Inside The Heads of Donkeys

So, why not start posting again? Might as well jump right in...

I was playing in a Matrix SNG the other day when I had an interesting thought at the end of a match.

I started headsup against my Ironman opponent, who had a little better than a 2-1 chip lead on me. Blinds were medium-uncomfortable, and he was putting in small button raises often. After several of these, I decided to make a Kill Phil-type stand by shoving with 75clubs. Ironman instacalled with aces, only to see me flop a 7 and hit runners for a straight. Behold the power of cheese.

What followed was a chat-barrage of OMG DONKEY LOL. I proceeded with a smiley face in chat and some aggression with my new chip lead. I ground him down, and he lost.

So my opponent was mad at me, and belittled my poker play and skill. I don't mind that. I had my reasons for playing back at him. Generally the plan is that he folds his KTo (or whatever he's got) and is subsequently a little less aggro towards my big blind. Mission accomplished. This time, I ran into aces, but still prevailed. Hooray for luck.

The take-home point to all of this was that I was surprised that my opponent immediately focused on my cards. He didn't bother to consider what I was thinking, when I believed it was a good idea to reraise all-in with seven high. He instantly launched into a diatribe about my stupidity instead of trying to get inside the head of the donkey who he was still playing. "Ok, that was a bad move, one I wouldn't make. But why did he do it? What was he considering? Was he frustrated with my raises? Tired of playing headsup? Was he reacting to my play? How did he perceive me?"

Donkeys have reasons behind their play. They are often flawed reasons, but those reasons are valid to that donkey, at that time.

I have no time or energy to devote to getting mad at plays, or players, that I consider bad. I want players to make mistakes against me, to put their money in badly. There's also a chance that I can learn something from the donkey play. In this particular case, perhaps Ironman would see it's sometimes useful to reraise a button raiser with certain hands. If I can get into the head of the donkey, I can take advantage of the same mistake later. Being a 75% favorite can't always end in a suckout.

Who Doesn't Love A Good Prop Bet?

Me, actually. I'm generally a wimp when it comes to randomly wagering on stupid stuff where I don't think I have the best of it. Oh, you want the Bills and 15 points against the Pats for the Sunday night game? Ok, now I'm buying.

So when Skip talked me into a $5 HORSE sng the other day, his prop bet was just interesting enough to get me to buy in. "If one of us bubbles, and the other finishes in the money, the bubble boy pays the winner $5." Skip has a disease - he LOVES to watch me bubble.

As is normal for a $5 HORSE sng, the play was awful in the non-holdem games. Razz and Stud/8 are where Skip and I profit most, except this time it was me scooping chips from donkeys holding rough nines in razz and baby two pair in stud/8. Hello, chip lead.

On the bubble, Skip was about even in chips with the other low stack. We checked a three handed flop (with the #2 in chips sitting out), and I semibluffed my 43o wheel draw when the deuce paired on the turn. Skip raised, figuratively shouting, "Hey I have a two." I dgaf'ed, and called, hit my wheel, and got paid on the river, crippling poor Skip.

I have no idea how you calculate your odds when drawing to a gutshot against your friend when the chips mean nothing to you and drawing out will win you a prop bet the size of the entry fee... but it sure feels awesome.

Oh, and I went on to win the sng, too. Go, go donkey poker.

Donk 'n Goes

Skipper told me about the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure sng's running now on Stars. The satellite tree looked really interesting, so I sat down in a $7.50 Step 1 sng. I figured I could get a *lot* of play-time out of a few Step 1 entries.

A few hands in, Skip mentions that a player in the sng has won a WSOP bracelet. Sure enough, Jon "pokertrip" Friedberg is three seats on my right. I read his bio, and discovered that he and I both have lived near Philly, and have both played live poker in southern Arizona.

I'm not sure which should surprise me more - that a live pro is sitting in a $7 sng with me, or that the two Stage 2 tickets went to the two of us. The sit 'n go ended when the third player busted out. I didn't get to play the pro heads up.

Everything Matters

I've heard the following quote in the cash games at the Card Room a few times, and it's all I can do to keep quiet. "There's not enough in the pot to bet at."

I consider this attitude to be ignorant of pot odds and "the long term". If the pot is only $4, and I can win it half the time with a $2 bet, I should bet. If my opponent doesn't want the pot, that makes it even easier for me to add a few chips to my stack.

There's been a correlation so far between people espousing this disdain for small pots, and ignorance of pot odds in other situations. If I could just see the thought bubble, "It's only a $5 bet to draw to my gutshot. That's cheap. I call." Nevermind there's only $10 in the pot.

Every little bet you can save, and every tiny pot you can win that you normally wouldn't.. they all add up over time. It's not anything you're going to notice in one evening. "Oh look, I cashed out for $227 instead of $212 because I folded earlier in a few hands than a fish would." But if you play as much as much as the regulars do, it adds up.

~~

I was reminded of this concept when I read a thread on Tucker Max's messageboard. The topic of the thread was Tucker shining a spotlight on another internet writer.

The question boiled down to this: You have potential. Are you going to seize it, and risk failure to be the best you can be? Or are you going to talk a good game, but do nothing?

Folding kings the weak-tight way

So I haven't quite painted the picture of the play at the Card Room. The most glaring mistakes are made in multi-way pots (and we almost never have a heads-up flop). If you flop bottom or middle pair in a 5- or 6-way pot, in first position, do you bet into the field?

Everybody at the Card Room does.

Oh, and maybe 20% of the room understands the concepts of pot odds. It's all I can do not to laugh when somebody min-raises out of the big blind after 5 people have limped in. Another interesting thing about playing at the Card Room is that while I'm dealing there, I learn a lot of tendencies, without people learning my habit at the same time.

So when I'm not at a table with Tarheel, there are few people in the game that I actually respect. Cliff, who says next to nothing, is one of them. He was UTG for this hand, and had about the same stack I did, $200 or so. He raised the $2 big blind to $10. I was right next to him, and repopped it to $25 holding kings, mentioning something about clearing the riffraff out.

Scummy Guy at the end of the table, on the button perhaps, calls my $25 cold. So much for clearing the riffraff out. When it got back to Cliff, he made it $75 total.

"Cliff's good, and he's tight, and he knows I'm the same. Can he make that raise with queens? I don't think he can. Him having the other two kings is a mathematical improbability. I'm sure enough that he's got aces that I'm going to fold now."

And show my coworker, Brandon, who's playing right next to me.

Scummy Guy got all in with Cliff, and the flop was paired with two diamonds. 755 or something like that. The turn and river were running diamonds, with the river being the ace of diamonds. At this point, I thought I might look like an ass... that Cliff has queens, or the other two kings. It sure looks like he hates that river ace, or the diamonds.

It turns out that Cliff actually had the aces. He was slow to show his hand because he didn't see the board pair, and thought that any diamond had him beat. Scummy Guy did have red sixes, but Cliff's aces-full boat was the winner.

And then I did something that is indicative of my poker personality. I showed the rest of the table my kings that I folded. (They were away from the muck.) I also told Cliff that my current stack would be his if I respected his game less.

I'm not sure what it is about me, but when it comes to poker, I have a pathological need to be right, or to show everybody else that I was right. Early in my poker playing, I was insanely weak - any raise would get me to fold a medium-strength hand. I hated being wrong, showing down a loser. I've slowly overcome that tendency, and I'm much less adverse to making a mistake or to being wrong.

This hand also reminds me of my infamous "I flopped a straight flush, and folded on the turn, correctly" post. Not only because I folded a strong hand to an even stronger one, but because I just had to know. And I had to be right.

I was a math nerd growing up. The answers were always absolute. When I figured out that x = y + 3, that was the answer. There was a lot more certainty involved when I used to say "I aced that math test", than when I thought I did well on an English composition. Perhaps that's what I lovc about poker - you never have all the information when you make your decisions.

Da Champ

So, I did something in less than a month at Burning Rock College that I couldn't do in five years at UNC - I won an Intramural Champion t-shirt. That's right, I loved Carolina so much I went for the extra-credit year.

I had to overcome a massive ten player field in the billiards. It was single elimination, and I only pocketed the eight-ball once, to seal it in the finals. I'm not good, and I'm lucky. The two best players scratched on the eight-ball before facing me.

Lazarus

You know, it's about time I wrote in this thing.

I have gone through my long, dark tunnel, and come out the other side. Maybe not in a better place, but definitely in a more interesting one.

I'm not even sure where to start back up.

A long period of joyous unemployment is over. Some people feel out of sorts when they aren't working for any length of time. I love it, so long as my bank account is a non-zero number. I find it amusing that I went from zero jobs to two. I am now a dealer and floor manager of a poker card room in southern Arizona. I am also the Second Assistant Coach of a women's soccer team at the local junior college. For the coaching position, I am "paid" no actual dollars. My compensation is room 'n board on campus. I have a suite all to myself - two rooms with a bathroom that connects them. I have no cable, internet, power, or water bills. But I have no paychecks.

My other job provides the cash. The cardroom is open Thursday to Sunday, in the evenings. I get no paycheck from that one either, just cash money. Tips when I'm a dealer, and half of the house's take when I'm the floor man. Pretty decent deal. Floor man is a combo job, because I can deal while I'm flooring.

There will be more posts when I describe the card room's players (horrifically bad).. and the card room's legality (good and gray).

I have also settled on changing the name of the junior college, so that nobody finds my blog by searching on google for the JC. I have decided to call the women's soccer team the "Burning Rock Lady Destroyers". It's hot in southern Arizona. So, for the purposes of this blog, I'm employed by "Burning Rock College".

So I'm doing two things I really like, and I could possibly contribute to the poker community again. Oh, and now that I'm away from all the guys I played with on a very regular basis, I can talk about poker strategy and not feel like I'm giving away the farm.

Good luck out there.

Oh, forgot this part

I played my last sng over at the GF's, with the Angels on the tube. (Note to Speaker: I don't love the Angels, but the broadcasts are much easier to take if you think of two things: 1) Hudler is probably high. 2) At least I don't have to listen to the White Sox broadcaster.)

Ok, tangent over... I was playing the sng, narrating to my girlfriend what was going on.

The guy on my right had been crazy-aggro. He popped it from the button, I jammed on him (after we were already in the money) with A9o, a hand I'm not crazy about. He folded quickly.

He proceeded to fold his small blind, with me in the big blind, for the next 4 consecutive times! I snapped off Aggro Guy, and he rewards me by folding on that hand, then giving me a walk four straight times.

Good times.

HORSE on Sunday

Once every four months or so, we host a limit HORSE tourney at my place, just a little something to break up the monotony of the normal NL rebuy tournaments.

The guys from Grind Or Gamble showed up, to play Poison HU before HORSE. There was live blogging and a suckout or two. I wasn't watching much, while I set up for the HORSE tourney.

The GoG guys seemed like solid guys, and at the very least, competent poker players. I hadn't read their blog before now, but they've been added. (One of these days, I'll be updating my bloglist in the left column.)

Jamin had a rough go, losing to Yosoy, then busting out first of the tourney. Nothing went his way, and I added to the misery when my ace-trash outflopped his ace-big in limit holdem. Billy made up for it by busting me and my shortstack outta the tourney while holding 62-diamonds. I made some snide comment about him not having to call my preflop raise with 62-sooted, but in retrospect it was just me being cross I got busted. He had plenty of chips, and I didn't. He wasn't taking much of a risk by seeing a flop for an extra bet out of the big blind. He probably also knew that if he hit the flop, I would be giving him the rest of my chips, as the pot would've been much larger than my remaining stack.

Oh, and Shawn won the HORSE tourney. I hate his limit play... all chasing, no odds. He donked his way to a big lead in the middle stages, then gifted everybody but me a courtesy doubleup, attempting to bust every short stack with ATxx rainbows in stud. At one point, I said loud enough for everybody to hear, "Could somebody please tell Shawn that this isn't a bounty tournament?" His irritated response was something about trying to bust people to end the tournament early.

Those were my only two surly comments all night... really.

~~

Bruiser's been pummeling my Full Tilt bankroll, cashing me out so that I'm under my "safe zone" of $300. For the last two months or so, he's been coming over early on Thursdays and Sundays to play $20-50 sng's, with a fun attempt at $2-4NL thrown in. He pays me cash, sits and plays, and at the end of the night, I pay him his winnings, if any. At one point, he had bumped my account from just under $700 to over $1K... and then down under $300. His style is nothing like mine, naturally, and rather volatile.

I've played two sng's since, and monied in both... a win and a runner-up. I feel very comfortable playing against the inexperienced, bad, and straightforward players that populate the low-limit sng's.

Let's rebuild, shall we?

To the Tustinrounders.com people

Recently, word has gotten out about my blog to the people that play in my homegame. For a looong time, I kept it quiet.

In part, because I wrote whatever I wanted in this blog. And in part because I'm not a good writer, and didn't want to censor or alter my account of things. When I started it years ago, I didn't think anybody would see it at all. If it weren't for the acceptance of the poker blogger community, nobody would have.

Blame them. Ha!

So, Tustin Rounders... the accounts here are biased and incomplete, poorly written and unedited. Perhaps I didn't write about how you taught me to play limit holdem, or failed to mention how you transformed your game from retarded to tricky. I apologize for not painting a fair and unbiased picture of you. But it is my blog. They're free... go start one.

Good Poker Memories, Part 1

So I was thinking... what pokery stuff should I write about? My mastery of $5 sng's? Boat over boat with Gordo and Poison at a $2/4 limit game, in the room right next to where Joe Awada was slumming at a $2/5 NL game? The adventure that is Bruiser playing on my screenname on Full Tilt?

Maybe someday, but not now.

I want to talk about one of my favorite characters in my homegame. We don't know his actual name... we prefer nicknames around here. He goes by "Pops". He's not a senior citizen, as you might expect somebody with that name to be. He's probably not even 25.

Pops is wired a little funny. He doesn't play every week, but he had been coming for a few months when the following hand came up...

There's been more trash-talking on this night than usual. Pops and Skipper, our resident punk kid know-it-all (who now reads this blog!), are in a big pot at the river. The flop had two fives, and two hearts. The third heart fell on the turn or river. There is a bet and a call on the river. Skipper rolled over his hand, showing two hearts, declaring plainly, "I've got a flush."

Pops slammed his cards down, face-up, and countered triumphantly, "Trip fives, bitch!!"

We had to remind him that three of a kind did not beat a flush. And then we had to laugh...

Picking Back Up

So February and March have come and gone, without a post to this blog. Things have happened, a few of them good things. I'll start with the important ones.

My dad would now appear to be on the other side of his cancer diagnosis with a clean bill of health. He had the tumor cut out of his tongue, spent some time in hospital, healed up, starting talking normally again, and took a cruise to Egypt with my stepmom. And he knows I love him.

I quit my job at Steak Restaurant. The new management decided, after some deliberation, that they would prefer to go forward with me as a server, not a bartender. Bartending there was the only thing that was keeping me there, as the restaurant rapidly went into the shitter after the new management tried to fix the old mistakes, creating a multiplicity of new ones. I have a college degree (chemistry!), three years of field sales experience... it's long since time I got a "real" job.

I spent a weekend bartending at the Nissan Senior's Open in Newport Beach, which was pretty sweet - greenside at the 18th and 17th holes on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. I spent the following weekend in Vegas with Gordo and Poison. My first time meeting Gordo, and the guy gives me Guinness and buys a fuckin' UNC t-shirt cuz his shirts are dirty and we're gonna watch hoops in the Sports Book? That guy's more than OK in my book.

I have another of what I call "freelance bartending" assignments coming up. $25/hr plus any tips at a wedding on Wednesday? If you're reading this, thanks TonyD!

And yes, I'm aware it's a very bad thing to quit a job when you don't have another waiting for you. The guys at my poker game have told me I could be bartending/serving (50/50) at A Different Steak Restaurant. I love the offer, but I have a hunch I shouldn't be in that line of work anymore.

I'm a funk. I don't think it's depression so much as being frozen. My life needs to change, to move somewhere... but I DON'T KNOW WHERE. There's a bunch of things I could do, but what do I want to do, and why am I so afraid of starting... and failing?

If someone you loved had 24 hours to live, what would you do?

So I wanted to break my blogging hiatus with a happy post. I've been playing incredibly well lately, if sporadically. My results at the Sunday tourney I host are sick. Six sigma sick... my streak of moneying in homegame tourneys got busted last Sunday at 8. I finished ITM in eight consecutive 10+ player tourneys. First, first, third, second, second (to Veneno), first, first, second.

But that's not why I'm writing. Maybe later, I'll talk about my tourneys, and the badasses I wanna join at the LAPC, but this post is about my dad.


My dad is 66 years old. This week, he's been diagnosed with cancer of the mouth. This disease usually strikes heavy drinkers or heavy smokers. My dad is neither. Unlike his three sons, I don't recall him drinking more than two drinks in a day in the last twenty years. I don't think he's ever smoked.

It's early in the situation, but it SOUNDS like they've detected it early. If it is early, they can operate, cut out the cancer, and the prognosis is excellent. My dad even said the part of his tongue they'd cut out would grow back.

I care very little about that. I'd rather have my dad alive and talking a little funny, than ravaged by cancer and slowly dying.

Although I mean that last sentence, it still hurts me to type it. Thinking about this sort of thing tears me up. It takes a lot to make me cry, but this post is trying my patience.

~~

So what's the take home message?

Life isn't short. But we all have a limited amount of time. I love my dad, and I've had a lot of great experiences with him. After I ended that phone conversation, I had a morbid thought.

"If my dad died tomorrow, what would I regret not doing with him?"

I've had a pretty good relationship with my dad over the years. He's been there during my struggles in college, me getting fired from my first legit job, and my subsequent poker playing and bartending.

What haven't I done?

I haven't watched him coach a basketball game. It sounds trivial. But it's important to me.

I haven't seen him do the very thing that he was born to do... I haven't seen him do what he loves.

I guess it would mean more if I discussed my father's background and career path. Fresh out of college, he started as a math teacher, and hoops coach, at an all-boys school. He moved on to computer stuff and check-processing at IBM, where he met my mother. It's probably over-simplifying to state that my father gave up what he loved to provide for his family. But I'm fine with that. His passion is coaching basketball. I want to see that end result of that, just one game, before he passes on. I am now mentally prepared for that event to be next week, or the year 2020.

I've been there for one practice, helping him and the kids in drills. I remember that day well.
College football is huge in Texas, and the Texas-Texas A&M game was scheduled for Thanksgiving weekend. My dad asked his team if they wanted practice at their normal time (which would cut into the football game), or if they wanted to practice early. Almost unanimously, they voted for a 9am practice on a Saturday.

I wanted to see my dad coach. I got up early, on vacation, to help him out. For those of you that know me, you know that I HATE getting up before noon if I can help it.

So I went to a 9am basketball practice. I don't actually play basketball - I grew up with soccer and baseball. I knew that if I wanted to learn hoops, my dad would've been more than happy to teach.

That day, I helped my dad with drills, fetching balls, rebounding, passing. It was grunt work, but I was able to see my father teaching these sixteen year olds.

He was authoritative, he was smart, he was effective. In the small world of Dallas high school hoops, on that day, my father was a basketball god. Maybe I wasn't his right-hand man that day, but I was at least his left pinky finger.

Practice in the gym ended, but nobody went home. I think the team was working on their fitness. My father wanted them all to run a mile. His goal was to have as many of them as possible run a 7-minute mile. In junior high, my soccer coach wanted us to run a 6-minute mile. The best I ever did was 6:12. In high school, my soccer coach wanted us to run a 12-minute two-mile. The best I ever did was 12:23. As a ninth and twelfth grader, I felt those times were pretty damn good.

My dad asked me, as a 27-year-old, to run with his kids. He asked me to pace them. He hadn't seen me play soccer in more than 7 years. He had absolutely no doubt in his mind that his son, five years out of college, could run a seven-minute mile.

NONE.

Not only could I run a seven-minute mile myself, but I could help his kids run a faster time. My father participates in all sorts of hoops drills - but endurance is not his thing. That day, I was standing in for him. Just for a half hour, I was filling in where he could not.

When my father asked me to run a 7-minute mile, I wanted a sixer. Of course, it was insanely unrealistic, but I didn't care. Four laps, six minutes... that's 90 seconds per lap. The only thing I knew about running a lap in ninety seconds was that you had to start at a sprint.

So I did. I ran the first lap in 73 seconds. Those high school kids had their eyes bugged out at the old guy, the coach's son, who was blazing a sick pace. As I passed the second group of kids, the spectators for this heat who would be in the second one, they asked me if I ran track. I shook my head slightly. As I settled into the second lap's pace, I lost steam.

I couldn't keep up that pace. Just as I suspected, I couldn't finish a 6-minute mile. I had the top two players pass me on the last lap, as I logged a 6:42 mile time. The Old Coach's oldest son could run a 7-minute mile...why couldn't all the players?

My father had no idea what kind of shape I was in when he asked me to run with his kids that afternoon. What he did know is that I still cared about running a good time, and that I would give EVERYTHING to show him and his players that I had heart. Just like when I played for my coaches, I wanted to show them that it was honorable to bust your ass to the point of exhaustion for your coach. In practice, you gave everything. On game day, you left it all on the field.

I hope my Dad looks back on that day and understands.

That day was all love, Dad, and all heart. So is today.

I know a guy

My first post of 2007 should be beer-fueled. Here goes.

So I know this guy. It took several months of playing at my homegame before I learned his actual first name, Brendan. I still don't know his last name, nor do I want to. He introduced himself as Bruiser, and who am I to question a guy who looks exactly like his name?

Bruiser's not a violent guy, despite the nickname. He's been nothing but well-behaved in the time he's attending my homegame. There was one time the short, hyper-aggressive guy tried to bait him, but he didn't rise to it. Bruiser doesn't like violence. He likes gambling, and he loves booze.

After a few months, he started answering our questions. In the last several years, he's had several jobs. During one, he earned his nickname. He was a bouncer at a local dive bar. I've been to this bar. My roommate and I had a guy approach us, saying "Was somebody talkin' shit?" At the moment, we thought we were going to get stabbed. It turns out, Scribbles (that was his name, he was a tattoo artist) was just trying to make sure a drunk buddy of his wasn't getting in trouble.

Bruiser told us about this job. One night, a bar fight broke out. The whole bar was fighting. Bruiser knocked out five guys. Now, when most guys say they knocked out five guys, they actually punched three.

Not Bruiser. When Bruiser tells you he knocked out five guys in one night, he knocked out five guys. End of story. He's not lying, and he's not exaggerating. He strikes me as a man who has absolutely no need to boast about his fighting, drinking, fucking, or jail time. He comes and goes as he pleases. He follows the rules if it suits him. He doesn't need your respect.

Bruiser didn't tell this story his first or second time at my game. We had to pester the story out of him.

I think that Bruiser makes most of his money in the fall and winter taking sports bets, on football and hoops, but I have no proof of this. Pure speculation on my part, and I'm betting the farm on him not being much of a blog-reader.

So, when Bruiser told me he was considering staking me, I took notice. This was long before the Captain Tom/Brandi/Dutch saga got out, but even before that sordid tale, I had my head on straight.

During this time, Bruiser had been coming before my cashgames and tourneys started, and used my Full Tilt account to play $20 and $30 sng's. He bought in with cash, I let him play, and if he monied, I paid him in cash. He bring a case of beer, we'd drink, he'd play, and I'd give my two cents if he asked. He asked a lot. I'd tell him what I thought was the right play, and why.

He's probably played more than 20 sng's while I've watched. I think he's slightly better than even money at this point. Skipper seems to think he's skewing my sharkscope numbers.

But, I've been talking poker with Bruiser for a while. And my play in the last several months, and that guidance, have impressed him.

The original talk of the stake was me at the $500NL level in a cashgame. Then, $200NL. By the time we actually went, he wanted me to start at a $100NL table. Let's just say I'm very comfortable at this level, and it fits my bankroll just fine. But if he wants to see how I'll do in a casino setting before moving up, I'm fine with that.

I started with $100 of Bruiser's money at a $100 NL table. I ran it up to $260, and walked away at about midnight. Our split was straightforward - return whatever stake to Bruiser, and split the proceeds 50/50. I asked him directly about me losing his money. If I bust out, I owe him nothing.

At one point, he said something about there being no downside for me. I wanted to impress upon him that I would take his bankroll very seriously, and do my absolute best. "Bruiser, I can't put a dollar value on me being able to play on your bankroll. I want to do well because I always try to play my best poker. Most importantly, there's an opportunity cost associated with me playing on your roll. I want to win you money so that you feel confident about us moving up in stakes. I win, we move up, I win us more money."

After last Thursday's cashgame, Bruiser wanted to stake me for a $20 sng on FT. I figured "hey why not?" and played. With Bruiser watching, asking me a few questions, I won the sng. $90 to us.

"Let it ride."

$50 sng, coming up! Even though it started at 245am, I finished 2nd in that one, for $135. Had it not been so late, Bruiser would've had me play a $100 sng.

So I told him about the sng's at Commerce Casino before/during the LA Poker Classic in January. I mentioned that it's a bit over my bankroll to play multiple $120 sng's. LAPC could be a very interesting time.

If you'll remember, this is the series of events where Ryan made his first big splash.

Perhaps nothing will come of Bruiser staking me. The best case scenario is that he stakes me to a few $120's. I win enough $500 tourney chips where Bruiser says "Let it ride. Play a tourney."

Lately, I've been on a heater, especially where live tourneys are concerned. I'm keeping focused. Maybe nothing comes of all of this. But the tiny chance that I'm gonna blow up in 2007 has me very excited.

One day, I'll write something worth reading.

Somewhere, there's a cool post, jumbled in my brain. It involves a guy named Bruiser, football wagers, sit 'n goes, and the LA Poker Classic.

I'd write, but I'm really tired now.

Oh, and mad props to Yosoy, Smokkee, and Love Elf. I thoroughly enjoyed the drinking and cards. NL razz rocks!!

Quickie

Bruiser's coming over early to play on Full Tilt, so I figured I'd take this brief time to update.

It feeels like I'm the bubble king in smallish MTT's. I've finished 21st and 20th in two recent $4 180-man sng's, losing a three way race (first in vigorish with KQc!) against 55 and 99, and then running queens into rockets. But I'm playing well, so that's nice. Oh, and I monied in a $5 LO8 rebuy tourney on Stars for $25. It feels like I have a good grasp of that game, and excellent results as far as getting into the money. In this particular tourney, Skip sweated my play and we concluded that I play the turn way too aggressively when I'm in position. I need to slow down a little. ITM and a lesson learned? Nice.


~~

The Badugi tourney this past Sunday was fun, for me at least, even though I bubbled. Our Sunday tourneys are seasonal. We play three regular season NL tourneys, have a limit HORSE tourney, then three more regular season NL tourneys. Whoever has the most points at the end of the first six NL tourneys picks the next non-NL tourney. This season, it was me.

After the last Championship tourney where I busted out early, Bruiser, Skipper, Forty and I played a Badugi limit sng. I won, and we had fun. I thought a PL Badugi tourney would be interesting.

Cruel is more like it. It's a sick game, with plenty of action, and huge pots contested at low blind levels, even pot-limit. I took one dumb risk, attempting to bust Albert with two draws to a five-low against his obviously made hand. I double-bricked, and he ended up cruising on those chips to HU with Yosoy, who fought gamely, but couldn't overcome.

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The big upcoming event is TonyD's $50 Deepstack tourney this Saturday. I'm gonna be late, but Yosoy, Smokkee, and Love Elf will be playing. I might just bring a notepad to watch Smoke in action. I imagine that his style is nothing like mine, and I know I can learn a few things.

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Oh, and I signed up for pokersourceonline's instant bankroll for Absolute poker. When I spoke to the PSO rep on the phone, it sounded like I wasn't going to be able to get the free bankroll, as I had done the same with Titan. I reminded the rep that Titan no longer accepted US players. He spoke briefly with his supervisor, then gave me the go-ahead. Free money, it's-a nice!