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Watch the kids face when he think he's asked to spell an unexpected word...

Let the Donkament Begin!

First hand of tonight's Donkament...how would you play this hand?

Full Tilt Poker Game #6629595789: Friday Nite Blogger Donkament (49696693), Table 2 - 15/30 - No Limit Hold'em - 21:01:00 ET - 2008/05/30
Seat 1: katitude (1,000)
Seat 2: TanOrpheus (2,000)
Seat 3: OhCaptain (2,000)
Seat 4: DDionysus (1,000)
Seat 5: RaisingCayne (2,000)
Seat 6: BuddyDank (1,000)
Seat 7: IslandBum1 (2,000)
Seat 8: NutzCarson (1,000)
Seat 9: Fishiswa (2,000)
katitude posts the small blind of 15
TanOrpheus posts the big blind of 30
The button is in seat #9
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to OhCaptain [5s Ad]
katitude: all in first five, as usual
OhCaptain raises to 2,000, and is all in
Fishiswa: hello
DDionysus calls 1,000, and is all in
OhCaptain: Good even queen donk
RaisingCayne calls 2,000, and is all in
BuddyDank calls 1,000, and is all in
IslandBum1 calls 2,000, and is all in
NutzCarson calls 1,000, and is all in
Fishiswa calls 2,000, and is all in
katitude calls 985, and is all in
OhCaptain: Let the donating begin!
TanOrpheus calls 1,970, and is all in
OhCaptain shows [5s Ad]
DDionysus shows [Ts 7c]
RaisingCayne shows [7h Th]
BuddyDank shows [As 9d]
IslandBum1 shows [Tc Jd]
NutzCarson shows [Kd Td]
Fishiswa shows [6c 5c]
katitude shows [Kc 9s]
TanOrpheus shows [8d Ah]
BuddyDank: woot!
RaisingCayne: lol
RaisingCayne: family
*** FLOP *** [4h 7s 3s]
OhCaptain: Poooooosssssshhhhhh
*** TURN *** [4h 7s 3s] [3d]
*** RIVER *** [4h 7s 3s 3d] [6s]
OhCaptain shows a straight, Seven high
RaisingCayne shows two pair, Sevens and Threes
IslandBum1 shows a pair of Threes
Fishiswa shows a straight, Seven high
TanOrpheus shows a pair of Threes
OhCaptain ties for the side pot (2,500) with a straight, Seven high
Fishiswa ties for the side pot (2,500) with a straight, Seven high
DDionysus shows two pair, Sevens and Threes
BuddyDank shows a pair of Threes
NutzCarson shows a pair of Threes
katitude shows a pair of Threes
OhCaptain ties for the main pot (4,500) with a straight, Seven high
Fishiswa ties for the main pot (4,500) with a straight, Seven high
Fishiswa: wooooot
DDionysus adds 1,000
RaisingCayne adds 2,000
katitude adds 1,000
BuddyDank adds 1,000
TanOrpheus adds 2,000
IslandBum1 adds 2,000
OhCaptain: lol
NutzCarson adds 1,000
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 14,000 Main pot 9,000. Side pot 5,000. Rake 0
Board: [4h 7s 3s 3d 6s]
Seat 1: katitude (small blind) showed [Kc 9s] and lost with a pair of Threes
Seat 2: TanOrpheus (big blind) showed [8d Ah] and lost with a pair of Threes
Seat 3: OhCaptain showed [5s Ad] and won (7,000) with a straight, Seven high
Seat 4: DDionysus showed [Ts 7c] and lost with two pair, Sevens and Threes
Seat 5: RaisingCayne showed [7h Th] and lost with two pair, Sevens and Threes
Seat 6: BuddyDank showed [As 9d] and lost with a pair of Threes
Seat 7: IslandBum1 showed [Tc Jd] and lost with a pair of Threes
Seat 8: NutzCarson showed [Kd Td] and lost with a pair of Threes
Seat 9: Fishiswa (button) showed [6c 5c] and won (7,000) with a straight, Seven high

Mookie me, mookie my - Philanthropy for dummies

It's Thursday morning, and for the first time in a while, I'm really tired. That can me only one thing. A deep run in the Mookie. What, you didn't see my name in lights? Of course not, the Mrs played. OhCountess was the first out after the bubble. Congrats hon!

So thus begins my story of philanthropy.

I was seated in the Mookie and immediately had that feeling of, "Holy Schmidt Big Mouth!" As Julius_Goat so aptly put it, "Who here HASN'T won a Mookie?" The silence was deafening. With MiamiDon, and Loretta8 on my left and Surflexus and Julius_Goat on my right, I realized that having won only ONE Mookie, I was the soft spot.

The dealer wasted no time in dealing me a nice long streak of completely less than marginal hands. Boys, I hate to tell you this, but position was all I was raising with. I had aces only once and you gosh darn nice fellas walked it to me.

Since busting from the Mookie 43rd never quite satisfies my poker desires, I headed over to the .05/.10 cash game and continued to give away my money. Fishes everywhere were enjoying the spoils of my ill gotten gains. Got top pair - called that all-in raise! You know its good! Come on - its OhCaptain there...he's never got a hand. Got an ace, stay to the river, because you'll hit aces up! After dropping two buyins in about 5 minutes, I was heard muttering, "Son of motherless goat!"

I got into the blogger cash game and found new and exciting ways to fold 93o. Left handed, right handed and sometimes I even closed my eyes. I think someday, there should be a National Folding Championship. Easy money picking me to win the thing! I rocked the fold button!

Before I go back to filling out the IOU's to people that didn't get any money from me last night, I'd like to change gears to a little more serious side.

Donkette finished here series of posts today on her recovery. Its amazing story of strength and resilience. We know here story isn't over - she's with us today and her life is just beginning! If you haven't read a post yet, do. If you know someone that needs to find a way out of addiction, slips this under their nose.

I talked to her last night about changing the tags on the posts so they are now easy to group. Here's the link to the entire series. Since I realize that my blog is without a doubt the most read popular biggest draw blog you are currently reading, I'm asking you to share the link. Cut and paste it if you want. I know a few of you that read this get a much bigger audience then me. Share it. Thank you very much!

http://donkettesride.blogspot.com/search/label/Road%20To%20Recovery

I'm exhausted. Post Mookie Thursdays suck. Anyone seen my pillow?

A little live poker and some new live babies

We had quite the busy weekend and through it all, this degenerate still found time to play some cards.

OhCaptain and family welcomed two new babies into the world. Nope, we aren't having any more, unless you ask OhCountess. She doesn't like the terms "never" and "more kids" in the same sentence.

OhCountess is a hero to me. Her sister gave birth to a beautiful baby girl Sunday night, my wife at her side. Way to go honey! I was at her side for both our daughters. It's a magic place. To all the guys out there, don't blow your chance to be there and for Pete's sake, be there if you do the deed. I hate nothing more then men who don't take being a Dad seriously. You are and always will be scum if you aren't there for your kids. Being a Dad is the greatest thing I have ever done. I wouldn't trade it for anything, not even a seat at the ToC. Let's leave it at that.

Another dear friend and his wife also brought us a future Main Event champion on Saturday. You'll probably know who it is, maybe not, but I'll let him have the honor of telling the world. Congrats my friend! Enjoy these times!

So, this is a poker blog, huh?

Friday night, pre-babies was spent in the monthly game known as Bourbonators. I think someone mentioned 144 proof being the whiskey of the month. Yep, to rather rapid flameouts ended my night. PokerFool joined us for his first ever Bourbonators night. He flamed out of the first SNG right after me. We pretended to play some PLO waiting for the next one to start. When the next game started, I played QQ too hard and found out it is no match of AKo. I lost my 473 consectutive coin flip. Congrats to PokerFool for taking down a second!

Thankfully, I was able to win back my two buyins playing a little HU. Thank goodness for side action.

The ensuing hang-over on Sunday led me to 4 consecutive bubbles in SNGs. I love bubbling with a hang over.

Figuring my pain wasn't enough from all of this, (Did I say masochist in my Mookie profile?? need to check that out) I joined Kat at a .05/.10 $10 max NLHE table. Remember my whole wanting to get better and May seeming to be the month I show a profit at cash games? Well, in short order I was down a little more then $20. Nice job! I buckled down and got back some. Built my session back up to -$16. For the first time in my cash game experience, I actually got it all-in and won a friggin' hand. I had the nut flush, triple checked it...yes indeed, an ace high flush is the nuts. Did some razzle dazzle, and our villain got it all in, having me covered (not to mention some dead money conveniently deposited by others - hehe). K high flush no good. Whew! That pot got me a small profit on the session. I was quite sure that all the gains I'd made at the beginning of the month were gone in one session. So May is looking profitable.

Monday, a US holiday of great relaxation and remembrance, found me back in the SNG saddle winning 3 of 5 tournaments. Not too shabby considering the flurry of activity at our house. BTW - that's not just cashing, that's winning. Been a while since I was just flat winning these things regularly. Now, to avoid the correction.

I will say it again. Please go check out Donkette's ride. She's an inspiration to me. She's on part 13 now of her road to sobriety. (Donkette - give each the same label so we can link to the series)

Work sucks when you get back after a long weekend. Hope everyone else had a great weekend!

Dying with your boots on - AIPS #5

Tonight was an evening of firsts for me.

I skipped Riverchasers to play in the AIPS Event #5 - NLHE Rebuy. I'm not sure I could play a rebuy yet and another tournament at the same time. Maybe some other day...

Well, this wasn't my first rebuy. Not much about this was a first. The firsts are yet to come.

I seemed to have found the worlds cheapest. tightest rebuy table in the history of rebuys. Holy crap folks, they were playing poker. Proper opening raises, folding to pressure. I ran my stack up for a while and then...got some good cards. We all know how good cards hold up in a rebuy. Ugh.

The rebuy period ended, I successfully shifted gears to deep stack poker and started collecting chips. I got well past average stack and was cruising right along. 34 people left when this happened...

Now, that sucked. I don't there is any way I win that hand unless I just call and see the flop. Could have done that. What do you think about just calling with AA there?

On to the firsts!

Well, LivePokerRadio was alive and well tonight. I bought a new headset today and sure enough, I get it working and I got on the air. Had to adjust it a little, but I was there! Thanks to Kat, IT, Buddy and Joanada for showing me a rather short but fun time. OhPrincess2 decided she just wanted to hang out with Dad for a while. Dad's gotta do what Dad's gotta do. I will be back on the air sometime, hopefully soon! That was fun.

OhPrincess2 getting out of bed in the middle of the night to talk to Dad ain't new or a first, but participating in a PoooooooshFest is. Broke my Pooshfest virginity tonight. Thought I played it well used all of my skills. Took out Drizz on the first hand and 2 other people. Got it up to 6000 chips on the first hand. Tournament poker is where its at man! Unfortunately, I just couldn't hold back Kat and she got the better of me. 2nd in the PoooshFest sucks!

I won't be online tomorrow night. Live poker for me. Bourbonators to be exact. Booze, laughter and a little poker and if I'm lucky...Guitar Hero!!! As of right now, I expect PokerFool to be joining me.

Is it just me, or is Isabelle Mercier hot?

The fish that got away - The classic big fish story with a twist

Last night I was lounging with the wife and catching up on the back episodes of House. I don't see a lot of bloggers watching that show, but you may have noticed I have a sarcastic streak. I know a master when I see one.

Lately, I've been playing the $1 45 person sngs. I do have some kind of ridiculous ROI on these and when the bankroll needs a little life blown in, I hit these. Normally, an expected card distribution will give you a winning periodically. These tournaments are easy to cash once you realize that most people are for some reason trying to get tricky and are looking for coin flips. I play these pretty straight. No one is gonna notice you check raised them or 3 bet. They just see their cards. If you don't get cards, it can be a long night.

The first one of these last night saw me fold to an M of > 10. Ho hum. They are cheap. Fired up the second one. This time I saw Surf in the chat window. Hey! He signed up for one. Cool. It was nice of him to stop by and slum it with the common man. He doubles up early, taking big slick deep and then gives that all back a few hands later. I continue to fold 93o for the 296th time of the night. I did a little razzle dazzle when I found a couple of people scared to lose, but in the end, JJ with ~800 chips is just no match for the various AK, A? combos out there. I don't even remember what everyone had...Ho hum. Surf goes on double up winning with AK again. I think he got bored. These games can do that to you. That's why I was watching House.

I puttered around for a while in the trial version of Poker Tracker 3. Tuned into watch some of the MATH and finally turned on BDR after getting caught up on my favorite poker playing, drug popping ego maniac (man, that sounds like a few bloggers - any of you guys doctors?). BDR reminded me of the blogger cash game. Sometimes you guys just play too deep for me, but last night it was a deep .05/.10 NLHE. A lot of deep stacks but super crazy play. Surf was over here doing what Surf does best, splash it around.

Heck, I can fold in a cash game too and proceeded to continue folding. Sure, I joined a couple of flops, but when the board comes 789 all clubs and you hold KQd...4 people raising before you makes you think...hey....my hand might be no good.

So this leads me to my hand of the night. You see, I perfected folding last night. I found zen and was dodging bullets. This hand pretty well shows this. You might disagree with me, you might even have played this differently, but that's why we blog...to learn from each other.

FullTiltPoker Game #6488889523: Table Edam (deep) - $0.05/$0.10 - No Limit Hold'em - 1:08:58 ET - 2008/05/20
BuddyDank has returned
Seat 1: Rake Feeder ($25.25)
Seat 2: DommyDooDimes ($19.90)
Seat 3: OhCaptain ($7.75) <--I bought in short. Crazy play and I didn't feel like going broke...so there
Seat 4: Donkette ($37.70) {Donkette is writing some fantastic stuff her site - I strongly recommend you check it out.}
Seat 5: BuddyDank ($77.55), is sitting out <--Made a living off catching Surf making moves. Well done sir!
Seat 6: Joanne1111 ($19.55)
Seat 7: KronX ($4.90)
Seat 8: ScottMc ($19.90)
Seat 9: bdidde ($20.20), is sitting out
Joanne1111 posts the small blind of $0.05
KronX posts the big blind of $0.10
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to OhCaptain [Ks Qs] <--love this hand, hate this hand. Let's just see where it goes. I've been playing weak this whole time, so if I flop big I could easily trap for huge.
bdidde has returned
ScottMc folds
DommyDooDimes has reconnected
Rake Feeder raises to $0.35 <--So far, he hasn't seen a hand that he didn't open raise. I believe PT had him at around 60% V$IP. This means nothing and he could be on any two cards.
DommyDooDimes folds
OhCaptain calls $0.35 <--I'll call check out the flop, see pre-flop plan and expectation
Donkette calls $0.35 <--Joanada hasn't been re-raising, this will be a cheap flop for her.
Joanne1111 folds
KronX folds
*** FLOP *** [5h 4h 5c] <--Swing and a miss. Again, I'm not even drawing.
Rake Feeder has 15 seconds left to act
Rake Feeder checks <--This looks really weird. What? No continuation bet? Donkette has been a bit aggressive, but not in a 3 way. Hmm.
OhCaptain checks <--I got shiat. I'm ready to walk away.
Donkette checks <--Look! Free card!
*** TURN *** [5h 4h 5c] [Qc] <--Now I have top pair with two potential flush draws to dodge.
Rake Feeder checks
OhCaptain bets $0.70 <--Rake Feeder could be trapping here. That's his kind of flop and still he does nothing. My guess is this. I'll bet a little less then half the pot. A Q or< flush draw pushes here and a 5 calls. Too many ways to lose here with just top pair. I get two callers, I'm almost positive that one of them has the 5.
Donkette calls $0.70
Rake Feeder calls $0.70
*** RIVER *** [5h 4h 5c Qc] [5s] <--Conventional wisdow would say that its unlikely either of them has the 5 now. Pocket 4s just got counterfeited. Pocket Qs would be neat.
Rake Feeder bets $24.20, and is all in <--Is it just me, or is this a shove for value? Sure, I maybe laying down a split here, but I really don't think I am.
OhCaptain folds
Donkette folds
Uncalled bet of $24.20 returned to Rake Feeder
Rake Feeder shows [5d 4s] four of a kind, Fives <---Can I get a BOOOOM for laying down the full house to quads? Come on! He had QUADS!
Rake Feeder wins the pot ($3) <--I believe this is the minimum we could lose to him. Nice job Donkette! Dodging bullets.

Somehow, I think I was the fish that got away, sorry Rake Feeder. I had fun and surprisingly walked away from the cash game with some more blogger money. I am actually up a buy in $10NL for the month of May. The cash game was fun, I'm pretty sure you will see me back there. Thanks to Surf and PE for stopping by and watching me in the low rent district!

Questions, questions, questions

I've been thinking a lot about my poker game and how to improve it.

One thing I've been doing is railing Surflexus during the MTT's he posts for live blogging. I know it may seem like he's won 265 straight coin flips, but heck, he must be doing something right.

I continue to read books, magazines and blogs on the subject. Trying to just be a sponge on everything everyone is writing. The book I'm working on is "Small Stakes Hold'em: Winning big with expert play", by Miller, Skalansky and Malmuth. So far this book has just been written form of a hand chart. What to play when...could this book be any harder to read? AA is a big hand, I get that, but I'm falling asleep here.

One thing I'm becoming increasingly aware of and wonder if this happens to anyone else: when I have a big score, I will suck at poker for a while afterwards. Yes, I had big score in Vegas (for me - some of you genius' use that payout as a buy in...BANKROLL MANAGEMENT!) Now, I can't help but expect AA to get cracked if I see them at all. After each of my biggest scores, I've seen one nice slide in my bankroll afterwards. Is this just me? If it is...how the heck do I stop it?

I'll admit it, the BBT3 is killing my desire to play the big blogaments. Sure the Friday night donkament is fun...we be drinkin' and you never know when TBA will rebuy with enthusiasm, but the Mookie is my one free night for blogger tournaments...and I don't dodge bullets. There is just so many people playing hard to accumulate chips early that if you are card dead, you fold your way to oblivion or to a sick suckout. How do you combat this? I mean I love the rush of poker, getting it in, but when someone will shove K8o when the blinds are 15/30, I don't care how short you think you are. WTF?

• So, what are some ways to improve my game that work?
• How do you get value out of Poker Tracker?
• Anyone ever spot a leak in my game they wish to share with me?
• The online lessons sound interesting, and I know a few of you have used them, but which ones give you the value for your money?
• Any books people like to recommend?
• How do I convince he wife to let me go to Vegas more often?
• Will Corn-Vegas happen?
• Why does Minnesota not have better poker?
• How bad are the rest of the teams in the American League Central?
• Will Kat really stop hosting the donkament like she said this past week?

The world may never know the answer to all of these questions, but do you?

How the heck are ya?

OK smarty pants. I took this picture this past weekend. Anyone know what or at least where it is? I took a lot of pictures in Las Vegas. I sometimes dabble in the artsy side of the camera. I'll be posting the lions share of the photos on my photo blog, so GO CHECK IT OUT!

The trip to Vegas has left me just wiped out. We packed a lot of together time into just a few days. No kids can turn Mom and Dads into party animals.

The Mookie was tonight. I signed up, you may have missed me. I played the hand of the devil and found out it was no match for K8o. I remember why I had been sort of avoiding the Mookie. With the BBT3 on, there are just too many people looking to suck out early to go deep. No biggie. I came back a little only to find out that when you shove with top pair on a 237 rainbow board, A8o is a perfectly reasonable hand to call with. The 8 on the turn sealed my fate. Such is poker.

Poker tonight just wasn't working for me. I dropped into a $5 SNG after the Mookie to find out that calling a shove with KQo is a good idea. It flops a straight when OhCaptain has KK. Eek. I run g00t!

Have you figured out what the pictures is yet? I'll give you a hint. It was taken in Las Vegas, NV.

The Weekend at Mookies sounded like a total blast. I wish I could have been there. I'd like someday to make it to a blogger gathering. Heck, I was even thinking that it could happen here, in southern MN. I have a nice, hand made poker table and a fold up spare. We even have a casino, wait, its far away...never mind. No...what we do have is a very large hospital. That's always a good thing. Not sure if you knew this but Minnesota is actually a hot bed of golf. My hometown of 16,000 people had 2 golf courses in the city limits and there are probably 8 courses within 20 miles. Rochester has, crap, a lot. (what do you expect in a city with more MD's per capita then any other city in the world). This idea is so squishy, not sure why I'm bringing it up.

Time to go relive my live poker glory from the weekend. Ahh...the serenity of the Stratosphere. Go check out JamyHawk's sleep research study. Good stuff there. Let me know if you are playing poker and trying to break my record for not sleeping. Bark! Bark!

Julius Goat has new blog too. FilmCraw. A Cool site about old movies. We all know how good his poker blog is.

Oh yeah, went to poker league last night. Folded for over an hour. Shoved with the hammer. It went poorly. Went home. I need to find some place else to play cards regularly.

Las Vegas - Day 2.0

I think we are finally getting our clocks back on track. Its midnight here in LV and I'm actually tired and ready for bed, but I did want to tell the story about what I posted about earlier. The tournament at the Stratosphere.

I threw caution to the wind and OhCountess and I had headed down to Stratosphere on the advice of a friend of ours grown son.

Anyone that has met me usually figures out that I'm not really big on gambling for the sake of gambling. I like having an edge. I like knowing that I can beat a game. I've never played here in LV and had no idea what to expect. I hear stories about people getting ground up and spit out here. I was confident I knew how to play tournament hold'em, but these skills have only been tested in very limited ways.

I got there early since we had almost no information about this thing. The Poker Room didn't open until Noon. We had gotten there about 10:30am. Up to the top of the tower we go! I took the phone number with me in hopes of getting on the list right away. And hey, it was another photo op.

At noon, I found out this particular tournament was within my bankroll standards. It was a $55 + $5 MTT. We added my name to the list.

After seeing all of southern Nevada from atop the tower, we headed down to the Poker Room in time to pull my seat. Table 1 Seat 7. I love seat 7, I can see everyone clearly at the table. I gave OhCountess a kiss and she headed into the casino. She was on a quest to clear her bonus.

While waiting around, I got my first guy to "go on tilt." Some cocky punks were sitting down at table one. With my seating card in hand, I sat down in seat 7. The leader of this group of punks tells me I'm an idiot and sitting in the wrong spot. You see, seat 1 is the seat on the left of the dealer and you count the spots counter clockwise.

Huh? Are you new here?

I asked him why he thought that. He points to a plaque next to the dealer and says "Look moron, the seat to the left of the dealer says P-1. Ahh, I get it. I politely told him that while it might appear that way, that actually means Poker Table 1 and asked him to look at the other tables. Not liking my brazer abuse of his intellect, he leans into his buddy and says, "Wow, that guy's already putting me on tilt." I began to wonder just how much poker he watched on television.

I started asking questions of the dealers as they set things up. It seems that while this isn't a rebuy tournament, the allow waiting list people to buy in for up to one hour after it starts. So if you bust out, you can buy back in a gain. Hmm.

As is customary, I folded almost everything I saw for the first hour. I hate risking chips until I have a good idea what people are like. My hot headed friends was here and an Asian guy that sounded Italian was asking a lot of really beginner questions. I was really wondering if these where acting or they were really just new.

It didn't take more that about 10 minutes to realize I was at the beginners table. These guys were terrible. We were about 15 minutes into the tournament when 2 guys were all-in after the flop. What did they turn over? Unimproved ATo. Yep, we are off to the races with ace high.

We were given 4000 chips to start things off. A nice start when the blinds are 25/50. Since this table was like playing a slot machine, I really chose specific spots to move my chips around. Which in reality was almost never. The Asian guy I mentioned earlier turned out to be one of the worst players I'd ever seen. I used him as a personal cash machine for 3 of the 4 hands I played in the first 2 hours. He loved his draws and typically chose them poorly. I fired 3 pot size bets at him once, he called all but the last one. I had JTo for top pair and when he folded, he showed 23o. He announced how it sucked chasing a straight and a flush. He only had 3 cards to the flush and called all the bets hoping that a 4 would come to give him the straight.

The blinds started pretty slow but the action was heating up. 4x BB raises were nothing for an opener followed by one or two min raises. If you limped, you called. 4 people in the pot was common. In a lot of ways, this played like the Friday night donkament. Any ace or suited cards were good.

After the first hour, they posted the vitals of this shinding. 39 people had ponied up the money to play, some of those people were actually rebuys. We had started with 3 tables and I was originally told by the dealer that 28 were starting. Yeah, 11 rebuys. The payouts went as follows, 4th $120, 3rd $257, 2nd $446 and $892 for first. Those numbers seemed odd. It adds up to $44 dollars person. It seems the + $5 is actually an add on that you just buy and the house's cut is 17% off the top for the house and 3% for the dealers. Is this normal?

I stayed tight up to the final table. I played enough to keep me at an M of 20 but frankly I was watching a lot of people moving a lot of chips around with crap. Thankfully, I was dealt nothing but crap.

This is dragging on, much like the tournament. Lets just examine the details. I played 4 hands before the final table. The best hand I saw the entire tournament was TT. My biggest aces was AJo. I got lucky with the TT and almost quadroupled up. I flopped a set and the slow playing QQ and AK were a bit upset. Only 2 of us at the final table seemed to have any experience there. We were stealing the blinds and antes, but no one else seemed to ever try. At 5 handed, I set a nice trap and got enough chips to stay out of the way. The bubble burst and the experienced guy and I turned up the aggression. I raised from 60% of my stack with KTc. The experience guy was on my right in the BB. He goes all in. He'd done this before with almost any ace or small pp. I called, I needed the chips. He tables AQo. The hand of the devil failed for him, as it should. We each took out one of the other guys and were heads up.

Heads up started with him having a big lead. I double up on the first hand. I mentioned a chop, kind half hearted, but the blinds were. The blinds were 4000/8000 with 1000 ante. At this point I had about 60000 chips and he had the rest. We both realized that it was now just a series of coin flips. He looked at his cards on the next hand and asked if I really wanted to chop. Absolutely. We split the first and second cash for my biggest ever payout! $669.

Not bad for a free trip to Vegas.

We strolled our way back stopping at the Fashion Mall and Treasure Island to see the show. So, for this vacation - I made $37.50 playing the free play at the Hard Rock. I made $40 playing black jack at the Bellagio. $35 with the free play at the Bellagio. Add in the tournament, subtract the freeness of the trip...

I love this town!

Tomorrow - I'm thinking about hitting the card room here in Harras'. They have an 11am tournament. Could be fun???

I have a recommendation

I just finished the $55+$5 NLHE tournament I mentioned earlier at the Stratusphere. I gotta say. That was the softest field I've ever played in a real cash live tournament.


Yes. Those be the winnin's.

Finaly! Poker

Here's the lobby of Caesar's Palace. Holy crap! This place is huge.

We've made our way to the Statisphere so I can play in a tournament.
It starts in 2 hours. I'll probably go up the tower and look around.
Please tell me these are easy as a blogger donkament.

Las Vegas - Day 1.5

Did everyone forget? What a fitting location to be spending this week. OhCaptain is in sunny Las Vegas and this also happens to be the 2 year anniversary of OhCaptain Poker and looking at the blog archive, I should 200 posts very soon! Live posting from Vegas can be fun.

What a weird day we've had so far. I slept like crap last night. Our bus was loading from Treasure Island Casino in Red Wing, MN at 4:30 AM. I was wide slept from 11-12, then the alarm clock went off. Why? We don't know. I fell back asleep around 2 and slept til 3:30. Sweet! The alarm clock went off at 4. Ugg.

The flight left early and made good time. The only problem with the flight was we had fasten your seat belt turbulance from Minneapolis to Omaha or about half the flight. No sleepy.

We arrived here in Vegas at 9am PDT. We were told our rooms might not be available until maybe 6pm. Personally, I wasn't really happy about this, but what are you going to do?

OhCountess and I decided we wanted to walk to the hotel we honeymooned at. Our honeymoon was our last trip time here. In 1996, we spent 5 wonderful days at the Hard Rock Hotel. The walk back there was exciting and strange. A few homeless people, lots of hooker ads and plenty of construction. Holy crap! That hotel has gotten so much bigger then when we were there. The casino itself hasn't really changed much in 11 years, but the rest was nothing like our first stay.

We signed up, again (our first Rockstar cards had expired) for the Rockstar card. When you do that, you get a scratch off for an amount of "Casino Cash" to be used in a slot machine. Of course this lucksack turned his Rockstar card into $40. W00T! W00T!

While there, we got the call, our room was ready!!! Which was great. We were exhausted and hungry. Back to Harrah's for the buffet and a nap.

The nap. Well, this is another spot where things went a little wrong. I slept until 11pm. Crap! No problem. Vegas doesn't close. We headed out. I'm hoping to photograph a lot of it. You know, my other hobby. BTW - Anyone notice something weird about one of the photos above?

We made our way to the Bellagio. I'm a poker geek to the core, so I really wanted to see Phil Ivey's office. No one was playing in Bobby's Room, but Kenny Tran was using the room to make a phone call. No photography is allowed there...so don't get caught. (Pictures coming...shhh)

The Bellagio is beautiful. I took a couple hundred pictures tonight. It might take a little while to go through them. Its 5 am. I'm gonna play a little online poker and fall asleep. Breakfast soon!

Maybe someone should call us and wake us up in a couple of hours.

At the Bellagio

We made it to the office.

We've arrived

The eagle has landed. We are in Vegas. Now, 8 hours until we can get
in our room. Ugh.

Can you say "Outta here!"?

Bags are packed. We will be leaving from Treasure Island Casino in
minnesota shortly. To the airport and then its on to Vegas baby!!!