Winner winner

Well I tell ya folks, despite the fact that online poker is dead (as well as blogs) I was able to get my fix in last night at my monthly home game.

I got really low in the first game, down to 5 BB when I landed pocket fives UTG and ended up making quads on the river.  I tripled up then continued my dominance to a first place win. I got nice and toasted after my win and ended up chopping first in the second tourney.

I extended my lead in the series by a few hundred bucks, and that makes me feel great. I fully believe the absence of online poker has made me focus more and become a better player. SO a hearty fuck you to the DOJ, you can try and take away my hobby, but I shall prevail.

Who is John Galt?

The world owes you nothing.

Hey Kids, I get to play poker tonight!! Aren't you soooo happy for me? Cause I am. I get some much needed vacation next week with a long weekend at the beach with family and more and more family weeeeeee! It's a good thing I like them.

Big shouts and hollas out to NUMB, Blood and @themark for cashing in WSOP events. Bloggers gotta represent.

That's all, I'm sure you're glad you wasted the time reading this.

By the way:

Have a good weekend.

No Poker? No Problem

So, its been a long time without online poker for me, but I've found many ways to effectively pass the time and also occasionally scratch that little gambling itch.

I've played in 3 of the 5 monthly poker tournaments near my neighborhood. There's usually 2 tourneys a night and anywhere from 12 to 20 players. I've cashed all three nights I've played to put myself in good position for the year long payout. I'm currently sitting in 2nd place.

I've recently joined Draftstreet to see if I can figure out how to beat daily baseball leagues. It's been a mixed bag so far, I've cashed in only 1 event. So I'll keep on the low and free tourneys until I get a good grip on the scoring system. I think if you use that handy little link there I and you will get some sort of bonus for playing $ games, so hook a brother up.

The WSOP has begun so I can begin sweating my horsies. The Leak should make things interesting.

I've been actively seeking out new music and keep finding old stuff. I have been picking through the Grateful Dead library and been getting some good bootlegs. I've also filled out my library with older Massive Attack, Acen (yes I went though the early 90's rave scene), the entire Daft Punk library, the new Beasties, and a Joy Division remaster.

I keep expanding my role at work by digging in to Wordpress (not that this site shows it), Sitecore, and some other CMS. Enough so that I know I will never have the patience and attention to detail to be a real programmer.

OK, I think I had a point at the beginning of this post, but I gotta go home. See you kids soon.

WSOP BEGINS!!

Cheers to all those headed to Vegas, may the chips be with you! For those of us living vicariously through others we have props. Jordan has the details here: WSOP 11 props

Additionally he and I bet on ME entries. I thought I was going high at 5635, but jordan went higher at 6319. CK was nice enough to be the arbitrator in our guesses. So where are you at?? My initial guess was 5300, but I moved it up. I've seen guesses as low as 4000 and CK set the line at 5000 after getting our guesses.

I'll be watching for those updates so lets gettem started!!!!!!!

Reality 86'd

The intranets showed me this awesome documentary about Blag Flag in 1986. Just when I was starting to cultivate a taste in music, this stuff smacked my brain.

I'm glad that David Markey had the wherewithal to chronicle this.


"Reality 86'd" A film by David Markey from David Markey on Vimeo.

Edit: you have to go to Vimeo to watch it. Give yourself an hour.

So what happens?

I'm beginning to think that Party Poker will have a real good chance to return to the US before the other two big poker sites. They followed the rules the the US laid out and are viewed as legit by the UK.


Could Party Poker have a leg up on reentering the US sooner than other sites given their compliance so far??

New game in town

I played a new neighborhood game for the second time last night. A good friend of mine turned me on to a juicy traveling game last month. It rotates houses every month and takes a very small rake for an end of the year leader board. Last month I played a little too tight and ended up 3rd in the first tourney. Bad beat in the second. This month I had a better understanding of my opponents, and outplayed/outdrew them all night. I won both tourneys last night chopping with the 2nd place guy both times. I now am atop the 2011 leader board. Then I won another 100 or so playing dealers choice. It was so nice having a great feel for the cards and players. A perfect storm of awesome. Pulled in a little over 5 bills then woke up this morning and played three sets of winning tennis.

Like I told Waffles, you gotta play like a champion for things to happen, I'm starting to do just that in cards and life. It's a great feeling sometimes.

Otis reminded me.

I read this post by Otis just a few minutes ago and was reminded of this story:

Some background:
My soon to be wife and I decided we wanted some very special wedding rings. We are both of Irish descent, but not thoroughly steeped in the Irish traditions other than a healthy (or not so) taste for adult beverages. However it was our bright idea that we would have crafted for us, unique Irish knot wedding rings. We researched our lineages for designs and found a unique and not-too girly design that we would have fashioned into rings. Long story short we had these beautiful yet heavy rings crafted in 14K gold with a nice diamond nugget for my wife being the only real design difference. These were expensive rings.

Fast forward a few years and we were at my cousin's lake house. I was teaching my children to hang on for dear life to the inner-tube while my cousin sped. I remember thinking about removing my ring, but decided, nah we won't be going too fast because of the kids. Well, I decided to let my cousin pull just me and he punished the everliving crap out of me. I distinctly remember my final dismount as he ran me into a huge wake going about 30mph. I was floating gleefully through the air, arms and legs splayed and I felt the tug of my ring leaving my finger. I tried shifting my body towards the giant golden circle floating towards the cool blue water (that slo-mo NOOOOOOOOOO in my head) but to no avail. It sank like so many shiny lures before it and lays at the bottom of Lake Sidney Lanier.

My wife got a real nice shiny new ring for that one, and I have a nice cheap band of white gold.

HeadsUp

HighOnPoker, always a font of good ways to separate me from money, is getting together some sort of prop bet for NBC's Heads Up Championship. Poker, gambling, and not dependent on MY ability...SOLD.


Here is the lineup of talent:


Jason Alexander
Patrik Antonius
Eric Baldwin
David Benyamine
Andy Bloch
Liv Boeree
James Bord
Doyle Brunson
Joe Cada
Daniel Cates
Johnny Chan
Don Cheadle
Nicolas Chouity
Allen Cunningham
Jonathan Duhamel
Annie Duke
Tom Dwan
Peter Eastgate
Eli Elezra
Antonio Esfandiari
Chris Ferguson
Ted Forrest
Phil Galfond
Phil Gordon
Barry Greenstein
Bertrand Grospellier
Joe Hachem
Gus Hansen
Jennifer Harman
Phil Hellmuth
Phil Ivey
Faraz Jaka
John Juanda
Gabe Kaplan
Frank Kassela
Eugene Katchalov
Phil Laak
Howard Lederer
Erick Lindgren
Ayaz Mahmood
Thomas Marchese
Mike Matusow
Jason Mercier
Michael Mizrachi
Sorel Mizzi
Chris Moneymaker
Daniel Negreanu
Scotty Nguyen
Annette Obrestad
Dennis Phillips
Dwyte Pilgrim
John Racener
Greg Raymer
Vanessa Rousso
Kara Scott
Huck Seed
Erik Seidel
Vanessa Selbst
Emmitt Smith
Gavin Smith
Jennifer Tilly
Melburn Whitmire
David Williams
Justin Young


I think it would be a good idea for each participant to pick 5 players one of which must be a celebrity, one WSOP champ, one female, and 2 wildcards. Also, maybe as a tiebreaker we could use the card suit brackets that are set just before the filming. Check in with HOP, and lets get this moving...

More Music Please

I've been searching high and low for new sources, avenues, and applications of music. I'm by no means a music snob or whatever, I try to do my best and listen with an open mind....even to that crap my kids like. I found this via my love of post-punk and joy division and it hit me so hard I had to share. I'm sure this isn't up everyones' ally, but heregoes.





Feel free to put me on a path if you think you have suggestions, and big thanks to Mary for sharing Musicophilia and for opening my music brain again.

This was fun....must of been the drugs.

I stayed home Tuesday and Wednesday for a fever and flu like symptoms. Somewhere in my tussin-fueled fog I managed to win my first non-blogger MTT in awhile. I'm officially addicted to the turbo and super tubo versions of On-Demand and Rush On-demand tourneys in values of 2.50-11. This tournament officially had 215 entrants and took just UNDER 2 hours.

Joy Division FTW

VIA Mary
VIA DANGEROUSMINDS

The Ugly

Well my memories of WPBT and Vegas have all but faded into oblivion, however I did want to address something mostly for myself. If I didn't manage to link you or mention you in the past 2 posts, but I did in fact meet you, well I'm slack. Its not you its me.

What I did want to get out for me to remember is that I'm a junkie. I'm reckless, thoughtless, and plain ignorant at times. It's something that's hard to admit when you pretend to be a pretty smart guy. I simply don't have an excuse for Thursday night. I can't convince myself that it was actually me. I ran through my bankroll in a matter of hours. When I was done with that I hit the ATM and damn near drained my checking account. I didn't walk upstairs and go to bed, I didn't sleep it off. I didn't listen to the me that said on the plane 'Don't be an idiot...please'

Nope, I kept pushing the throttle....oblivious to anything other than the fix, the gamble, the booze. It makes me sick to think about what I put in jeopardy. For the sake of....nothing. selfishness, hardheadedness, greed, stupidity? I don't know. I couldn't shake that pit in the bottom of my stomach the rest of the weekend, so please forgive me if I was a little off. I was scared shitless of myself, of fucking up again, of losing. So, no more Vegas for me. Some guys just can't handle it.

Peace.

The Bad

Saturday's tourney.

OK Kids, I got a few minutes to try and knock this out. We last left your hero with missing brain cells and a lack of fundage.

After a fitful sleep, I got up and showered, watched some tube while waffles snored and don cackled. I fell asleep again for a minute and then roused the dudes. I needed some food, since I failed to eat on Friday. We got dressed and decided to cab it over to Aria, I wanted buffet, so we walked about 14 miles around Aria until we found it. Totally worth it.

I had my home made omelet, and various other sundries from the huge buffet. The real bad part is that my hung over brain and shrunken stomach couldn't really take advantage. The shrimp were awesome and the prime rib was bloody, I just couldn't eat very much. I sucked as much down as I could and had a leisurely brunch before the tourney.

My last longer partners were wolfie and xkm1245. We were seated separately, but close enough I could keep an eye out. Neither of them looked particularly enthused, myself I was drowning in missed flops and picked off at least twice when I thought my raise should have been respected. I tightened up and was able to take a couple small pots, but I never got above my starting stack, I was terribly frustrated. I made a stand with ATo and was called by KTo which obviously paired on the river.

I enjoyed meeting Astin, who was to my right until he busted early. His printed photos of the view from Bellagio were spectacular.

I hung out and watched most of the rest of the tourney, getting up to give JOOOO reports on buddy once in awhile. She taught me how to play some penny slots and I bled away about 15 bucks but I did get a beer! woot.

I sweated several notables including Bayne, Mary, DawnSummers, Veneno, Garth, Gracie and Sweet Sweet, OhCaptain, Gnome, Drizz, and the eventual winner MiamiDon.


It was a treat to catch up with Gnome, and meet his wonderful wife who insisted on calling me ScoobyDoo. She was great, and a coupon meister. I also caught a Cat sighting, he told me about red rocks and seeing Dave Matthews unplugged, good stuff.

There's a particularly large hole in my memory here....I'll need to figure out what happened next cause i can't really recall, but there was more to Saturday night that included parading the golden hammer, more poker and drinking, but I'll end here for now.

Coming up, the ugly, an epilogue and things I remember that I forgot.

Recovering

I had back spasms all day yesterday, also sore throat cough, all that fun stuff. Those of you who didn't see me in Vegas can safely assume that other than meeting some really fun people, things didn't exactly go as planned. Full post coming at some point.

Finishing touches.

About this time tomorrow I will no longer be able to function as a rational human being. Too bad I'll be at work most of the day.

I'm still holding out hope of getting my bounty delivered today, if not, someone gets an IOU or I pull an Astin and just win the damn thing.

I got this:

to read for the trip. Hopefully the good Doctor can sign it for me.

I had to finish getting our big ass tree set up and decorated last night. We sat around after finishing up and played 'I spy' with the ornaments as the kids sipped hot chocolate and munched on chocolate chip cookies. Norman Rockwell would be proud. Here is said big ass tree:

Tonight I have to pack and spend some more quality time with the kids and the wife. Tomorrow will be like a trip to the dentist until 5PM est.

See you kids soon!

EDIT: I also found another picture compilation that is pretty neat. Pencil VS Camera

Far out

I don't know how many of you see the daily mail, but this is great.


Clouds



I plan on recouping from a massive hangover about this time next week W0000T!

One week!

AAAARRRRGGH

It's finally coming and I can hardly contain myself!!

I've got to get a to-do list together so I don't forget anything. At my advanced age I've finally learned not to depend on remembering more than three things at a time, so here goes.

I need to get my travelling music together. My 60GB iPod bit the dust early this year and I did not replace it. It was probably my 5th ipod, so I gave up. I have my phone though, so I'm culling together a 5-10 GB list for Vegas. In the last couple days I replaced some older music I had been longing for for awhile, namely Sebadoh's Bakesale, The Cure's Three Imaginary Boys, and Fugazi's13 Songs. I also got ahold of some newer music such as Fang Island, Vampire Weekend, and Kings of Leon. I'd also like to give the gang over at Coventry music blog a big high 5 for finding the complete Mushroom Jazz series online.

I ordered a bounty the other day, hopefully it gets here in time.

I've taken Paulys 'Invading Vegas' post and taken most of his tips to heart.

I plan on packing as light as possible, so I won't be winning any best dressed awards this year, also I'm on the fence about bringing my laptop. Other than the plane ride, I don't seeing it being of much use, but we shall see. I'd be happy to hear an opinion or two on this. What else, Oh money. I've withdrawn some $ from FT, I'll be crossing my fingers that it gets here in a week, if not, no worries. I don't really plan on eating any insane meals. With 3 kids and a wife to provide Christmas for, its hard to justify dropping three bones on some fancy hunks of meat, although I must admit I'd really enjoy it.

As far as extra curriculars I want to just go with the flow. My only real appointments would be Saturday's tournament and tilting back a few glasses of yummy brown liquid with OhCaptain et al.

What else? ahhh, the last longer challenge. I have filled the final spot on the team with xkm1245. XK has been playing the blogger series for a pretty long time and will certainly be a great additon to the Rock and the maniac.

I'm really looking forward to seeing some folks I havent met and those of you I have.

You kids be careful out there, at least for one more week.

Vegas

Yep, It happened, I managed to secure passage to Vegas for the WPBT guilt free. Though a combination of Haitian Voodoo, mind altering drugs, and a lot of begging, the wife is allowing me to head to Vegas. I know, it sounds whipped cause it is. When you are in a marriage with kids, you have to make sacrifices, concessions, and relinquish a little part of your ego. That also happens to be the gift you receive. Its hard to explain but totally worth it. Anywho, I'm heading out on the 9th and coming back the 13th. I need to see if anyone is looking for a last-longer teammate, so hit me up. I'm terribly excited to go to my first Vegas blogger gathering and only my 2nd trip to vegas ever.

In 2003 I went to Vegas with a friend in the neighborhood. He was going for a conference and offered a room. I remember sitting down and playing blackjack for about 9 hrs. We didn't make it to the room until the 2nd day and I was in the hole. I somewhat remember getting asked to leave the Bellagio at one point. We rallied the next day playing 2/5 limit and betting football and horses. My buddy hit a longshot winner and handed me a wad of cash at some point that evening. Later we went to see the delertianers and played 20/hand blackjack. Somehow I managed to leave the 3rd day with some money left, good times.

I'm looking forward to seeing the bloggers again, and meeting some for the 1st time. People looking for last longer partner email me or leave a comment.

I still got some skill

The more things stay the same, the more they change, or something like that. I remembered that I had some amount of cash on Bodog, so I decided to download the poker client for my XP virtual machine. ( Can we please get a Mac client sometime this decade?) I found 36 bucks in cash and 54 in tournament credits left over from the blogger series (link doesn't work anymore) a while ago. SO I found a 1000 guarantee in late registration and joined in. The play was bodonktastic, and I was the chipleader as late as 6 players left, but I got a bad beat from the 2nd place guy, and coasted into 3rd for a $114 profit. Pretty sweet.

If you've been paying just a little attention to my posts for the last few months, you should notice I've been trying to make some positive changes to my life. I had a physical at the beginning of the year and it was a smack in the face. I flat out have not been taking care of myself for many years. I had fallen into some bad habits and I began to realize the abuse I have been doing to myself.

In January, the wife and I decided to quit smoking. It really wasn't much of an issue for us. I suspected my wife would have more of an issue than I, but she stayed strong and we haven't looked back ( minus 1 or 2 slip ups).

In May I decided that the fat had to go. I  was 236 pounds, inactive, tired and uninspired. I shed 12 pounds in a month and have maintained 221-225 since the end of June.

Well this month I decided to bite the bullet and quit drinking. Today makes 2 weeks and it was a little easier than I thought it would be, despite the fear I had. It was the fear I felt associated with quitting that really set my resolve. It scared me that is scared me to even think about quitting, circular logic wins!

Well that's it for now folks, maybe next month I'll start studying to be a priest and really complete my transformation. You kids be careful out there.