics.

In any case, I’ve gotten a decent taste of everything over the past couple of weeks. Two weeks ago on the Friday night before our Saturday night game at Paullywood Park, Darsky and I headed down to Hollywood Park for a little poker action. I was planning on a night of drinking with Joe and a couple friends in Santa Clarita, but when I was presented an opportunity to play on Darsky’s dime, I couldn’t pass up the offer.

I have another trip report written up for that weekend which I’ll post soon, but it’s gonna have to go on hold until I write about my faux technology addiction. I’ve been meaning to get an awesome new TV for a while now, but thanks to my misunderstanding of the game of poker over the past two years I’ve been unable to comfortably afford one.

I’ve been wired into the tables of casinos across the nation for a long time now, and I’ve been completely unplugged from the technological world around me. I use it, I want to get to know it, but I haven’t been able to own it or love it as my own. While I’ve spent countless hours dumping my earned money at poker tables and blackjack tables at Chumash, Vegas, and Turning Stone (the won money was put back into the game around a year and a half ago), my friends have been out spending their money on tangible objects that shine, shout, and display glorious visions of the future around their houses.

Most of my 20-21 year old friends are broke anyways, so I don’t feel so bad that I am for the most part as well. However, they always manage ways to fund their addictions to hottest new toys on the market, much in the way that I always manage to scrape up just enough money to help the casino fund their comp for one of their highroller’s $300 steaks; the difference is my friends get to use theirs every day instead for a weekend like me.

The thing I've noticed about myself, though, is that I'm so frugal when it comes to spending money on things (with the exception of dinners), but I feel no restraint when it comes to betting $300 on a single hand of blackjack. I've seen that because I actually refuse to spend money on things that I want on an every-day basis, I've had money in the past to throw away to my reckless fearlessness inside of a casino.

Because I realized all of this stuff, I decided to cool it on the serious gambling for a bit and concentrate on building up a reputable collection of my own technology and house adornments. I started with a laptop, a digital camera, and Motorola Q before I decided to leap into a new TV and an XBOX 360. I was planning on waiting until December to make the plunge, and I had been putting in a bit of time looking at and talking about LCDs and DLPs with friends of mine who are more savvy in the matter.

I also couldn’t decide if I wanted to get a TV for my bedroom or for the living room, which I share with two roommates on a daily basis, one of whom is known for being messy beyond a higher being’s ability to stop it. After a bit of thinking, I had firmly decided that come the last month of the year, I was going to buy myself a birthday present of a 42” LCD and 360 which would be safely located within the boundaries of my bedroom. That was until I found a deal I couldn’t pass up.

Two Fridays ago I was browsing a couple forums when I came across a deal that Best Buy was having. In order to liquidate their DLPs for the new year’s models, as well as to advertise and boost the hype for the upcoming release of the newest addition to the hugely praised Halo series, a huge online sale was being hosted. If a person were to buy a Samsung DLP 50”+, an XBOX 360, and pre-ordered Halo 3 through Best Buy, they were giving $410 off of the TV and free delivery. At first I was skeptical of the deal, but as more and more people chimed in on the legitimacy of both the deal and the products, I had to find something for myself!

Still recovering from financial hell and being on a low budget, I needed something that I could afford yet still feel good about buying. There were a few selections of TV to choose from, yet I decided to go with a price saver that’s around middle of the field for TV’s nowadays. I purchased the Samsung 50" 720p DLP HDTV HLT5075S. After reading the great reviews it got, I felt that it would be an adequate purchase to feed my desire to be seen as a tech guru while staying within an affordable price range.

I know that it isn't the greatest TV out there, and it's not even close. However, HD TV channels only broadcast in 720p, and since the majority of it's usage will go towards TV it's not bad at all. I wouldn't want to cramp my room with a 50" DLP (13" deep), but it fits perfectly in the living room, actually takes up less space than our previous 36" CRT, and with this cheap of a price I won't be too upset if the thing gets crapped out due to roommate conditions. The downside is that without 1080p we can't watch HDDVD's to their utmost capabilities, nor will video games output their max potential. With that being said, the games that I've played so far look insane, and like stated the HDTV channels come in crystal clear.

I decided to go with the XBOX 360 with the knowledge that I'll be getting a far superior TV sometime in the future that will be able to handle anything thrown at it, and even in this new setup the 360 displays awesomely on our TV.

In total, I was able to grab the TV, the 360 Elite, and Halo 3 for less than $1,300. It's hooked up, our HDDVR cable box is hooked up, and just in time for Sunday football (even though the Eagles need to go back to the offseason already so they can learn how to play the game again). We are all now enjoying our weekly shows and weeknight Halo 3 online anger-fests in high def and I couldn't be more content.

I can't decide whether surround sound is next or if I'm going to further fuel my TV want with a top of the line LCD for my bedroom. Of course, knowing me, I'll end up spending zero dollars on either one and I'll be writing another blog entry from my Vegas hotel room a couple months from now, complaining that I should've just bought another damn TV and had something to show for the $2,000 I just dropped only to stare at a grimacing dealer's face and retire to a night long view at the Strip from 30 stories up.

Only time will tell where my money will end up in December, but for right now it's back to the tech forums to see if I can't actually learn something about all the new stuff I'll want to end up buying.

Also, I fixed the internet at our apartment and I have a bunch of stories to tell, so hopefully....just maybe....just....just by a random hopeless chance, I may start updating regularly again.

Until next time.

Technimoron

2007-09-25T10:17:00.001-07:00

I haven't updated in a while because I've been busy, and for the past few days I knocked out my internet connection at my apartment thanks to me being an idiot who can't figure some things out. It should be back again soon, as should some new posts here on Sitting the Apple. That is unless Halo 3 shows up in the mail around the same time that I fix my internet. If it does, this blog might be in limbo for a few extra days.

If I get around to it today I might write up a post from work, but I don't know how likely that is. In any case, something will be up sometime soon, as I had a pretty fun weekend.

Until next time, here's a picture of a rare albino ratfish for no reason:

Credit to the University of Washington.

Reflections On Success

2007-09-12T20:51:00.000-07:00

As I sit at work, staring at my desk and mentally digging deeper and deeper, all I can think about is success. The fuckin word won't leave my mind. I need it, I want it, I know I can have it. But what is it? What defines it? How does one achieve it?

For the longest time I thought that success would come in the form of financial fortune and that it was possible to achieve in one hit through gambling. I've since been removed from gambling and playing poker on an every day basis, and along with it far removed from the thought of reaching wealth by means of easy luck.

Living in Santa Barbara and having gambling be such a big piece of my life for so long has increased my need to be financially successful in life. I can't get away from rich people, and I need a piece! Success in life is more than wealth. It's family, it's having great friends, it's being personally true to yourself, it's being comfortable, it's finding peace. At the same time one cannot deny the fact that money gives you an outlet to some of the latter descriptions of the word.

Every day I see success even from my post in the office. My big boss has turned his life into a never ending fairytale as he sits atop the hills of Santa Barbara in his multimillion dollar Italian villa that he's built from the ground up. He has a hired accountant, a slew of monthly bills that quadruples my paycheck, and a portfolio that looms over my salary like it was a bug.

He wasn't always wealthy, though. He started as a computer programmer before computers could function by themselves. When he found out the business of a family friend was being sold, he bought it. He worked, he turned it into something to be proud of. He was presented an opportunity and he took it.

My little boss married the big boss's daughter and now leads a life of luxury, opening his mouth wide daily to swallow the drippings of the family's fortune. He works a menial yet crucial job, as he's capable and willing to do. He works as much as he has to and a little more, but he's understanding and a fun boss to have, partially because he's in the position to be. He'd done well for himself already, there's no doubt about it.

He finished school, found himself a nice job as the dean of a large technical institution, and was able to provide for his family. He worked a difficult and stressful job, but stuck with it and made a healthy living as such. But when presented with the option to do half the work for almost the same pay, along with the rights to won a multimillion dollar company with his wife, there wasn't much debate. He was presented an opportunity and he took it.

Both men are outstanding people, and I can't be happy enough to work for them. On a personal level they are some of the funnest, most enjoyable people I've ever met. On a job level, they've worked hard in life and are now at a point where they can rest and relax first, and work hard for little bits at a time second. I can only hope to be at their level later in life.

But how do I get there? That's been the question roaming the empty halls of my head for the past months. So many success stories I've heard have been that someone has just been in the right place at the right time. They had info on a stock that happened to go big when it did. They were able to buy a business and they, even without the money, personally knew a wealthy investor to go in with. They were able to get a job for the right person and ended up in the right conversation when it was taking place.

Whatever the circumstance I see so much success come from random events. But that doesn't suit me. I know I can make it in the financial world by my own way. I have the brain, I have the drive for success. Perhaps not currently as I'm stuck behind a desk and a computer making less money than what's going to make me happy, but I have the drive.

I want to invest in the stock market, I want to own my own business, I want to invest in real estate. I've bought books and I've read about it all, but I haven't been able to figure any of it out on my own. I'll get to the point that I need to be at one day because I desperately want it, and I know I'm smart enough to get it.

I keep looking for a teacher though, I keep looking for a hand to hold. Perhaps this is one of my weak points in life. If it is the thing holding me back then one day I'll overcome it and achieve my goals.

For now, I'll just push through. I'll keep looking, I have to. Perhaps I need to go back to school to be happy, but maybe I just need to find my calling. Whatever is out there, I'm ready for it. I've settled my life in other subjects, and I'm ready to find myself in the financial world. Hopefully I'll make it.

This kind of turned into a thoughtless and random rant, but I have so much goin on in my head and in my life right now. Everything seems to be getting clearer and a lot of things have fallen into place to make me a happy person. The next step is close, I can feel it...

Until next time.

An Angry Couch Coach and Meeting Mom

2007-09-10T14:01:00.000-07:00

Sunday was a disappointing opener to the season, as Philly lost what was supposed to be an easy win against Green Bay. Even though a couple big roster changes took place on the defense, it ended up being the Eagles' sophomoric special teams show that brought them to lose.

In starting Lewis to return punts for the first time in his NFL career, they allowed numerous mistakes. In general it looked like the team forgot about special teams training altogether. Every punt return looked even worse than my unrated high school team, resulting in a fumble recovery for a touchdown, a turnover, and a tackle that could have been misconstrued for a decapitation.

As I sat on my couch and yelled at the multi-million dollar franchise and its players and coaches, I saw the fresh defensive team make plays and bring on the power that Jim Johnson so awesomely creates for the team. Unfortunately, the punt return mistakes are what ultimately lead to their first loss of the season against a team that should have presented less of a challenge.

Although I've abandoned the thought of betting the season through this year, I thought about betting this game this weekend. In the end I'm glad I decided not to, as I'd be pretty upset because of the way the game was lost. Overall, it was pretty disappointing.

Saturday was a more satisfying day. I went to Ventura to meet Steph's mom and have dinner, and it was a great time. From the stories I'd heard I knew I'd like her mom, and she seemed just weird enough to like me back. Upon first impression she didn't disappoint!

I wasn't sure what to expect at first, but when she showed up she had a cute style and a personality that I knew I could get along with. We hung out at Steph's while I sat on the couch and listened to the two of them talk about stuff for a little bit before we went to dinner, where I really got to talk and get to know her mom. Towards the end of dinner Steph began to get irritated with her, as seems to be the norm with a lot of girls I've been around for whatever reason, but I still thought her mom was awesome fun.

I'm sure I have a great time comin with her as Steph and my relationship moves forward. I'm heading back out to Ventura after work today for a barbecue at her mom's place along with Stephanie's friends and roommates, and I can only assume that it's gonna be a good time. I'm eager to get to know the crew better, so hopefully things will go smoothly...

As the year moves forward I'm thinking more heavily about what I'm going to buy myself for my birthday this year, and I'm pretty sure it's gonna be a new TV and a 360. I don't watch too much TV nor do I play too many video games, which is why I've yet to make these specific purchases. But I would like to have both nonetheless, so as December nears I'm thinking more heavily about exactly what TV I want to get and whether or not it's going into the safety of my room, or if I should leave it in the hazard zone of the living room.

Blah, too much thinking for a Monday. I'll elaborate more later.

Until next time.

A Turning Stone and a Tender Bender

2007-09-04T16:01:00.000-07:00

If it's not my eternal laziness that keeps me from updating a week at a time, it's some sort of venial interruption. This past week a new stone was turned with Joe's 21st birthday. Although Joe and I have been drinking for years previous to each of our legality-introducing-celebrations (and gambling for just as long), a 21st birthday should never be overlooked or under-partied. This was no exception.

Unfortunately for Joe's birthday we had to skip Vegas as he is a mere student at this point, having been removed from poker for over a year now. He did receive a small lump of money for his birthday, but he had other priorities with which to allocate that cash. Us three apartment-ies are planning on going in December, so we knew he'd get to visit the sinful wonderland soon enough. But for the time being, there was drinking to be had.

On Tuesday night we managed to pull Darsky up here for the drinking extravaganza. I took off from work a little early and he met us at our place with beer in hand. As soon as he walked in the door we almost instantly set up a game of Bonedoneskis.

Unfortunately luck was on Darsky's side tonight, as he ended up taking a decent amount off of both me and the birthday boy. We eventually switched to PLO to get rid of some of the luck factor, where I managed to gain back a lot of my stack for a short amount of time before I missed a couple of huge draws. Towards the end of the game Steph and her friend Chelsea showed up and we decided to 3-way flip for the rest of my dwindling stack. I flopped huge, but Joe hit turn and river to swipe my cash and it was time for the night to begin.

We went downtown for dinner with the girls, where Joe enjoyed his first legal public beer at a local microbrewery. We had some decent food, a couple rounds of decent beer, and I footed the bill before we headed over to Q's to play some pool and to enjoy some more drinkage.

Our friend Amanda surprised Joe by coming out from the valley, when he had previously thought she wasn't coming down to celebrate until the weekend. She showed up at Q's and joined in on the birthday fun, but not before arguing with the waitress about what a Black Russian was. For the record, according to Wikipedia:

The Black Russian is a cocktail of vodka and coffee liqueur, sometimes topped up with Coca Cola. It is traditionally poured over crushed ice in an old-fashioned glass.

Joe was enjoying his drinking, and let it be known quite a few times that "Dude...this is fuckin fun man...seriously...this is fun..." After we shot pool for a while and lounged around, we decided to head over to a local Irish-pub-in-America, Dargan's. We've had some good times at Dargan's and it never seems to let us down in time of needing fun and drunkeness.

On the way there I had to take the girls back to their car, as they were going back to Ventura to retire for the night. Darsky, Joe, and Amanda all went ahead and enjoyed some Irish car bombs without me (those bastards), and when I returned the drinking continued. A few rounds of Green Label and beer made for a good time, some fun/awkward/interesting conversation, and of course more of Joe's increasingly drunken admittance that yes, this was indeed, fun.

I took the crew through Jack in the Box on the way home and as soon as we walked in the door we all started hungrily tearing through the wonderfully delicious yet bodily harmful food. We popped on Bob Saget's standup and I quit about halfway through, thanks to having to work only hours later.

Wednesday at work went just about how I expected it to, with me feeling like hell and scrounging around...until lunch. At noon I was treated to lunch and multiple rounds of beers at lunch, and it turned out being quite a day as the boss left early to attend to family business and I sat in front of my computer all day plugging away at Excel like I usually do. The plentiful beer at lunch helped me not a give a crap about the rest of the day, and the buzz tied in nicely with the previous night's drinks to send me through the rest of the day in a state of haze and easiness.

On Thursday Joe and I started the drinking way early, and by six o'clock we'd cleaned through another case-worth of beer. We consumed more alcohol before Steph came out, and again we drank the night away. Work the next day was about the laziest Friday one could ask for.

Coming into the week, I knew that Joe's 21st birthday would lead to a continual stream of alcoholic celebration, and I was dead on. The goal of the week was to find that delicate balance of drinking regularly while keeping mind enough to handle yourself at work. I refer to weeks like these (and yes, I've definitely had them before) as tender benders, for it takes a bit of care to pull off smoothly.

As for Friday, the drinking began early and continued as we hit up another bar after dinner. We ran into some fairly odd and interesting people downtown, and managed to pass off a random home-made rap audio CD to a scared yet curious couple. I was then supposed to go down to Ventura for the night to drink with Steph and her roommates, but ended up passing out until about 1 o'clock in the morning.

I had yet to get a good night's sleep since Monday, and it turned me into a walking zombie by Friday. Mike, Amanda, and Joe's brother and sister and their respective girlfriend and boyfriend were coming up that night and Saturday afternoon, but I couldn't hang with them that night. I recharged my batteries with a few hours of impenetrable shuteye and took off late. When I arrived everyone was sleeping, and Steph and I passed out rather quickly.

I drove back up to Santa Barbara on Saturday afternoon, and arrived to a couple stories of the previous night's inebriated horseplay. Once Tina (Joe's sister) and Ben (her boyfriend) arrived, we all headed out to lunch downtown to let the day's festivities of booze begin yet again. We ate at another place on State and had multiple rounds of margaritas and beer, and three of us raced to the bottom of a $25 bucket of alcohol.

We had some good food and again, shared a lot of funny stories and had an all around great time. We hit up the store to load up on a $160 worth of alcohol before returning back to our place to drink the night away. We accomplished our goal.

We ended up playing some N64 and some Halo2 before things really got rowdy. Steph showed up later in the night to join us, and by that time the eight of us were on our way to crazy drunk. We were playing guitar and singing when Steph had let me know she arrived, but there was no parking so she ended up having to park quite a bit aways. No fear...there was eight of us who loved picking people up, and we had a guitar. To the sidewalk!

We all took off in our haze singing loudly while Joe lead the group playing the guitar on the entire walk. On our crazy walk we sang a song about reacharounds, I freestyled a little bit, and by the end of the night Joe had been hurrican-rana'd inside our apartment, we shotgunned almost an entire case of beer, we built a waterbottle trampoline on Sunny's bed, and the pizza delivery guy drank a beer.

It was a blast and an amazing time was had by all. In the morning I made breakfast for everyone while we drank mimosas, and after we watched Grandma's Boy everyone took off. Joe and I spent the rest of Sunday being dead and watching movies while eating Taco Bell. Towards the end of the night we decided to play a Sit N Go marathon on FT, which ended at about 3AM.

As soon as we got up on Monday afternoon we cleaned the entire place, went to lunch, and eventually came back to couch up the rest of the day. Steph came out, we watched another movie, and hit the sack pretty early.

All in all, it was an amazingly fun week and I'm thinking of taking a break from drinking for a few days. It probably won't happen, but it's a thought.

Until next time.

Shortstacking Vegas Pt. III

2007-08-27T23:37:00.000-07:00

This is the finale' of Shortstacking Vegas Pt. I and Shortstacking Vegas Pt. II. It's been on my procrastination list forever, so enjoy it more than you usually would.

Decker's first four-of-a-kind of the night

With spirits high (and flowing), and Decker just having turned his $20 into $550, the crew was ready for the night ahead. Although we had just eaten hours earlier, the five of us figured we'd uphold our obligations to ditch the Nugget and join some family over at the Mirage's buffet since 1)we didn't have to pay for it and 2)we were going to be down on the Strip for the rest of the night anyways.

We met up, nibbled on a few things so as not to be rude, and the 21crowd ordered a slew of drinks to keep us entertained as we chatted with family and friends for the birthday celebration. A short while later Brando called and said he was parking and would be in soon. We downed the rest of our drinks, said goodbye to the family, and we were off to enjoy the night.

Brando was waiting for us outside the cafe, and the first order of business was obviously...DRINKS! Mitch, him, and I headed to a bar in the Mirage while the rest of the guys went to find some video poker machines. Brando took care of the tab (thanks again man) and without an open table we took back to the casino floor.

We found Decker (the apparent video poker kind of the weekend) pluggin away at a quarter video poker machine with a fist full of twenties in one hand, a drink in the other, and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Mitch and I both watched as Brando peeled a hundo out of his pocket and sat next to Decker.

At this point, being the last night in this Vegas go-around, Mitch and I had obviously run out of money. We decided to head to the ATM (one time!) and we hit gold on the 100% no-risk machine as a few hundos poured out for the each of us. When we returned to the video machines Decker and Brando were about to negotiate a deal for a race to the next 4-of-a-kind. An amount was agreed upon and they were off.

Decker, hot off of his $500+ hit at the quarter VP machines at the Nugget was nonchalantly randomizing his betting amounts and draw times, while Brando took the more aggressive, more optimal approach by max betting every draw and doing so as fastly as possible. Obviously with more credits returned on the big hands and more hands/hr than Decker, Brando looked like the favorite to win.

On this night, however, optimal play would not come into consideration in Brando's play. After ripping out a second hundo and continuing his timely play, he couldn't capitalize. A few minutes later Decker raised his hands in victory as four sixes came drawing to a halt in front of Brando's face. Defeated and distraught, Brando paid his debt and, visibly shaken ;), collected his remaining funds from the machine. This wouldn't be Decker's last quads of the night...

We decided to roam the Mirage for a bit and Mitch and I ended up watching Brando go on a short craps heater before he gave it back to even (or a small profit...I don't remember). After that we found ourselves a nice little single-deck blackjack table, which I managed to pick up $300 to start closing myself in on even for the trip.

I made a dangerous move when I stopped by the craps table before I even cashed in my winnings, and ended up escaping with a minimal $100 loss after a few minutes of play. I exchanged my chips at the cage, and on the way out Brando obviously had to hit up a few more slots. He tried a random one first and then a Harley Davidson one, both of which treated him like slime. It was time to go somewhere else.

After we milled around for a few more minutes, we decided to head over to the Venetian. The other guys had headed over a while earlier, and we were on our own to scout them out...but not before Brando found another slot machine once we got inside. This time it was a Wheel of Fortune slot.

After multiple spins and multiple failures, I came up with the idea of the Triple Thread Slot Pull. It's a move that requires two players, and uses a combination shot of hitting the Max Bet button, the Spin button, and the lever. With one player using one hand for either button, and one offset player on the right-hand side pulling the lever, it's sure to confuse any slot machine and it's caretakers. In my mind it was an unconsidered move that guaranteed a win. In reality, it was useless. But it still looked badass, and I have strong feelings that this move will work wonders on a single pull one day...

In this example, Brando was the main man while Mitch helped alongside.

After we were carded twice, I jumped on the phone and Decker had said he was at the bar. Of course with Vegas bars come Vegas video poker machines. Imagine my surprise when we turned around to find Decker occupying another seat, steadily staring down at the machine with cash and drink in hand. We all ordered drinks and started intently watching Decker try for his third four-of-a-kind on the day. Brando popped in another bill as he ordered a drink, while Decker gave both Mitch and myself cash to play beside him.

About 20 minutes after I sat down, I ended up pulling four Aces on Decker's dime. We all shouted in celebration. I was completely speechless at the fact that in a matter of six hours, we'd managed to hit three four-of-a-kinds, while my only previous time playing video poker in Vegas had me hitting a royal flush on the first and only draw I'd take during that trip.

Decker scurried off to the bathroom to relieve himself of his day's current drinking tally, while Brando, Mitch, and myself stayed seated to keep plugging away at the video poker machines. As I was facing Brando and talking, Mitch began to tap on my shoulder repeatedly. I looked over at his machine (again, on Decker's dollars) and saw an unbelievable sight: another four-of-a-kind, this time it was 7's. We waited for Decker to come back before we all laughed hysterically at the ultimate luck held within our monies, and cashed out after ordering another round.

Brando and I headed to the Venetian's poker room to see if we could cause some drunken havoc at a $2-4 game, but the lowest game going was $4-8 and it just didn't have the inviting feel that a lower game would have at that point. Even though we'd been drinking the day through, I was not even buzzed and felt very disappointed. I hadn't slept the previous night, so I assume that my body trying to keep itself awake was doing a big part to keep me un-drunk, but it was disheartening nonetheless. I wanted to be drunk, but I hoped to get there by sitting at the lowest limit poker table possible and drinking round after round while wildly flinging chips. This wasn't the game for it though, so we did what any sensible gamblers would do, we hit the blackjack tables again.

We took up Mitch and Decker as we scoured the casino floor while looking for a fun looking table. We found one and Mitch took the seat. He went through what little money he had withdrawn, and Decker handed him a bit from his victory stash. I ended up grabbing a seat next to Mitch after about a shoe and a half, and after a few more shoes I found myself up another $200 on the night after giving Mitch $100 to stay in the game with me. I was almost even!

We got up and strolled the Venetian until we came across our other two very drunk friends making fools of themselves in front of a couple attractive Vegas nighties. Jason had managed to acquire an electro-shock massage pad at a gift shop somewhere, and had decided that the middle of the Venetian was a good place to use it. They had attached it to his chest, and with a drunken 21-year-old on the controller's end, Jason was in for quite a ride. He was shocked pretty hard for quite a while as the rest of us were on the floor laughing hysterically. The entertainment lasted for a few minutes and then Brando took off for the night.

The five of us then decided to head down to the MGM. On our long walk, we managed to lose Jason to the cops twice, ran into two cute weed-selling modern day hippie chicks, and low and behold we ran into a group of chicks that we knew from back home. If there's anything more disappointing about a Vegas trip, it's randomly running into a group of chicks that you already know during a random drunken walk down the strip. Add to this the fact that I had yet to BECOME drunk, and I was in a bit of a bitter mood. The girls wanted to go to McDonald's....so we left them there and took off back on our marry way.

Before we hit the MGM we came upon a wondrous sight, the Paris. The lights had attracted us and in we went. We looked for an open bar, but there was none. We all ended up in the walkway to Bally's before Jason got pulled in by the temptation of loud club music and cute promoter chicks that were standing outside. He drunkenly, laughingly tried to resist the moans and puppy-dog faces of the half-naked girls, but they pulled him in and the four of us followed suit to make sure he didn't get into any trouble.

Once inside the drinking continued, and after I bought a round of Kamikazes for the guys, and three shots of the same for myself, I felt drunk for the first time during the trip. I had accomplished my goal! We decided to carry on and keep trying to make it to the MGM Grand, but we hadn't gotten half that far before we found ourselves on the bridge of the New York New York having a loud drunken conversation.

I ended up fielding a phone call that lead me inside, and when I was finished I saw that the rest of the crew had followed me in to locate me and get me off of the phone. I ended up finding another single-deck blackjack shoe, and having lost to NYNY every time I've been to Vegas, I pulled out $300 to make sure it wouldn't happen again. Since I had yet to come even on the trip, the alcohol obviously played a big role in this blackjack round, but as drunk as I was I was still determined.

I played through a few shoes while I slurringly tried to explain to the group of friends that stopped by to play how to play correct strategy. Of course when they hit their 16's and 14's and busted, and doubled down their 11's against the dealer's 5 and they lost, they ended up getting hard headed with me and playing horribly on their own and losing anyways. As for me, I saw that I was up another $300 and, making a point to have a theme of winning for the night, decided to call it quits sensing that I was too gone to play well for any longer.

We all wandered around NYNY for a little bit longer before realizing that it was early the next morning and that after an entire night of drinking, gambling, walking, and all around fun, it was time to retire. We hailed a cab to take us back to the Nugget, and Mitch and I decided to take off to avoid the Sunday leaving-Las Vegas traffic. I passed out after another 48-hour sleepless stretch and Mitch drove home.

We had both taken to Vegas with no cash and only intention of appeasing Casey and his birthday well-wishes, and we both ended up having a blast. I broke even after spending $200 and giving $100 for gambling friends, Mitch only lost a little bit, and I was even able to kick down a little bit along with Decker to make sure everyone had a great time.

I can only hope that next time I go back, I'll have the same fun. And if we don't get a Bonedoneskis game goin with Brando soon, my head's gonna explode.

Until next time.

Same Ole' Same Ole'

2007-08-27T13:24:00.000-07:00

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task. ~William James

If I told you that Shortstacking Vegas Pt. III would be up today, would you believe me?

One Time

2007-08-22T23:57:00.000-07:00

Shortstacking Vegas Pt III will be up on Friday

For right now, it's 11:57 PM and I'm eating chocolate cake and running updates to the work database via my laptop. I'm tired, so I'll pass out soon and I really don't feel like finishing up Pt III right now.

I'm planning on throwing in a video of Mitch and Brando' s triple thread slot pull once I load it onto my Photobucket. It'll be amazing.

Until next time.

The Switch: It Is On

2007-08-21T13:48:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday something happened out of nowhere that had me tripping hard. As I was dealing with the daily boredom of work, I was taking one of my many internet-browsing breaks and I saw that I had received a message from an old friend:

Ok so I'm kinda flippin out right now because I was totally just talking about you tonight and I randomly clicked on XXX's page who was my old roommate and I found your page! I miss you! We should be friends again and talk online all the time like we used to!! Um I hope you remember me and I'm not just blabbing on like a crazy person!

stephanie

This girl is a friend of an old ex-girlfriend of mine from my sophomore year of high school, and from the time I met her I've always had a huge thing for her. When I was with my ex at the time(it was a short, worthless relationship), I'd always look forward to hanging out with this Stephanie more than my actual girlfriend.

That may sound mean, in fact it probably sounds pretty messed up from any girl's point of view. But the fact is that my relationship with the other girl was purely physical. She was an overdramatic valleygirl who lived in Ventura, whose parents took care of her 110%, and who had no life ambition. She had blonde hair, but could never get it blonde enough, even with all the dying and bleaching she seemed to do on a weekly basis. All she wanted to do was have sex, I despised her attitude, and for the most part found her personality to be unbearable most of the time.

Steph was different. She was always spunky, she always had a huge beautiful smile on her face, she was always laughing and enjoying things, and when things got her down she rarely let them get to her. To top it off, she was as gorgeous as anyone I've ever seen. She hated drama, she just wanted to enjoy life and have a good time.

Since I had broken up with my ex, I haven't talked to anyone from that group. One thing I'd always missed, though, was Stephanie. We talked quite a bit during my relationship with the blonde, and for a tiny while afterwards online. Unfortunately the talking stopped one day.

From that point on I often wondered what she doing and how she was, remembering just how much a breath of fresh air she always was. She was cute and had a personality that could lift you off the ground if you ever felt tackled by life. There were quite a few days over the five years that I was pissed that I had let her out of my life completely because of that fact.

A few months ago I had run across herSpace but ended up not sending her a message. I was hesitant to approach her again, as it had been so long and I didn't really know quite how to go about it. On Thursday, I ended up getting the above message and was completely shocked.

I instantly messaged her back, and we talked back and forth through messages and IM's until early Friday morning (I know, technology...). I had told her how I felt about her back in the day, and she said that she had mirrored feelings, although I would have never known about it because when "one of my friends was dating someone," she said, "I turn the switch off."

That phrase made me laugh, and I was actually quite giddy at the fact that she had been interested all those years ago. We talked for a bit more the next morning before I decided to go see her that Friday night.

She let me know that her and "the girls" would be hanging out at a certain nightspot, so I headed out to Ventura to hang out with Mitch and Brando (Ventura Brando) for a little bit before I headed out. I was a bit nervous, as I'd know some of the people there but only as my ex-gf's friends, most of whom presumably would rather not see me after the extremely over-emotional (on her side ONLY) breakup. Not only that, but it was my first time being old enough to drink on Main St. in Ventura since I left after high school.

I eventually took off for downtown, found the place, and saw her standing with a few people on the back patio. I walked out and was greeted with a wide-eyed, freaked out stare from Steph, as well as a completely what-the-hell-do-I-do stutter from my ex.

"Uuuhhh....hi. What...are you...doing here?" She looked more dumbfounded than confused.

I shot a glance over at Stephanie again and she still had the same deer-in-the-headlights confusion in her eyes. "Just hangin' out. How you guys doin?"

"Good....so like. Uuuhhh....wow. So strange to see you here. Didn't you move?"

"Yeah I'm up in Santa Barbara now."

"So like, who are you here with?"

I paused for a second, laughing in my head at the idea that Steph had clearly "forgot" to mention anything to my ex, and was definitely not ready to deal with any questions at this point. I was about to find a really retarded and nonsensical response until the deer spoke up.

"Heeeeee's...with us!"

My ex snapped her head to the side towards Stephanie. "What?"

"I invited him..."

At that point it was clear that I needed to leave for a second. "I'm gonna head to the bar, I'll be right back."

I ordered a shot and a drink, pondering what was about to happen if I went back outside. I quickly downed my shot and briefly thought about going to hang back out with the guys before I finally took a breath and went outside to deal with the drama that was about to ensue. When I made it back outside, they had found a table and I took a seat next to Steph, abandoning the empty one next to my ex.

Throughout the rest of the night, things actually became less and less awkward. A few people recognized me and were taken back at first, but only for a few seconds. My ex seemed a bit frustrated at my interaction with my new found flirting partner, but I couldn't have cared less. A few people met me for the first time, and it ended up being a pretty fun time.

That night I ended up staying with Stephanie, and we ended up spending the night with each other Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night. The weekend has given us a lot of time to get to know each other, yet the weird part is after five years we're even more comfortable with each other than we were before, and we're obviously much closer than ever. I asked her, and the switch from before was definitely turned on.

Even though it's only been a few days since we've been talking again, I couldn't be happier than when she's around. I'll never say that her eyes are "pretty", mainly because that means nothing nowadays, but when I look in her eyes there's more happening than I can describe. Her personality is as beautiful as she is on the outside, and that speaks volumes for a person, especially in the superficial world we live in.

On top of that, even though I have a pretty good life and a good family, I've always felt I was missing something, and even in past relationships I knew I was being naive when I said I felt whole. I didn't know what "whole" meant back then. Over the years I've dealt with being single, depression, work, giving up on school and all emotion involved with that, and overcoming my past in order to be happy with the now. Lately I've been doing great emotionally, and have felt happy with myself. But there's no doubt that since I've matured, I've still been missing that something. She makes me feel like I've found it.

If this seems a bit mushy towards the end, it's cuz what I'm feeling now IS mushy. But after quite some time of not knowing what I was looking for, I found it anyways thanks to the most unlikely situation.

I was gonna update Shortstacking Vegas Pt. III this weekend, but due to the described events, I didn't get around to it. I'm HOPING to have it up by tomorrow.

Also, over the past week and a half I've tripled my online "bankroll" by playing $1-2, and taking a couple shots at $2-4 and $3-6. If anything exciting happens with that, I might post about it, although it might be a while before I find anything poker worthy to write about.

Until next time.

Stuck in a Post-Apocolyptic Hell

2007-08-16T22:47:00.001-07:00

There's a fire burning behind the mountains of Santa Barbara a few miles away, and for the past three weeks or so we've had on and off ash downpours. Usually it's a slight sprinkly over night, and you can't really notice it until you go to your car in the morning and there's a very fine layer of ash on your vehicle.

About two weeks ago it was literally raining a heavy downpour of ash when the wind shifted direction for a day and blew the flame and smoke directly into town. There was a brief health warning issued for the city a while ago, but again, as wind changed direction it was just as quickly dismissed.

For the past couple days there's been a slightly noticeable increase in ash coverage, and it didn't look like it was going to stop coming into the end of the week. This morning I awoke to a pretty awesome sight.

Usually in the morning the sunlight peeks through the bottom six inches of my barely pulled blinds, and I can see the light coming in around the edges of my bedroom's doorframe from the hallway. This morning was different. I didn't catch that slice of light under my blinds, nor did I see the small glow around my door. There was no birds chirping outside as usual, and it felt like it was the middle of the night.

I went through my morning routine and got ready to head out the door to work before I even noticed anything about the sky. When I opened the front door, however, I was blasted full body by a blanket of red atmosphere. The entire sky seemed like it was on fire, though it was just the color of the fire bouncing off of the mixture of smoke and morning grog.

I already had my sunglasses on so it wasn't too much of an extreme situation, but it couldn't have been healthy to look directly upwards today. It resembled the setting put out by all the movies ever done about travels to Mars, with a reddish/orange tint all over everything in the range of visible sunlight.

Once I got into the office, my eyes seemed to be overcorrecting my vision, as I was quickly eyewashed with a room full of blueish tint. I closed all the blinds in the office, yet the orange/red light was visible from pretty much any open crease for the majority of the day. By the end of the work day the warm-colored overhead seemed to dissipate a bit, and I was able to come home to a bit of regularity.

Hopefully when I awake tomorrow I'll be able to move freely and breathe without hassle. The fire department is saying that September 7th is the expected full containment date. If I have to live in this post-nuclear wasteland for much longer, I will be pissed. Trust me.

Until next time.

Drinking, Gambling...Living

2007-08-12T21:43:00.001-07:00

This weekend was another one filled with drinking and gambling, and of course the now weekly Sunday Taco Bell trip. None of these things are good or healthy for me but they're the only things I'd ever want to do. Luckily, there are friends around me who feel the same way.

I started Thursday with an e-mail from an online betting site that they'd give me $10 for free just to log in, since they've been pestering me to make a deposit and I've yet to do so. I checked it out and it seemed legit, and sure enough as soon as I signed in I got $10 for free no strings attached. I had to put it in play, and just as soon as I got it I bet it on a preseason NFL game, which is about as much of a senseless gamble as anyone could ever think of.

Of course I won it, and put it back on another game the next day and promptly lost, albeit to a small margin. I'm thinking about taking some time off from casino gambling, but maybe betting the NFL football season. I probably shouldn't do either, but like I said...oh well.

On Thursday Darsky had invited me down to L.A. to go barhopping after work on Friday. I had some stuff to take care of and a lot to clean up around the apartment since I wasn't going to be home for the majority of Saturday, and although I went all day Friday telling myself I was going to go anyways, I ended up staying in Santa Barbara. Chores are chores and they gotta get done! Sorry Darsk.

I didn't want to stay inside all night though, so I called Mitch and told him to make his way out at around 11. I finished up most of the stuff I needed to and as I finished up a little web surfing Mitch, Carlos, and John all showed up. We headed to Dargan's and quickly got to drinking, considering we only had 2 hours left before last call.

My efforts to save money have been cut short this week, solely from going downtown and drinking with people. My generosity in the matter has taken its toll before, however on Friday night it was Carlos that was gonna take the gold medal for bar tab offerings. I took up $50 for our first round of shots and beers, while Carlos covered $150 for the rest of the night after that. If you can do the math, you'll figure out how much we had to drink.

A while later, after sobering up quite a bit, we took a drive to Chumash where we lost money and got aggravated at our previously fearless alcohol provider for playing blackjack like an idiot. Again, my money-saving efforts were cut short by my problematic love for gambling. I lost a little bit, got pissed that I was even there, and told the guys that we were goin home.

We all eventually crash at around 7:30AM, and we chalked up another successful night of fun time livin.

I woke up on Saturday at about 10AM for a little bit, and then again at about 11:30. I drudged my way over to the couch, and made a little bit playin small stakes on Full Tilt for about an hour before I took a shower and got ready to head out to the valley for lunch with my dad and Paul's game.

Mitch was up for the game and met us out there. Kirk had driven into town from 29 Palms, and although he was gonna be there this time to have our old crew together, Darsky would not be staying to play. He did end up dropping by, but had previous plans for the night.

This was a huge deal, as Darsky and I have been friendly vying for the top spot in points in our home game's leaderboard. Thanks to a soft start to the year, I fell into the middle of the pack fast. However, with a rally over the last two months I've been able to close in on Dar.

Two games ago I was able to come to within one point of the bastard. Last game I was absent and he widened his lead to four points. This time around, he was the one not attending and I had a chance to hopefully overtake him. By the end of the night, I was to have at least closed into one point of him, if not overtake him, or else I would be one sad dude.

As I walked in and stared at the point board, I admired his name atop the list but knew it wouldn't last long! I geared up, taking a 3rd and a 6th, bringing in 4 points and a tie game. It wasn't a total overtake, but a tie was okay with me at the end of the night.

As of today, with a level ground, we have $100 bet on who finishes the year with the most points. As of right now, IT'S ON.

Today was a weird Sunday. I didn't really do much except for laundry, but it's been a melancholy afternoon for the most part. Usually on Sundays, the thought of Monday at the office doesn't bother me. In the past Vegas, LA, drinking over long weekends, etc have never made me feel like going back to work would be a drudge, but for some reason I'm really dreading going back tomorrow.

I'm sure I'll be alright, but dammit work is starting to get super uncomfortable...

Until next time.

Coming Soon: Shortstacking Vegas Pt. III

2007-08-10T10:32:00.000-07:00

Stay tuned

Camera phone from car on Tropicana Blvd

Lounging

2007-08-08T14:40:00.000-07:00

For the past couple days work's been pretty mentally busy, and I've been doing a lot of lounging. Last week I ordered a slew of cheap yet wanted DVDs off of Amazon, which included:
-Swingers
-Boiler Room
-The Princess Bride (yessss)
-Three Kings (random, I know).

I spent a couple days hangin out at the apartment and just watching the DVDs and a few recorded movies on DVR. Last weekend I went to see the Bourne Ultimatum, and hopefully I'll get out to see the Simpson's Movie, for good or for bad.

I also ordered Mortal Kombat III and Street Fighter II for my Sega Genesis, and dammit it's sweet. The thing's been sitting in my closet since I moved in, but it was cool to break it out and play some oldies since I don't play video games much any more.

In my opinion some of the graphics and sounds that came from the games back in the SNES and Genesis era were some of the best produced today. Although there's been quite a few versions of the Mortal Kombat series released for modern systems, the MKII and MKIII really can't be beat.

I also ordered the book Comp City, which I've been taking care of a few pages at a time. I've got a couple books on the to-read list, and I'm hopin to get around to those this weekend. Although I spent some time in front of movies/TV last week, I've been trying not to spend too much time on my laptop lately, especially with the beautiful weather/girls/alcohol that's gracing downtown Santa Barbara lately.

There's actually been a fire burning a few miles away over the hill, and for the most part on Friday the sky was raining ash over the entire city. But besides that one day, the weather out here has been amazing and I'm trying to take advantage of it. Don't worry, I'm still pretty pastey white and that might never change, but I'm trying to get out and about as much as I can.

This weekend is Paullywood Park, where I can hopefully take over Darsky's point lead. I probably won't be doing much this weekend, but will try to hit up some more DVD shopping which will hopefully include the "300" DVD.

Shortstacking Vegas Pt. III will be posted soon, and as soon as I feel like staying inside I'll be writing up much more.

Until next time.

ESPN X-Games 13

2007-08-02T21:35:00.001-07:00

Oh

My

God

Shortstacking Vegas Pt. II

2007-07-31T15:41:00.000-07:00

It was 6:00 A.M. and Casey, the birthday boy, was dead tired. After his first full night of legal drinking in Vegas, he looked like he was about to pass out. Mitch and I went to put our stuff in the room and tried to rally the falling troops, as we had just arrived two hours earlier and wanted to get our money in play.

It looked like we were gonna be on our own, but we ended up getting Decker and Jason to come downstairs with us. Casey said he was gonna take a shower and meet us down on the floor. Yeah, whatever.

Although both 21 (recently), neither Decker nor J had yet to play in Vegas. Luckily we were in $5, and, being one of the more upkept downtown casinos, the Nugget had its fair share of cheap tables open. Among the three other L.V. newbies on this trip, Mitch and I were seen as the consummate Vegas "professionals", although we haven't really experienced anything above a lowroller time in Vegas to date. But as such, we were determined to at least teach the guys how to play blackjack as close to basic strategy as possible.

Coming into this weekend, Mitch brought only brought $100 (I picked him up last second, aware that he had no money) and I only had $300. Every time previous to this trip, the main focus was poker. I brought enough to grind and when it went bad I was able to grab a stake.

This time I was sick of poker. I hadn't been winning for months, and when I left Santa Barbara I knew that the small amount I brought was going straight to the house games. I wanted to have fun and forget about life for the weekend. I had yet to play any house games in Vegas besides blackjack, and was for sure gonna splash around as much as my little bankroll would allow for the weekend.

We headed to the bar for some drinks and quickly found one of many open $5 blackjack tables. Operating on a nonexistent bankroll put us in a must-win situation right off the bat, and Casey sweated us as he tried to learn the ropes. We played through one break-even shoe before our happy-go-lucky dealer got rudely exited by some asshole dealer who ended up being the least fun person I have ever met at a casino, anywhere.

He busted us quickly, made fun of us when we lost a hand, and basically made short work of our small cash. Decker had sat out, but Jason bought in and played with us. Of course, as we tried to teach him the game we made him do basic moves (doubling 11 against a 5, splitting 7's against a 6), and as it goes when you're trying to teach someone a gambling game, he lost most of his hands and convinced himself that he wasn't going to listen to us anymore.

Mitch was already done for the weekend, but we weren't concerned. Mitch wouldn't be able to go for more than five hours in Vegas without cash, he'd find a way to get some. The L.V.A. (Las Vegas Amateurs) ended up going upstairs to pass out while Mitch and I wondered around, soaking in the lights from the previous night that we missed.

I ended up at a roulette wheel with $20 that I had promised to play for someone back home. I played minimum bet on red five times straight and hit it every single time. I switched to playing a full min-bet on a single spot, hoping for the big hit and cashout. I played 23 every time while Mitch was talking in my ear.

"Play 10."

"No."

13

"Play 10."

"No."

25

"Play 10."

"...No."

7

"Play 10."

"No."

10

"...See I told you idiot."

I ran through the rest of the redbirds I ran up at the table and as we were walking away Decker appeared out of nowhere, apparently too enthralled to sleep. He wanted to take a shot at blackjack and I was willing to go dump another hundo to get this kid in the game.

It turned out that he, being recently unemployed, was actually playing on free money by a member of the birthday party just so he could go on the trip. It would make for fun times later in the trip.

I ended up busting my second buyin and he picked up after playing the dealer heads up for a bit. We headed back to the room, and I realized that it was still only 7:30 A.M. We had only been in Vegas for four hours, and despite having not slept for 24 hours at that point, I was sure as hell not wanting to sleep. Adding on to the fact that five of us were sharing a free two-bed standard room, I made up my mind that I was headin down to the Strip.

John was workin his first down of the morning at 10A.M. at Planet Hollywood, so I figured I'd jump in a $1-2NL game and wait it out. I parked at Caesar's and headed inside to see if there was any action going on, since there's usually quite a lot of $1-2 goin on. The room was dead aside from a $2-5NL and a $10-20NL, both of which I obviously couldn't jump in.

I took a look across across the street, and decided to just walk across to PH. I thought it would be an alright stroll at 7:30 A.M., but it was Hades outside and my heel was killing me from a drunken night the weekend before. The sidewalk was already packed with people who think waking up before 5:00 P.M. in Vegas is a good idea, and after weaving my way through the masses I finally made it.

There was only one game going, and coincidentally it was a $1-2NL game. I sat it and played dead for a couple hours till John showed up. As it turned out, PH's morning $60 tournament was starting the same time, and John was dealing it. I bought in and ended up playing for a couple hours before bubbling my KK to an A4.

I booked it back to the Nugget, eager to see what everyone else was doing. They were supposed to have gotten up to go to a planned breakfast at 10, but I knew that wasn't gonna happen. I walked in and found the other guys passed out on the beds and floor exactly where they were when I left. Everyone but Broke Mitch woke up and cleaned up and we were off to the buffet.

We took the escalator upstairs and quickly found that our "waitress" was planning to kill someone before the day's end. We had some fun, ate some cheap food, and started drinking. The company I was in the presence of this trip out had me crackin up the whole time. I've known these guys for a long time now and, due to my living situation, I don't get to hang out with them much anymore. Needless to say, the time spent gambling and drinking with these guys was awesomely hilarious.

After the buffet Decker and I headed to the bar for video poker and free booze. We made quick friends with the bartender. I threw a $20 in and played quarters while Decker did the same with his free money. As I was recounting the story of my royal flush on the previous trip at Caesar's sportsbook bar, I found myself watching as Decker pulled quad Aces for $500.

All of a sudden he'd turned his free money into even more free money, and it was about to turn the whole night around. He quickly threw me money to keep pluggin away, as well as givin the bartender $20. The $4 Red Bulls turned into free Red Bull and vodkas, and our drinks were instantly ten times stronger than they were for the past half an hour.

We called down the other three amigos and Decker tossed them all cash to play as well. Our two quiet seats turned into a five-machine row of drinking and hollerin and hootin. We all played for a bit before cashin out to go meet up with another group at the Mirage. It was about to be the funnest night I'd had in Vegas yet.

Interlude

2007-07-31T09:41:00.001-07:00

I have been neglecting this blog as of late, and even after repeated promises and attempts to hammer away at this thing, I still haven't caught up. I've been getting more hits by the day from referrals and links. Hell, I even made it on to Dr. Pauly's link list (I still don't know how this got pulled off), yet I can't even come close to just keeping this thing alive for more than a week at a time.

Part of the reason that it hasn't been awoken recently is that right when I was gearing up to start writing again I took a vacation to New York. After that I was lazy for a week and then I was off to Vegas, where I spent another three days wide awake and rushing on the sounds of slots and chips and the buzz of alcohol, gambling, and all-you-can-eat tit-glistening.

Since I've been back to reality I've been mindlessly plugging away at the office, dreaming of the leisure time I had in N.Y. and the dazed days I spent in Sin City. Writing hasn't really been on my mind...but then again nothing really has.

I'm coming out of my mindfuck right now, though, and thanks to the number of experiences I've had over the past few weeks I have a lot of material worth writing about. I'll try to keep it entertaining, just stick around and leave a comment from time to time to let me know what you guys think.

GG CNN

2007-07-31T09:19:00.000-07:00

"Remember folks, the market moves both ways." -CNN financial consultant, referring to the stock market on 07/30/07.

Thanks, Tim.

And I will update before the day is done. I've been getting a lot of hits and referrals, so I feel bad that I haven't been writing. Shortstacking Vegas Pt.II will be up by tonight. No more fuckin around.

Shortstacking Vegas Pt. I

2007-07-23T19:13:00.000-07:00

This weekend was the funnest time I've had in Vegas since I've been legal to go, and coincidentally it was with the smallest amount of cash I've yet to go with. I wasn't even planning on going on this trip because, despite not paying for food or alcohol on the entire trip to New York, I still managed to spend over $1,000 on the entire 10 days.

Originally when the idea of this Vegas trip had been introduced six months ago, Casey had called and told me that he was having his birthday in Vegas and that there were going to be a bunch of people and that I needed to go to celebrate his 21st. I was obviously instantly in for another trip to the city that never sleeps, and that was that. Fast forward to recent days, where that same city has taken me for thousands while I sit here getting fat and grinding out a meager living from behind a desk, and all of a sudden spending more money in Vegas seems like a nightmare.

Of course that thought never lingers long in my mind no matter what amount of money I have, so on Friday night I took off to Vegas with $400 in my pocket. Previously I've lost too much and spent too much in a day to think anything other than that going to Vegas for a weekend with $400 was stupid.

On my previous visits, I had it in my mind that I would just player poker and nothing else. Just win at poker, build a roll, live like a legend, and come home with grandiose stories of $1,000 dinners and amazing suites, sharing the extremities given only to the highrollers and superstars.

Yeah right.

For the past trips this year I've lost and won and poker, I've defected to the blackjack table after every session, and I've gotten smoked for every dime I've had every time I've gone. Grinding the tables and living the high life is what I've come to love and respect, yet I don't know why since I haven't been able to experience anything close to it yet. This weekend was about more than that, though.

After returning from New York, I was almost positive that I wouldn't make it out for this vacation a week later. I had spent too much too recently and was extremely sour at gambling for the dirty ride it's given me since my own birthday in December. Adding in the fact that I'm on such a strict financial plan right now, it was looking like a definite no-go.

But on Friday morning I found out that pretty much everyone bailed at the last second. Casey's been my best friend since I was three years old, and I knew I couldn't let him go with no friends by his side. I rallied Mitch (the ultimate Vegas friend), and although he couldn't get any cash together at the last second, we took off to Vegas Friday night.

Our good friend Decker was there when we showed up, and another friend had flown in last second as well. With five guys and a horribly small amount of gambling money, it was gonna be difficult to survive the weekend, but we were determined to make it happen.

We arrived at about 2PM and immediately hit up Buffalo Wild Wings. For some reason, despite all the amazing places to eat in Vegas, I've made it a personal mission to eat at BWW every time I'm there. I've given up on the Rainforest Cafe thing, so I guess this will forever take it's place. I love nothing more than a great meal, whether I'm paying $100 or cooking it myself, but for no reason at all I just have to eat crappy and/or junky food on a semi-regular basis. If anyone knows why I do this, let me know cuz I'd like to stop being retarded.

Anyways...after BWW we got back to the hotel room at the Nugget and decided that if we had any chance at staying alive for the rest of the weekend, we'd need to grind our pennies into dollars at the $5 tables downtown. What was about to take place in the next two days was the funnest time I've had yet in Vegas. Stay tuned tomorrow for a more exciting Pt. II.

Until next time.

Please to Be a Placeholder

2007-07-23T12:44:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of Declan McCullagh Photography

Writing Vegas TR, it will be up later today so make sure to check back. I'm back baby!

The Good, The Bad, and the Lazy Blogger

2007-07-20T09:09:00.000-07:00

The bad news is I haven't updated my blog all week, even though I promised I would and I have about a year's worth of writing material locked away in this noggin of mine.

The good news is I'm headin out to Vegas for a SMMMALLLL trip for a friend's birthday.

The bad news is I'll be missing Paul's game and a chance to overtake Darsky on the points leaderboard.

The good news is I might turn $100 into $100million this weekend (or at least $1,000...I've done it before).

The bad news is I don't feel like driving.

Hopefully when I get home I'll be able to update this thing. There should be some decent reading coming from my way when I get back on my writing feet.

Until next time.

PS - The lazy blogger is me.

Back to the Daily Grind

2007-07-16T11:10:00.000-07:00

After a 10-day vacation from the office and a trip to New York, I'm back to the daily grind. Unfortunately this grind is of the office variety, not the poker table. Good news was I had money waiting for me when I came back, which is needed and welcomed, and I have much to tell coming up in this little blog of mine.

For right now I'm getting back into the daily doldrums of living the 9-5 life, but that's not always a bad thing. The more and more I work, the more and more I appreciate it. That'll change in the future I'm sure of it, but for right now I'll take comfort in security.

I won't get a chance to write today, but stay tuned tomorrow and for a while to come. I have stories and pictures and fun times ahead, so make sure to keep an eye on Sitting the Apple. There may even be some poker involved.......weird, I know.......

Until tomorrow.

A Sunday Post?

2007-07-01T17:10:00.000-07:00

I was going to try to write last Sunday but this is as far as I got:
"Since I woke up early today (noon) and since I haven't posted since Monday, I figured today would be a good day to post. We'll see how well my Sunday writing fingers work."

Being as how I neglect this blog enough, it's time I put forth some effort and update! I neglected to follow through last Sunday, so today will be a day of redemption.

Rejecting my desire to hit up the Warped Tour while it was in town yesterday, I found myself driving out to Simi to hit up Paullywood Park, our regular tournament held every three weeks. Our usual night at Paullywood Park consists of two $30 tournaments, each with anywhere from 22-28 players. Every third meetup we switch to one $20 rebuy+addon tournament, which is usually filled with the same amount of players but which turns out almost three times the prize pool.

This year we started with a point leaderboard for our gang, with points being awarded for a designated amount of top finishers determined by the number of entrants per tourney. Our 18 tournament series culminates with a $50 buy-in finale' extravaganza, where every point will be worth an extra amount of chips added to the person's respective starting stack. The final tournament will also be juiced by an additional fund that we pay towards for every tournament.

Overall it's a fun atmosphere with friends and family that we all know, and who all try to play the game. They're bad, but they try (for the most part). The only thing that I don't enjoy all the way about Paullywood Park is that I have to deal full time while I'm playing. I love dealing as much as I do playing, but doing both is a great pain in the ass and not something that I look forward to. With that being said, it's still a fun game.

Going into last night Darsky was atop the leaderboard and ahead of me (tied for second place) by six points. He wasn't going to be attending this weekend, which meant it was my chance to catch up to him. However, this weekend was the $20R+A, which meant there was only one tournament and only five points available to capture, which was first place. If I could get that first place prize, I'd get one of the more juiced up prize pools and I could close to within one point of Darsky.

I was fully expecting the regular 22-28 player turnout for this tournament, but when I showed up I got news that there would only be about 16 players. I wasn't too sure of why there was such a small attendance this time around, but whatever the case was it only meant one thing to me: fewer people to get in my way to chase Darsky's points!

I started off playing my usual aggressive game, and was quickly ahead of the field. I picked up all the dead pots from the weak players, and by the end of the rebuy period I was chipleader having only used my original buyin. I opted to buy the add-on to keep my advantage as big as possible, considering that I had to deal full time while playing, which tends to keep me off my %100 game.

I ended up playing chip leader for most of the tournament, although the structure starts to get pretty fast after the 300-600 level since Paul wrote his structure to skip the 400-800 and jump straight to 500-1000, 1000-2000, 1500-3000, etc. Some casino tournies skip these levels, but with only a 2000 starting stack it can start to hurt your stack in a hurry.

I was able to keep afloat as a bare chipleader with around 16,000, while my friend Mitch was second in chips with 13,000 when this hand came up.

Blinds: 300-600
Mitch has 13,000 in chips
Hero has 16,000 in chips
Hero is on the Button

Hero is dealt [6s 7s]
This is one of my favorite hands to play, and I fully intend to play it from the Button as the chipleader if there's no crazy action before it gets to me.
Mitch calls 600
MP2 calls 600
MP3 calls 600
Hero calls 600
I opted to limp the Button here, as one of the limpers and both blinds had around 5,000 in chips. I was completely okay with seeing a flop against five players with this kind of hand, but I really didn't want to have to pump another 4,400+ into this pot heads up preflop because of the escalating blind levels.
SB folds
BB checks

FLOP: [2d 6h 7h]
BB checks
Mitch checks
MP2 checks
MP3 checks
Hero bets 2,200
BB folds
Mitch raises 2,800 to 5,000
MP2 folds
MP3 folds
Sometimes this smells like a set, but Mitch is pretty new to the game and tends to underplay his hands preflop and overplay his hand postflop. I really don't think he's on a flush or straight draw because knowing Mitch he'd usually just call. If I push here he'll probably stack off with an overpair.
Hero raises 10,400 to 16,000 and is all-in
Mitch calls 7,400 and is all-in
3000 is returned to Hero

Mitch shows [Qc Qd]
Hero shows [6s 7s]

TURN: [2d 6h 7h][9s]

RIVER: [2d 6h 7h][9s][Ad]

Mitch has a pair of Queens
Hero has two pair, sixes and sevens and wins the pot (28,100)

That put me out to the largest chiplead of the tournament as I watched the shortstacks battle it out. I ended up taking out two more and I ended up HU after the now second place in chips took out two more. We started heads up with me having about a 2:1 chiplead. We tangled in a few pots until I doubled him up with TP+OESD against his flopped straight.

Five minutes later I doubled him up again on an A-10-3 flop with me holding 10-3 against his A-10. I ended up getting the chiplead back three times before he ended up hitting quads against my straight. As I tried to battle back against his increasing chiplead I ended up getting all the money in with an A-high FD+OESD against his flopped straight once again. I blank blanked and took a disappointing second.

I was really semi-tilted from taking second place after having such a big chiplead and dominating pretty much the whole tournament. I picked at his stack and won quite a few pots thanks to aggression. Unfortunately I kept getting good HU hands against his monsters, and just couldn't come back after losing the chiplead twice.

I took $225 for second, but more importantly I closed the gap on Darsky's point lead. After taking second, I have now cashed/pointed five times in five tourney weekends, so I guess I can always count on being able to at least beat the game at Paullywood Park. As for beating the games that count, well, that'll be something I have to start working on again.

Until next time.

Decisions of the Day

2007-06-27T08:59:00.000-07:00

The rest of this week will present me with many decisions. Should I do my laundry or continue to wear week-old wrinkled shirts to work? Should I switch up my favorite "Wednesday Special" sandwich for lunch from the deli? To drink on Thursday, or not to drink on Thursday? Is wearing shorts and flip flops to this job acceptable or should I stick to the casual dress style just because, even though no one is around? Should I go to the Warped Tour at Seaside Park on Saturday or should I head over to Paullywood Park?

That last one there is one (probably the only one) that I actually have to make a decision on. I was going to go to the Warped Tour with a friend and a bunch of her friends, but she is no longer going, and rather than trying to find some friends to go with last second I'd rather hit up Paullywood Park and deal. This weekend is the $20 rebuy tourney, which has been great for the few times we've run it so far this year.

I'm kinda bummed since I've been wanting to go to Warped for a while now after hearing the gnarly line up of bands that are gonna be there, but there's good and bad about going. The good is obviously a bunch of good bands, good music, beer. The bad is running into a bunch of people I'd rather not see, paying a ton on overpriced tickets, food, and beer, and also the fact that tiny Seaside Park will be jam packed and there will barely be room to move by the end.

If I choose Paul's game, I'll have to deal and play at the same time, which I have come to despise since it's been my assigned "duty" by Paul himself. I don't mind dealing, and in fact I actually enjoy it. What I don't enjoy is not being able to concentrate on playing, and then not getting tipped for dealing for seven hours and not making cash in the tournaments.

I continue to deal and play for three reasons: 1) it's a fun, soft game that doesn't require explicit attention, 2) I've actually cashed 1st-3rd for like 3 out of the last four tournaments, and 3) we have a point system in place, with extra chips for every point for the end-of-the-year tournament that has a juiced prize pool; currently I'm tied for second in points behind a first place Darsky.

Things are under way for our New York trip, however certain details cannot be discussed at this time! Anyways, things are still movin along at work in the right direction as I continue to hear good news every day about my position in the company. I laugh as I write about my continual success here, AS I'm writing in from work. If I had to work in an office anywhere, here is where I'd want to be. Ya just can't get down about life when you live in Santa Barbara...

From outside my apartment last night (I know the resolution is shitty, deal with it)

A Daily Confessional

2007-06-26T14:23:00.001-07:00

A work of art brought to you by MSPaint and the author of Sitting The Apple

It represents the past couple years of my life, my willingness to take risks, my love for gambling. It represents the change that basically the entire nation has undergone the past three years, and what people have come to love because of the media. It represents passion.

And the duality of man.

Can't Beat Poo-Fling Mania

2007-06-22T00:08:00.000-07:00

After taking down a 3-table $11 SnG on Full Tilt and turning my $25 at the 25NL to $6o, I decided to play a little HU $2-4. I ran my $100 to $300, and then this happened when I decided to play a guy I was watching at the $3-6 HU tables.

Full Tilt Poker Game #2734682302: Table Hopi (heads up) - $3/$6 - Limit Hold'em - 0:55:53 ET - 2007/06/22
Seat 1: lowzy ($149)
Seat 2: Hero ($96.50)
lowzy posts the small blind of $1.50
Hero posts the big blind of $3
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [4h 5d]
lowzy calls $1.50
Hero checks
*** FLOP *** [2h 3s 6h]
Hero bets $3
lowzy raises to $6
Hero calls $3
*** TURN *** [2h 3s 6h] [6s]
Hero checks
lowzy bets $6
Hero raises to $12
lowzy raises to $18
Hero raises to $24
lowzy calls $6
*** RIVER *** [2h 3s 6h 6s] [3h]
Hero bets $6
lowzy calls $6
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Hero shows [4h 5d] a straight, Six high
lowzy shows [9h 5h] a flush, Nine high
lowzy wins the pot ($77.50) with a flush, Nine high
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $78 | Rake $0.50
Board: [2h 3s 6h 6s 3h]
Seat 1: lowzy (small blind) showed [9h 5h] and won ($77.50) with a flush, Nine high
Seat 2: Hero (big blind) showed [4h 5d] and lost with a straight, Six high

Full Tilt Poker Game #2734691521: Table Hopi (heads up) - $3/$6 - Limit Hold'em - 0:56:57 ET - 2007/06/22
Seat 1: lowzy ($207.50)
Seat 2: Hero ($137)
Hero posts the small blind of $1.50
lowzy posts the big blind of $3
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [6d 7d]
Hero raises to $6
lowzy raises to $9
Hero raises to $12
lowzy calls $3
*** FLOP *** [7s 7c 3h]
lowzy bets $3
Hero calls $3
*** TURN *** [7s 7c 3h] [Tc]
lowzy bets $6
Hero raises to $12
lowzy raises to $18
Hero raises to $24
lowzy calls $6
*** RIVER *** [7s 7c 3h Tc] [2c]
lowzy bets $6
Hero raises to $12
lowzy raises to $18
Hero calls $6
*** SHOW DOWN ***
lowzy shows [Kc 4c] a flush, King high
Hero mucks
lowzy wins the pot ($113.50) with a flush, King high
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $114 | Rake $0.50
Board: [7s 7c 3h Tc 2c]
Seat 1: lowzy (big blind) showed [Kc 4c] and won ($113.50) with a flush, King high
Seat 2: Hero (small blind) mucked [6d 7d] - three of a kind, Sevens

Now I have $15 in my FT account cuz I'm an idiot who can't help but chase after the bad players in games above the stakes that I should be playing with my $100 deposits online. Discuss my retardation while I go sit and stare at the ceiling wondering why I always do this.

I think it's time to go reread this again:
I've read your blog quite a bit and you seem like a really good guy with your heart in the right place, but you honestly don't know what you are doing with poker. Noone has as big of an edge as you seem to believe you can gain, and unless you have a very large bankroll you can't possibly survive the inevitable variance that comes to even the best players. I know because I have played that much, and I built up a sizeable bankroll from free scraps online. I've never been busto or even down for the simple reason that I grinded my way from barely any roll over the course of about 150,000 online hands. It took well over a year, countless hours, and more study than you could imagine. I experienced tons of devastating losing streaks, much worse in BB or bb terms than what you are describing, but have also experienced much better long term success rates. I understand the underlying math that is part of the game, and while I think you do as well, you are denying it when you right posts like above.

Even if you could afford to buy into the WSOP this year, your lack of experience in poker, tournament poker, live poker, and just in general would not give you an edge over the field. Understanding that, and the fact that you need to get very lucky even if you have a tremendous edge in order to cash or win those tournaments, you could not base any results either good or bad on their outcome.

I firmly believe what you need to do is set asid a very small amount of money (like $300) and go back to grinding small limits online for at least a year. Get a rakeback deal, and make sure to take advantage of some signup bonuses, because right now you probably don't have an edge or the tilt control to be a long term winner at the small limits. I would start at $25 NL cash and $10 SNGs until you have worked yourself up to a $1000 roll. Then you can consider moving up. You need to take advantage of PokerTracker, a HUD, and learn how to take notes. Also learn how to multi table by adding one table at a time, since you will be able to see up to 4x as many hands this way to gain experience.

Once you have a bankroll around $5,000 you can consider taking out $200 or less to play live, but understand that if you experience any rough patches you need to scale back your play and practice very disiplined bankroll management. DO NOT TRY TO MOVE UP TO RECOVER LOSSES! People playing at NL100 right now are probably much better on average than you are. It is actually a fairly tough game to beat online, but if you can beat it then live poker should come easier.

If you are playing tournaments then you need to play a ton of SNGs and see how your ROI is after a LOT. If you are winning you can consider moving up, and taking shot at some big MTT. The same bankroll management rules apply. Slowly grind your way up and don't take shots to recover losses. This is the only way to know that you are a long term winner and good at the game, and not just experiencing short term variance.

Also you need to buy and read and study every significant poker book on the market. including: NLHTAP by sklansky and miller, HOH 1 and 2, Theory of Poker by sklansky, Super System 2, Mathematics of Poker by Bill Chen, and if you are going to play limit then you need to study HPFAP by sklansky, SSH by Miller, Winning in Tough HE by Stox. There are lots of other good books on other games, but if you are focusing on Hold'em that list is a start. These books should be read, and reread, and reread until they are falling apart. Read them at work during your lunch break. Read them while taking a shit. Read them in between hands online. Take notes. Reread sections you don't understand.

Then you should start posting hands on 2p2 and listening to the advice and suggestions you get. Also read and respond to as many hands as you can. Read all of the stickied articles that have great advice on how to play that game.

and finally just play play play play. It doesn't matter if it is 25NL online, play for pride. Play because until you learn to grind that $300 into a real roll you aren't even close to a good player. Until you learn how to survive crippling downswings via tough play, game selection, and bankroll management you can't be a winner. Until you move up solely because you have been beating the game for 30,000+ hands at a good clip you don't really know whether you are ready.

this is how you can learn how to be a winner at this game. It takes a ton of time. A lot of patience. A strong work ethic. and a desire to prove that you are winner and not a luckbox. It also takes a lot of heart when you are going throught he downswings, and even more discipline to understand that you aren't ready to move up. Finally it takes humility to move down and rebuild before taking another shot and to avoid going busto.

Over the long run any intelligent and driven person (like yourself) can accomplish this, but if you continue to think of and approach the game they way you are you will always experience the rush and depression of short term variance, but never know the satisfaction of actually becoming a winner at the game. With your current approach you will never see long term success.

I have thought these things for a long time, but avoided responding to your blog because I didn't want to dishearten or come across as a jerk. But I think reading the above and taking it to heart can do your poker game a world of good.

Now that you have your job prospects settled, and you seem content and happy with your personal life it is time to redirect the approach to this hobby if you want to take it seriously. Otherwise just keep it as a game on the side like blackjack, and don't let the losing bother you. If you aren't going to take a serious approach you shouldn't build yourself up with false hope that you are going to make your mark someday. Make your mark in your own life by proving that you can be a winner.

I hope the above helps in some way. It was meant in the most sincere and kind way by a person who understands where you are coming from and has surprisingly similar view points on many subjects. Good luck on the journey, it will be long and tough, but you can make it.

This is definitely something I should do, cuz I'm tired of being on a six-month losing "streak". Anyone wanna help me out? Apparently I can use some more coaching than I'd like to admit.

I Sit and I Watch...and for Now That's Okay

2007-06-11T21:25:00.001-07:00

It's the first year that I'm able to legally play the World Series of Poker, here I am sitting at home and tracking it via the internet. With about 62 events this year (including the Second Chance cleanups), I have plenty of news to follow from home and all day long at the office. To top it off and deal me a royally painful kick to the junk, I'm not even playing at all right now.

When I started seriously playing I'd had it in my mind that I'd be rolling by now and have some serious time invested in the game, hopefully with a stash of money to prove it. As it stands now, although the former may be true, I definitely haven't played nearly enough in the past year for my liking and that's mainly because the latter never came to fruition.

I thought I'd be in a completely different position in life three years ago, and the fact that I am where I currently am has caused a lot of problems with me personally. Upon dropping out of college I've gone through a little more than two years of varying levels of depression, and have admittedly experienced a brief addiction to gambling.

When confronted about either subject, and even when I confronted myself about them, I would defend myself and say that I had both under control. The depression took more of a toll on me than I had ever realized before I came into a recent state of contentment. I kept trying to find ways to make myself happy but just came up blank every time I was just about to have a grasp on something.

A few quick, unmentionable relationships and hookups failed to bring me back to my normal self, and as I turned time after time to my second fallback in such a situation, I was time and time again crushed mentally. There was a little stretch where I was dominating the Chumash short-stack buyin NL game, but thanks to bad luck and horrible money management I was just as quickly out of cash and a growing bankroll as I had come into it.

For that period of time when I was a winning player, I was happy. If the money wasn't making me happy (which it was), then it was being able to play four days a week. At this point in my life, I've found that one of the most enjoyable things to me is simply being at a poker table. There's much more to being at a live poker table then just being in a casino or gambling, there's a huge social element to it that people who don't play grossly overlook. So while playing and winning was making me happy, the "lifestyle" I was living made me happy. I knew everyone there, I felt like I belonged somewhere: at a poker table, joking with the dealers and racking up stacks of chips.

When I went on a major losing streak with no bankroll, I had to stop playing. I tried to get some scraps together multiple times, and I came close a couple times. But things still weren't right mentally, and I was still in a tough spot in my life while I battled mild reappearing spots of depression. Even up until recently I've become victim to bad habit. Instead of taking care of the things I had needed to take care of, I'd take off to play with what small money I had. Every time I've tried this it's ended in me losing and, once again, becoming depressed about not being able to play.

Nowadays things are a bit different. I've spent a lot more time socializing locally and trying to become a better friend to those around me. I've succumbed to the fact that I might work in an office for the rest of my life, but as I posted before, the office I'd be an inmate at isn't so bad in actuality. While I'm still struggling to handle my finances in this retardedly expensive city, things at work are lookin good for my near future.

I've decided to take a different perspective in regards to poker. Instead of taking shot after shot with limited funds (and consequently suffering mentally when I lose) I'm waiting until I feel comfortable with my personal finances and until I have a little bit put aside for playing purposes only. Whether I save it myself or find someone willing to trusting enough to back my game won't matter; either way I won't be able to play my a-game if I have to worry about the money on the table.

Sometime around a year ago in this blog I wrote "
I have my next Vegas trip planned for December. I'll be playing a couple WSOP events next year, though, barring a huge breakdown in playing skill and cash in the next year." Unfortunately, both of these have come true over the past year and I've found myself with no bankroll and an extinguished rush at the tables. When I get some cash behind me, I have no doubt in my mind that I can go back to beating the game.

Until then, I'll sit and I'll watch. For now, that's okay. But I will succeed at the game at some point, and with that knowledge I can rest easy until I finally have a chance to prove myself to everyone else.

Until next time.

A Spiritful Day in the Office

2007-06-06T20:15:00.000-07:00

I've been working a bunch this past week, and wouldn't you know it after four days of actual work (okay...make that three days) I feel like not doing a damn thing today. Yes working full time can be dull, but I really can't complain about the office that I've become accustomed to.

For starters, my job is a thinking man's job. Most of my job consists of figuring out answers to the company's technical problems, whether it comes to me while messing around with formulas for days or staring at the ceiling for hours while the wheels in my brain turn. The other part of my job requires I apply the solutions, however the fact that I'm a quick and efficient worker means that I don't expend too much energy when it comes to actually doing something with the thoughts that I have. I get paid for being efficient, not for working hard.

Secondly, my boss(es) are my closest allies here, which is leaps and bounds above what a lot of people can say about their current jobs. In the wake of the current owner/boss's announcement of retiring this year, he's brought in his son-in-law to take command. Because I was so well-liked by the Big Man, I had a pretty good head start in my relations with the new boss, who I'll deem as the Small Man. And as it turns out, he's a gambler.

Our Fridays now usually consist of lunch (on the company, of course) with three rounds of beers followed by some after lunch $5 a pop prop betting action back at the office. After about 2 o'clock on Friday, both of us can be seen either yelling and cheering or shying away in shame thanks to some random bet of the hour. And let me remind you, this is my boss and future part-owner of the company.

After the Big Man leaves for good to retire to his multi-million dollar home high up in the Montecito Hills, the ownership of the company is being divided between a select few people. The people that it's being shared with are not the best advocates to receive such responsibilities, yet it's all the company's got. Here's where I come in.

The Small Man has come to me recently with the proposal of keeping the company together when the big boss heads off to retirement. This means keeping an eye on the company-wide computer system that spans over three branches currently (soon to be five) as well as moving away from the technical standpoint and moving more towards the higher rankings of the company runnings. He's made it pretty clear that over the next year I'll become his right-hand man.

For all those that work in an office environment, I basically have the position that you want. For those of you out there lucky enough to not have an actual job, I basically have the position that you'd want if you ever had to get confined to an office. Things are good.

The Seven-Day Stretch

2007-06-05T19:30:00.000-07:00

I know I'm a bastard and I did the week-long no update thing again. Happens all the time, I suck, I know. Look for an update in the afternoon.

Memorial Weekend Pt. 2

2007-05-30T22:31:00.000-07:00

We ended up driving for a little over two hours, to where I'm still not sure. We ended up in the middle of nowhere after driving past hours of fields as we pulled up to a smallish country town. We passed through a winding neighborhood before finally pulling up to our destination, where we found out that there would 16 players, none of whom were under 35 years of age.

I didn't know what to expect going in to this thing, but I found out that these folks had a game three out of four weekends a month, so although they were no doubt going to be bad players, at least the game seemed like it was going to run smoothly. The payout was kind of lopsided; with a $25 buy-in, a player would receive $5 every time he knocked someone out, while the placed payouts were 1st-$25o 2nd-$50 and 3rd-$20.

The people were nice enough, and as I suspected the play was supremely weak. I ended up taking an early chiplead before plateauing and riding the shortstack from seven players down to the final three, where Mitchell and myself tangoed with one of the game's regulars. With the blinds and stacks allowing a lot of play, I was able to edge my way back into the game, eventually capturing the chiplead and overtaking the shortstacked third player. Despite having the chiplead and having Mitch outskilled, he and I chopped for $155 each, and the two "kids" took the majority of the loot.

After we helped clean up the table and chips, we took off into the darkness of the night without clear direction of where we were going. We ended up getting lost in the country town for about half an hour before we finally found a lit road and a building. From there we got a map online using Mitch's phone, and we were eventually able to find our way back to the highway.

I didn't end up getting back into Santa Barbara until about 5:30AM on Sunday morning. Sunday I took my usual Sunday Taco Bell trip, and had some stuff to take care of around the apartment, as I had plans to hang out with a friend later that night. We went to dinner, and there ended up being a few of us back at our apartment. Monday was Memorial Day, therefore Sunday was Alcohol Night.

I drank a bit too much, and a bit of the wrong mixture of alcohol, and ended up having a rough morning. I found out early Monday morning that my phone was no longer working, and as it turned out it was because it had been dropped into a deep glass of a vodka drink hours before. I was pretty pissed, as the phone was the best cell phone I had yet to own.

Considering the Verizon store was closed, I decided to have a "Hangover Monday" and laid in bed most of the day, finishing the second season of The Office on DVD. I took a quick trip out to get food, but didn't leave my bed for most of the day aside from two showers.

For the entire day and night of Tuesday, I was in deep mental debate about what to do about my phone. Verizon has been dicking me on my bills lately, and honestly I've never truly been happy with their service. VCAST is a pain in the ass, and everything that Verizon says you can do with their plans, I haven't witnessed personally.

Being in a state of anger due to my past six months (out of six years) with my current plan, I put heavy thought into switching over to Cingular and getting the Samsung Blackjack, Cingular's prided PDA/Smart Phone. I would end up getting a discount on the phone for signing a contract with Cingular, however I'd have to pay a cancellation fee in the amount of $175 to cancel my remaining year in contract with Verizon.

I asked around a lot about service/phones/billing for Cingular, and was almost convinced I going to switch over before I went out and made an impulse this morning. I walked into the Verizon store and almost immediately ended up buying the black Motorola Q. I was able to talk over the added features as well as my current plan with the sales guy there, and actually ended up with a plan modification that pleased me, as well as allowed me to use all of the features on my new smart phone.

My new setup allows me to access the internet directly, manage my stuff using the Windows Mobile system, and bypass all the horribly annoying VCAST programming. Although it does cost me considerably more per billing cycle to be able to have all of the new bells and whistles, I'm positive that it will make me a happier consumer. Go consumer America!

Until next time.

Memorial Weekend Pt. 1

2007-05-29T10:04:00.001-07:00

This weekend was made long by the generous offer to release us from the office on Monday, Memorial Day. It started late on Friday night, and thanks to a harsh Sunday night pretty much ended on...Sunday night.

On Friday night, John's last night out from New York, we chilled at my apartment and just hung out like we used to do. We hit up CPK at about 10 o'clock before John mentioned that he wanted to hit up Chumash for his last night out.

After dinner I gave him a brief blackjack refresher course as we waited for Mitchell to get out of Pirates 3, as he stated some interest. After waiting for a couple hours he ended up not wanting to go, so at around 1AM John and I took to the road. I wasn't planning on playing at all, but on the way up there I knew I couldn't just let him play by himself. I had to...it was the uhhh....brotherly thing to do.

I only put out $60, as my financial situation isn't what it should be. I ended up winning $100 after a couple shoes, and John finished up dead even. He dropped a little bit to some video slots while I watched and laughed. We left and he was happy with the trip. I came up $100 to help cover some of the $110 it cost me in gas for all the driving to LA and back and forth to Chumash, so that was nice.

Now I know that I keep complaining about being in financial disarray, but I'm finally starting to get back on my feet. I fell into a couple gambling-related relapses in the past year, which is obviously my fault. But I feel pretty good about the way my life's going at this point and shouldn't really get back to the point that I feel like I NEED to gamble in order to be happy. This time around it was a completely different reason for gambling, and it really was about hangin out with my brother on his birthday, as opposed to some uncontrollable urge.

On Sunday morning I took him to Bob Hope and off he went. Then I got lost in LA for half an hour thanks to some onramp construction they were doing on the 134. LA's always a fun place to get lost in anyways, so it didn't bother me.

On the way back to Santa Barbara I decided to stop and have lunch in Ventura. I met up with Mitch and we headed over to Fry's to check out TV's. After a brief look around the wonderful world of tech, I decided to keep my eye on the Samsung LN-T4042H to put in my bedroom.

While I was shopping around, I was deciding whether I wanted to go big, or go huge. I really didn't want to take the $3000 plunge to get a TV for the living room, since my roommates don't take care of my stuff that I've currently made communal, and I surely don't want them ruining a crazily awesome TV. I decided that a 36"-42" TV would be best for my bedroom, as I'll probably wall mount it. Plus, with a $1300 price tag, LCDs Plasmas and DLPs are all lookin pretty affordable nowadays. I figure I'll wait another couple months to finish paying off this laptop before I take on another monthly payment.

As Mitchell took to the DVD section, I decided to finally resume my DVD buying. There's quite a few things on my list, and quite a few things will still wait. I decided that buying one thing after a long break wasn't so bad, so I got my feet wet again by buying The Office, Season Two, which was well worth the purchase. If you haven't seen this show and you're lookin for something funny and catching to watch, I'd highly suggest this show. The first season was an almost direct takeoff of the original British series, however in the second season you really get the feel for the American take and the writers really put a lot into the second season. With the finale' of the third season having just recently aired, it looks like I'll have to wait until September to buy the latest DVD installment.

After leaving Fry's, we met a few more friends for lunch at this little Mexican place before Mitch convinced me to take on a Saturday night adventure. He had previously mentioned that he was going to a poker game/BBQ with a friend of his from work, who I had previously met at a poker game. I immediately noticed that he had no idea what he was doing when it came to hold'em, and was obviously used to playing house games with house rules on his own terms. In the one game that we had played together he did nothing but complain about having to double a bet when raised, betting at least the BB when first to bet, and a couple other standard rules of poker.

When Mitch had mentioned it earlier, he said it was this guy's brother, and not only was it a "tournament cash-game" (???), but it was two hours up north. It didn't sound appetizing to say the least, and I had already determined that I was definitely not going prior to arriving in Ventura. However, for no particular reason at the last minute I decided to go. My decision was mostly made because I really didn't want to return to my hellish roommates, and also I hadn't really done anything or gone anywhere since our last Vegas excursion.

I ended up saying yes, and an adventure was about to begin.

Bayside

2007-05-25T08:11:00.000-07:00

Lately I haven't been able to tear myself away from Bayside's newest CD, The Walking Wounded. Their old stuff was pretty good, but I think this new CD really brought out a new, higher step to their musical essence. If you want to check out a snippet of their stuff, click here.

I have a pretty busy day at work today and have some stuff to do today after work before my brother leaves back to New York tomorrow. If I don't get around to writing today or tomorrow, then Sunday I'll have somethin for you all, so hang tight.

Until next time.

Lies for the Liars

2007-05-23T09:24:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the release of the new CD from the Used, titled Lies for the Liars. I picked it up and goddammit is it good!

The Used has been one of my favorite bands for a few years now, and when I went to see them at Long Beach a couple months ago it was amazing. I had seen them before, but with them headlining the Taste of Chaos this year, they sounded perfect.

While at the Long Beach arena they played a few of their new songs, and while they sounded amazing live I knew I'd have to wait a while for the CD to come out so I could listen to the new stuff all the time.

The new CD definitely puts out a different style than the other two, but they did a really good job with coming up with the new sounds and songs. If you're a fan of the Used, definitely go out and pick this thing up.

Last night I went to pick up John from Burbank, as he'll be staying with me for the next four days. While I was out there I stopped by Darsky's to hang out, and we went for a burger down at Gordon Biersch. Sooooo gooooooddddd. And if you read that as "so god", it's just about right.

Anyways, I'll be busy hangin with John all week so we'll see how the bloggin goes.

Until next time.

Good Instincts or Too Aggressive?

2007-05-22T08:14:00.000-07:00

I went down to Chumash last Wednesday to play the $2-5NL $200 max buy-in and came out loser, putting me down for the last two out of three sessions. I played my usual Chumash shortstack game before coming up on another hand that I played abnormally for my style.

The table was full and included your usual mix: one old guy who we saw check the nuts behind three times, a middle-aged regular who likes to gamble, and a young 18-year-old internet player. The rest of them were okay players who weren't doing much.

Here's the setup for the hand

1-Seat - Regular who I've noticed likes to gamble. Seems to get lucky a lot, but mostly because he gets in the worst hand so many times.
2-Seat - me
3-Seat - Younger internet player. Thought he was a lot better than he was, and was one of those who leaned over to me to complain about how bad the table was. He liked to take a lot of flops with suited connectors and 3-gappers, and was very aggressive postflop.

3-Seat had built up to around $650, I was on $560, and the third player in this act, 1-Seat was on around $370.

Button is on 7-Seat.

Preflop: Dealt to Hero(Ad Qh)
1-Seat limps.
Hero raises $15 to $20.
3-Seat calls $20.
Folds around.
1-Seat calls $20.

Flop: [As Js 8h]
1-Seat checks.
Hero bets $60.
3-Seat calls $60.
1-Seat calls $60.

Right here 3-Seat called off pretty quickly, which I didn't know what to make of, and 1-Seat looked at his cards before tossing in the call. I wasn't sure if 3-Seat was slowplaying something, but from how aggressive he was with his missed flops earlier and how his image was, I figured he'd hit a piece of the flop but not too hard.

Turn: [As Js 8h 7d]
1-Seat checks.
Hero checks.

Now usually I'd fire out right here and see where the other two are at, but this time I figured I'd check and find out where 3-Seat was. If he bet around the pot, I would have guessed that he was loaded. I put 1-Seat on a flush draw because of the way he called off last time, and if 3-Seat ended up checking and we saw a river for free, I'd have no problem reassessing the situation. With my aggressive style here, I usually would bet around the pot in this situation. Thoughts on a pot bet on the turn here?

3-Seat bets $100.
1-Seat calls $100.

With $245 now in the pot, $100 seems a bit weak from the aggressive 3-Seat. With such a draw heavy board and a gambl0r in 1-Seat in the pot, I'm sure with a big hand 3-Seat would've bet around $200. Before calling off the $100, 1-Seat had checked his cards twice before throwing his stack in with a careless laugh. At this point I'm 100% positive that 1-Seat has a flush draw. As for the 3-Seat, I was thinking probably a weak ace. If I push here I figure 1-Seat for a fold and 3-Seat for a call for his remaining chips on a gamble. If I get instacalled by 3-Seat then I know I'm in trouble, but I'm trusting my instincts here.

Hero raises $280 to $380 and is all-in.
3-Seat folds.
1-Seat calls $190 and is all-in.
Hero is returned $190.

River: [As Js 8h 7d 7h]
1-Seat shows (Ks 7s) for three of a kind sevens.
Hero shows (Ad Qh) for a pair of Aces.

1-Seat wins the pot of $925.

3-Seat to my left had grown pretty fond of talking to me, and winced when the 7 peeled off. He told me he had folded A-10 s00000ted. Obviously 1-Seat had the flush draw and, as fate would have it...again, he won the hand.

I could've played this hand differently, but if I did it wouldn't have made it onto this blog. I decided to mix it up this time around to try to find out a different way to read 3-Seat, and for the purpose that I did it it worked. Like I stated, I usually bet the turn here, but even after the turn check I think the push was okay. Unfortunately I got smacked on the river again, and my instincts got blown to bits by another river card.

At the end of the session, I was a loser again for the second session in a row, making me loser two for three.

Today I'm going to pick my brother up from the airport, as he's flying in from New York. He'll be staying with me until Saturday, and hangin with him should be a good time. Hopefully hangin out with him will get my mind off of all this losing I'm doing lately.

Until next time.

Please Hold

2007-05-19T12:49:00.000-07:00

We have Paul's game tonight, and I also took a trip down to Chumash on Wednesday night. I'll have some content for you all tomorrow.

Reviewing Reviews

2007-05-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

For clarification purposes (so I don't look like a moron), I'd like to point out that the hand recall I posted yesterday does not fall into my regular range of play. The way I normally play is already formed out of years of playing and previous revision, so most of the hands I'll post are hands that are out of the ordinary.

Obviously, the negative feedback that I receive on such hands is positive affirmation of why certain elements of play have no regular spot in my arsenal. The positive comments about certain aspects allow me to apply that to other hands in specific scenarios in the future. I'm a strong believer that changing up plays and finding out certain maneuvers in the game are what make you a better player, and every time you find something new is another step closer to becoming a great player.

In that specific hand, there were plenty of reasons I made the plays I did. Obviously, if it weren't a $1/2NL game it would've run a bit differently than it did. But even in that exact scenario I was changing up play to try something new. On the river in that spot I will usually check every time. But rest assured that the idea of not betting without +EV was an idea learned by me early, and is instinctual at this point.

Brando - I agree with everything you put in the comment box on that hand. On that river I check every time, except for this one hand when I decided to "see what happens". I don't usually do that, and we're on the same page of thinking there. I appreciate your feedback and any strat you're willing to talk, because I find you to be a great player, and if the things that you're saying are the things that I'm thinking then I guess I'll do just fine when I start playin regularly again :)

Another hand that unfolded very strangely in that same session (damn $1/2NL....I swear these people confuse me) came up right after I got hit by the inside straights twice in a matter of minutes to felt me. I rebought for $200 and quickly called off a couple missed flush draws, putting out a pretty steamy image pretty quickly after my rebuy.

Then a strange-ish hand came up. I'm not sure on the exact details, but I'm pretty sure this was close. Darsky may chime in if something is horribly wrong in my recap, as he was standing right there. Again, here's the setting:
1-seat - me
2-seat - Very loose and a huge non-believer. Overplayed all of his hands and chased out of his mind. Bought in for the full $500 and down to about $300.
5-seat - Very quiet, mellow player. He didn't say a word except for "nice hand" and seemed to be playing tight-ish preflop and made some loose calls postflop. His betting patterns were aggressive when he had it, check/call when he didn't.

5-seat was the one who caught on me the second time around. He now had about $350 in front of him. I was sittin on about $170 with the 2-seat still on around $300.

I posted the BB, 2-seat limped UTG and 5-seat popped it to $15 from mid position. It folded around to me and I looked down at 5s-6s. I sprung two more redbirds into the pot and 2-seat followed me with a call.

Flop: 5c-5d-Ah.

BBBOOOMMM. I check, as did 2-seat before 5-seat fired right out with $20. I looked to my left to see the eager beaver behind me with four chips in his hand ready to call. Figuring 2-seat loved to call everything that was sent his way, and the fact that I was positive the tightish 5-seat would fire again on the turn, I opted for a flat call now and a check again on the turn. I called off as did our buddy behind me.

Turn: 6c

The prettiest card I could've seen peeled off. I followed through with my plan to check, and 2-seat checked once again as 5-seat came out with $45. Out of the corner of my eye I once again saw 2-seat impatiently count out and set aside nine chips for the call. Here I didn't know if I should slow down and let him in, or push it in against the both of them. I didn't really have a range on 2-seat because of the fact that he played everything. It was possible for him to have A-10 as much as it was for him to have 4-4.

I decided to call off one more time and open shove the rest of my $90-ish into the two players behind in a decent-sized pot. The stop and go is not a commonly used play by me, but I figured it to get the most out of 2-seat. Also, I figured that with my stack size compared to the pot and based on the play I'd seen at the table to this point, if they both had a big Ace I might get a call from both on the river and triple up.

River: Qc

I pushed my remaining stack out. 2-seat squiggled around in his seat for a second, asking "aww man did you hit that running clubs?", and "aaawwww come onnn....". He eventually folded after a bit of hesitation, and then 5-seat hit the tank.

Now that 2-seat dropped out I was pretty sure 5-seat was comin in. He also debated for a little bit while counting out the call. He messed with his chips and finally pushed them in with a bit of doubt on his face. I flipped over the boat and he nodded his head in acceptance. "Nice hand."

Ship it to me the moniez.

2-seat laughed and said that he laid down A-10 as I scooped the pot. Minutes later I would bust him for his last $46 with my AK soooted against his 10-10. He left with a huff.

Darsky was done with his session and we left pretty shortly after that. I came back from the earlier loss and cashed out up $160 before heading over to and getting sucked out on at the MGM $2-5NL for around $800.

Again, comments on the hand are much appreciated. Keep in mind the stakes. If it were a higher game the play would probably be transparent, but as it was it played out with maximum profit for me.

Until next time.

Goddammit Anyways - A Visa Virtual Giftcard Story

2007-05-14T10:10:00.000-07:00

Being as how I'm in the playing mood lately, I figured I'd try to throw a hundo online and mess around a little bit. I didn't know what I was planning on playing, probably just small $10 private tournies or some small games on FT or somethin. I didn't really care, honestly. I just wanted to play and I wanted to play right then.

Last time I threw money online, since my debit card never worked and since mostly all the hassle-free sites stopped serving the US, I decided to try the Visa giftcards. I tried using the ones they offered online, a virtual giftcard, instead of going to a store to physically purchase one. The site had said that the Vcards didn't work at online gambling venues, but there were various
reports that they did in fact work at Full Tilt and Poker Stars. I loaded one up, and sure enough it worked.

I tried doin that yesterday and it appears that that form of payment processing no longer works. Now, I'm stuck with a hunred bucks on a virtual giftcard that I can't cancel, and that I'd have to pay a service fee for if I wanted to get a physical Visa giftcard in exchange for it.

This isn't really a huge beat for me since I enjoy buying stuff from online anyways, but what I really wanted to do was play a little bit, and now I can't even do that without jumpin across a bunch of e-bridges to get to where I wanna be. Thanks a lot you goddamn UIGEA.

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Anyways, I was going to make this post mainly about hand reviews, but I honestly haven't played in a while to have anything review worthy. I have a couple from the $1/3NL game at Caesar's, but other than that I now realize that there's not been enough play to really post much up here.

In any case, here's a couple hands.

Game is the $1/3NL at Caesar's. The games are soooo soft and the players are meh. Player in the 4-seat is the only decent player at the table and he's sitting on around $800 and growing. Everyone else seems to be very fishy and probably what one would expect at a $1/3 table. The main players here are gonna be:

1-seat - me
2-seat - Very loose and a huge non-believer. Overplayed all of his hands and chased out of his mind. Bought in for the full $500 and down to about $300.
5-seat - Very quiet, mellow player. He didn't say a word except for "nice hand" and seemed to be playing tight-ish preflop and made a lot of loose calls postflop.
9-seat - New to the table. I saw him call down draws with no odds as well as middle pair/underpair a couple times to the river. I also saw him call ridiculousness to the turn and river and bet when he hit. Bought in for $500, sitting on around $700.

At this point I had bought in for $100 and coming up on two hours I was up to around $380. I had been playing pretty solid, taking down a lot of pots with no showdown, and at the same time showing down only winners to the river.

Button is on the 4-seat and it folds to the 9-seat who limps for $3. I sense folds back around to the blinds so I pop it to my regular $10 with the Kc3c (pinch pinch, insert krablar dance here). Everyone folds back around to the 9-seat who calls off the $7 more.

Flop: Qd-Jh-5h.

9-seat checks and I fire out with a cbet, hoping to take it down with my winning image. The $20 gets called and we head to the turn.

Turn: Ks

9-seat checks again and now I gotta figure his range here. I don't put him on a made hand just yet. K-10 is possible, but I figure if he hits the King with the straight draw on the turn he's betting at me. I put him on either the Jack or the heart draw. I bet out $60 behind him and he thinks for a second and calls. Watching him play up to this point, he called pretty quickly with his draws and hesitatingly with his weaker pairs. At this point I put him on the Jack because of the pause.

River: 10x

The heart misses and he checks to me again. I think this may actually be a good card for me, as my image is tight and the Ace-out might make him lay down a better hand should he have one. At this point I'd rather him fold obv, but I'm ok with my read if he calls. I cut down a hundred stack and he thinks for a minute...and then minraises another $100.

FUOIWU(*)@$U@)(%IJOOSF()%@%. Dammit...I hem and haw for a second to showboat, even though I'm not puttin another dollar into this pot. I'm pretty pissed at myself for gettin into this situation in the first place, but for the first part of the hand I felt like I had the right line.

I let it go and he shows me A-7 offsuit for the rivered straight. I knew he was a huuuge moron, but didn't think it out to that extent. He scooped the pot and I was visibly pissed at the calldown. At that point I just dumped off a tiny bit more than half my stack that I had just spent an hour and half building, and was pretty stunned at how horrible the $1/2NL is.

I couldn't figure out how to really feel after that one. I read him as weak and played my hand accordingly, although it was a crap hand to get in with anyways. I knew he was a caller, so whether or not I should've tangled is definitely questionable. But there was multiple ways that I thought I could've won that hand and it definitely didn't work out.

About two hands later I get the rest of my stack in against 5-seat with AsQs on a 8-9-10-J board. I bet the flop of 8-9-10 and he called. The Jack hit and we got it all in. I knew before his cards were even turned over that he had KQ.

gg me, I go for the reload

I had a pretty big hand that got me back in the black after the reload, which I'll post up tomorrow. I know it has a lot to do with personal reads, and it's difficult to judge a live hand vs. an online hand, but let me know what you think about that K3 hand. There'll be more tomorrow.

Getting Back To My Playing Days

2007-05-14T08:37:00.000-07:00

One of the things that's really got me slumped right now is the fact that I can't play cards. It was always the one thing to settle my mind, and back when I was playin heavily I was doin alright.

Goin on week-long $4K rushes at a $200 cap buy-in game was fun, but through frivolous spending, loaning, bad play, blackjack, and...sushi...the rushes came and went just as fast. That meant that whenever I was having a losing day or week, or going through a $1500 downswing, my bankroll was never around to support me. I know that I've written about BR problems before, but I'm gonna go into a little bit more detail this time around.

The reason that I always spent so much when I had it is that I never played with a bankroll. From back when I was in college, working part-time and having small amounts of cash on me, to the times when I moved close to Chumash to play the $200 capped $2-5NL, I've never run with a bankroll.

For the most part it was because I never had extra cash to turn into a bankroll. The money I was playing with was living money. It was rent, bills, and food money, all while working crap jobs (or for crap pay anyways). I was good enough of a player to keep my head above water when payment time came around, and in my mind I knew I was better than that. I should have been rolling, I should have been building and expanding.

After I tried to screw my head on straight and buckle down, of course I started a massive losing streak. All the money I had went down the drain to turns and rivers bred from the depths of Hell, and my play started to get sloppy. Then it turned into me not even wanting to play because of all the money I had lost when I was only making $10/hr working.

I decided to take a little time off for multiple reasons. I really went into deep thought about my game, and discussing it on multiple levels with a few different people. It was obvious that I was better than I had playing, and if it weren't for my horrible bankroll management I might've been able to use the mental regeneration at that point to turn myself into something.

As it were, I was broke and in definite need of rebuilding. When I started reading about how massive people were making it playing online, I decided to start up a little quest playing SnG's and $5-10 on Ultimate Bet. With a goal and a promise in mind, Sitting The Apple was born.

I was keeping pretty strong notes, tallies, and records. Most of what happened in that short amount of time was chronicled in this blog. I started out pretty strong, and then came the beating. I started getting hit with the most ridiculous shit and couldn't even keep my eyes open to watch anymore.

I can honestly say that it was during this downswing that I've ever been nearly as close to destroying my personal possessions then I've ever become. I was a mental mess. I was trying to prove to myself and everyone else that doubted me that I could do it and that I could make it in the poker world. All the while the misfortune of bad luck was working in every way possible against me.

The one thing that came out of that time period that I'm actually grateful for is that I really learned to conquer my poker-related emotions (...for the most part). I knew then that no matter how pissed or upset I got over all the bad beats or bad play, it wasn't gonna bring my money back. The only way to do that was to move on and play through the variance.

As odd as it sounds, I actually got better during the time that I wasn't playing.

Luckily for me, Darsky was willing to back me for a little bit, and help me through what turned out to be the most mentally rough time I've had in my personal life. During that time we were able to put together some good runs, usually with good results for the both of us. I was playing a little more and playing well, and I was winning money for both of us.

As it turned out, however, whenever I tried to play my own cash or play from the winnings I was keeping from Darren's stake, I was losing. I was still making no money at all working, and went back to losing with my own cash. There was a lot of times I thought about quitting poker altogether, but I couldn't get the thought out of my mind that I could be such a good player.

Now let's fast forward to recent months, as I continue my streak of busto. In December, after another break, I decided to pick up some cash and hit Vegas. LOST.

Again in January. LOST.

Goddammit, it just seems like I'll never get on my feet. But...

After taking a few months off again, and thinking over and over again about my game and about the game in general, I'm right where I need to be. Most of what I thought about during this most recent break is that I'm not going back to where I was. I was never set in my thinking and was always thinking ups and downs. But now that my life is more stabilized I know I can beat the game.

Most of all I thought about all the times I've had to take off and think about stuff. I think I'm finally in my game and now I just need one more chance to prove it. I have no cash...again. Even though I'm more set financially I haven't had a chance to save for a BR because personal stuff keeps coming up (car, household needs, etc.). I'll be taking off to New York to visit my parents in the upcoming months, so I'll be saving most of my money for that.

If I could somehow get a bank going, I know I'd be off to the races. My last trip to Vegas ended with a harsh five-outer at the $2-5NL game at the MGM. I had built up playing $1-2NL at Caesar's, and put my built stack from the one session at the $2-5NL at the MGM. I got my stack in with QQ against a soft table and A-7 on a 4-5-7 board. An Ace on the turn ended my playing for that trip, and now it's only a matter of time until I'm back in the game.

Coming up I'm gonna be running through a couple hands and some analysis, and can hopefully pick up some insight from some of you readers out there *cough*BRANDO*cough*.

Until next time.

The Regular Realization of the Work Tarp

2007-05-13T13:28:00.000-07:00

After a horribly boring Wednesday through Friday, Friday night did not fail to deliver. I made plans with a chick friend to go out for dinner, drinks, etc. She had school on Saturday morning, so she couldn't drink a lot, but I had no such restrictions and I was determined to erase some of the most boring days I'd experienced in a while.

I headed downtown at around 6PM to meet up with a couple people who were drinking where one of our friends was bartending that evening. I wasn't meeting for dinner until around 8, so I had a little bit of time to hang out and take care of a few beers. When she showed up she sat for one drink before we took off to find food.

We ended up finding a nice Italian place, where we polished off a really good meal and a bottle of pinot noir. We had a great time, the atmosphere was super nice, and the $126 bill was well worth it. After that we hit up a pub for some more drinks and ended up staying until close.

She seemed to be having a great time, and for me it was definitely another great getaway from the daily, uninteresting grind at the office. Most days while I'm at work I just go through the motions. Come in, pound through six cups of coffee before 11 o'clock comes around, and start thinking about lunch. After lunch, I head back and wait for 4:30 to come around so I can get home.

The work I do is not hard, nor is it incredibly mind-draining. There's been a few times when I've actually had to use my brain, and in those few scarce times I actually enjoyed it. I enjoyed the mental challenge, and when no one else is smart enough to figure out solutions to the problems presented to the company, I like being the one that can help.

It's because of that that I have the position I do with this company, and why I'm seen as valuable to the higher ups. The downside of what I do is that when I'm not needed to do things that require skills/brains, all the menial tasks bore me beyond belief.

When I got back from Vegas last weekend, I felt awesome. Vegas is always nonstop fun, as evidenced by last weekend when I was up for 50 hours straight. Even when I return from Vegas, the thrill of the time spent there will keep my mind occupied for a couple days. Of course, after the memories dissipate I'm left to daydream about the next time I'll be able to head out there again.

Luckily for me, on Tuesday I was presented by a request from the big bossman to work on a project that could take months to accomplish. He was pretty blatant about the fact that he knew that nobody else in the small company could handle it, and that I was more qualified to take on the quest more than even he was. I know that the suits of companies have to talk up the valuable employees so that they'll stick around, and that's something I'll never forget. But even with that, I sure did feel like a badass at the end of the lunch meeting.

Even though I'm not getting paid a lot right now, I hear a lot of promise and have already seen a little bit of follow through. I'm making a decent amount for my age right now, and I feel like if I stick around for a while I could be making quite a bit at a pretty young age. That thought, coupled with the freedom I have working for a small business (leaving early, alcohol at lunch, etc. etc.) have kept me around this long already, and will probably keep me here for a while more.

For now, I'll put up with the monotony of the every day work, but I can only imagine how bored I'll be until something big happens.

Until next time.

OOPS!

2007-05-11T14:49:00.000-07:00

I got caught up last night (alcohol) and never made it around to blogging. It's coming though!

Until then, here's a pic of Allison Stokke to hold you over

What Is This Feeling?

2007-05-10T09:10:00.000-07:00

Oh, it's an update coming when I get home

Estefans: Getting Into the Game

2007-05-07T18:52:00.000-07:00

#286 of 2500, Commemorative Gloria Estefan Caesar's Palace $5 Chip

Pictured above is not only a commemorative $5 gaming chip produced by Paulson and released by Caesar's Palace, but it is a goal. It is an idea. It is a game. It is a hope, and a wish.

Last time Darsky and I went to Vegas, we spent a little time in the Caesar's card room. While there I was forced by my affection for poker chips browse through the different commemorative chips I had in my stack. The ones I found ranged from "Grand Opening" to "Celine Dion" to "Gloria Estefan". As I had finished plucking through my chips I headed over to Dar's table to ask if had found any different ones.

As I neared his table I could see that him and Brandon were already feverishly tearing through their stacks. As I approached Brando let out an excited "hah!" as he held up a Gloria Estefan chip. I asked Darsky what was going on between the two of them, and he had told me that the hunt was on between the two of them to obtain the lowest numbered commemorative Estefan chip. Brandon had just found #0059, and he had proudly placed it atop his mountain of cheques.

The mission quickly spread throughout the entire table, as Darsky and Brandon had everyone at their table searching through their stacks to try to beat the current leader. By the end of the night, Darsky had managed to extract the #0059 from Brandon, and he had held the lead when we left the poker room that night.

I hadn't bothered to take any Estefans that night, both because I wasn't at their table, and because I busted. But as soon as I realized the severity of the challenge, I promised myself that whenever we went back I'd get in the hunt to compete with the other two playahs.

We were impressed for sure that night, both with the classiness of the poker room as well as with the atmosphere of the players. And although the location isn't optimal the room still gets decent action. We instantly put it on our list of places to play every time we went out to Sin City, and even though it felt like a short trip this time we made it over there again.

When we arrived, since I had no roll and barely any cash on me, I decided to sit in the $1-3NL game. There was a bunch of tables of different sizes running, and Vegas in general was extra full because of the fight at the MGM Grand Saturday night. I didn't have to wait too long to get a table.

I bought in for $100 and quickly turned that into around $380 before getting smacked by two back to back inside straight draws for my entire stack. This put me on ultra tilt and I went into a mental shell for a second before I rebought for $200 and quickly upped myself back to around $460 within twenty minutes. Once settled on some chips again, my brain calmed down and I realized that I hadn't even started looking for Estefans yet!

I quickly tore down my two towers to sniff out any Estefans, yet the only one I could find was a #1516/2500. Surely enough that wasn't even something I could show around the circle of competitors. Even though Brandon had already reported back a #0029 since our last departure, I felt that I could hold a position in the races if I could find anything within the #0300 mark.

Darsky had come over since he left his table, and him and I got into discussion as to what the number to beat was. The kid sitting across from me overheard our convo and he was soon looking through his $800+ to find some Estefans of his own. He ended up coming out with the #0286. I bargained with him and it was soon in my possession. I found a decent number to hold on to until next time we go back, where I'll be in major hunt mode.

We left Caesar's with me up $160, but that was the extend that my profits would see for the weekend. We headed over to the MGM while I decided if I should hit up the $1-2NL and have enough for a couple buy-ins, or if I should try to take advantage of the super soft $2-5NL games they had running, which would require putting my whole cash stash on the line.

I picked the latter, and found myself at one of the softest tables I had seen in quite a while. There was a bunch of guys drinking, and they were damn friendly. If the phrase "the nicer the guy, the worse the poker player" was ever true, it definitely applied to this table. I dropped a tiny bit with a couple missed flops before I picked up QQ in late position.

The friendly next to me check-raised me from the small blind on a flop of 4-5-7. I made my read and it didn't take long to get my stack in against A-7. An Ace on the turn felted me and I was done for the weekend. Mitch and JCruz came to pick me up and we headed over to Buffalo Wild Wings. At that point I hadn't slept for 37 hours, and hadn't eaten for 12. We ate like kings at that place, and after that Mitch and I headed back to the MGM to wait for Darsky to finish up so we could go hang out.

Darsky treated Mitch and I to a night of drinks after we were both completely cleaned out, and we had a hell of a good time on Saturday morning/Sunday night. The three of us ended our drinking parade at Planet Hollywood, where John works. We sat at the bar and Keno battled (as is tradition), and met a few fun people.

There was a smokin hot chick in the lounge, talking for forever with what looked like her parents. I kept checking her out, and after about a twenty-minute losing stretch at Keno, I decided to have my drunk self recruit her for my number-picking. As I approached them, the parents looked pretty shocked, but she had no hesitation to jump out of her chair to follow me to the video Keno machines.

The first round she picked for me, she hit a 4/7 and I was instantly shouting with joy. She was hesitant to stay for one more round, but she did again and hit for 3/7 spots. Again, I shouted with elation as I praised her infinite skill. I was definitely drunk, and I definitely made a big deal out of it to all those involved in the Keno battle.

I pleaded with her to stay, but as she laser-eyed her parents, a sad look came across her face and she insisted that she had to go. I looked over and saw her parents (now standing) with a stern/disappointed look on their faces, and I quickly asked her name. I'm pretty sure it was Christina, and as she picked up her purse to walk away I found out that she was only 17, hence the severity of her parents demands that she walk away.

OOPS.

We finished up and headed over to find John, who was dealing a $2-4 game in the poker room. The three of us sat down courtesy of Darsky, and I almost instantly started falling asleep at the table, thanks to the fact that I had been up for 50 hours straight by that point. I busted with A8 on a 6-7-8-8 board all in against 7-7, and I blanked the river.

After that I tried to fall asleep in about three different spots in the poker room while I waited for Mitch and Darsky to finish up, and for JCruz to finish his shift. I was rejected three times.

I finally pulled up a chair behind Dar, and dozed in and out while trying to keep awake for the next hour. I finally got some relief when Cruz finished his shift early, and I passed out for six hours at John's place before we headed home.

All in all, it was a weekend of fun and hanging out with John. A little cards were played (obviously), but moreso it was a hell of a getaway from the every day grind at the office, and I definitely need that. I also came away with an Estefan to get myself in the game, and you can bet your ass I'm gonna make a strong push for a good number when we go back in June.

Until next time.

Graduation Time or Casual Friday?

2007-05-04T10:11:00.001-07:00

Graduation time is here, but not for me...

Had I been a good student and son and stayed in school, graduation time would be approaching me pretty quickly now. I would've already put in a couple years of hard work mixed with a lot of hard college partying weekends out in the Valley. My artistic prowess would be at an all-time greatness and my upcoming Bachelor's Degree in graphic design would be a welcome thought in my mind.

My years of working part-time for crap pay would eventually pay off as I entered into the world of the working force. With my newly acquired certification of knowledge I'd most likely try to get in with an advertising giant in LA, or perhaps travel to New York and hit up the Big City with the same intention. Obviously within years I would've been an experienced young 27-year-old with more ambition than money, but more experience than that guy who never went to college.

I can't really see far past that.

As it turned out in reality, I put in a semester of shitty schoolwork (except for English, which I dominated) and another half semester of falling asleep, both at home in bed and at school. I don't think I really want to remember my college life because it sucked so bad. I've always been a friendly, affable person who knows that he's capable of being the best at anything he does. This never happened for me in college.

Instead of sticking around my high-school town and going to the community college for a couple years with all the friends I had made, I left and headed for the San Fernando Valley in search of a closer living situation with my highschool sweetheart. I figured that if I had her and a place to sleep, I could conquer schooling and lead a fulfilling life. And oh how fucking wrong I was.

I was okay at first, but obviously the college experience started kicking in and Becca decided that she needed more out of college then just a boyfriend and her friends. She needed partying, alcohol, sex, drugs, and all the other fun stuff that would've been better without a solid relationship behind her.

Of course there's no blame to place, as most people experience this when they go to college. Freshman year is a crazy time, and whatever you experience in high school is multiplied by as many times as there are stars in the sky. She went her way with it, I went into a black hole.

I started to spend more hours working part-time than I did actually attending school, and had all of about four friends in my new hometown. My living situation was unbearable, and I felt like I wanted to get the hell out most nights. My driver's license had been suspended thanks to a bunch of sophomoric driving on my part during the summer prior to college, so I had no way to leave when I wanted to.

Basically, my college experience was rotten, except for poker. This was the time I started to play poker. I wanted to get away, and when I had people who were lookin to always go to the closest indian casino that accepted 18-20 year-olds you bet your ass I was goin with them. I started playin home games and a tiny bit of SnGs online to get my fix from time to time. I read a lot and even had some contact with a few professionals who had some words for me in regards to becoming a professional poker player.

It was poker playing that would eventually lead me to a better place. When I met Joe, he was introduced to me as a "poker-playing" boyfriend of one my closest friends from CSUN. We started playing together, he started playing our home game, and we started headin up to the nearest casinos to play for days at a day without sleep. We both totally immersed ourselves in the game.

I ended up getting a job offer with tremendous "potential" in Santa Barbara, where Joe and a pretty cool group of his friends were also attending UCSB. With a car now under me at this point and the nearest casino with a 14-table poker room being twenty-five minutes away instead of the previous hour and a half, along with the fact that I would be able to eat, sleep, and breathe poker, the decision was pretty clear-cut in my mind.

I ended up packing my stuff up almost immediately, and took a one-week grace period to stop going to CSUN altogether and to crash in Santa Barbara until I had to start work. That one week ended in a four-day poker bender, where Joe and I played cards to four days straight without showering or sleeping. We didn't leave the poker room other than to eat and shit, with one exception of a four-hour nap in the car on the fourth morning. Without a doubt we smelled like shit, but we were winning and having the time of our lives.

That was the last time I'd ever really feel like a true poker player. I started working, first in the warehouse like everyone else, where'd I'd stay making $10 an hour for a year. I eventually got bumped up into my position six months ago making $39k a year with promised promotions and raises. My first raise came to me last week.

So as I sit here typing this in the office with no hesitation or worries of being hounded by strict bosses, and as I sit here with a comfortable living and a settled mind knowing that the promises by the Man are coming to, I can't really grasp what I think about the whole thing.

I could have been in school this whole time, slacking and barely getting by on procrastination and laziness, only to TRY to get a job at a big agency upon graduation. But I didn't do any of that, I took the job. Now I'm here working a 9-5'er with salary, raises, lax rules, and boss who's willing to pay for me to go to school if and when I ever feel like it, in a town that's as beautiful as any you've ever seen.

For now it feels like a great plan, but will it really make me happy in the end? I suppose only time will tell...

Until next time.

Zen Zone

2007-05-02T10:40:00.000-07:00

For the past couple weeks, as quiet as I've been, I've been trying to find my "Zen Zone". I've spent most of the past couple of years of my life living in a very unsubtle, unstable state. I had moments of extreme happiness, as well as a lot of moments of deep to mild depression. For the past couple of weeks, I've been level.

I've been working a lot, partying a little bit, but the biggest difference in it all has been my state of mind. Since I was put in a position to have to stop playing poker/gambling a couple months ago, my mind and my personality have really steadied out. I was never in a completely crazy state of mind, but most of my time the past couple years has been teetering between one extreme or the next.

I feel like it's because of that that my poker game suffered, and I went from a winning player to a complete losing player in a matter of a couple months. It got worse and worse until I forced myself to stop playing altogether. Now, with a fresh frame of mind I feel like I could start playing again without much consequence.

Now that I've been away from any serious game for so long, I feel like it's a great time to start playing again. The only problem is money! I have been working, but I've also been paying a lot towards bills, credit, and weekend fun. Santa Barbara is a great place, it's fun every day and every night, and it's on the beach. The sun is always shining, and even when it's not the town is so rich that people can pay the sun to show its face again. Because of all that, it's expensive as all hell to live here.

I did receive some great news last week, and it came in the form of a financial offer. My raise was presented to me, and although I don't know how much it is going to be exactly yet, it should help a lot. With the great news buzzing in my ear, I've been swinging from a calm mood to various levels of happiness.

Knowing that I won't have money to play for a little while, Mitch and I decided to hit up Vegas in June. I completely was absent-minded in that I didn't even think that the WSOP was going to be in town then. Of course, if I have enough money or if I can find a back, I'll be hoping to play one or two or five of the smaller buy-in events.

Ever since we made the plans last week I've been excited as a kid on Christmas Eve. While sitting at work, acting like a giggly little girl for plans that won't come to fruition for a month and a half, I had a great idea: Vegas....now!!

I hit up John yesterday, and made a few calls to get a crew together to hit up Vegas this weekend. We'll be crashing John's place and probably sleeping on the floor, and I doubt I'll play much, but it should be a hell of a fun weekend. There will be lots of drinking, minimal playing, a lot of relaxing in the humid Vegas heat. I'm sure we'll probably be playing some cards on some level, since three out of the four of us that will be there are poker players, but definitely not as much as any of us would like there to be. And sadly enough, there won't be for a while to come until I can get some solid funds under my feet.

Plans for the weekend definitely put alchohol before cards, but if I can get together a small stash of cash, I might put in a few hours at the $1/$2NL tables. Although it would've killed me a few months ago to even mention $1/$2, I definitely am in a great state of mind right now to play any size game and still crush whatever crowd I get presented with. Obviously I'll report how accurate that feeling is after the trip, but for now I feel like it'll be pretty true.

I keep telling myself (and my readers) that I'll post more, but I have yet to follow through on it. Now that I'm on an even keel, I'll probably be able to write with more enthusiasm and hopefully post more regularly than I have been doing the past couple months.

Zen is good.

Until next time.

A Long Drive Home

2007-04-13T18:40:00.000-07:00

For the past couple of weeks I've been pretty busy with work, hence the lack of updates. I've pretty much abandoned my day-long message board attendance as well as my at-home internet trolling in exchange for working hard during the day and playing (read: drinking) hard at night.

I'm putting up a lot more effort and good thinking than I have at work so far, and it's come just in time for my raise month. If all goes well next week, I'll be floating on an extra 10% annually, which will hopefully help get me back in the game sometime soon.

For the past couple days, I've been heading up to one of our locations in Santa Maria, partly because we had a support rep out and partly because I don't ever go up there. I didn't so much need to talk to the rep, as she was out to support the incompetent bookkeeping department, but I got to spend a couple days hangin in the office of one of our branches. It wasn't fun nor exciting, it just was what it was.

Santa Maria's a quieter, less "happening" town than Santa Barbara. In SB you see unbelievable looking women (fake or not...who cares), nice cars, and beautiful weather. If you walk down to the end of any street, you'll hit beach or cliffs overlooking the ocean. And although the town is packed together, there's palm trees adorning the entire town.

The people dress nice. Business and success flood the air. You can hear shot empty shot glasses slammed onto bar countertops at any time of the day. At night (ok, realistically at around 4PM) the office lights go out and the neon signs from the bar-lined State Street light up. The partying doesn't stop until the morning, and many times sleep on Friday night is only a break until the partying resumes at noon at Saturday. Altogether Santa Barbara is a pretty wealthy, accomplished, fun-feeling town.

Santa Maria is pretty much the exact opposite. For the past couple of days, what little women I have seen were a mix of trailer trash and farmer, which could technically be considered the same thing, right? A bunch of older SUV's and trucks slowly occupy the streets of a windy, boring city. There's no apparent hotspots, though I didn't travel very far into the large town. And for all intents and purposes, SM lacks class.

The one thing that I didn't mind about taking the hour-long drive to the other location is that the two towns conveniently sandwich the Chumash Casino.

I wasn't planning on stopping by the purple and mustard tribal safehaven, because my financial situation is all but optimal at this point. But as I got off the freeway in the town over to get gas, I ended up getting pulled in to the temptation. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but the best explanation is that I got sucked in by the gravitational pull of the large building.

Regardless of if you believe that or not, I ended up inside and with $200 quickly burning a hole in my pocket. Instead of dealing with a possibly dead card room and battling with my own game, which is suffering more than I can possibly even try to describe, I had one mission in mind: blackjack.

On the half hour drive to the casino I thought about the different ways that certain techniques could be profitable, and what would work and what wouldn't on such a sma bank. Based on results of the last five minutes of my previous blackjack session, I decided to try a 5-hand let-it-ride run. I would try it intermittently when the deck was running hot, and with a little luck I could hit a couple good runs.

As soon as I hit the pit I tore the first $100 out of my pocket and got slid a stack of redbirds. A four-handed table turned into a two-handed table three hands after I sat down, and after not even attempting my Run, I was down and out in ten minutes. Yeah, I'm retarded.

I hadn't even realized what had happened, nor had I paid attention to what was going on at the table. It was pretty pathetic.

Obviously not even close to being satisfied, I busted out the second hundred at a fresh table with two other clean players and before we knew it we were on a hot shoe. I decided to take a shot with my Run, and was looking good until the fourth hand. I let my profit from my $40 hand ride, and with $80 I took a 16. Luckily I was playing against a dealer 4, which turned into a 14->16->26. I stacked it one more time to play a $160 hand. I had managed to turn a tenth of my buy-in into the table into a single bet worth more than 75% of my entire buy-in in the night.

With the fifth hand on the betting circle, I pulled an ugly 14. Again, I struck gold as the dealer turned a 15 into another bust. I took down the $360 with a big smile on my face. The Run worked!!

I had only planned on staying for a couple hours, so after taking a couple more shots at the Run, I left the casino up $400. I was up $800 at one point, but in the middle of a three-shoe rush our table picked up a rogue MexAsian woman who decidedly to royally fuck us by adding and dropping hands, hitting 14's against 5's, and basically playing everything she could to get the casino some money back. If I found out that she worked for the casino, I wouldn't be surprised. In fact that makes the most sense to fuck over a hot table.

In the end I got my money and left, so it wasn't too bad. I got some food money for the next few weeks and I couldn't be happier about my impulse decision to take a trip to the forbidden zone. It made Friday a lot more bearable, and the toughest decision I'll be faced with for the next few days is where and how I'm gonna get drunk.

Here's to the weekend.

Until next time.

Gearin Up

2007-04-03T21:01:00.000-07:00

As I sat on my couch preparing myself to watch the new season of the Deadliest Catch (unbuttoning my pants, turning the lights low, etc. etc.), I came to the uninitiated realization that I am completely in love with Rachel Leigh Cook.

I wasn't watching anything specific, nor had I seen anything with her in it recently. It was just minutes ago in fact, and as I was manumitting the random thoughts of the day from work, for whatever strange reason that may have caused it I just started to think of how amazingly hot she is.

It's not that I hadn't noticed it before, but I am officially claiming my love for this beautiful petite brunette. If she offers herself to me in marriage, I will graciously and unhesitatingly accept. Let this be documented.

The Fire-Pissing Bike Thief

2007-03-29T23:02:00.000-07:00

Tonight as I was walking down the main sidewalk that runs along the beach in Santa Barbara with a couple friends, we witnessed the most pathetic act a human being can perform: thievery. I happened to have my digital camera with me, so here's an action shot of the villian.

We also passed by a sign later that night that fit really well into the situation that we witnessed. People who steal other people's things are truly a form of scum, and are ultimately morons in the end. There's a different kind of crime feel for stealing from a store or a big corporation, or stealing something large that's worth something. But stealing someone's radio or someone's bike is absolutely retarded. Get a life you idiots.

Is it really that hard to go get a job and stop being a poor fuck?? I have no respect or tolerance for people who refuse to help themselves from stuff that's as pathetic of petty thievery. And if you're going to steal something, put some effort and planning into it. Don't be a dumbass and act like an amateur.

The kid that we saw tonight looked to be around 18, and looked to be dismantling and stealing a bike that was evidently not his. Walking down the highly-lit sidewalk, we could hear the metallic clash that would end up being the handlebars clanging against the frame of the soon-to-be-stolen ride.

As we quickly approached, the idiot hastily jumped up from a crouched position and turned to face the beach with his hands in his pockets. He let a hugely obvious sigh and stood there on the edge of the sidewalk staring out towards the beach.

As if he didn't do enough to NOT conceal his mission the first time, we had to walk past him again minutes later on the way back to the car. He was still there, and again as we neared the bike we could hear the noise of him frantically trying to dismantle a lock of some sort. I had my camera ready on this time by, and took a blurry moving picture. I made sure to put my camera on a high-flash setting, and snapped a shot as we walked by, this time actually catching him with the handlebars in his hands, which were comically still connected to the frame and back tire via a chain lock. The flash shocked him for sure, but he still didn't leave the bike alone.

It's these kind of idiots that make me want to just end the lives of all of those that are absolutely meaningless and pathetic in this world. Hopefully this person will die young and I will feel better about the state of the poor part of our economy.

Anyways. Don't be a dirtbag.

Until next time.

DVD Drought

2007-03-28T23:23:00.000-07:00

I've been missing a few things lately, and all the advertising of new seasons of my favorite shows have clearly pointed out what it is: DVD's.

I love buying TV show DVD's, and I'm long overdue for a trip down to Circuit City. Here's what's on my list:
The Office (USA Version) - Season 2
House - Seasons 1 & 2
Scrubs - All Seasons
Entourage - Seasons 2 & 3
Dealiest Catch - Season 2

If there's one reason that I haven't bought any of this stuff yet, it's because for the past couple of months I've been broke. I feel a shopping trip coming up soon, though, so perhaps a few or all of these will be mine in the near future.

Hello There, My Minions

2007-03-26T19:21:00.000-07:00

I know I'm such a bastard, I've heard it before. I'll hear it again no doubt. I haven't been writing much for the past week, because honestly nothing has come up to write about. I've been working a lot this past week, as we've discovered a problem in the database that will take weeks (hopefully) to fix. Exciting stuff, right?

Usually when I'm not doing things, I'll have some random thought or something from the past to write about, but not lately. My mind's been swamped by hordes of database problems, and when I get home the only thing I've been doing is sitting on my laptop or watching TV. It's been great fun, actually, not doing anything that is.

This weekend was also the first time I've stayed in Santa Barbara in a while. I've been going to Ventura or Simi or somewhere for quite a while, so having a weekend to stay at home, not answering phone calls (text messages I'll respond to, obv) was a relief. I actually didn't go to bed till around 7AM on Friday night, which caused me to sleep until 3:30PM Saturday.

When I did eventually wake up on Saturday, I received a hilarious text message from Darsky, who's currently in Vegas. It was a message of disgust and disbelief, a drunken tale of sorrow and human misuse. Basically he hooked up with a fat chick, and I was partially to blame, both for not being there to keep him in the card room and/or keeping him away from fat chicks while he's drunk.

Being as how I sat around for the remainder of the day and night on Saturday, I felt like going out for at least a little bit on Sunday. Mitch drove out to SB and we hit up a little local microbrewery for lunch, enjoying multiple rounds of brew as we gawked/talked to the millions of hot chicks walking around State Street in Santa Barbara on a Sunday.

After that back at my place, as we took shots of Casadores, we had a decision to make. We could either go to Chumash with a $100 each and see what we could do at the blackjack tables, OR....we could not. At this point, although slightly buzzed, the former option seemed much better. I had been pretty lazy all week after work, and hadn't really gone outside, so I wanted to go do something.

Now I'm pretty broke right now, but I'm not to the point where $100 will hurt to lose. Mitchell, on the other hand, didn't feel like popping $100 to go lose it at blackjack, as he had already dropped $300 a week earlier to the very same Indian tribe. It was then that I realized that if I could lose $100, it wouldn't hurt too much to lose $200 by loaning Mitch $100 for the time being. That solved one problem, and I forked over $15 in Chumash chips that I had lyin around for gas money so that I didn't have to drive.

We got up there, and within 20 minutes turned our buyins (ended up being $120 each, both supplied by me) into around $275 each. Within the half hour, we obviously lost it back plus most of our stack. We were still having a good time, so it didn't bug me too much. Eventually we lost our monies and I whipped out another $60 to go heads up with the dealer. I lost every hand.

I followed Mitch over the cage so he could cash in his gas money chips that I had given him earlier, and being the degenerate that I am realized I still had $20 in my pocket. On the way out I stopped at the 1st seat of a table after watching the dealer pull two blackjacks in a row against a sorry table. I threw $20 on the circle and watched the dealer peel me off an Ace followed by a Queen.

Sweet!

The next hand I let the $50 ride, and I hit a 20 against an 18. I let the $100 ride and I took another 20, this time against a 17. I popped the dealer $20 and took off over to the cage, up $160 from two minutes earlier, and minus the $120 I leant Mitch, only $20 down on the night.

On the way out, realizing that I was only $20 down on the night, I decided to pop into the 1st seat of a new shoe on another table. I put $20 on the first hand, and just happened happened to peel of an A10 for another blackjack. For some stupid reason (as it usually is when playing blackjack), I only put out $15 on the second hand. I ended up losing that one, and popped the last $35 on the next hand. A 20 was good for a win against a dealer 17, and I pressed the $70. The next hand, I hit AA and had to reach into my newfound cash for split money. I split the Aces for $70 a hand, and hit a King and a Queen for two 21's. The table was crackin up at my carelessness and supreme luck, and I took down the $280 in front of me, minus a $30 for the gracious dealer.

I walked over to the cage laughing my ass off at all the money I had won in 5 minutes, and we left the Chumash casino as happy as a couple pigs in shit (gross expression?.....yeah I think so). Overall I had won $165 after tipping the cashier a redbird, although I was short $120 in cash cuz of the money I gave Mitch, so technically I only left with $45 more than I came with. I was still pretty stoked.

Obviously this isn't a lot of money, and to me this is pretty much money for food around town for a couple days. But considering that I only had $20 left before we were about to leave, and considering that I've been feeling pretty down about finances lately, it felt pretty good to walk away with any kind of win.

It was definitely something I needed, since I've been pretty bored all in all lately, and I needed the thrill of gambling. I had played a little bit of poker online while I home Friday night, but within a matter of hours I took two 2-outers in NLHold'em and another 2-outer in PLOmaha Hi, so I was pretty irritated and my urges were surely not satisfied. It was then that I vowed not to play serious poker for a while, both because of the fact that I'm low on funds and have no set bankroll, and because the game's become seriously not fun for me in the past couple of months, which is the only reason I play it in the first place. I'm even questioning playing at Paul's for a while, although I'll probably still go to deal even if I don't play.

This is something I've said a couple times before, hence my headline on this blog, but I'm pretty set about this time. The game's just become not fun to me anymore and I refuse to play it in that case.

With that being said on Friday night, I got a call from Matt on Sunday evening saying that he and his roommates were playing a game, $20-$40 buyin. I said okay.

Now even though I had said on Friday I wasn't gonna play cards anymore, I had stated that I wasn't playing any serious cards anymore, as well as stating Paul's game specifically. I said that I would play Bonedoneskis for sure, and I also never said I wouldn't play small games just for fun with the right people.

So as I walked into Matt's house, I saw seven guys already deep into a game of $20 buy-in $.25/$.50 NLHE. I bought in for $20, and within ten minutes was over $50. I ended up letting go of a couple hands that I now know I shouldn't have, as I gave these guys more credit than I should have, but overall in under two hours that I was there for I cashed out for $87. All in all it was fun, and it was a fun group of guys to play with. That and they were easy money.

But like I said, that game was just as much for fun as the blackjack was, and I don't expect to be playing another other than small homegames in the near future.

With such a boring week preceding it, the weekend was a well-needed blend of personal space and fun. I'm feeling like I'll be in the mood for writing this week, so hopefully I won't be such a bastard dad to this blog in the next few days.

Until next time.

BD FTW!

2007-03-19T19:45:00.000-07:00

More internet acronyms for you?

This weekend was our game at Paul's, and marks the second weekend in a row with a big fat donuthole for me. Luckily the past couple weekends of losses have been a bit smaller than my December-February stretch (only one zero in both instances, as opposed to two or three of them). And in fact, despite not even cashing in either of the two tournaments this weekend I actually left Paul's house with more money than I brought.

Darsky had and I had planned on meeting at PP early to get a bit of Bonedoneskis in before the tournies started. We had about an hour and a half to play, and of course when everyone started showing up they wondered why we were playing this stupid game with $200 on the table. *sigh*......they'll never understand.

I pretty heavily dominated Darsky (hahahahahaaaaa) in the beginning, and was able to defend a comeback by having him hit a big boat against my quads, and also by me making a move with the 4c on one (or two) occasions. I almost folded a BD draw, which made me feel like an idiot, but missed it when I stayed anyways. I also took a win in War to put me at 3-0 there as well. All in all with my good catches and big hands, I was able to pick $56 up off of Darsky before the tournies started.

This year Paully decided to do his $30 tournies a little differently, and because of some changes made I'm dealing one of the tables as well as the final table whenever we play, regardless of whether I'm still in the tourney or not. While this has tightened me up the past couple of weeks (good in this game), it also makes it difficult to play. Nevertheless, I'm not gonna stop playin...the game is super soft and many hands I see make me giggle.

The second hand of the tourney was pretty much my last one of the first tournament of the night. With starting stacks at T3000 and opening blinds at 25-50, we had five limpers to me and I limped the Kh-10h on the button. The small blind completed and the big blind decided to raise. How much? 50. Yup. Min-raise out of the SB to start the tourney. GREAT! Everyone called as did I and the SB behind me.

The flop came out 9h-Jh-x, and I immediately knew I was in trouble. The SB checked and the BB now bet 100 into the 800 pot. With two callers I bumped the bet to 600 and the BB called while the other two folded. The Ad hit the turn and the BB insta-pushed. I thought about it for a second before finally gambling and sticking the rest of my stack in. It was a bad call but I felt I had decent outs, and honestly I didn't really feel like dealing and playing the rest of the tournament.

I missed the river and was left with a single 25 chip which I quadrupled up to 100, only to lose it two hands later. I dealt the rest of the tourney with no worries and got tipped $15. Meh, whatever.

The second tourney I pushed 10-10 against a LAG player who happened to have Aces, and I was out of the second tourney with no cash again. I wasn't upset cuz I wasn't really in the mood to play and deal that night, though I kinda wished I woulda played better just because I haven't had a winning session in two months now and it's really taken its toll on me.

In any case I stuck around for the crazy quarter games afterwards and we played dealer's choice gambling games until around 2AM. I picked up another $50 there and actually ended the night up money after losing both tournies with no cash. That money bought me a tank of gas and that was just fine by me.

On Sunday I had a lot of laundry to do, and pretty much had a lot to do in general but accomplished nothing until night started to kick in.

In other news it's been over three months since I've had a haircut and coming up on two weeks since I've shaved. I plan on doing neither soon, as I'm sort of in a state of "not doing" right now. Whatever it is that I'm feeling now I'm glad it's not depression anymore.

And I have a feeling it has everything to do with Her.

Long Time No See...

2007-03-15T08:14:00.000-07:00

It's been way too long since I've posted last, I can feel all of your pain! It's been a very busy week, both at work and personally, and I feel like I've been off keel sleepwise all week thanks to the changing of the time. Haha not that I've ever had an easy time getting up for work anyways...

Anyways

Last Friday night I headed out to Universal Citywalk with Mitch and couple other buddies to see 300 at the IMAX. We stopped for a few beers and chatted about life for a while (crazy ex-girlfriends, roommates, Vegas, etc.) before we filed into the waiting line. The line was long but moved fast so when the doors to the theater opened it only took minutes to get seated.

There were a few shouts and hollers when the gigantic pre-movie warning came on, but for the most part everyone quieted down for the opening scene. The movie came out with great anticipation and, after the work of art that was Sin City, rightfully so.

The whole movie wasn't shot in the same style as it's prior comic-based counterpart, but certain shots were done with certain artistic elements and all in all the movie was amazing. Admittedly, it was definitely a "manly man's" movie and the majority of the story revolves around the continuing battle between a select few soldiers from the Spartan army and the massive collective army of the Persian Empire. The actors went through rigorous training and body-building for this movie and every Spartan in the movie was ripped beyond God. Combine that with the way the movie was shot and the added effects, and you really feel every hit, kick, and sword slice (and there were many) the movie has to offer.

The lead actor, Gerard Butler, was pretty much the perfect choice for the role of King Leonidas. When he speaks in this movie, you feel it. Every time he shouts it resonates through your entire body.

When the movie was finished if you were a man you felt like walking by and delivering a thundering punch to every concession stand clerk, bellboy, and movie watcher around you. It leaves you with the feeling that you can crush and dominate anything that stands in your path.

In my opinion this was one of the best movies to have been released in the past few years. As for the historical accuracy of the movie, it's not all there; it is a retelling of a retelling and based off of a comic book on top of that, so don't look for it to be accurate. But the way with which the movie was put together and the style that it was filmed made it quickly shoot to #1 movie in my eyes. It's a definite must-see.

On Saturday night I went out with my cousin and her fiancee to celebrate their newly announced engagement. We hit up a new bar in Simi that was converted from a restaurant that used to be in its place, and it was quite alright. We had a good time and it's always fun to hang with family that you're close with, so the night went well.

On Sunday I headed down to Hollywood Park for the first time with my old man. Being as how I'm on a two-month downswing and going through a personal financial mess on top of that, I opted to sit the $3-6 with my dad and just splash around and have some fun. I wasn't looking to win any money in the game, but I wasn't looking to dump a rack either.

The building itself is pretty big. It has high ceilings, a large amount of poker tables, and the usual high limit area sectioned off to the side. They were spreading $2-4 to $8-16 Limit and $1-2 and $2-5NL in the low limit section, and much higher games in the high limit. All in all it's a pretty standard L.A. card room.

They had a free drawing in action when we showed up where they would pick a random player's card and that person would automatically win $300 or could trade in the money for a chance to pick out of 18 other briefcases, all of which had varying cash amounts ranging from .01 to $10,000. It was basically a Deal or No Deal challenge. They called a generic L.A. Mexican "Jose" for the win, and he took the $300. They then asked him what briefcase he would've chosen and they revealed his would've been prize of $5,000.

At this point I got into an argument about why he would've taken the $300 instead of trading for a chance to win more. I won that one.

As for the $3-6 limited hold them game, it was your standard live $3-6 donkfest. The first hand I sat down there was four-way action to a 9 high flop, with a bet and a raise and three players to a turn of an offsuit 10. Two more bets and the same three players saw a J on the river, and two more bets out of three players produced a big ole' Q-8 offsuit FTW. I laughed out loud as the woman (of course) scooped the pot, then I tightened my drawers so I wouldn't shit myself at the horrible play I was about to see for the rest of the session.

I took the 4s next to my old man in the 3s and we had a good time. I was up and down for the most part, playing a lot of hands all with awesome value. I saw some really disgusting plays and witnessed the most ridiculous hands that I've seen in a long time. If I had even kept some of the HHs that I saw at the table they would've been in the trash long before I had a chance to post them. And this wasn't even hands that I was involved in. Actually I was dead even until the dreaded "rack hand".

For those that aren't familiar with the RH, its definition is the last hand you play before leaving the table for that session. Usually you'll have your chips racked and counted, and will be UTG about to leave before your big blind for it to be considered a true RH. On a regular basis my rack hands seem to be AQ-AA, and I'm always forced to raise UTG and play it out.

Today would be no different. With my chips racked and a $5 profit ready to depart, I looked down at AQo . I opened for a raise UTG and got called by the button, the SB, and the BB. This is how the hand played out.

Dealt to Hero [Ac,Qh]
Hero raises $3 to $6
5s folds, 6s folds, 7s folds, Button calls, SB calls, BB calls.

Flop: Qc-2h-4d
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $3, Button folds, SB calls, BB calls.

Turn: Qc-2h-4d-7d
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $6, SB calls, BB folds.

River: Qc-2h-4d-7d-5s
SB checks, Hero bets $6, SB raises $6 to $12, Hero calls.

Showdown:
SB shows [Qs,5d] and has two pair, Queens and fives.
Hero mucks.

And that was that. I wasn't completely shocked but still irritated. That's how low limit LHE goes though, so whatever. I was actually surprised that I only lost the amount played out in that hand. I flopped two straights for a couple big pots, and had AK hold up twice. That was enough to have me even until the RH and it was a fun time altogether.

After that I went back to Simi and headed home to Santa Barbara and about 9:30. I had to stop in Ventura for some DoD of course, and that was the end of my weekend.

I've been fighting a head cold for the past week and a half, which has led to a desire to do nothing at all, which is part of the reason it took me so long to update. I'll be updating regularly still, so if you're still tuned in then stay tuned!

Until next time.

Now Now

2007-03-13T12:52:00.001-07:00

Update is on its way tonight!

300 is Here!!

2007-03-08T18:48:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is a moment I've been waiting for for a couple of months now. Tonight, actually, is the night when 300 premieres. I've been wanting to see this movie since the trailers hit the internet waves months ago, and I've tickets to go see it at the IMax tomorrow night. The preference would've have been to see it at the ArcLight, but they're not even showing it there.

I posted about this movie a while ago, to see the trailer click here.

I also found out that my cousin is getting married to her boyfriend of two years, which will obviously require a celebration in drunkeness on Saturday, so we'll be hitting up downtown LA to get some drinks this weekend too.

The past couple of days have been pretty uneventful as I've been home sick with a stupid head cold. I went in to work for a couple of hours today but ended up going home after I started getting lightheaded.

Anyways, I'll post an update on Saturday probably, so...until next time.