No poker this weekend. Busy painting and stuff.

BBT3. Don't forget the Big Game tonight. I won't be there - between home projects and a disgusting lack of fundage (or Tier II tokens), it makes no sense for me to play.

I stopped over and looked at the BBT3 scoreboard. Yuck. There are only two people who have played at least as many events as I have (11 of 17) with worse results. Fortunately my head is in a lot better place than it was during week one - it just doesn't matter all that much and I am resigned to the continuation of my bad streak until the poker gods decide to be merciful.

Someday.

Also noted: Six diehards have played all 17 events. Yow.

Time to go put on another coat.

Straying way off topic for a moment...

Some days ago former presidential candidate and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson endorsed Obama.

A day or so later CNN.com and other major news outlets reported stories with headlines of "Richardson urges Democratic unity" and such.

Nice job, Bill. First you knife your old buddy in the back and then you call for "unity" since you've made up your mind.

You gotta love politicians.

Another evening, another BBT3 failure. Out 42nd - which seems to be my usual placement - in the Mookie. After a hot start where I took out our host via set-over-set and then a flopped boat with 52s, things cooled off. In the second hour I kept getting squeezed and was forced to fold a few times - every time there was a showdown I would have lost the hand - until finally someone decided that pocket 7s were good enough to call my AKs push.

At least that was a standard departure. I got punked in the Bodonkey (out on the bubble in 15th). Twice I got hosed counterfeited on the river by the board double pairing.

Poker still sucks.

*****

I'm not going to turn this into Guinness and Politics Lite or anything, but let me go there for a minute.

Detroit sucks.

It's a hole. The mayor has just been charged with about 1,000 felonies. People are fleeing the area three times faster than any other metro area in the country.

Detroit needs a change.

Detroit needs a drink. Or fifty.

Detroit needs someone "Tall. Dark. Handsome. [And a] Possible Mayoral Candidate."

Detroit needs the Bracelet.

That's right. Uncle Bracelet for Mayor after Kwame steps down.

First order of business: Non-secret party at the Manoogian Mansion.

I'm good for fifty bucks as soon as the exploratory committee is formed. I'll make it a hundred if there are promises that the campaign will use words like "huge", "endowed" and "masterful" as often as possible.

(p.s. - if residency is a concern, remember that you can buy a home in the city for as little as $12).


Tonight is the Riverchasers, 9:00 pm on FTP. Be there or be confused.

I skimmed over the front page of this blog today and found myself thinking "man, what a bunch of crap". Not that this was ever the world's greatest read, but still. It's kind of sucked lately and I feel like I owe people an apology for wasting their time.

Some time ago I remember a reading a post about the death of the poker blog. Or maybe I'm mixing that up with a post that nicely described poker blogs as either about one's personal experiences or as newsy types the way Iggy used to be. Anyway, this blog is definitely in the experiential category and as I play less and have less time for all things poker the "quality" (such as it is) definitely suffers. I don't think its in a death spiral, but I could definitely use an overhaul.

Since I am as always short on time and can't come up with a monster post to relieve the sucking, here's something else -- a list of five "old school" poker blogs that I used to enjoy reading but which have gone the way of the dodo some animal that's still around but you never hear about. Consider them Milk Carton Kids of poker blogging...

5. Bazkar's Poker Voyage (last post 9/11/07). Chicago guy, used to post about trips to the boats.

4. Professional Poker Player Chris Halverson (last post 6/6/07, but really in 2006). Once the World of Warcraft virus infects you, you're a goner.

3. Fish Soup by SoxLover (last poker post 7/07). Having kids really changes your priorities, doesn't it?

2. Meek's PBR (last post 1/07). Bank roll AWOL?

1. Felicia (No poker content since 6/07 - understandable, of course, since she's had so many health problems). Whether you appreciated her brutal honesty or not, Felicia was always a great read.

This easily could have been a list of 10, 20 or even 30 names, but I'm going to leave it at five for now.

Is it Monday again already? Nuts.

It was a quiet weekend on the poker front. I busted in a standard spot - 42nd - in the Riverchasers, but had fun goofing around and enjoying a couple 'pops'.

Friday brought frustration. I decided to play the dollar donkament and had things going pretty well. Unfortunately, though, FTP did not want to stay connected. I didn't notice any problems with other internet-related stuff, but I can't swear that it was a Full Tilt issue. The problem got worse and worse as we got deep into the tournament, but since I was doing well I was reluctant to just check the autofold box and log off. I ended up bubbling when I couldn't take it anymore and shoved junk. Yeah, I got $0 for fourth instead of fighting for $50+ for third. Which sucked. But not as much as waiting and waiting and waiting to reconnect.

I don't think it really affected my finish, but I thought it was interesting that I was on a run of more than 80 hands without a pocket pair when I finally busted. I did get a pocket pair over at the old school blogger cash table, but as usual KK was no good against AQs all in preflop. Sigh.

Moving on, I managed to remember Saturdays with Dr. Pauly just as it was starting. Thank you Stars for having late registration. Another week, another mid-pack bustout.

The BBT3 rolls on this week and I'm definitely planning on a limited schedule. I have a token but will probably skip the MATH tonight. Skillz Series is a maybe tomorrow. Probably no Mookie on Wednesday. Likely yes on Riverchasers Thursday. If you have an interest in going to the World Series of Poker and you're not playing these events, what the heck are you thinking?

The Bodonkey is also a probable tomorrow. They've added a twist this week - Josh Arieh is going to play and there is a $T100 bounty on his head. Great structure + nice overlay + reasonable 9:05 starting time = sweet sweet tournament.

Wrapping things up, I would tell you about how well I'm doing in my NCAA brackets, but that would just further jinx them so screw it. I'll end up out of the money anyway. Besides, bracket brags are even more annoying than bad beat stories. I'll stick to what I know.

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Okay, that's it. Not the last straw, certainly, but we're into the last box of straws. Time to take a few days off.

I should not have played the MATH last night. I was not in the right frame of mind to begin with and five minutes in I was actively pissed off. It's so very hard to play decently when you're on hyper-tilt.

After 45 minutes of spewmonkey "poker", I was down to 1,000 chips. Heffmike raised pot to 200-some chips, I shoved over the top. He called quickly, if not instantly.

I said - out loud - "how am I going to get f---ed THIS time?"

When two clubs came on the flop, my money would have been on runner-runner four flush.

Ace on the river works well, too. Good f---ing game.

The funny thing is that I actually did some thinking earlier yesterday about how to turn things around. I recalled some posts by people who have actually won recently, some of which have included mention of how infrequently they were all in. So I made a conscious decision not to be so quick to shove. And hey, I was faithful to that objective. I was all in once. As a 70/30 favorite. And I lost. So much for that strategy.

My new strategy for when I return - actually hit some flops or something, maybe suck out once.

Until then, enjoy your pokering. As much as I would like to play the Bodonkey - the tournament with the best damned structure in online poker - tonight I really really really shouldn't. I need to suffer in different ways - not poker related - for a while.

How sad is it when your finest poker achievement of the week was leading tonight's Riverchasers event for the first 15 minutes or so?

Wait. Don't answer that. Poker sucks.

It was pretty sweet to get AA on the first hand and have TOC-bound Tuscaloosa Johnny stack off with JJ on a ten high flop.

It was less sweet to run a flush into DMFQB twenty minutes later to fall back down to the starting stack.

It was not thrilling to see Bayne get AA or QQ every third hand.

It pretty much sucked ass to see a Q8Qxx hit the board when I successfully goaded Pirate Wes into shoving his AQ preflop into my AK.

It didn't really bother me that much when I shoved my crumbs with an open ended straight flush draw and missed.

I'm tired of this.

I rushed through painting for this?

Bodonkey. 20th. At least I stacked Waffles early.

So I have a nice collection of chips early in hour 3. I get AA for the first time, on the button. I get a willing victim who three bet shoves with QQ. If my hand holds, I'm right up to the top of the leader board. Q on the turn, I miss ten outs on the river. Dammit. Back below average.

Get some of those chips back when AK miraculously holds against KJ. Same donkey. Nice call.

And busto with AQ vs AJ, again all in preflop. Different donkey. Nice call.

Three times the money goes in preflop when I'm good. Winning one out of three feels like par for the course right about now - unless you're talking Full Tilt, where one out of a thousand feels more like it.

The less said about the Skills series the better. 72nd. I didn't play well, but JFC does the flop always have to be JJ8 with none of my suit when I'm holding AAxx or AAxy double suited and x/y aren't a J, 8 or even a KQT or 9?

Not a whole lot to say this morning. We'll see if any of it turns out to be worth reading.

I don't know about you, but I was dragging big time on Friday. Five consecutive (late) nights of BBT3/Bodonkey action followed by too little sleep equaled one day of feeling like ass. I started to recover a bit on Saturday and then wham daylight savings time. Aargh.

Living by the clock is teh suck.

So, anyway, poker. The BBTree. It continues tonight with the Hoy at 10:00 pm EDT. I think it would be crazy to expect to play in all 55 BBT3 events. Some people will. But not me. After a little sleep-deprived reflection it definitely looks like I'll be much more irregular in my appearances. Even though I have a token I'll probably skip the Hoy. Tuesday is likely to be a regular stop, playing (both the non-BBT3 Bodonkey and) the Skillz series is too tempting and an early start before 10:00. Riverf-ckerschasers on Thursday is also more likely than the Mookie on Wednesday. Two nights a week should be plenty - and friendly to my severely depleted "bankroll" too.

Not much play this weekend. I squeezed in Saturdays with Change100 and went out pretty early when I got riverstarred by Riggstad. No big deal and it's not like I played well.

I skipped the donkament on Friday, opting to do some pre-paint taping instead. Got down some primer on Saturday and a first coat yesterday. I'll put down a top coat on Tuesday, hopefully remove the tape and do any necessary touchups next weekend and I'll be done with the first room (yay!) of my redecorating project - at least three more rooms to go...

ummm ... nope.

Yeah, there was a Riverchasers PLO event. So what?

So as per usual I pretty much hung around the "dank position" (i.e. last). I never accumulated enough chips to get comfortable and then got hurt in a hand against the Big Pirate where he turned a boat on a non-threatening board and I rivered a smaller but strong enough to call the river value bet boat. Ugh. From that point on I received junk hands and played them weakly - largely because I never flopped anything better than 3rd pair or a backdoor draw. In short, whatever.

Suitably tilted, I made my way over to Stars and signed up for a Step 1 WSOP sit 'n go.

And I beat the living daylights out of that thing. Boom.

It lasted 40 hands. I took out one player and left a second player with 80 chips on the third hand when I actually HIT on a hand where I had double digit outs - hit a full house but a flush would have also worked. Donkey powers, activate! I took out another player on the sixth hand when I flopped a set and he decided TPNK was gold. Yet another player bit the dust on hand #7 with TPNK against my flopped frush. My fourth takeout was on hand #16, when I resucked with AK vs AQ. Victim #5 - hand #37. I have 86o in the big blind and see a free flop of QQQ. Super shorty shoves with K9o, six on the turn. Booom. Hand #40, A8s in the big blind, A86 flop. I bet it out, the guy in 2nd shoves, shorty folds (wisely - two tickets to Step 2), I call and crusher A6s. Oops. You go home now.

Thank you Stars, it was very very very refreshing to get smacked with the deck like that after how things have been going the last six weeks at that other site. I'm going to savor the win, at least until I get destroyed in my Step 2.

Oh, yeah, that's it. Now I remember how to do well in blogger donkaments:

1. Win your coinflips
2. Don't lose to dominated hands and donk calls
3. Suck out egregiously at least once.

It wasn't much of a cash, but I am on the board (wooo) in the BBT3 with an 11th place in the Mookie last night. The statement in yesterday's post that I was going big or going home? Well, it didn't happen. I ran JJ into KK during level one for half my stack (thank you scary flush board for saving me the rest) and it was uphill the whole way.

It really should have been a short ride, as I also ran QQ into AA early in the first hour. Gruesome river Q and I was back almost to the starting stack. So dirty.

When we got down to the last two tables the blinds were crazy - four people had pretty decent stacks, everyone else had an M of four or less. I finally busted shoving QJo into a big blind's AKs. I suppose I could have avoided that, but when the tables are 5-6 handed it's not like you can be too picky about your spots.

Tonight is the Riverchasers, which I think is PLO. Remember to say "wheeeeeeee" early and often, because it will be nuts. 9PM eastern, which is mercifully an hour earlier than the Mookie - speaking of which, thanks Mookie for reducing the starting stacks. While more play is usually good, staying up until dawn is not so much. Also, congratulations on the newest minimook.

Until next time, I yawn.

I know it's a super-crappy camera phone picture, but it is what it is: A food drive table where someone contributed a CASE of mf'n grape jelly. 24 jars.


I might need to go to Wal-Mart this weekend and buy some lucky family a five pound pail of peanut butter and a few loaves of white bread to go with it.


Last night's pokering was not successful. I finished in the 30s somewhere in the Skillz Series. Didn't play well, didn't play awful. Mostly didn't get real good cards. No rolled up hands. I survived one all in where I made a gutshot straight on 5th. Bricked a couple flush draws where I had the first four cards all sooted. It was Stud Hi - in other words, whatever.

The Bodonkey featured something I haven't done in a while - an actual misclick. I had AK on an ace high board against JmatthewsonIII. I had a feeling that the river Jack hosed me, so I thought better of my bet and went to check - oops, misclick, there go 1300 extra chips to his AJ. I'm so used to having 2 screens and lots of space that playing just on the laptop was kinda weird.

I hung on for a while, but it was frustrating getting marginal push hands when short only to have Yestbay on my right open shoving before I got a chance to do so myself. I ultimately went out 13th to Drizz - somehow he dodged a ton of outs - with A4s vs his KK, I had bottom pair on the flop, an over, a gutshot and a flush draw on the river. None hit, obviously. Way to go on and win, ya donkey.

Tonight, things are going to be different. I'm sick of spending all my time in the bottom 20% of chipstacks. I'm going BIG or I'm going home. Metaphorically speaking, anyway, since I'll be playing from there. Yawl are officially on notice, I'm playing like a retard tonight, shoving early and often.

* I don't think it's going to take too long before I reconsider the idea of playing in a lot of BBT3 events. We're only two days in, I haven't gone deep at all and I'm still dog tired. Late night tournaments, big fields, work and the damned eastern time zone do not mix.

* Okay, I will probably play the remaining events this week, but then it's re-evaluation timezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.



Huh, wait, what? Where was I?

* I'm giving consideration to starting an anonymous rant blog. It will be solely for bad posts about stupid things that bug me. If I had started it already, today's topic would be Microsoft and how you can't convince Hotmail to classify their annoying mass emails as "junk" by default. Spam is spam.

* No offense to Guinness & Politics or other people who are into such things, but I am loving being "off the grid" when it comes to this election crap. I haven't seen any TV ads or commentary - I haven't turned on my TV since football season ended - and because of where I live radio ads have been non-existent as well. If the ads do get cranked up this fall, I'm switching to CDs and MP3s for the duration.

* Speaking of political junk, it's going to be hard to work up any enthusiasm to even vote come November. I generally loathe politicians and definitely see this as trying to choose which is the less of two evils. Do I go with the ideologically bankrupt, corruption-riddled party that's been running things and who will happily screw me over if some lobbyist donates a bunch of money, or do I go with the other one (which is the same only different)? Yay democracy.

* And thus concludes what will hopefully be the last political post ever on this blog.

* Stud hi tonight. Say it with me, people. "Brick, brick, brick, DAMMIT!"

* I'm looking forward to playing stud because it means that I can't run KK into JJ.

* The only stud hi specialist I can think of is the Rooster. Who else is a big stud, um, player?

* I guess I could run KK/x into JJ/J, but that's different. Shut up.

* These are getting shorter.

* Yes I am aware that content is a little lacking - in this post and in general. There are a lot of reasons for that. I don't watch TV poker. I've mostly given up reading the 2+2 forums (a giant timesuck). I don't play all that much anymore. Many things have been said enough times that I don't feel like restating the obvious. I'm not reading books or otherwise trying to improve my game. Just like in life, I'm coasting. And complaining.

* Also, poker sucks.

* If I haven't made sense anytime during the last couple weeks, I'm blaming it on paint fumes. One room almost done, several to go. Shaping up a house really blows, and there is still the yard to be done and a dumpster to be filled with junk oh joy. I would be more enthused if anything were selling.

* It would also help if it were spring.

* As part of the above project and in the interest of just shaking things up, I think I might move my computer gear out of the office before the Bodonkey tonight. Maybe set up in the living room, where I once won a tournament on Titan when the funds were getting low.

It's not like I'm superstitious or anything...

* I would like to be a little better at Blogger (and at HTML). I want to increase the font size for my posts, but I can't seem to do so without it also increasing the font size for the left column - which of course totally messes up the ads in that column since those boxes don't resize. It doesn't seem to mess up the ones on the right, which is odd. Perhaps if I studied the template I could figure out why it behaves this way.

* More caffeine will be required before lunch. Need energy now. Post ending.

Mondays at the Hoy. 103 runners forked over the token for some 6 max NL "fun".

Right off the bat things were more interesting. The first hand, I received 99 UTG and raised. Numbono called from the BB. I flopped a set and took two thirds of his stack. QQ no good.

Unfortunately, on hand fifteen, I received KK in the SB. Garth called my reraise with JJ and this time he was the one who flopped a set. Aggression led to me doubling him up.

Eleven minutes in, down to 500 chips. Fawk.

Two minutes later I tripled up when 22 sucked out on QQ and AJ, but that was the highlight. I lingered on for another hour and a half, but never got anything going.

Out 48th.

The countdown to busto rolls on .... only

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm actually looking forward to playing stud hi in the Skillz Series tomorrow. And don't forget about the Bodonkey - with all the words about the BBT3, it's easy to forget that Bodog is really stepping up too.

10:30 pm - first break, at T3585 (83/96). 105 donkeys ponied up, including guest pro Scott Fischman.

In the first hour, I received 72 hands. Of those hands, zero were pocket pairs. One was AQo, during level one, which won me the blinds.

I misplayed - moderately - one hand, JTs from the SB. Cmitch made what looked like a steal raise from late position, I called and led the turn and river on a T high board. Didn't fire the last bullet, he showed ATo for the win. I picked up a note on his range in exchange for about 1k chips.

We're back in action.

11:07 pm - Antes just kicked in. So far this hour I had another AQo, took the blinds. Tangled with the Big Pirate in a battle of the blinds and turned a flush to pull a few chips.

11:09 pm - Just dealt my first pair, KK UTG. I get the blinds. Wheeeee.

11:17 pm - Second pair, 22 in the SB. Dumped preflop to a standard raise.

11:19 pm - And yuck. Get QQ in position and misplay it horribly. Outflopped, donk call, busto. 74th place.

For once it was 100% on me. I tried to get the double when I should have reraised preflop or laid it down when a king flopped and tried to fight my way up from an M of under 3 (stupid antes).

In 126 hands, I won one hand at showdown. What a day.

Yes, it has occurred to me that my tone has been pretty negative lately. I have resolved to be more positive in my outlook.

This positively sucks. How's that?

Oh, wait, while typing this I just got positively hosed yet again, bounced from a satellite with KK against JJ, all in preflop. Dumbass limp-reraised with JJ and got rewarded on the river. Of fucking course.

Positively standard.

One satellite running yet before I shut it down for the morning. I'm taking action on how this one will go down. 33 left, 6 spots pay - I'm thinking I'll go out about 11th with AA vs. 84 offsuit.

So, anyway, like I was saying, I'm going to be more positive about things. I'm positively excited about the BBT3, even though I will probably flail about miserably. I really have no idea why I'm excited. Maybe it's just a history of occasional success in blonkaments. I shouldn't play. I'm dead money. And yet I feel compelled to, instead of cashing out whatever funds I have left after a month of rectal pillaging.

So I'm going to have fun with the dregs of the "bankroll". Instead of dwelling on the negative, I give you ... my personal COUNTDOWN TO BUSTO!

It's passe in my opinion to post this kind of countdown in dollars, so I'm going with BBT3 events till busto. Thank goodness I won about $3 playing cash today or I would have been short for that twenty-third event.

Since I can't seem to win a Tier II token for the life of me, I will probably buy in directly tonight. See you there for the Big Game, unless I get home too late or just don't feel like playing.