Mashin and All-Nighter Are Now Official!!

I am now officially adding two new words to my mental dictionary: all-nighter, and Mashin. I use these words enough where they can now be officially added to my library of literary uses.

Last Saturday Darsky decided to come to Chumash to hang an all-nighter with me. He called me on Friday to let me know what time he'd be up, and about an hour later I got a call from our other poker buddy Kirk. He told me he was lookin to go Mashin on Saturday as well. I let him know that Darsky was already planning on coming and told him to meet us in Santa Barbara so we could all hit the road to Chumash together.

Dar showed up in SB at around 5PM on Saturday and we decided to grab some food before we headed out. We had our usual poker conversation as we ate and Kirk showed up as we were finishing. Kirk decided he was going to drive up there separately, since apparently he wasn't up to stay until 5PM the next day. A quick stop at the pad and off we went.

The ride up there in Dar's Bullitt is always nice, and coming off of two weeks in the red it felt good to take the walk from the parking structure to the casino entrance. I was really feelin like I was going to play solid and take some cash home at the end of this session. I sat in an open 100/200 buy-in NL game, and was shortly switched over to the 300/500 buy-in when a seat opened up. There was a couple regulars in the game already.

Sam is an older, tan-skinned gentleman with a middle-eastern accent. He has this air about him like he doesn't have to work because he has enough money, but at the same time he respects money and enjoys the game, even for the low-limit stakes. He likes to gamble, but overall gambles in the right spots and can usually be seen with $1,000+ in front of him in the 300/500 game. If there was a bigger game at the Mash he'd probably be playing in that. We both respect each other and like to have friendly rivalry at the table.

Larry is an older, pudgy, nerdy-looking white guy with thick-framed glasses. He's the kind of guy that you always love to see at a table, because whenever he has all of his money in it's usually when he's drawing dead. I love to walk in and see him a the 300/500 buy-in. He's a nice enough guy, but a horrible card player. But as long as he's got money to spend, we'll all be there for him. He goes there with his buddy John H., who's a middle-aged, overweight guy with glasses, who is barely better than Larry, but has enough cash to blow. I see them dump at least $2,000 a week, and that's only for the days that I'm up there. I have no idea why they keep going, but more power to him. This night John was playing the 100/200 though. I don't respect either of these two with regards to poker playing ability, but we're all very friendly with each other and constantly have friendly conversation at the table.

I took a seat in the 7s, which is, of course, my preferred seat, along with the 2s, 3s, and 8s. I bought in for $400, and started assessing the table. We had Sam in the 1s, Larry in the 3s, and a bunch of unknowns. There was an idiot kid to my immediate right who I'd sat with at the 100/200 buy-in just previous to my table-switch, and a gambling biker to my immediate left. It looked like an easy enough table, but I kept running into terrible, tough-decision situations. I had to lay down 99 to a board of 2-2-5 after dumping $120 into the pot. Then this hand came up:

I'm sittin on a little under $500, and the idiot kid to my right open-raised for $20. I'd seen him make stupid raises all night and was comfortable playing him post-flop. I saw Kh10h, and called off the raise on the button. Sam had limped and noe came in for the raise as well. The board came up K-K-J, putting me in pretty decent position. Although as soon as the flop came I saw Sam make this weird motion and immediately put him on KJ. He checked it, and the kid almost immediately bet out $50. I was strongly feeling that he had aces, yet I still thought Sam had KJ and was thoroughly confused about the hand at this point. Knowing I had position on the kid to the turn, I decided to flat call the $50 and see what Sam did. If Sam raised I was definitely going to fold, knowing that he wouldn't make that raise without having K10 crushed. I definitely didn't put him on JJ because he would have most certainly reraised that preflop, as Sam would have hated taking JJ against two players to the flop. But no raise came as Sam called as well.

The turn now came off a Jack, giving me Kings full and completely voiding out Sam's KJ, should that have been what he had. He checked again and the kid now insta-bet out another $70. I decided to bump it up to $180, knowing that if the kid had Aces, he was way dumb enough to stick around with them and give me some more money. Sam flat-called, as did the kid.

The river was now another Jack, making the board K-K-J-J-J. As soon as the river hit, I instantly felt sick to my stomach. Sam checked again, and now the kid bet out again!! He made it $100 to go, and now with $850 in the pot I was not laying down to this frickin kid. I relunctantly called off and now Sam decided to raise it to $250 when it got back to him and I was in a world of hurt!! I only had about $190 left now, and there was no way I was calling off $150. But at the same time there was no way I was going to put my whole stack in after I had put Sam on KJ the whole way down. After the raise the kid thought about it for like 10 seconds and then flipped over his AA as he threw it into the muck. The rest of the table yelled at him since I was still in the hand. I called for time and went back and forth from convincing myself that he didn't have the Jack to pleading with myself to follow my original read.

I was dead on about the kid having AA, and now this was a huge pot. If I were to commit the rest of my stack to this hand, the pot would be $1,390. I apologized to the table for the wait and sat for about an entire two and a half minutes before finally mucking. Sam smiled and flipped over KJ. There was a couple of regulars who had come over to watch the hand unfold, and they all gasped. Sam asked if I had the King, and I bunched my lip and nodded. He told me that it was a good lay-down, and I told him nice hand.

I took a minute to go for a walk and release the stress of that whole situation. I was 50/50 on whether or not I played that hand well, and would appreciate any feedback in the comment box. I thought I had played it right and I was happy that I trusted my reads, but I was confused on the flop and on the river, which isn't good. I thought and rethought the hand for a bit, and then headed back to the table. Shortly after that, Larry went bust drawing dead to Sam (as usual), and then Sam took out the idiot kid who had left himself with $150 after that hand with his AA.

I busted out about another hour later after a cold run and 50/50 gamble with my remaining $150. I have a part II to this story as well, which I'll try to write this weekend.

Until next time.

An Old Re-Find and a Party Poker Tourney

I'm not gonna write anything too great here, just thought I'd share a re-found find if you all aren't reading it anyways. Table Tango is an awesome blog. She's a dealer in Vegas and she's been blogging for a long time; most of it's poker related (obviously), some of it's not. I read a few entries here and there a while back, but since I've become so close with the dealers and the staff in the poker room at the Mash, it's sparked my interest yet again.

I haven't played at Chumash since Friday. It's killing me, seriously. I have small plans tonight, though, so I can't go tonight. I might go up tomorrow night, but my car sucks and I don't feel like driving it a lot so I might not go.

I put $200 online to play a quickie session of Omaha HL on Party and quickly found a $5/$10 10-handed game. I got caught up in a pot where I had the nut boat capped three ways on the flop and turn, and figured to be chopping up a pretty decent pot until the third guy caught a 2-outer on the river for a higher boat, which got me a whole bunch of nothing but a lost $100. After I finished playing Omaha I was still down around $100 and decided to put the last $100 into a $109 buy-in MTT. 363 entrants, over $9k for first. My goal was to get to the final two tables and that's exactly what I did. For three and a half hours I kept pretty quiet. Once the money hit I started doubling up with smart play, and throughout the whole tournament I'd hadn't had my money in against a worst hand the whole time and I hadn't gotten into any coin flips all tournament.

Sitting on the button with about 47,000, and blinds at 2,000/4,000, a MP raised it up to ~13,000, and I see AK. I thought for a second and decided to push it. He had to call off about half of stack, and he did so with 88. I flopped the A, and then he turned an 8 and I was sent packing in 15th place. I made a tiny bit of money, but was disappointed that I had gone all tournament without getting my money in on a flip, and I finally was in one and hit my ace, only to have him trip up on the turn. Sad. I would've rather had the $9k. Oh well, you gotta win coin flips to win tournaments.

In short, I need a new car soon. I need to win coin flips. Go read Table Tango.

Until next time

Blegh

Well the last couple of weeks haven't really been good to me. I've had ups and downs, but more downs than ups. I keep having these losing sessions that bring down my morale, because there's so many bad players at the 2/5NL game at Chumash that I feel like I should never leave loser. Obviously that's an unreasonable request in a gambling game, but still, it brings me down. I'll be taking a couple days off to recuperate, and will be heading back up there on Wednesday.

Joe and I went to Dani's wedding on Saturday, who's one of the night shift dealers at Chumash who we've come to be pretty close with. Her husband is a blackjack dealer, so there were more blackjack dealers than poker dealers there, which made us fitting in a bit more difficult since we consciously try not to get to know the blackjack dealers, if y'all catch my drift. We felt out of place for the first little bit of the reception, but a special someone showed up about half an hour after we arrived, and then from there we caught up with some familiar poker staff so we settled right in. After the reception we headed over to Tim's house, who's one of the poker room's floorman there. That was good times and good conversations, as it usually is with Tim. Plus, at the end of the day I had a reason to get a bad-ass grey suit, so the whole day just worked out.

Later that night Joe booked a decent cash in a $50 MTT on Party good for $2,500+, while I'm still sitting here despising online poker. Watching him rolling online makes me feel like giving it another shot online. I'm putting a lot of thought into playing lots of MTTs, but I just don't like playing online so I don't see that happening. Ya never know, though, I might be able to get up to Tre's level of ass-kickery if I practice long enough. :)

This entry's gonna end short, although there is some stuff I want to write about later. But for now I'll leave it short.

Until next time.

A Poker Weekend: Part 2

Here's the rest of the weekend recap from Part 1

After Paul's 2 tournies there's always a small cash game, usually dealer's choice, and I'll usually play it. This night, however, Darsky and I had different plans. We were goin straight to Morongo to pull an overnighter and to keep a full poker weekend concentrated on playing good, solid poker, and not messin around with useless games. We wanted money.

The last time we hit up Morongo for the weekend back in December, I took a pretty decent hit, and Darsky took a small profit. That suited neither of our expectations so needless to say we were eager to get back into action there again. Last time we had a whole weekend of play, but this time we decided to just opt for a long night and morning of play, and if needed we would get a room. We took off from Paul's at around...midnight? Maybe. I don't really remember.

I followed Dar back to his place and left my car there and we were off. I started dozing off half way there thanks to a long night of drinking and reminiscing with the boys. When I woke up an hour later I started looking around and realized that it looked a lot more like we were heading to Barstow than to Cabazon. "Dude I asked you if it was North or South at the fork and you said North!!" Oh......sorry Dar, I was sleepin. So we turned around and Darsky let out a (somewhat frustrated) laugh. Time to pass out again. I woke up as were nearing the nicely lit up casino, and by this time it was 4AM. I dunno about Darsk but I felt well-rested and ready to play some cards!! (Haha I know I'm such a bastard)

It was refreshing to walk into that casino again, especially after cramming Chumash for months straight. Don't get me wrong, I love the Mash dearly, but it was definitely a welcome refreshment to get out to another playing ground. Considering it was a long weekend we figured that the poker room would be packed, and packed it definitely was. It was 4AM and there were games a plenty. There were three 2/5NL games going, and Darsky and I found an open table and sat at the 2s and 3s. I bought in for $200, and quietly sat and played next to this crazy, loud, obnoxious Iranian guy for twenty minutes before that table broke. We moved to another table with split seats, I took the 7s and Dar took the 3s. There was a very loud, and horrendously annoying lady in the 9s who obviously didn't know what she was doing, and hardly had any understanding of the concepts of poker. That's supposed to be great for players like me, but she was really getting on my nerves just being there and being alive and around me at that moment. I know that's not a good way to play poker, and I'm usually ok and would welcome that, but I think I was just tired.

The 4s quickly opened and I literally jumped out of my chair to occupy that one instead. Darsky was in the 3s, so having someone readily available to talk to and joke around with eased my nerves. Sitting on about $160, I limped the A6c from mid position, only to have the crazy lady in the 9s raise it up in the SB. It folded to me and I called. The board came up Kc-Xc-X. Crazy bet out maybe $40, and after a second of thought I pushed my remaining hundo. She insta-called and turned over JJ. A bit suprising, but actually not really. It went blank blank and it was time for a rebuy.

At this point I looked around and realized that somewhere within the hour that we had arrived, the poker room had widdled down to about 4 running tables. The entire room was practically filled when we showed up, and now the games were few and far between. It was really odd.

I rebought for $300 more and was ready to get my money back. The table was running weird though, and throughout the next half hour I managed to lose my second buy. By the time I lost it the table had gotten down to 4-handed, and I got tangled up in a QQ vs KK situation to an undercard board. Knowing that playing with Darsky in a 4-handed game wasn't good conditions, I decided to take a break and go over why I had lost so far. I took a quick breather and went back to the board. There was a 1/2NL, a 2/4, and a 3/6Kill going. I took an open seat in the 3/6Kill and plugged my iPod into my head. After about twenty minutes of mindless limit action, I looked over at the ongoing (now 3-handed) 2/5NL game where Dar was still seated, and saw him pickin up his chips. I sensed a sign, food was in order!!

It was time for sweet breakfast! We headed over the the cafe and discussed some plays, some players, and my overall hastely dumping of money in the first couple of hours. I enjoy my conversations with Darsky, because he always has insightful things to say, whether it be about life, poker, or whatever, he always just says good stuff. I try to soak it in every time I talk to him. He explained some things about my situation at the table, and we discussed a few hands. It's always good and I value those poker conversations because I feel like I can really benefit from what he says. It was rejuvinating and vitalizing and pumped me up to play some more after bagging a $500 loss just an hour before.

I downed a Red Bull and some french toast, and we were back to the action half an hour later. By now there was only a 1/2NL, a 2/4, and two 3/6Kills going. We put our names up on a weak 2/5NL wishlist, and as we waited we both noticed a smokin hot little chicky playing the 3/6 right in front of us. We (I should really say I, as I think my interest was a bit more peaked than Dar's) oohed and awed over the little hotty, and eventually after waiting for our game to open up, I saw a seat open at the 3/6 and took it as an open invitation to play with my little inflatuation. Not long after that another seat was open and Darsky took that one. Seeing Darsky in a low-stakes limit game made me laugh, but no matter what we're playing time at the table with Dar is always good times. Plus we got to stare and talk to a hot chick playing poker.......what more can you want.

A little while later she left and Dar piped up asking what we were still doing at the game now that she was gone. Good point. As I was looking for a rack the names were being called down for an opening of a 2/5NL game. Yessss. This time I took the 1-seat (or the knee-banging seat) and Dar took the 2s. The Morongo game is always fun because with $2 and $5 blinds, they have a no-max buy-in, which usually creates some decent action, and is a much welcome change from the limited buy-ins at Chumash. I bought in for another $300 (a pretty comfortable buy-in for my play) and was really ready to play some solid poker after my reassurance by Dar over breakfast. Nothing really big happened, but I flopped a couple sets against horribly scary boards and took it down on the flop both times for small profits. Other than that I just grinded it out. Darsky took some really stupid, stupid beats, and ended up a small loser on the trip, while I barely squeaked an even run for the trip on my last hand.

I raised preflop with the AQs, and got called by only the SB. He only had about $100 behind after my preflop raise to $20, and he pushed it all in on a flop of Js-10s-X. I put him on a jack (funny story, Darsky knows it) and pretty much called instantaneously figuring that I had to be ahead in the hand. He flipped over J6o, and I turned a Q and rivered a flush, so that pot brought me back to even on the trip. I ran the hand in an odds calc when I got home and saw that I was a %62.22 favorite to take down his J6 offsuit after the flop, so my thought process was right. We both headed home as tired, poker-playing bastards, who just booked a fun weekend of cards and good times. An In-N-Out stop before I took off back to Santa Barbara, and that was that.

Tonight Joe and I are headed to the dealers' game with the dealers from Chumash, so that should be great fun as well.

Until next time.

A Poker Weekend: Part 1

2 weeks and no update? I must be dead...

After a pretty mundane short week, I headed out to Simi on the 26th to meet up with Casey late at night after a smallish loss at the Mash. I got there at around 11PM and cruised over to Doug's house where Casey and his girlfriend were at a party. Doug, Casey, and I all used to work at Mervyn's back when I was living in Simi and attending CSUN, and the three of us had a hell of a good time. I hadn't seen Doug since I moved out to Santa Barbara, though, so it was really cool chillin with him again. I recently had come into contact with an even older friend who I hadn't seen for two years, and I also told him that I'd call him next time I was in Simi. I called him from Doug's and told him I was in town at a party. He said, "Oh, Doug's party?" .......ok Simi is too small of a city. Apparently he knew Doug from a while back and word had gotten out around a ring of people that Doug was having a party. Andrew dropped by and we all hung out for about an hour and a half.

After a little while Casey brought up that Nick was having a get-together at his house, so Decker(Andrew), Casey, Summer(Casey's girlfriend), and I all headed over to Nick's. We all hung out, had some drinks, played games, and told stories of old times and joked around. It was great fun, and since I haven't seen Decker for two years, and Nick and Casey for months, I really had a blast. Decker and I crashed at Casey's place, and we gathered up Nick and couple others and headed to my dad's pizza shop for lunch. It was great food, and everyone gave compliments. My dad just opened it recently so it was cool to have good reviews of the food, which seems to be the general consensus so far.

After lunch I spent some much warranted time hanging out with Decker. We chilled at his house for a while and caught up on lost time. He had to go to work so he took me to retrieve my car, which I had left at Doug's the night before. It was around 3:30PM and Paul's game was at 6. I headed over to my dad's house where I saw Pam and my little sister Ally, both of whom I haven't seen for quite some time either. I showered up and hung with the family for a little bit. And I also bought some socks. I really wanted some new socks.

We had Paul's home game later that day where I met up with Darsky. The two of us have been having some mixed feelings about the setup at Paul's lately, mainly the lack of players. A little info about the usual game: The game is a $50 buy-in NL tournament, which at it's peak was bringing in 30+ people. We run the tournament twice with a side game going amongst those not "fortunate" enough to still be in the tourney, the side game consisting of either $1 No Fold 'Em Hold 'Em (I'll explain that in a later thread) or $0.25 dealer's choice games. The number of players was increasing at a steady rate until we hit a 40-person mark when we had a game featuring professional poker player Amir Vahedi, who is close friends with one of the regulars.

Nowadays the numbers have decreased immensely, due mostly to an intentional effort to keep the game smaller, as the environment was becoming a bit too crazy once it hit the 40-person mark. Certainly no one can blame a guy for wanting to keep his house and garage to a reasonable decibel level, but as of late the tournament has been lacking so many players that there barely is a tournament! We only play once a month now whereas we used to play every other week. Therefore the attendance is a bit more important than it used to be. In April's game, however, we had only 8 people. It was known that Paul had purposefully not been telling people about the game, but to players like Darsky and me, 8 players simply doesn't constitute a worthy tournament. We both let him know that if he didn't call people this next time around that he would be down another two players.

This time Paul was more or less coerced into calling people, and although he only called a few, we ended up with 14 players for the first tournament and 12 for the second, which was at least better than last time. Dar and I had talked earlier that week and had planned on going to Morongo after Paul's game for an overnight session. Had we not had enough players, we agreed, we would have just left to Morongo and completely skipped the tournies. Once we showed up and figured our game for 14 players, we were both sufficed to stay and play. Coming off of a 3-week rush at Chumash I was feeling pretty good to play that night. Darsky and I have been trying to get heads up at one of these tournies for the longest time, but we always seem to start at the same table, even when we had 3-4 tables going, and of course with 2 tables nothing changed. We both started at the same table but managed to play some great poker and dodge bad luck at the same time, and wouldn't ya know it we ended up heads up! We've been meaning to do this for quite some time, but somewhere along road to heads up Darsky or myself always takes a dumb beat and can't hang to the final two. Tonight was different, and we started heads up with me having a considerable chip advantage. After about a fifteen- to twenty-minute match, I couldn't put him away and Dar took first place. I was happy with my play for the whole match, though, and I gladly took second place to the master of poker.

Most of the other players were being very annoying when Darsky and I were fighting our epic battle, and it irritates me to mention it because I think it lacks class and makes the bunch sound like little impatient kids, but Dar mentioned briefly in his weekend recap, so you might be able to find what I'm talking about. Anyways we started up the second tourney after a brief food break, and once again Dar and I ended up in the top three. When it was lookin like we might end up heads up for the second time of the night, the third player, who was a very horrible player and easily beatable over time, had too many chips to overcome and took out Darsky in third, and myself in second. So overall I had two second place finishes, and while I was proud of that I was also half-expecting it because of the way that I feel like I was playing going into it.

This past week hasn't been to good for me up at Chumash. Joe recently quit his part-time job and has decided that he'll be living off of the 2/5NL game there, which I think is easily doable for his level of skill. Him going up there more should mean that I'll be playing on quite a regular basis as well, so the last week's losses should be easily rebounded this soon. I wish I had more time to write, but I gotta go play some cards!

Until next time

Sin City and.......more poker?

I got to finally watch Sin City this week, and I just gotta say wow. I had heard good things about the movie and just never got around to seein it. I was a little skeptical of the "goodness" of it because I hate getting hyped into things and finally getting around to it and being disappointed because I've expected too much. With this movie that couldn't have been the case. I don't think I could've expected too little from this one, it was just a cool, cool movie. They brought about a pretty big cast for it (rightfully so) and the cinematics in it are just crazy. I loved it, you must see it. If you've already seen it, then watch it again.

I made it down to Chumash four times last week. That felt good considering I only made it down there twice the week before, and I really felt like I didn't play enough. The multiple sessions were bittersweet, though, as I took a pretty decent loss on Wednesday night. But lo and behold I got it back on Friday! I've been tryin to sit the 300-500 buy-in when possible, and so far it's been working out. They only run it from Friday-Sunday, and you're lucky to get a seat as usually the table's full until it breaks.

After sleeping for about 13 hours and having some awesome breakfast from this restaurant close by, I went last night to top off the week, and things weren't lookin too good. I lost $400 in the 100-200 2/5NL game, and was about to go home until I saw that the 300-500 game was still going. I knew that I had to sit in it, and from the players sitting the game I knew I would at least get even, if not ahead on the night. I put my name on the board and waited. And waited. And waited........I decided to get a burger to eat since I hadn't eaten since breakfast and it was now 10PM, but the service was busy and by the time I got my burger it was time to take my seat! After a little under two hours of waiting, I bought in for my usual $300 and was under way.

I only played for a little over an hour, and was able to recoup the loss and come up $300 winner on the night, which was just fine and dandy by me. It was a self-satisfying victory, as I was really feeling down and ready to leave from the first game when I saw the other game going, and I just knew that I could beat it if I played it. I made my losses back and took home a smallish win in less time than it took me to get into the game, and the only reason I left was cuz it was getting late (or early I should say) and I still do have a 9-5, so yes, I do need sleep.

I'll hopefully be making it down to Chumash for another four sessions this week, but if I only get in three I'll make 'em good ones. Hopefully I'll be able to post some hands too, because I haven't done that in a while. We got Paul's game coming up this weekend, too, but Darsky and I both agreed that if there's not enough players we'd rather play Chumash instead.....or did somebody say Morongo?.......

Another Night and a Slow Poker Week

Well I made it down to Chumash with Joe on Monday night and came out winner again. I'm still feelin like I'm playin well, and I finally feel like it's consistant. I'm likin it. On Monday night it was a little different than usual though, cuz Joe and I played at the same table. We usually try not to sit at the same table, because we hate getting in each other's way and we play to take everyone else's money, not each other's. In the past we've had problems playing with each other at the same table, and often times he would get angry with my aggressive style. But this time we sat right next to each other, and for whatever reason, even though we were in some hands together, we didn't get in each other's way even once. That was cool, and we both ended up decent winners on about 4 hours of play.

I'm still playin shorter sessions than I'd like to, but I really don't have time to do that. I'd like to be playing 6-8 sessions, but I'm usually hittin 3-6 hour sessions, 6 almost always being the max. Working 9-5 doesn't leave me a lot of time to play, and when I haven't played 3 times by the time Friday comes, I feel like I haven't been playing at all. Obsessed? I think not, but it definitely might be up there. Then again no millionaire poker player got that way by not playing so whatever....

Darsky brought up the idea of pullin a long session down at Morongo this weekend, but since I have to work until 2 on Saturdays it's tough to put together true weekend sessions. It sucks cuz I've been craving to play Morongo's no-max buy-in 2/5NL since the last time we went there after I took a few dumb beats/plays and ended up a bigger loser than I'd like to admit. I feel like since I'm back in the game at Chumash I can probably clean up the bigger buy-in tables down at Morongo now. Dar said he might also think about pulling a weekender at Chumash though, so I still might get in some good sessions yet, so we'll have to see.

In other news we played my boss's .50/1 game last night, and I left exactly even. Since we started playing I haven't left loser yet, surprised?

In DVD news, I finished watching the first season of HUFF after getting hooked on the second season first, and damn I love this show. I like Hank Azaria as an actor, and Oliver Platt plays an awesome character in it as well. The first season was well written and you should definitely check it out if you haven't already, I can't get enough. Also I finally bought Spaceballs, Collector's Edition, which, oddly enough, I've been wanting to do for a while now, and I also bought Sin City, which I haven't even seen yet. I have laundry to do (tons of it) and movies to watch, so I think my quiet night at home is all planned. Although Joe might call me up and drag me to Chumash later, so we'll see what happens.......

Bouncing Back Is Always Fun

On Wednesday night Joe and I were goin back to Chumash, and coming back from a losing session I was more than ready to play. Monday after work I dropped by the tatoo shop by my house to meet up with Joe and his buddy Mike to watch Joe get the first phase of his tatoo done. It took about a little over an hour to get the outline done, and I think he's getting it shaded in this week. After he got that done the three of us went to CPK to get some food, and met up with another buddy there. It was a good group and CPK has good food, so it was...good times. Mike is a riot and Joe and him and I always have a funny time when we hang together, but he lives like 2 hours away so it isn't often that we do. After dinner we went back to Joe's, had a couple Coronas and hung out there for a while. Tuesday I just took it easy around the house, did some laundry, and jumped on the comp for a little bit.

Wednesday we took off to Chumash at around 6 and got there to find an open seat at two different 2/5NL tables, so neither of us had to wait. My first buy-in went to information calls, loose plays, and projecting a loose table image, which I've found myself to be doing frequently lately. I don't really know why I do it, but for some reason I've been doing it and I think I should probably STOP. But I rebought and another half hour later I got that back plus another $100. Sitting on $500, we lost one player and two more left to get food at the same time. We had 3 seats passing blinds for twenty minutes, but with no board there was nothing we could do but play on 6-handed.

The action slowed to a crawl, no one was playing, and when they were they were checking it all the way down. Finally I got a hand, and it was time for some action. I posted the big blind and the UTG raised it to $15. The person to his left, who is an older guy who plays there regularly called, and as I looked down at a Q I squeezed it hoping for exactly what I got: another Q. The SB folded and I had 2 options here: 1)reraise, and give the guys a little info on me having a huge hand, as there had been limps and checks running the table, or 2)flat call and follow the table norm at this point, and hope to trap someone post flop. I decided to flat call, as there had been no action at the table for a little while, and I figured that if I hit a good flop I could get a little more money out of one (or both) of the players than I could if I reraised and bet out the flop.

I threw in the $10 to complete the call and the board came up Jd-5s-6d. The board looked pretty safe for a check-raise in this situation, so I checked as first to act. UTG bet out $25, the regular called, and now came the part where I was supposed to raise. I figured the UTG might have had a J, because from what I'd seen since I'd been playin with him all night. At the same time he might have had 1010 or 99, and he was the type of player who might take one more card off if I raised him on the flop. But then I had to worry about the third player, who had about $400 in front of him. I knew that he would call a lot off a lot of money if he was on a diamond draw, even if I bumped it another $100 he probably wouldn't hesitate, especially since we hadn't been seeing much action. But since we hadn't seen much action I didn't really feel like having to let go of this hand on the turn if a diamond did hit. "All-in" shot out of my mouth before I even had a minute to think about how much I was gonna raise. Oops.

I had the UTG covered by about $300, so I wasn't too worried. "Oh man are you serious?!?" UTG thought about it forever and checked his hole cards about twenty times before finally letting his hand hit the muck. Now the regular went into the tank. After about 40 seconds he started talking. "Man oh man...I really don't wanna have to go home right now...What time is it?....I didn't want to have to leave this early tonight...I might already by dead...I REALLY wanna lay this down..." After about 2 minutes of this and the table getting restless and telling him to make a decision, he shrugs his shoulders and pushes his chips past the betting line. The whole table starts mumbling He's got AJ, he's got a diamond draw, he's got this or that. I flip over my queens, figuring I'm probably ahead in the hand considering his talking and time to make a decision. Then he flips over one card, a J. He stares at me and shows his other one, another J.
















Wow.

Niiiiiiiice fuckin slowroll......As soon as he did that I felt my whole body turn to fire. Now I love talking at the table, that's just part of my personality and part of my game, but whenever I do I am always respectful and sportsmanlike. And regardless of any situation, I believe that everyone should always be respectful and sportsmanlike, that's just morals. What this guy did really sent to me outworldly realms of pissed off-ness. As he showed his second Jack everyone at the table and everyone who had gathered around to see the hand unfold could only say wow and shake their heads in disbelief. The turn and river blanked and I was cut down to $100. But at that point I didn't really care about the money.

I started expressing my feelings to this particular player, and the rest of the table was agreeing that his actions were totally out of line. He had flopped the nuts, been put all-in by me, took forever to call, and then slowrolled me on top of that. I went off on him and he looked sheepish as he collected his chips. I hope he dies.

I blew off the rest of my $100 in steam the next hand and tore out of the poker room with a trail of smoke coming from my ears. I blew off $400 at the blackjack tables on the way out, which, oddly enough, made me feel better. Joe and I went to get food and then I headed home, still just so pissed at that guy.

The next day I took care of some errands before going to play some cards. Now when I got there I felt great again, and was able to take a seat at a game which was just about to open. For some reason, I did the dumb blow-the-first-buy-in thing. Now I'm really not sure why I do this. I mean I do it for reasons, but I know I can accomplish the same things without losing $200 first. I make loose calls for information against certain players, and I make certain plays in certain situations where I know I'm going to lose, so I can project a table image that I want. I don't know if you've ever been through this "phase" Tre, but if you have some advice for me make sure to hit up my comment box. I know Darsky's never done this, but if you have some words of wisdom make sure to drop a comment also. All I know is that I do it all the time without really thinking about it, but I know that I shouldn't be doing it.

I ended up rebuying again, and, of course, got my orinigal buy-in back shortly thereafter. Then about an hour or so later, still sitting at around $400 and getting cold cards, I was able to double up with my 33 on a board of 2-3-4 with two clubs against a flush draw.

I heart full houses. End of hand.

By then end of my 6-hour session I racked up and was a winner of a little under $900. I'm still feelin great at the table, and if it wasn't for a bad decision on Thursday I would feel even better. I might be going tonight, but I might be working late tonight, as I had a busy week at work and fell behind with some paperwork, so we'll see what happens.

Until next time.

PS - Thanks for continuing to read, my view count is constantly growing, which means the word is spreading! Tell your friends, tell your wives, tell your kids I don't care! I appreciate the views, as I enjoy writing and being read, so keep on comin back. I'll try to keep you hooked :)

First losing session in 2 weeks

After being back in the game for two weeks now, I had my first losing session on Sunday night! Boy that's a good feeling!! Two weeks and no session for loser until the last day of the second week. I didn't know if I was just rushing or if I was actually winning, and it looks like I'm playing some solid poker, so I'm pretty excited. I really am feeling comfortable at the table and feel like I'm seeing things clearly, which the results are showing, and that's awesome.

Coming back from a small winner on Thursday night, I was eager to get back to play on Friday night, and I managed to get Joe to go up to Chumash with me. Neither of us wanted to go with the intentin of leaving early, and we had agreed to play a long night through. We left at about 8PM thanks to him lagging hard after we agreed to leave at 6PM. I was a little peeved for certain reasons but I quickly got over it as we hit the road and made it there a little over 25 minutes later. As we showed up to a full poker room, we put both of our names on the board for one of the four $100/$200 buy-in 2/5NL games going, which is the biggest game offered at the small indian casino....usually, usually except for Friday nights. As we put our names on the board we made our rounds checking out the games in progress, and as we made our way to the back of the poker room I saw the biggest game in Chumash's poker room, which was the $300-$500 buy-in NL game. Now this is no big game by any means, but it is the biggest game offered here, and it's only offered on Fridays and will usually be open on Saturday and Sunday too, but it usually won't last long besides on Friday night.

As we hovered over the game, there was one "power" stack with about $2,800 in front of him. There were other sized stacks mixed in, ranging from about $500-$1,500. The one thing that's always bugged me about this particular game, though, is that the blinds are still at 2/5. With the buy-in set at $100/$200 for the 2/5NL game, it would only make sense to me to have the $300-$500 buy-in game to have 5/10 blinds, but the blinds are the same. I don't know if that should or shouldn't be to anyone else, but it just doesn't make sense to me, as it usually plays as the same game as the $100/$200 game.

So as Joe and I were sitting there looking over the game, he mumbled to me that most of the players at the table were only mediocre 2/5NL players, and that even though the blinds were the same they shouldn't be in the higher buy-in game anyways. That told me that I should sit and play the $300-$500 game, and wouldn't you know it a seat was open. I bought in for the minimum of $300, as it was sure to be the same game as the $100/$200 that I've been profitting in. As soon as I sat down it was apparent that I would be able to make money at this table just as easily. There was 2 kids there that actually seemed like they were playing at a higher level, but I was able to battle them both on a higher pyschological level than the rest of the field, and ended up winning a couple pots against them as well.

A little while after I sat down the big stack left racking up 7 racks of reds, totalling $3,500. The table said he was in for about $1,800, so he took about $1,700 off of the rest of the table before going home. The money was plenty though, and I was sure to take some of it. Playing 8-handed and nearing the 2-hour mark I was sitting on about $1,000 when the concurrent big stack decided to start racking up. Upon seeing that the second biggest stack racked up, and leaving the game 6-handed usually meant that someone else was bound to get up and the game would break shortly thereafter. I decided to join the bailing crew, as I had hit my $600 goal for the night and was more than willing to quit since I was beyond my target profit anyways.

Sure enough the table broke and I was $700 ($705) winner on 2 hours. I had the mindset to play all night, but then again I wasn't gonna argue with winning $700 in 2 hours at a 2/5NL game. I ran into a couple buddies from high school as I was racking up, and ended up having a semi-lengthy conversation with the both of them while I was sweating Joe. It felt nice to catch up with them both a little, and it was kinda cool to remember good old high school times. Joe ended up finishing play without me getting back into a game, and the night ended up with another short session, and another decent win.

Saturday was a do nothing day, I just kinda layed around. I bought season one of The Deadliest Catch on DVD last week, and got around to watching to whole thing on Saturday. That's a frickin great show, and if you haven't seen it yet I strongly urge you to do so, it's just an awesome documentary show. I started watching the second season a little while ago on the Discovery Channel, and while it's one of the only few shows I do watch, I love it. After I finished watching that I just slept, and it was sooooo good.

Sunday I woke up late, and that was great fun. I ate lunch on this beach-front restaurant with my parents at about 2:30, and after that it was time to hit up Chumash again; I was still looking for an extended session. After playing a 6-hour session and coming up only $230 on Thursday and only getting in 2 hours on Friday, I was hungry for more action. I went in with the full intention of playing all day, and possibly through the night if the action was good. Unfortunately, it wasn't.........

I bought in for $200 and built it up to $350 shortly after sitting down. Things were looking alright right away, but as time wore on that's not how it was. The first major hand I was involved in after getting over $300, I ended up with Qd6d on a board of 5-4-K-3 with two diamonds. With a pot of around $250 thanks to a loose table, I was heads up with a guy on the turn, who I put all-in for about $115. I was open ended and flushing to the river, and as the 4d hit the river I thought I was good as I flipped over my cards. The opponent had KK though, and my flush made his boat. I had kind of let that blind side me cuz I thought I had won right as the dealer turned the 4d, but quickly realized the situation. Either way I had lots of outs going to the river, and even if I knew he had KK I still would have put the money in the pot, getting 3-1 for my money. I didn't mind losing that one, but what I did mind was the way my night was going to go.

For the rest of the day/night I was just getting killed by the board. My hands made other hands, my plays were getting shut down, and my big hands weren't hitting. All the while I was getting suited connectors for limps facing around four limpers every pot, but I just wasn't connecting with those either. I ended up stuck in the game for three buy-ins, or $600. After losing the third buy-in by 11:30PM, I decided to hit the pit for a short visit before I went home. I bought in for $200 at the 3-Card Poker table, and dwindling down to my last chips I squeezed out an Ad2d, and played it. The dealer hand qualified with K-high, and the dealer spread out my cards to reveal the Ad2d3d for a straight flush! That paid out $600+, and I felt a little better about the night. I laughed at myself for being a casino rat, but I do love the feeling. Not a lot of things stimulate my brain and my emotions like gambling does, and when it does it really excites me, whether I win or lose. I know I'm not alone on that one :)

After losing a little bit back to the casino I tipped the dealer and....headed back to the poker room. By this time it was around midnight and I was still looking for some sweet poker action. I rebought back into the NL game and played for two more hours before I made back $100 at the poker table. Overall it was a bad card night in the poker room, and I left kind of exhausted. I sat at the blackjack tables for another hour and a half before I left though, haha oh well.

By the end of the night I was down $500 at the poker table, and I dropped another $200 at the blackjack table before I left. Overall with my winnings at the 3-Card Poker table and my losses both to the casino and to poker, I left down $200 total on the night. If I would have left down $600 in the poker room, I would have really felt down on my luck. But forunately for me and my gambling tendencies, I was able to get some of it back on the floor and I felt better.

Tomorrow Joe and I are going back up, and I plan on going at least 2 more times before the week's end. I'll be shooting for $600 winning sessions, which I feel should be easily obtainable, so hopefully I'll do alright. We'll see how it goes, so stay tuned for

It's no fluke, I'm good again

In the last 2 weeks I've played at Chumash for only 16 hours, and have profited $2,800+. I've had 5 sessions, and all of them for winner. I've gone for winner of $460, $930, $400, $875, and last night for $230. I think I've hit a point in my play where I am just very happy with it.

The Chumash 2/5NL game has a $200 max buy-in, which makes for some limited play at times. Two of the nights I had to rebuy, but still made a comeback to profit for $400 and $230. Actually, the first time I had to rebuy, on Monday night, I did it on purpose to loosen the table, as it was way too tight for my likings. I started raising everything, betting and insta-folding to raises, and raising blind. It worked and a few rounds later I got my initial buy-in back, and by the end of a 3-hour session had profitted another $400 and change.

After a $875 winner on Wednesday night, I decided to go back on Thursday night for at least 6 hours. It's a good thing I decided to do that, cuz that's what it took to make any money at all. I lost my first buy-in in the first 2 hours just to dead cards and calling lots of preflop raises, as I was getting odds to call with at least 3 callers to every raise preflop. Unfortunately for me my cards were either dead or just not hitting postflop. I rebought after losing my first $200, and a few hands later I was instantly put to a difficult decision. I had raised preflop with QQ and got called by a crazy player who had been playing pretty wild all night. The board came up K high and he pushed in, leaving me with a decision to call off the rest of my stack. He could have easily had a K, whether it was K-low or not. I took my time, stared him down a little, and ultimately trusted my physical read and called him off, saying "Thinkin you got jacks..." I flipped my queens, the board blanked, blanked, and he showed me Jacks. I got some applause and a few "Wow man great call!"s from the table, and pretty much got back to even on that one.

A little while later I got great news, as Danni (one of the dealers) called me over and gave me a big envelope. She said "Here, it's a wedding invitation. It's on June 10th. And you better make sure Joe's there!" It was really cool to get that invite, and it should be a great time. Now to some of you that might be kind of a wierd, having a dealer invite you to their wedding. But like I've stated in the past, Joe and I have spent a lot of time up there, and have hung out with some of the poker staff outside of the casino, and have more or less become friends with them instead of players to them. I'm sure there are plenty of cases of this with the younger players out there who are professional, or just play a hell of a lot. And it's not just cuz we're regulars cuz there are plenty of regulars up there at Chumash all day every day, but Joe and I and another chick are the only ones who got the invitation. So, despite the "wierdness", it really was cool.

So anyways, the rest of the night I had to work hard to gain ANY ground at all, as the deck was just ice. Eventually I had played a little over 6 hours, and seeing no change in the cards since I had sat down, I decided to take my profit and call it a night. I felt down, cuz I was definitely looking to get more than $230 profit. But as I was leaving the casino I laughed to myself, realizing that even if I made that much on a regular basis, I could still support life and live it lavishly enough. Darsky said the same thing to me, too, and I laughed to myself again.

All in all, I gotta say I'm feelin better about life in general than I have in a very, very long time. Things on a personal level are going well, and I'm excited about an upcoming personal event that might change my life in a big, big way, and is definitely an opportunity that I will not let slip through my fingers. In the poker world, things are going great, and I am in a zone right now that I will be in for a long time, and I'm confident that in the immediate future I will be making some decent money playing cards. Things are on the up and up, and I'm lovin it.

Stay tuned for next time...

A Gift From the Poker Gods

So after my small victory at Chumash on Tuesday night, I decided that my Thursday night would be more fun if I played more cards, again. I didn't stay long the previous time, and I figured that I might not stay too long this time either, if I won enough to keep me content for the weekend.

This time I got there at about 7:30, since there is a tournament every night at 7, and usually around an hour after the tournament starts there's about a half hour wait for the list. I showed up and found an open seat at the 2/5 NL, and boy what a meaty table it was. I sat in seat 6, bought in for the $200 max, and watched a few hands before I went to work and started chopping away at the table. There was not much money at this particular table, but I wasn't too worried about it since I figured I was there to take it all anyways :). Plus there was more rebuys flying around at this table then I'd seen in a while. The rebuys were usually for $100, but there were plenty of them, so that was fine by me.

There was no strong players, and there was only one regular at my table. He was one of those loose, asian players (not to disrespect anyone, as I'm 1/8th Japanese myself) and I knew his style, so I wasn't too worried about him anyways. Other than him there was a full table of donkey-ish or weak players. I started out right away by taking about $150 off of a rebuying machine that was in seat 9. After about half an hour he left, and the loose asian guy was the big stack at the table, sitting with about $800. I had about $350, and I don't think I was covered by anyone at that point, that's how weak and small this table was. Just as I was thinking about how I was going to get everyone's money, the poker gods sent me a gift in the form of two young kids who had a lot of talk and no game.

As soon as the two kids sat down they started talking about how they usually played in this game and that, and how they'd been playing for a long time, although they both appeared to be about 16. They started critiquing others play, and making bad critiques at that. These kids were clearly TV players and had absolutely no idea what they were doing. Not only were they loud, but they were hassling the drink girls too, so they were jerks on top of everything else. They sat to my left, and all I could do was look to the sky and thank the poker gods for what they had given me.

Now if any of you know me, you know that I will speak at the poker table, and I will not be afraid to say whatever I want. Therefore, I was instantly tempted to jaw back at these idiots. But I let them go for a little bit at first, but I knew that I would take money from them, and mostly likely all of whatever they had in front of them. First I started by taking one of the kids first buy-ins. I raised AK from the cutoff and he called from the SB. I flopped an ace and checked behind him. He bet the turn and I put him all in. He called with AQ and that was that. He rebought and now it was time to pummel the other one, who I'll call Kid2.

By this point they had been in the game for about 45 minutes and I already had a dead read on both of them, especially Kid2. He wasn't playing well at all, and I had been keeping an extra close eye on him. He had called off his first buy-in earlier to the loose asian guy with a 3-heart flop, with the asian guy flopping the flush and Kid2 not even having any outs after the flop. He had gotten his first buy back by sucking out on the same asian guy. A little after he doubled back up I was in a hand with him and had an easy chance to buy it, but I figured I'd let it go and I told myself I'd catch him later.

About 4 hands after I was thinking this, the greatest thing in the world happened. I had about $500 in front of me and posted my BB. Kid2 raised to $25 from UTG+1, and the loose asian guy called. It folded back to me and I looked down at none other than pocket AA. I figured that I could reraise the loose asian guy out of the pot and go heads up with Kid2, since I knew that he would at least see a flop with me since he didn't particularly know how to let go of hands preflop. The only problem I saw with that was that if I reraised and he didn't hit the flop, then he would probably let go on the flop when I led out. So I decided to flat call, and either outplay Kid2 or let it go if I felt like the flop hit either of them hard.

I flat called the $25 and the three of us saw a flop of Q-Q-7 rainbow. I wasn't too worried about this flop, as I knew how both of the players played. I decided to check and let Kid2 come after me, as I was more than prepared to trap him, unless the asian guy called in which I would have to reevaluate. Almost immediately after I checked Kid2 bet out $35, at which point the other guy folded. I "knew" that he didn't have a Q or 77, because he would have definitely checked that flop if had either of those, so I flat called. The turn was a 2 and I checked again. Without fail Kid2 bet out $75. I figured that if I check-raised him here he would put me on a pretty big hand, but if I called instead and bet the river, it might confuse him into calling a decent sized bet. I called once again, without either haste nor hesitation. The river blanked a big 5, and I thought for a second. I thought back and tried to think about the bets that he was calling. At this point he had $270 in front of him, and I figured I could get at least $150 out of him without having him push the rest of his stack. If he had pushed I would have most likely called, as I was pretty sure of my read, but at the same time I didn't want to have to make that decision.

I counted down my stack and bet out $150. Kid2 squirmed and huffed for a little bit before finally calling. I flipped over my AA and he smacked the table as he slammed down his KK. The dealer pushed the $600 pot my way and I'm pretty sure I had a big smile on my face as I looked over at the steaming 16-year old. His friend just shook his head and mumbled under his breath. I stacked up the chips and just laughed to myself. I knew that these kids were money and boy was I right. That got my stack to a little over $800 and I played for a little more.

I hit the $1100 mark ($900 profit) and decided that that was enough for 2 and a half hours of work. Kid2 tried doing the whole "Awww where are you going?" thing to me as I was racking up. At this point I laughed at him, stared him in the eyes and said "Dude, you will never get your money back from me no matter how hard and how many times you try." The whole table busted up as Kid2's face lit up bright red, and the dealer shot me a big smile as he announced "Seat open table 7!" I headed over to the cage and cashed out, happy with my play once again.

I hadn't been there long this time, just like I hadn't on Tuesday night, but both times I was very happy with my play. The players at the 2/5NL at Chumash aren't the greatest, but it still feels good to know that you owned them.

One thing that I've noticed myself doing recently is trusting my reads and not backing down. That was a big problem with my game before, but I'm finally trusting them and it's paying off now. I think I'm finally in my zone, although I've only played for 5 hours total split over 2 sessions, so it might be a bit premature to say. Only time will tell, and until then.......

Some Tuesday night 'Mashin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The most exciting game of Challenge ever

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

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

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

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

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

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

3-Card Guts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

An Explanation of Challenge and the Boys of 318

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

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

Confused?!?

Here, let me explain further.

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

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

Therefore, this picture here

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

Ok so that's Challenge. Any questions still?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

Bankroll: $400

Unleashing and Unloading

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next time.

Bankroll: $400