Royal Cherry
I just made a one-out total donkey call with ATd on a board of KdQdQh when I was nearly certain that someone had [KQ KK QQ], and guess what? I hit my royal. I got maybe just a little bit excited and played it a bit too fast, but I'm told that happens to most guys their first time. Anyone know of the top of their head(s) how many hands I should have to wait before I see another one of those?
Tones Of Home
We're in.
There's still a bit more to do. Cleaning out the old place, getting the landlord to finish repairs and get his shit out, and general arranging and unpacking are all on the list. As far as I'm concerned, however, the house became "livable" about 30 minutes ago, when all the lights went green on our DSL modem.
Life is good.
I haven't played poker in six days. What am I doing writing a blog entry? I'd describe the place in greater detail, but it will have to wait until my withdrawal pangs have subsided. For now, you may gaze upon a picture and express your jealousy inwardly.
I Could Bring My Little Ghetto Blaster...
Come on, girl,
Let's sneak out of this party.
It's getting boring,
there's more to life than this!
-Björk Guðmundsdóttir
"Brutal Heat Crushes Midwest" is not a headline you ever want to read when you're checking weather.com from Saint Louis. Even on a relatively cool day in July, the humidity here often reaches a level where sweat simply never evaporates, and the heat index Saturday was a ridiculous 121°F. A fine day to spend indoors with the AC cranked, preferably with a large frozen margarita. Not so great if you're planning on spending the day moving furniture into a building whose designers did not have the decades of foresight necessary to install central air ductwork.
Fortunately for me, I had a chunk of cartilidge removed from my spine about four years ago. Mostly this has been a real pain in the
assback for me, but today was one of those rare moments where misfortune transforms to fortune. I stayed indoors (and most importantly, avoided all contact with stairs) for the entire day, packing this, disassembling that, and moving the other to a staging area where one of a half-dozen or so of my closest friends would take over. Thank god I still know people too broke to buy their own beer.
Anyway, by Saturday at 8pm we were finally ready for pizza and AC. Everything that needed to go in the U-Haul was done, and we were probably 85-90% finished with the entire moving process. It is somewhat unfortunate that this is the same percentage of the necessary repairs that our the landlord has completed, but we'll make do. At least he didn't forget to have the gas service switched on, leaving us without hot water. The blame for that one goes to A, who remembered that she'd been assigned this minor task after waiting minutes for the shower to warm up.
Even worse than the lack of kitchen and hot water, however, is SWBT's complete failure to connect our phone and (most importantly) DSL last week as they had scheduled. No word yet on why we haven't been hooked up or when we might expect to be, which means days (perhaps longer) with no poker to speak of. I'm not sure how I'm going to make it without a few hours of clicking and folding each day. The Video Poker Trainer I downloaded recently will help, but there's only so long that will hold my attention without real cash riding on the line.
In addition to all this, or perhaps because of it, my focus at work is absolutely shot. My motivation for work has already been at an all-time low due to the stated intention of management to fire me at their first opportunity, and it doesn't help that no one has a clue what I'm supposed to be doing. So far, everyone with any authority has used me as a catch-all for projects will ill-defined goals and tasks that no one still employed here has any working knowledge of. As far as I'm concerned, even if I don't show up two minutes late two days in a row somewhere down the line and get fired, I've been set up for a major failure the moment any system I'm responsible for has a problem. No one here knows how to fix them (or in most cases, what they're supposed to be accomplishing in the first place), and I've been told not to waste my time on research until something actually crashes.
They're going to be surprised when I give two weeks notice the first time I get an after-hours support call. It should be a laugh-riot.
There's gotta be more to life that this.
My Delicious Bookmarks
So have you seen
del.icio.us? This is quite possibly the coolest thing ever. It's a social bookmarking site, kind of like
Flickr but for websites instead of pics. Not only can you access your bookmarks from anywhere (I am so sick of bookmarking something at work and not being able to find it at home), but you can also view other ppl's bookmarks, search tags, etc. You want a few examples? How about
my bookmarks? Or
all bookmarks tagged poker. Or just
my bookmarks tagged poker. My
bookmarks tagged poker and software. Or
popular bookmarks. Or
popular bookmarks tagged poker. Check out the URLs for those links and you'll see how easy it is to build a query right into the URL. Now, if you haven't already, go
register yourself for an account. And let me know what your username is so I can subscribe to the
RSS feed for your bookmarks.
Random Poker Chat II
Maybe I'll just start posting all the ridiculous things I write in chat once I've past the point where I really should be playing. That's what I'm going to do now, at least.
»Dealer: rvrboatqueen shows a pair of aces
»Dealer: CaptFreeman shows a pair of kings
»#903,306,794: rvrboatqueen wins ($130) with a pair of aces
»CaptFreeman: I didn't want to believe it
»CaptFreeman: nh
»rvrboatqueen: thamks figured that we tie or yu caught a set but i hoped
»rvrboatqueen: that kk or...
»CaptFreeman: I didn't see you reraising with JT or TT or JJ..
»CaptFreeman: I hoped you just didn't believe my overpair
»CaptFreeman: sigh
»CaptFreeman: I don't suppose I could have lost much less there
»Dealer: rvrboatqueen, it's your turn. You have 13 seconds to respond
»CaptFreeman: (I think that's the Official Motto of the National Fish Association)
»rvrboatqueen: lol
»CaptFreeman: our battle cry is "IT'S SOOOOOOOTED!"
»rvrboatqueen: yea lolllllllloooo
Maybe tomorrow I'll dig up the actual history of that hand. I had it emailed to myself because I'm really curious if I could have lost less there. Or at least I question whether I should have. It's worth noting that not all of that was mine, two other players called us down to the river. While AA was a real possibility in my mind, I've found that I lose a lot of extra bets if I don't raise when I think I probably have the best hand, even when the opponent is acting like they have the nuts. Then again, I always have the Official Motto to fall back on.
Anyway, rvrboatqueen turned out to be fun to chat with, so maybe it was worth losing that pot afterall. What's 21 BB between friends? Anyway, we both went on to lose several more bets each because we were flirting instead of paying attention. It's all a question of priorities I suppose. If you do find this post, Queen, shoot me a comment. If you're ever in Saint Louis we can get you the ruffled shirt and tails and go down to the
President Casino.
Random Poker Chat I
I don't really think anyone is reading, though I haven't done the necessary research on hit-counters and referral logs and such to really know for sure, but I'm kind of embarrassed about not posting for almost a month. I guess I'll get past that eventually... the embarassment, that is, not the lengthy silences. I imagine those are likely to be a perpetual part of this blog. Which probably means I should learn to stop apologizing. I'll talk when I have something to say, dammit.
Anyway, I had sort of planned on avoiding hand histories in general, but this is a bit different. I wasn't even inthe hand, I'm the one who folds A2o in MP. Realistically, you can skip the hand if you want, I only provide it for versimilitude. The good part is the chat after the hand.
Dealer: Hand #158827116
Dealer: -wildo- posts the small blind of $1.50
Dealer: fmac posts the big blind of $3
Dealer: You have been dealt [2h Ac]
Dealer: Aruba_Joe folds
Dealer: KP5813 folds
Dealer: addison11 has 15 seconds left to act
Dealer: addison11 folds
Dealer: swanny615 calls $3
Dealer: CaptFreeman folds
Dealer: SmoothCriminal5 folds
Dealer: BlueHen77 folds
Dealer: -wildo- calls $1.50
Dealer: fmac checks
Dealer: The flop is [Ah 6h 6s]
Dealer: -wildo- bets $3
Dealer: fmac folds
Dealer: swanny615 folds
Dealer: Uncalled bet of $3 returned to -wildo-
Dealer: -wildo- mucks
Dealer: -wildo- wins the pot ($9)
Dealer: Hand #158827714
Dealer: fmac posts the small blind of $1.50
Dealer: Aruba_Joe posts the big blind of $3
Dealer: You have been dealt [4c Qd]
Dealer: KP5813 raises to $6
Dealer: addison11 folds
Dealer: swanny615 folds
Dealer: CaptFreeman folds
Dealer: SmoothCriminal5 folds
Dealer: BlueHen77 folds
Dealer: -wildo- folds
Dealer: fmac folds
Dealer: Aruba_Joe calls $3
Dealer: The flop is [5d 8d As]
Dealer: Aruba_Joe checks
Dealer: KP5813 checks
Dealer: The turn is [9c]
Dealer: Aruba_Joe checks
Dealer: KP5813 bets $6
Dealer: Aruba_Joe folds
Dealer: Uncalled bet of $6 returned to KP5813
Dealer: KP5813 mucks
Dealer: KP5813 wins the pot ($13.50)
Dealer: KP5813 is sitting out
Dealer: Hand #158828464
Dealer: Aruba_Joe posts the small blind of $1.50
Dealer: addison11 posts the big blind of $3
Dealer: You have been dealt [Jh Ts]
Dealer: KP5813 stands up
Dealer: swanny615 folds
Dealer: CaptFreeman folds
Dealer: SmoothCriminal5 folds
Dealer: BlueHen77 folds
Dealer: -wildo- folds
Dealer: fmac calls $3
Dealer: Aruba_Joe calls $1.50
Dealer: redmanjew adds $120
Dealer: addison11 checks
Dealer: The flop is [As Ks 4s]
Dealer: Aruba_Joe bets $3
Dealer: addison11 folds
Dealer: fmac calls $3
Dealer: The turn is [8s]
Dealer: Aruba_Joe checks
Dealer: fmac checks
Dealer: The river is [8h]
Dealer: Aruba_Joe bets $6
Dealer: fmac raises to $12
Dealer: Aruba_Joe raises to $18
Dealer: fmac raises to $24
Dealer: Aruba_Joe calls $6
Okay, here's where to start paying attention. It's about where I started paying attention again, at least.
Dealer: fmac shows a full house, Aces full of Eights
Dealer: Aruba_Joe shows a flush, Ace high
Dealer: fmac wins the pot ($60) with a full house, Aces full of Eights
Aruba_Joe: runner fucn runner
Aruba_Joe: what a god damn suprise
Okay, I don't think I've ever gone though an entire session without somebody bitching about this in chat. It's like a big flashing sign over their heads that says "I Play Too Many Hands," but whatever. I appreciate the hints. However, I hadn't been paying attention to the hand...
fmac: u checked the turn
No kidding? I scroll back, and sure enough he let him walk to the runners. But wait, it gets better. He has a *reason*.
Aruba_Joe: you're calling to the river
Aruba_Joe: everyone does here
CaptFreeman: lol
BlueHen77: sometimes you get caught in your own trap
fmac: yea, u cost me $6
This is my nominee for funniest thing said at a poker table this week.
CaptFreeman: lol
Aruba_Joe: its a joke
Aruba_Joe: 7 percent chance and you hit
fmac: better than that
Aruba_Joe: not on that flop
CaptFreeman: this game would be much easier if we just stopped after the first two cards
That's my standard response to whiners. This last bit makes me note in fmac's file, "knows how to use a poker calculator." Good to know...
fmac: btw, it was 28% after the flop
Anyway, I don't know if this was worth breaking radio silence for, but I thought it was hilarious. At least to someone who's slightly high....
