Sunday, January 31, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
I Hate Poker
Poker hates me lately.
In last night's WBCOOP event I had KK outrun by JJ all in preflop.
Tonight I hit the perfect flop in PLO and get all my chips in on the turn on the get the shit binked out of me on the river. Sigh.
Poker, just so you know: I hate you, too. So there.
In last night's WBCOOP event I had KK outrun by JJ all in preflop.
Tonight I hit the perfect flop in PLO and get all my chips in on the turn on the get the shit binked out of me on the river. Sigh.
Poker, just so you know: I hate you, too. So there.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Dust and Drivers
DustPC maintenance is a total drag. Nobody likes to do it but if you don't it will come back to bite you in the butt.
I've had my Toshiba gaming laptop semi-permanently set up on my desk in my office for some time now. I have it propped on a cooling pad with an external monitor and keyboard attached. Since I bought my netbook I have little reason to disconnect the Toshiba.
I decided I would try something out during the PokerSlut Tour and connect the Toshiba to my router via a wired connection instead of wirelessly for the Skype chat . I finally got all settled into the guest room (home of our router) with Skype and Full Tilt running when my system just shut off.
OMGWTF!?!?!? Don't do this to me NOW!
I started it right back up and before the Windows login screen could even show up it did it again. I waited a little longer this time but, sure enough it blipped right off ONCE AGAIN! Eff this! I took it back downstairs and set it up on the cooling pad again.
I've never had overheating issues with the laptop before and I couldn't understand why I would have them now. The cooling pad made the difference and everything ran fine.
The next day I decided to test it out again and took the Toshiba into the living room. Once again within minutes it shut itself off. Sigh.
Preliminary research on the internet indicated I should vacuum out the fans and vents. Mkay. I fired up my "suck the paint off your car" Dyson and went to town on the vents and fans. I was shocked at the wad of dust that came out of one of the fan inlets. HUGE wad of dust.
Mind you, I have used compressed air and the vacuum on my keyboard but it never occurred to me to do the same with the fans. Suddenly no more issues with overheating and the system ran quieter and smoother than before. I found a temperature monitoring utility that I will keep in my tray from now on as a reminder to keep an eye out for overheating.
Eerily, the next day I received an email from my mother complaining that her cheap Acer laptop was doing the same thing to her. I ended up calling her in Germany to discuss it with her since, clearly, I wasn't going to catch her on instant messenger. She mentioned that dust had collected on her cooling pad but she never considered that it would collect in the machine. After a quick vacuuming her machine is now behaving normally. Score 2 for vacuuming out your laptop!
Drivers
One of the things that impressed me most about Windows 7 was the driver library. It is easy to discount the effect of drivers on the performance of your computer. After all, it still runs, right? Most people NEVER ever update the drivers on their machines.
Some manufacturers have developed software that will look for and install driver updates automagically for you. They have learned to do this as a way to keep their computers running at peak performance.
Now that we have more computers than people in this house I succumbed to purchasing a driver updating subscription service which is working out quite nicely.
Perhaps the best thing that happened as far as drivers are concerned is NVidia's decision to offer updated drivers to the public. Previously you were stuck waiting for updated drivers from your manufacturer who really had little or no incentive to provide you with the most current drivers. When you consider that NVidia is famous for releasing new drivers almost daily (ok, I exaggerate slightly) I can understand a manufacturer's reluctance to keep up with that.
Before NVidia started releasing drivers to the public it was possible to find modded drivers but it was sometimes painful wading through the compatibility lists looking for the latest driver for your video card.
Was it worth it? Oh, absolutely.
A few days ago NVidia released a new driver for my Toshiba laptop. On a whim, I decided to re-run my Windows Experience Index after updating the driver to see if there was any difference.
Here is my score calculated right after I installed Windows 7:
Here is my score after updating the video driver:
Now that's a significant improvement!
Your computer is no different than that high maintenance girlfriend/boyfriend: sometimes you hate them but if you put forth the effort to keep them happy they will do that thing you like so much (email, AIM, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube anyone?).
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Craptacular Day
Oh it started out decent enough, really, it did.
But it is amazing how fast the day can turn to shit.
I had a lunch date with two friends. Beforehand I ran a couple of errands one of which was to order a new frame for some glasses that I had broken. Turns out the technician was able to replace the frame with a frame in the store. You might think this was a good thing - I know I did. Until I realized that one of the arms of this frame were all dinged up.
Lunch was fabulous. We met a nice locally owned, upscale restaurant that just opened. The food was fantastic and the company was as well.
When I entered one of my lunch partners mentioned that I could hang my long coat near the door so I did. In preparation for leaving I looked for my keys in my purse where I usually put them but they weren't there so I just assumed they would be in my coat pocket. I commented as I grabbed for my coat, "How did my coat get all the way down here?", since I had hung it at the other end of the rack. I put the coat on and check the pockets but no keys. I put my purse back on the table and methodically empty it looking for my keys. No keys. I went out to the car to see if I had left them in there but it was locked with no keys in sight.
Finally I went back in and took the coat off. I looked at the label and sure enough it was the right brand and style but the wrong size. It would seem that another lady had nearly the same coat and took mine home instead of hers. Sigh.
I left my contact information with the restaurant staff hoping that this woman will figure out she has the wrong coat and return it to the restaurant. I give this about a 20% chance of happening in the next day or so and 0% after that.
The Honda dealer has quoted me about $150+ to replace the key and the fob. A replacement coat is going to run about $120. My delightful lunch with the ladies is going to end up costing me a small fortune.
But, that's not all. I get home only to find that I have also broken my OTHER pair of glasses using the same snapping case that broke the original pair of glasses. So now I have to replace both pairs.
Then the dog puked on the carpet.
FML.
But it is amazing how fast the day can turn to shit.
I had a lunch date with two friends. Beforehand I ran a couple of errands one of which was to order a new frame for some glasses that I had broken. Turns out the technician was able to replace the frame with a frame in the store. You might think this was a good thing - I know I did. Until I realized that one of the arms of this frame were all dinged up.
Lunch was fabulous. We met a nice locally owned, upscale restaurant that just opened. The food was fantastic and the company was as well.
When I entered one of my lunch partners mentioned that I could hang my long coat near the door so I did. In preparation for leaving I looked for my keys in my purse where I usually put them but they weren't there so I just assumed they would be in my coat pocket. I commented as I grabbed for my coat, "How did my coat get all the way down here?", since I had hung it at the other end of the rack. I put the coat on and check the pockets but no keys. I put my purse back on the table and methodically empty it looking for my keys. No keys. I went out to the car to see if I had left them in there but it was locked with no keys in sight. Finally I went back in and took the coat off. I looked at the label and sure enough it was the right brand and style but the wrong size. It would seem that another lady had nearly the same coat and took mine home instead of hers. Sigh.
I left my contact information with the restaurant staff hoping that this woman will figure out she has the wrong coat and return it to the restaurant. I give this about a 20% chance of happening in the next day or so and 0% after that. The Honda dealer has quoted me about $150+ to replace the key and the fob. A replacement coat is going to run about $120. My delightful lunch with the ladies is going to end up costing me a small fortune.
But, that's not all. I get home only to find that I have also broken my OTHER pair of glasses using the same snapping case that broke the original pair of glasses. So now I have to replace both pairs.
Then the dog puked on the carpet.
FML.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Indypalooza, Day 2
It's a good thing Paloozas only happen about once a year. It takes me that long to recuperate. Getting old sucks.
The cards were back in the air on Saturday. Pred's baller online friends, Joos and Don, played Badugi with us. ELM is an excellent mixed games player who had never played Badugi before. After she decided to play we were run over by the ELM "beginner's luck" Express. She hoovered up our chips. At one point (not) Zerb told her, "Generally, you don't get Badugi EVERY DAMN HAND". Zerb: master of the sfobv.
After a while Joos and Don talked some of us into Baducie - a combination of Badugi and Deuce-7 Lowball. Instead of an Ace low Badugi, Aces were now high cards (they are for 2-7). You are dealt 5 cards and the best Badugi hand and the best Deuce To Seven split the pot with the idea that you try to scoop, of course. I have to be the worst 2-7 player ever. I admit it, I have no clue how to play that game. At one point I had a made T high 2-7 and a solid Badugi but dropped the T trying to improve. Re.tard.ed. Yeah, I said it. At the time I thought it was the thing to do even though Pred told me in no uncertain terms it was retarded but I did it anyway.
The plan was to head to Predator's for a tournament during the Colts playoff game. Seems simple enough doesn't it? That is until somebody (me, retarded me) suggested that maybe we should play a mixed game instead of just straight NLHE. I had pulled down Full Tilt's 7 game mix structure that we could adapt to our needs just in case. But once we got there, it became painfully obvious that we weren't going to get any consensus on what to play so NLHE it was. By the time we started I was ready to strangle some people - and they me I'm sure.
It was my great fortune to sit behind Joos and Don. Had they been on separate tables I'm sure they would have either run over the event or busted out early in some spewy fashion. They were constantly raising and playing pots - mostly with each other - or calling raises in position. These guys knew what they were doing even if NLHE wasn't their forte' or favorite game by a long shot.
I was picking up some good hands early on and found myself raising a lot right off the bat. The first hand of note was QQ. I had a caller behind me, Asian. Asian and I have a lot of history so I knew he was eager to take my chips. Unfortunately for him the flop came Q55. I checked and he bet, I called. Turn inconsequential. Again check, bet, call. River - well, honestly, who cares? No way he could have caught up to me. I led out cause I was sure he was going to fold and he did. Nice pot to me.
Did I mention we were absurdly deep? That the blinds were ridiculously slow? That we could do one rebuy and/or addon for another full starting stack? There was no reason to get all spewy but that didn't stop anybody. We had raise, call, shove a couple of times on our table in the first couple of levels. I took a good chunk of chips from Greg but then gave a lot of them to Joos. I made a hero call against Greg to get his first stack and I think I got his second stack, too, but I don't remember how.
By the time the rebuy was over I had a HUGE chip lead and was debating whether I should do the addon when Joos offered to pay it for me in exchange for a percentage. I eventually decided to just go ahead and take the addon myself since deep stack play is more suited to my nitty style of play.
For as deep as we were it didn't take much time for us to get to the final table. My chip lead had dwindled somewhat but I was still a big stack. T ended up on my right and we enjoyed chatting and playing with each other but never really got in any hands with each other just because the cards fell that way.
At this point some cash games were starting up at the empty table when we discovered that one of the decks for that table was missing cards. Holy shit! Seriously? Sigh. I usually make up all the decks when I host my home game but between all the structure and game drama we had going on before this event I didn't bother to do it. I just threw the card case on the table. I don't know who opened it but somehow 7 cards were stuck INSIDE THE LID of the plastic box - including TWO ACES. OMGWTF!?!?! At least we were playing with two decks so only half of the hands were affected - small consolation. The worst part? I WAS PLAYING AT THAT TABLE! Ok, that wasn't the worst part. I hate it when stupid stuff like that happens when I'm in charge. I really felt bad. Since most of the chips in play came from that table it really didn't seem to make much difference but the fact remains that those players were handicapped by that deck.
I don't remember too much detail about the final except:
Winnah! Winnah!
Cash on our Titties!
The cards were back in the air on Saturday. Pred's baller online friends, Joos and Don, played Badugi with us. ELM is an excellent mixed games player who had never played Badugi before. After she decided to play we were run over by the ELM "beginner's luck" Express. She hoovered up our chips. At one point (not) Zerb told her, "Generally, you don't get Badugi EVERY DAMN HAND". Zerb: master of the sfobv.
After a while Joos and Don talked some of us into Baducie - a combination of Badugi and Deuce-7 Lowball. Instead of an Ace low Badugi, Aces were now high cards (they are for 2-7). You are dealt 5 cards and the best Badugi hand and the best Deuce To Seven split the pot with the idea that you try to scoop, of course. I have to be the worst 2-7 player ever. I admit it, I have no clue how to play that game. At one point I had a made T high 2-7 and a solid Badugi but dropped the T trying to improve. Re.tard.ed. Yeah, I said it. At the time I thought it was the thing to do even though Pred told me in no uncertain terms it was retarded but I did it anyway.
The plan was to head to Predator's for a tournament during the Colts playoff game. Seems simple enough doesn't it? That is until somebody (me, retarded me) suggested that maybe we should play a mixed game instead of just straight NLHE. I had pulled down Full Tilt's 7 game mix structure that we could adapt to our needs just in case. But once we got there, it became painfully obvious that we weren't going to get any consensus on what to play so NLHE it was. By the time we started I was ready to strangle some people - and they me I'm sure.
It was my great fortune to sit behind Joos and Don. Had they been on separate tables I'm sure they would have either run over the event or busted out early in some spewy fashion. They were constantly raising and playing pots - mostly with each other - or calling raises in position. These guys knew what they were doing even if NLHE wasn't their forte' or favorite game by a long shot.
I was picking up some good hands early on and found myself raising a lot right off the bat. The first hand of note was QQ. I had a caller behind me, Asian. Asian and I have a lot of history so I knew he was eager to take my chips. Unfortunately for him the flop came Q55. I checked and he bet, I called. Turn inconsequential. Again check, bet, call. River - well, honestly, who cares? No way he could have caught up to me. I led out cause I was sure he was going to fold and he did. Nice pot to me.
Did I mention we were absurdly deep? That the blinds were ridiculously slow? That we could do one rebuy and/or addon for another full starting stack? There was no reason to get all spewy but that didn't stop anybody. We had raise, call, shove a couple of times on our table in the first couple of levels. I took a good chunk of chips from Greg but then gave a lot of them to Joos. I made a hero call against Greg to get his first stack and I think I got his second stack, too, but I don't remember how.
By the time the rebuy was over I had a HUGE chip lead and was debating whether I should do the addon when Joos offered to pay it for me in exchange for a percentage. I eventually decided to just go ahead and take the addon myself since deep stack play is more suited to my nitty style of play.
For as deep as we were it didn't take much time for us to get to the final table. My chip lead had dwindled somewhat but I was still a big stack. T ended up on my right and we enjoyed chatting and playing with each other but never really got in any hands with each other just because the cards fell that way.
At this point some cash games were starting up at the empty table when we discovered that one of the decks for that table was missing cards. Holy shit! Seriously? Sigh. I usually make up all the decks when I host my home game but between all the structure and game drama we had going on before this event I didn't bother to do it. I just threw the card case on the table. I don't know who opened it but somehow 7 cards were stuck INSIDE THE LID of the plastic box - including TWO ACES. OMGWTF!?!?! At least we were playing with two decks so only half of the hands were affected - small consolation. The worst part? I WAS PLAYING AT THAT TABLE! Ok, that wasn't the worst part. I hate it when stupid stuff like that happens when I'm in charge. I really felt bad. Since most of the chips in play came from that table it really didn't seem to make much difference but the fact remains that those players were handicapped by that deck.
I don't remember too much detail about the final except:
- (Not) Zerb became short stacked on a bad beat. He was all in three times after that and sucked out on RoadHead each time making RoadHead the new short stack.
- Dan The Man lost a huge pot to me when I had KK and he didn't believe me only to ship the rest of his now short stack in the very next hand and run into T's KK to get knocked out.
- RoadHead shipped his short stack into my AA in the BB. He was the bubble bitch.
- T and I took out everybody at the final table and then chopped FTW!
Winnah! Winnah!
Cash on our Titties!
The tournament was over about midnight but we weren't done with poker, oh no, not us ballas. We played Chinese and Badugi. I played Chinese and won a measly few bucks but it was still fun. Poor Brit could not win a hand of Chinese to save his life. It was the first time he played but that wasn't his problem. He definitely has the mechanics down but the cards were spitting in his face. Kudos to him, he took it like a man.
We left Pred's about 3am. Did I mention I'm too old for this? The drive home was hampered by pea soup fog and my mad driving skills. I'm not sure how we lived to make it to day three.
We left Pred's about 3am. Did I mention I'm too old for this? The drive home was hampered by pea soup fog and my mad driving skills. I'm not sure how we lived to make it to day three.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Day 1
Palooza is always so much fun. It's hard to actually stop in the middle and write about it. And,some things about Palooza just can't be conveyed by mere words. That's why video is banned.
It didn't take long before we had poker tables set up and games were running. A couple of Predator's friends showed up and schooled us in PLO/PLO8. We even managed to squeeze in an All In or Fold sng.
We took a break for dinner and headed to a local chain restaurant but after seeing that their parking lot was full we pulled up to a Thai restaurant that ended up being a great improvement. The food was great and reasonably priced. It got even better when Brit talked us into play credit card roulette for the bill. He of course promptly 'won' or lost, however you want to think about it.
I crashed about 4am evenish for poker but way up in every other way.
There are pictures on other people's cameras. I promise some will get posted as soon as those degenerates drag their butts out of bed and hand over the goods.
It didn't take long before we had poker tables set up and games were running. A couple of Predator's friends showed up and schooled us in PLO/PLO8. We even managed to squeeze in an All In or Fold sng.
We took a break for dinner and headed to a local chain restaurant but after seeing that their parking lot was full we pulled up to a Thai restaurant that ended up being a great improvement. The food was great and reasonably priced. It got even better when Brit talked us into play credit card roulette for the bill. He of course promptly 'won' or lost, however you want to think about it.
Credit Card Roulette: A game of chance to decide which person pays for a restaurant meal. Every party contributes a credit/debit card into a hat and the waiter/waitress removes one card at time. The last card removed pays the entire bill.
I crashed about 4am evenish for poker but way up in every other way.
There are pictures on other people's cameras. I promise some will get posted as soon as those degenerates drag their butts out of bed and hand over the goods.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
No Excuse, Sir
I have no excuse.
I am just one lazy blogger. That's all there is to it.
Oh I've been doing some reasonably interesting things but I'm just not motivated to write about any of it.
The Holidays were good to us. It was pretty low key - which is a good thing.
My wonderful inlaws gifted us their condo time share for our vacation this year. We'll be in Scottsdale the first week of April! Of all the places we could go Scottsdale had the best weather and the cheapest airfare. Win/Win! Now, if only I could convince my Phoenix area friends to abduct me for a trip to Casino Arizona all would be right with the world.
Zooks97 got his braces on. He's adjusting quite well after a few days of painful eating.
I'm getting excited for the upcoming Indypalooza! I get to hang out with my degenerate poker playing friends. We're even having a tournament during the bigDolts Colts game on Saturday night. You might even spot us at Hoosier Park playing some poker on their PokerTek tables over the weekend. Just remember, "What happens at Palooza will most likely be posted all over the internet within moments and in horrifyingly, excruciatingly embarrassing detail." That's the motto of palooza. It is in Indy and not Las Vegas, after all.
I haven't been doing well in the cash games but I did finish 3rd and 2nd in the first two PokerSlut Tour XVII events and won the Booze Cruise last night. They didn't come close to making up for my cash game adventures but I can at least brag about it.
PS is having their Blogger Championship of Online Poker again. I did well in it last year but this year they've decided to stick with mostly NLHE events and only two non-HE events. I hope to be able to play several of them and maybe win my way into the Main Event but for now I need to concentrate on packing for Indypalooza. So much poker paraphenalia to bring with me.
There's a good chance I'll sober up enough to make a post about the Palooza shenanigans. I would also recommend check out the Full Tilt Forum for up to the minute updates.
I am just one lazy blogger. That's all there is to it.
Oh I've been doing some reasonably interesting things but I'm just not motivated to write about any of it.
The Holidays were good to us. It was pretty low key - which is a good thing.
My wonderful inlaws gifted us their condo time share for our vacation this year. We'll be in Scottsdale the first week of April! Of all the places we could go Scottsdale had the best weather and the cheapest airfare. Win/Win! Now, if only I could convince my Phoenix area friends to abduct me for a trip to Casino Arizona all would be right with the world.
Zooks97 got his braces on. He's adjusting quite well after a few days of painful eating.
I'm getting excited for the upcoming Indypalooza! I get to hang out with my degenerate poker playing friends. We're even having a tournament during the big
I haven't been doing well in the cash games but I did finish 3rd and 2nd in the first two PokerSlut Tour XVII events and won the Booze Cruise last night. They didn't come close to making up for my cash game adventures but I can at least brag about it.
PS is having their Blogger Championship of Online Poker again. I did well in it last year but this year they've decided to stick with mostly NLHE events and only two non-HE events. I hope to be able to play several of them and maybe win my way into the Main Event but for now I need to concentrate on packing for Indypalooza. So much poker paraphenalia to bring with me.
There's a good chance I'll sober up enough to make a post about the Palooza shenanigans. I would also recommend check out the Full Tilt Forum for up to the minute updates.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
PokerSlut Tour XVII PLO8 DS
Tonight is a special night!
It is the one year anniversary of that podcast that hasn't posted a new episode
in ages but just won't die like any self respecting lame podcast would.
That's right PokerSoup is baaaaaaaaack, bitches!
Tonight's special guest is the Black Widow of Poker aka CK!
Live from Vegas with stories of live games at the Venetian
and if we're lucky some inside scoop on the blogger shenanigans
from the Winter Blogger Gathering.
Thursday, January 07, 2010
WBCOOP
I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! Bloggers can register to play for free in the WBCOOP, if you don’t have a PokerStars account you can get your Free Poker Download at PokerStars
Registration code: 503578
I'm giddy. Yeah, I said giddy!
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Balance Ball Chair
I just want to know why I didn't think of this.
I have several balance balls around this place. My kids were always stealing mine - and fighting over it - so I bought them each their own. You haven't lived until you have heard those things slapping against the walls in the basement.
After realizing that my posture sucks and my butt hurts from sitting in the office chairs all day I even tried using one of the balance balls as my computer chair but it just wasn't convenient.
When I found this at the new Deals.Woot site I immediately broke out in a bad case of WANT! Yes, I ordered one. Can't wait to see how comfortable it is. I have a lot of hope - and a ginormous butt. This better not let me (or my butt) down.
I have several balance balls around this place. My kids were always stealing mine - and fighting over it - so I bought them each their own. You haven't lived until you have heard those things slapping against the walls in the basement.
After realizing that my posture sucks and my butt hurts from sitting in the office chairs all day I even tried using one of the balance balls as my computer chair but it just wasn't convenient.
When I found this at the new Deals.Woot site I immediately broke out in a bad case of WANT! Yes, I ordered one. Can't wait to see how comfortable it is. I have a lot of hope - and a ginormous butt. This better not let me (or my butt) down.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
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