Saturday, May 31, 2008

WSOP Fever

I'm catching the WSOP fever!

I'm checking up on my Fantasy Teams on PokerNews. My boy Patrik Antonius is doing well in the 10K PLHE event! Wooooooot! I had high hopes for Jeff Madsen as well but it looks like dropped out before the money.

I'm delighted with my team but I sure had a few other picks that got stolen before I could get to them.


Patrick Antonius, David Singer, Gavin Smith
Tom Schnieder, Randy Holland , Jeff Madsen

I'm also in the Full Tilt Poker Fantasy contest. The top winners for each event get into freerolls that get you a spot in a main event freeroll as well as some FTP hats you can win. I won a hat last year and a few freeroll entries but I think I may have not played any of the freerolls. I remember being eligible for a freeroll when I was in Vegas last year. As if I'm going to play online poker when I'm in Vegas!

Poor Snuffy. He won a seat into the Blogger TOC that has 2 WSOP Main Event seats as well as 2 WSOP Bracelet Prize packages in the prize pool. It's on Saturday, June 7th. The day AFTER we get to Vegas. D'oh. He's still deciding if he's going to rely on hotel wireless, connect via his Blackberry or hit up Virge for some free internets. What a dilema. I'm sure Snarf and I will be thinking of him when we're playing at Caesar's while he's grinding it out playing the TOC. Nawt.

Sigh. I can't wait for next Friday.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Monkey Tilt

Full on Monkey Tilt.

Snuffy mentioned this in his last post.

We've all been there. It usually doesn't happen very often. As a matter of fact, the farther along you get in your poker career the less and less you find it happening - or rather - the less it should be happening.

What's even more dangerous is the Low Boil Half-Baked Monkey Tilt.

That's the one that sneaks up on you. It builds up from the first bad beat/call/move to the next semi-bad event. It's all the little things that add up to a low boil that makes you, after a while, do that one stupid thing that costs you big time.

While playing last night's $1 Rebuy CHIMPS I got my chips in waaaaaaaaaaaaaay ahead twice only to get shot down. I thought I was hanging in there until after the rebuy when I shoved my 88 into a reraiser. He has KK and IGHN. Well, duh.

That is a leak in my game. I don't get Full On Monkey Tilt. At least I haven't in a long long long time. That's not saying it won't happen again but I'd like to think that it won't.

It's that Low Boil Half-Baked Monkey Tilt that gets me. I can only handle so many bad beats piled one upon the other, paired with a bad run of cards and other outside distractions and I'm ready to donk it up like Mike Matusow.

Oddly enough, I don't ever tilt playing live. Maybe that's a product of my limited live play although I'm getting more and more as time goes by.

I think online poker is more conducive to tilt than live. So many hands get played. There's probably another window, or 5, open that require your attention. Your kids could be running amok. Your spouse could be harping at you. All these things could add up to one short-fused player.

I know of several players who have turned off the TV, the streaming pron, the iTunes, skype, AIM, and even the table chat (blasphemy!). You know what? They played better. Go figure.

Tilt. I know I need to work on it. We all do.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

PokerSlut Tour Season X

Wow, it's hard to believe that the 10th season of the PokerSlut Tour is coming up! Ten seasons! I'm not sure we ever expected it to last this long.

Khan and I decided to add two new events to the schedule this season:

NLHE HU Shootout
$1 NLHE Rebuy

The whole goal of the original schedule was to put emphasis on all the games of poker not just NLHE. I think we accomplished that. Adding in two NLHE events at this point doesn't detract from that at all. Here's the next season schedule:

06/22/08 NLHE DS
06/29/08 Limit O8
07/13/08 Razz
07/20/08 Stud
07/27/08 NLHE HU Shootout
08/03/08 Limit Holdem
08/10/08 Pot Limit Omaha
08/17/08 HORSE
08/24/08 Stud 8
09/07/08 NLHE $1 Rebuy

As always the password is imapokerslut.

If you haven't played the Tour, WTF is wrong with you? Srsly. Check out the Leaderboard on our website. I can't think of a better way to spend a Sunday night, can you?

Monday, May 26, 2008

Pink Eye

This is how everybody should spend Memorial Day: waiting for the Prompt Care doctor to come in for a nanosecond to say, 'Yep, that's Pink Eye. Here's your Rx. Have a nice day.'

Hope your day goes much better.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Bowling Graph

funny graphs
more song chart memes

Graphs


It's true. Geeks love graphs. We really do.

I Can Has Cheezburger had a post in my reader this morning with a graph from Graph Jam that was a scream. Zooks97 and I read several pages worth of these graphs and laughed our butts off.

Check them out at Graph Jam.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

I Feel The Hate

I really really do.

FTP and Poker are killing me lately. It's not a pretty sight.

I suppose I am destined to go broke here but still.



I'm really getting tired of getting raked over the coals.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Test #2

Post numero dos in the test post series. This one from phone via Gmail. I have higher hopes for this method over the MMS method that ended up with some crap appended from Verizon. Who needs more spam?

This pic is a phone shot of my laptop. I know you are thrilled.

I played some DS ring with the bloggers tonight. I spent most of the time whining to Pokerwolf about the continous stream of 23o hands I was getting.

The one time I flop the nuts I get hosed by the turn and Drizz takes what's left of my stack (after spewing to Pokerwolf with TT v his QQ) with his limped AK v my KJo with a Q high straight on the board. Could I suck at poker anymore?

Baseball


Yep, it's that time of year. Thankfully the Zooks boys don't play serious baseball just the local rec sports team. They enjoy it and it's not terribly painful for us like a travel team would be.

I'm always amazed at how much they improve from the beginning of the season to the end. We're very lucky that the program is as good as it is considering it is all volunteer. This is their 3rd season and they've had some great coaches.

I only wish the weather would be more summerish. It's been downright cold this spring. I can't believe I'll be headed to Vegas in just over two weeks!

This is my first post from the Pangerphone. I need to get the kinks worked out before Vegas as I anticipate making a lot of posts this way while I'm there.

Note: Well, this didn't turn out quite like I wanted but it wasn't a disaster. Next I will have to try posting from Gmail instead of MMS.

Monday, May 19, 2008

PLHE

PLHE.

Think about it.

It's not nearly as bad as you'd think.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

How does it know?

Srsly.

How did it know?



I was, um, wishing T a happy birthday... yeah, that's it... when I saw that

MY PHONE NEW I WAS GOING TO VEGAS.

I'm officially in awe of my phone.

Now if only it would tell me that I'm going to win the lotto.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Freeroll!

$750 up for grabs.

Put a link to www.pokerweblogs.com and let them know about it. Email the linked page location to support@pokerweblogs.com.

Freeroll is at Pokerstars, May 18th, 15:00 CET (10:00 EDT, I think…).


Gleefully stolen from Biggestron.

Poker, Poker & Poker

Here.

You know the routine.

Click Here.

or

Here.

Or even ......................................................... Here.

Monday, May 12, 2008

Monday Madness

Suggestion to your lovely wife that you (the royal you) invite her Inlaws over for a Mother's Day grillout during what must be the first Spring of the Next Ice Age is not going to score you any points.

Just sayin.

I cooked on Mother's Day.

Leaving your wife at home while you go to England for a week on business DURING THE WEEK THAT IT'S YOUR TURN TO DRIVE CARPOOL is also not going to score you any points.

Just sayin.



At least I did get to play a little poker on Mother's Day. I happened to fire up Full Tilt just as a $10 90 person KO SNG was about to make. I jumped in.

I have said before and I will continue to say: I HAVE NO CLUE WHY I BOTHER TO PLAY KO TOURNAMENTS, but, alas, I do.

I did make it to the final table, woooohooo, only to go out 8th when my 77 went up against 44. We got it all in on a flop of A64. That's right. I shipped it with an A on the table only to get called by bottom set. I so suck at poker. With the two KOs I managed to eek out, I scored a profit of $14 ish for my nearly two hours of play. I could make more at McDonald's. Just sayin.

Later that evening I talked some of the effers into joining me at $25NL tables. That turned out to be quite the profitable decision. I haven't played ring on FTP in ages but I must have snuck in under the doomswitch's radar because I left up over a buyin.



This is my second year participating in the Card Clubs Fantasy WSOP Pool. This particular pool has each participant drafting a team of players. Last year I was drawn for the number 2 spot. Under normal circumstances you'd say, Woooooooooot, but in this case we reverse the order every other round. So, I get to pick then wait almost two whole rounds before I get to pick again. In the meantime I get to watch my draft list get decimated by everybody else in the pool.

This year I figured out that the ideal spot was in the middle but that didn't help me at all as Gambit, sadist that he is, has a random number generating algorithm determine the order. This year I was third from last.

Shame shit different year.

A couple people in particular are taking my next choice(s) right out from under me. Only two people, and four picks, before I get to make my last pick but one of these people has been raiding my choices pretty much every round.

I'm getting so excited for the WSOP to start and for my trip out to Vegas. Turns out the host of the Super Bowl Sunday tournaments that I have played the last two years will be playing a $5k NLHE event the week that I'm there!

I'm done writing now.

You're done reading now.

As you were.

Saturday, May 10, 2008

PangerPhone

Yes, you read that right. PangerPhone*.

I got one.

You're jealous. Go ahead. Admit it.

zooks: and I just read online that the Q9c might get released online on the 9th
zooks: which is after my any two kicks in on the 6th
khan: wooot
khan: its the PANGER
zooks: I'm so all over that if it's true
khan: u realize that?
zooks: hahahahah true
zooks: no I hadn't realized that
zooks: that's awesome
zooks: I'll have to start calling it the pangerphone
khan: ya i never realized it till u typed it
khan: cause i saw Q9c
khan: queen nine clubs
zooks: yeah lol


I bought my Motorola Q just before Vegaspalooza last year. What a mistake that was. I hardly new how to use the damn thing and went off to Vegas to meet up with a whole herd of degenerate poker players that were all going to be calling and texting yours truly. That was a real bonehead maneuver.

I enjoyed it so much I decided I would do it again.

Srsly.

I love my Q. I really really do. But it's starting to show a little wear and tear. The space bar sounds like it's going to come off any day now and the whole keypad - while a huge improvement over my Razr keypad - isn't the most user friendly keypad design.

I had checked out the Crackberries and the Sweaty Palms but just didn't find anything that really turned me on. The Q9h was better than the Q but I didn't care much for the color scheme and the whole Music Player & Two Home Screens thing just seemed like more trouble that it was worth.

While playing poker at Gordo's I met a guy who actually had Q9h and he said to wait for the 9c because the 9h was a pile of shit. Well, you don't have to tell me that twice. Besides, my New Any Two wasn't coming up until May 6th anyhow.

Verizon announced the release of the 9c for April. Well, April was pretty much gone and there was no scuttlebutt out on the internets about if/when it would be released. One of my neighbors who is also looking for a new phone even told me that she heard, from a Verizon store empolyee no less, that Verizon wasn't even going to release the 9c. NOOOOO O OO O OO O OO! Say it isn't so.

Sure enough a few days later a release date of May 9th was leaked on one of the Motorola forums. I'd been lurking there a while hoping to hear just such news! And what perfect timing! Mere days after I am eligible for a discount! Life.is.good.

I was up late on Thursday night troubleshooting a hugely annoying Windows Updater problem when I popped over to the Verizon Wireless web page just to see if the phone was on there yet AND OMGWTF IT WAS! I ordered that bad boy before midnight local time. I received shipping confirmation before lunchtime the next day. I met the FedEx lady at the curb at 11:00 am this morning! She could tell I was excited!

Once again, Windows let me down. I had to uninstall and reinstall the Windows Mobile Device Manager TWICE before I could sync the new phone. What a pain in the arse. Over an hour on the phone with Tech Support.

This time I got my new phone a month before going to Vegas. I should have it figured out by then. Feel free to give me a call or send me a text on my new PangerPhone. I hope to figure out how to answer it here real soon.


* Panger: Q9; named for the woman who made it famous by horribly misplaying it.

Monday, May 05, 2008

Charity Poker at Legion

Overall I have no problem of the concept of Charity Poker. However, it seems that the hosts often only have their profit in mind and not what's best for the players. If half of the prize pool is going to go to the charity, well, I guess that's fine since I knew up front that some of the money was gong to charity. But, when the hosting organization advertises a guaranteed first place prize of $XXX then has too low of a turnout to justify that prize, well, that's when I start to have a problem with it.

It must have been over a year ago now that I contacted the American Legion a block from my house about their upcoming Charity Tournament. I talked at length with the organizer about different aspects of the tournament including buyin, structure, etc. I wasn't interested in playing the first event but did show up to see how good the players were.

Since then they have had several other tournaments that I was unable to play due to conflicts with my own home game or with my kids' schedules. When I saw that they were having another tournament this past weekend I was excited to be able to play.

I was one of the first to sign up so I had no idea how many players there would be. When I came back for the start I found out that the attendance was much lower than then expected 40-50. There were only 26 entrants. At the time I didn't bother to do that math to figure out what kind of prize pool that would be since it was a rebuy and I had no way of knowing how many rebuys and/or add ons there would be.

We started playing and I was shocked at the play. So many pots were limped or minimum raised with 5-7 callers. I folded quite a bit until I picked up AQ in early position. I raised and got, OMGWTF!, 5 callers. I c-bet the flop and one guy stuck around. I had whiffed and had to give up the pot when he bet the river.

The next hand I played was AJh UTG. I had decided that I was going to shove the flop no matter what hit as I was getting seriously short on chips having spewed with the AQ that missed and folding for several rounds. The flop missed me but I shoved and got two callers. I ended up rivering broadway and tripled up.

Two hands later in the SB I couldn't justify folding J9o with about 18 other players in the hand. I flopped the nut straight with two clubs on the board. I checked and the next player bet out and all the rest called his bet. Well there was definitely enough in the pot to make me happy so I raised the pot. I get one caller who asked, "Do you have the straight?" The woman on my right mumbled something like, "Well what do you think she has?" with heavy sarcasm. LOL! He had called me with x9 and was drawing to a chopped pot which he missed. Rebuy!

I was in pretty good shape after those two hands when I got moved to another table. I don't recall playing any hands on that table before the break. I agonized over whether to buy the add on or not since I was in the top 5 or 6 chip wise without the add on. In the end I decided to add on. Had I realized that they were taking about 50% of the prize pool for the charity and had guaranteed $800 to 1st and were only going to pay $100 to 2nd and $50 to 3rd I wouldn't have bothered to add on as I would be playing to only break even for 2nd.

I was the BB first hand back from the break. The cutoff or button was a short stack with only 2BB left. He limped into the pot. I looked down at ATc and I said I'll put you all in. My AT>Q4.

I was UTG with AK and raised it 3x which is obviously something these people HAD NEVER SEEN BEFORE. Fortunately I had enough chips to be able to do that; by now most of the stacks were pretty short compared to the blinds. The guy behind me goes all in for a decent amount. I chat him up a bit to find out how much he likes his hand and decide to call. AK>JJ when I spike a K on the turn. Now I'm in really good shape.

I don't recall any other hands until the final table.

I pick up AQd utg and raise 3x. This guy with 1 chip left chucks his chip in and I get two callers behind. The flop comes out and totally misses me but I fire a bet. One fold and the next guy goes into the tank. He looks and me, "I really want to see what she's got. Oh, wait, he's all in so she's got to show." He folded. I looked at him and said I wasn't worried about him (the all in guy), he's only got one chip in there. I wanted those chips (pointing at the side pot)." The all in guy had A5 and spiked a 5 on the river. Oh well, it was only one of my chips.

The SS with now 4 chips sticks them all in from UTG and I'm in the BB with 88 and told him I was calling regardless (the BB was more than 4 chips) but now I was really glad to have to call. My 88 > his two random over cards.

I lose another smallish pot when I put a short stack all in with AT and his KJ spikes a J on the river. I'm still in good shape though.

I've been pretty active when I pick up TT utg. The table is still relatively full and I decide that I'm better off folding here than pushing my luck. Short stack on my left goes all in and is called by a woman with a lot of chips. AK v AT and a T hits the flop. Boy was I sick that I folded that hand.

First through third get $ while fourth gets a free buyin into the next event. We're down to the bubble and the top 3 are pretty even. I think I took the bubble boy out but I don't recall how. At this point I had figured out that I was pretty much screwed. Unless I won it I was at best going to break even and maybe end up down the addon.

Now this is where things got really fugly.

I guess the TD figured if they had to buy all these chips they were going to use them by gawd. He took the blinds from 600/1200 to 1500/3000 because he thought he should color up at the break and that was the only level that made sense to him. I just don't get it. Why on earth would anybody in their right mind think A) you have to color up at every break or B) going from 600/1200 to 1500/3000 would make sense in any scenario? This had degenerated into a crap shoot.

We were about even or close enough to even in chips and the blinds had become enormous that I was shoving any decent hand. I finally shoved A4h into AT. IGHN. I got 3rd.

I stuck around to watch it play out. The swings from one hand to the next were ridiculous. At one point you though Player A was bound to win as Player B and next to no chips left but Player B would suck out two hands in a row and was now the overwhelming chip leader. It was almost all in every hand until the other woman at the final table finally took it down.

To summarize: these players were horrible. Truly horrible. They would limp into just about every pot. The would min raise and min bet ALL THE TIME. The would call your flop bet with bottom pair and hit their kicker on the turn. I was truly shocked at how loose and passive the game was.

I limped into a pot with 55 UTG+1 and a couple more limped behind. The flop come out Q85. Yes, I was delighted. It was checked around and another Q hit on the turn. Now I was really happy but worried that anybody with a Q could have boated or might boat the river. I ended up called a smallish river bet only to lose to Q8. I'm so glad I didn't play that hand aggressively because I could have easily gone broke there had I shoved the flop. I'm happy to have lost the minimum on that hand.

At one point this one guy, Mr. Q8 from the previous hand, said to a friend of his, "Why do I even bother to play a pot with her?" referring to me when I shoved the J high flop with KK. I have to admit I probably played more aggressively than I normally do giving up on the concept of value betting in favor of value shoving when I had a hand because I sure as heck didn't want these people drawing out on me with their crap hands when the blinds were so high.

All in all, I was happy with the way I played. I probably could have been a little more patient and moved up a spot, maybe even taken it down but I'm still pleased with my play and finish. I doubt I will play another one of these. If only they would quit promising such a big first place prize forcing themselves to give out next to nothing for 2nd and 3rd places.

It turns out that a neighbor of mine - that I hadn't previously met - was the bubble boy. He and I discussed this event, the structure, etc., while we watched the final hands play out. He agreed that they needed to change the structure and prize payouts or they were going to lose customers. I'm not sure if the law mandates how much of the prize pool they keep for the charity but it seems to me that it is definitely not in the players' interest to play this event as it is currently structured.

I'm not sure that the TD would be interested in my input. Several times one of the helpers would say to him, "You don't need to explain anything. That's the way it is." and comments to that effect even when I was only asking what was going to happen next. I was told that she may have been his wife, but in any case they were rather defensive and I doubt they would be very receptive to suggestions for improving the tournament. Given the low turnout this time I think that they could easily make a few simple changes that might encourage more people to play.

Friday, May 02, 2008

Picasa Slideshow

Wooooooooooot! There's a new Picasa feature that let's you embed a slideshow into a blog post!

Check it out! Reader viewers may have to click through to see.


Home Project

In most households it's the Husband (The Other Half, TOH) that takes care of the house maintenance type work.

Not at my house.

Yours truly gets the joy of changing filters, minor repairs, etc.

The time had come to do something about our basement storage area. When we moved in 4 years ago the plan was to build some do-it-yourself shelving like I had made TOH do in the former house. That was the plan. There was a flaw with this plan. I finally mentioned to TOH that, since he had no desire to do that job, perhaps we should see if my employer, the Handyman, would take it on.

The stars must have been aligned in our favor that day because the Handyman called me to say he needed a job for the next day as the job planned for 2 days was only going to take one. Woooooooooot! I told him what I needed and he gave me the thumbs up.

That left me with one afternoon to clear out the seriously over packed storage area so they would have room to work. Oh joy. I wish I had though to take a true before picture with all the crappage strewn about the room but alas you'll have to make do with these:









I designed the shelves using ShelfLinks. These little bad boys really take the work out of the whole process. You don't have to worry about any engineering just designing. With this system the shelves can hold up to 1000lbs. Try as I might, I doubt I could get 1000lbs worth of junk on one shelf. I went for a basic unit with 4 shelves. Nothing fancy but I think you can see where you could easily come up with custom designs to satisfy just about any need.



The crew showed up the next morning with 100 2x4s and fired up the saw and drills. The plan was to make 5 8' long units with 4 shelves each stacking 4 of them 2 deep to make 36" deep units along one wall for my storage tubs. A few hours later they were done and my work started.

Obviously there's still more orgainizing to do but I can take my time doing that; my immediate goal was to get all the stuff out of the finished area so the kids could have somewhere to play and crash.





Now if only I could get TOH to dispose of the trash pile: