Guitar Hero Aerosmith...

Is in the house!!!

Let's talk

Last night, I returned to the real green felt of bar poker. After the last few weeks of live poker, I'm really glad to see my changes are paying off. Fear...HA! Let's rumble.

Last week, I didn't make the points, but sometimes we just never see cards and I got bored; one of my other big leaks. This week, the numbers attending are WAY WAY WAY down. We had 22 runners last night. This is really concerning, hopefully, the people at the Minnesota Poker League and the Free Poker Network can do something. I mean really. This is a city of 100,000 people.

I caught some good cards last night and got people to make huge mistakes ending with the ShoveFest that is the final table. I survived just fine to the final 3. Blinds got to 1000/2000, but remember, with only 22 people, total chips in play is 44,000. Divide that 3 ways evenly. Yep, if they looked pretty, we pushed. (and it was much more of a beer goggle pretty).

Since bar poker provides you an opportunity to play people and their cards for them, I got to practice some skills that you don't always get to use online.

The first hand I will describe was with the Comic Book Guy. He is a fairly loose player and loves to see flops and when he has a stack, he's not afraid to wield it like Captain Caveman's club. On this hand he one bet raises from E/MP. It folds to me in the LB and I just call with pocket nines. I'm a bit worried about why he suddenly put in this small raise. The BB then folds. The flop comes KK9. Isn't that an interesting flop. I figure I'm either doubling up or going home here. I check. He was the original raiser and he very well could have KK. My gut tells me nothing. As he's counting out his chips, he does start to look concerned like he's thinking he's going to be trapped. He bets out about half my stack. I'm quite sure with his raise and appearance that he's not happy. So I go in the tank and come out all in. He does the quick math in his head and decides to call. He tables JJ and it never improves. I did figure there would be a jack on the river.

The next hand was with Corona Bucket Guy. This guy is very aggressive and likes to win with taking pots away from people. I raised it preflop with QQ and he just calls. We are the only two in the pot and he's got position on me. the flop comes 49Q rainbow. Top set and if he's on a draw its a seriously sick straight draw. I know damn well that if he's go over cards or any pair, two pair, he's gonna muscle me out of here. I check and in order to let him hang himself and that's just what he does. He shoves. I tried calling faster, but I couldn't get the nerves, larynx and diaphragm to move any faster. He tables AKh for the seriously sick straight draw that never materializes.

The only problems I had all night was a short stack that I just couldn't get rid of. He was directly on my left. The table folds to me on the button, I raise with A3 to 300, he shoves all in with his last 200 chips, I call, he's got AK. About 10 hands later, we were moved to another table and he's now on my right. I'm UTG with QQ, do a standard raise, he's still a short stack and shoves from the BB. I call. He turns over KJo and hits the K. Geez! I guess he was keeping me humble.

After all was said and done, I did finish 2nd. Not too bad. I like first better, but there is no way to avoid the end game when the blinds to stack ratio is that steep.

I got home last night and settled in to wind down. Two large Dt. Dr. Peppers had left me a little too wired for sleep. I fired up my Google Reader to do a little blog reading and discovered a post that sent chills down my spine.

It shouldn't take to much time reading any of my blogs to realize that I love my wife and kids very much. They are more important to me then I am to me. One of us, the poker bloggers got a call yesterday that all of us husbands that love our wives fear. Bayne_s' wife was taken to the hospital suffering from seizures and the prognosis is unknown. For people suffering this types of episodes, it is not uncommon to induce a coma to stop the seizing. I was entirely grateful to read that their child, while with mom, was not harmed. I can't imagine what he is going through and I always hope that I never will.

You guys showed me that this little community isn't just a huge pile of crap when you turned out for TripJax, I hope and it looks like its already started, that we help one of our own through an event of this magnitude. Even just a comment saying "Thinking of you" can mean so much.

My thoughts are with all of you and your families in this time of need. I hope all get well soon.

WSOP and how you can practice for it online
The World Series of Poker is the world’s biggest poker tournament. Learn how you can practice for it online.

The World Series of Poker is the world’s biggest and most prestigious poker tournament which attracts entrants from all over the world.
For most people, the cost of travelling to Las Vegas and paying the buy-in for one of the tournament events would be prohibitive, but the good news is that there are lots of ways to earn an entry via satellite tournaments.
Some of those satellite tournaments even have freeroll qualifiers, so you can play free poker online and have a chance of winning yourself a seat in the World Series of Poker for your efforts.
If you’re serious about playing in the World Series of Poker, you’ll need to practice for it. Remember that the World Series of Poker is a live poker tournament, so you’ll need to get used to playing live games. This is something that can’t be practiced online.
What you can practice online, however, is playing tournament style. Poker tournaments differ from ring games in several ways. Firstly, you’re starting with a fixed stack, and unless the event allows rebuys or addons, that stack is all you’ll have.
Secondly, tournaments tend to have ever increasing blinds – so you need to be able to build up a big enough stack in the early stages to cope with the blinds once they start getting bigger.
This is something that you can practice; even playing free poker online can help you to adjust to the tournament mentality.

The standard of play in the World Series of Poker is much higher than you may be used to if you are a medium stakes player – or even a moderately high stakes one.
After all, the World Series of Poker is where the elite of the elite go to test their skills. If you are not experienced in high level tournament play, your first try at the World Series of Poker is unlikely to end in a bracelet, however many internet players do manage to do well at making the transition to live games, so if you play sensibly, and keep a cool head, you could repeat their success.

Why am I so tired?

What a fun weekend. Bare with me folks, there is a lot to cover today.

It's Sunday morning and I need to write a post to share some poker fun before it gets to be too much! I'm still exhausted from Friday night, but hey, that hasn't stopped me yet.

Friday night's Donkament was sort of fun. It started fun but shall we never mention PinkyStinky ever again. For some stupid reason, I decided to play the hand of the devil (AQ) vs AT for all my chips. Why do I even play that hand?

But let's remember why we play the Donkament and hang out on a Friday night. It's not about the poker, its about the laughs.

After the dust had settled and Surflexus won the Donkament, a few of us gathered together to play the latest craze in drunken poker, newly dubbed a "Kat Fight" but best described as poker crack. Not to blow my own horn, but I'm pretty sure you will find the definitive Super Turbo SNG strategy guide here. Seriously folks, I have been playing these for a while and have never failed to cash in them. Sweet, sweet money.

We also tried a $5 H.O.R.S.E. tournament NumbBono talks about here, here and here (hehe). My biggest problem was failing to convince IT and NumbBono that we needed a last longer bet. The fact that I suck at split pot games means I only get 3 levels to make up for the huge losses suffered in the O8 and Stud8 rounds. You can only make so much money during Razz. I do believe all of us finished in the top third of all entries but IT and NumbBono were no match for my...crap. I last longer. Let's just leave it at that.

Joining the party late was RaisingCayne. He was playing the Midnight Madness tournament and rocking it! The clock never stopped ticking. The hour hand on the clock kept moving and somewhere around 3AM, he finished 2nd! Nice job sir! But crap! My kids will be up in 4 hours and OhCountess is working. Life is gonna suck.

OhPrincess2 had a birthday party to attend, which left me with the rare opportunity to spend some Daddy daughter time with OhPrincess1. I was really tired, but I wasn't going to squander this time. We decided to take our cameras to a local nature center and have some fun. Well worth it. Hmm...that sounds like a good idea for posts on a couple of other blogs...

I have no idea why I decided it would be a good idea to stay up so late on Friday night. I knew that Saturday night, OhCountess had gotten us tickets to The Colin and Brad Show at Treasure Island Casino. No kids, just the two of us and the chance for a lot of fun.

On Friday, I'd found out that PokerFool and his wife were heading up to the same casino. Since he was going to the card room, OhCountess told me to plan on play some cards as well.

After we had dinner, I headed over to the card room to get my name on the list. The show was scheduled for 9:30 so I could spend a little time there before the show. In another surprise, we ran into Eloise from our home game donking it up already when we got there.

I wasn't really sure how the night was going to go, so I got my name on the $2/$4 LHE tables. They called my name at 7:30 giving me about an hour and half to play before reorging for the show. Bought in for a $100 and took my chair.

I get incredibly lucky to hit two bigger hands while playing my usually super tight to start a table. This gave me the exact credibility I wanted for this table. 9 passive calling stations were seated around me. I flopped a set of 8s once for a nice size pot and then rivered a full house on a flushed board for an even bigger pot. I love pot control!

At about 10 minutes to 9, I decided that I'd take my buy in of profit and go find the Mrs. The show was absolutely hilarious! During the "Jeopardy" portion of the show, Mr. and Mrs. OhCaptain were asked up on stage to be comedy victims will participants of the sketch. Our role was to lip sync the dialog of our characters while Colin and Brad supplied the dialog and voices. We had no idea what they were going to say, but we hammed it up any ways. On an interesting side note, you can use the same skills reading people at the poker table as you do anticipating the words a comedian is going to say. hehe!

By the time the show was done, I was wiped out. I'm laughing my ass off in the show and trying desperately not to fall asleep at the same time. So this next decision is a bit suspect. OhCountess really thought I should head back to the 2/4 table and, being a good husband, I said sure. I can give back my $100 in profit.

I fully intended to just quit if I couldn't play well and she told me to try it for a hour and see how it goes.

After an hour, had taken another $100 buy in and decided to cash out the addition $70 I had made that hour. Woot! Woot! PokerFool looked like he was holding his own and Eloise had left somewhere during this time. It was 1am and I had 4 hours of sleep in the last 2 days. Since my time had expired, I was starting to notice mistakes in my game. I missed calling a bet I should and know to call and then played a hand without near the number outs I need to justify playing it. Thankfully, these didn't cost me much, but the writing was on the wall. I NEEDED SLEEP.

Got back to where we were staying and crashed.

Since becoming a dad 8 years ago, a transformation has occurred in biology. Like Pavlov's Dog, I have been trained to wake up at 7:15am. Son of Biatch! Oh well. I'm still having fun...we are heading out now to enjoy our last few hours before we have to pick up the kids. Maybe I'll play a little more online tonight...or maybe I'll just fall asleep on the couch. I'd love to hear where the over/under is on that :)

Bar poker, poker crack and the Mookie

Tuesday night means live poker night for OhCaptain. Well, its bar poker, but it gets me out of the house to play some cards and hang out with grown ups that aren't wearing coats and ties.

Wednesday night means online poker for OhCaptain. Mooooookie!

Tuesday night, I went to the bar without fear. Just like in my previous post. This time, however, the ever popular Well-manicured Man found himself hit with the deck. Holy crap! The man never missed a 4 or less outer. Eek. I stayed afloat all night by stealing pots here and there. Never really had a hand. The closest I came was raising from the CO with QJh and hitting top two pair. W-MM missed completely and didn't feel the need to put any more money in. Would have been nice because all I got was my missed blinds back.

Attendance at poker league is way down. We used to average 80 people a night. Its down to 35-40. I may not be able to justify going to this much longer. Its the same people every week and frankly, the prizes are a bit weak. $20 in Gift Certificates for first place? Not much motivation.

As written about here and here, or having heard about players playing them here, here, here, OhCountess and I decided to go check out the new Full Tilt $3.50 + .30 Super Turbo 9 person sng.

I will tell you, they are fun, but they aren't for the faint of heart. Basically, if you aren't any good a short stacked final table play, you'll hate these. I love shorted stack final table play. Its probably the one area of poker I feel the most comfortable at. The play at these tables is really poor. People are waiting for big hands OR shoving everything. Figure out who each person is and then exploit there weakness. People waiting for big hands won't call you with just A or K high, so they fold a lot of blinds. People shoving with ATC's learn pretty quick that I'll call with over cards or a PP. Position is hugely important. Also keeping track of your M works well. If you work your stack up to an actual decent size to the BB, wait out some of the smaller stacks. If found it comfortable to just sit back at 10BBs and watch the little people kill each other.

Tragedy, the Mrs and I each won our first attempts at these. I'll probably trying a few more. My gut tells me that most people don't understand what it takes to play short handed final table poker. They aren't quite as big a gambleFest as people think. Use your head. Think about it. You start with 10BBs. Play good poker!

Tuned into LivePokerRadio last night. Buddy was back on the air! The move is on. Moving sucks. Moving soggy stuff sucks even more.

The Mookie last night was really disappointing. I sucked. I played poorly and went home early. This is probably the worst played hand in the history of poker...

Full Tilt Poker Game #6881549103: The Mookie (51608223), Table 5 - 40/80 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:44:55 ET - 2008/06/18
Seat 1: Evy35 (2,540)
Seat 2: Mike_Maloney (3,510)
Seat 3: corron10 (4,300)
Seat 4: turtle0314 (2,255)
Seat 5: OhCaptain (2,980)
Seat 6: cemfredmd (3,155)
Seat 7: mookie99 (5,805)
Seat 8: Jestocost (4,030)
Seat 9: columbo (7,745)
columbo posts the small blind of 40
Evy35 posts the big blind of 80
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to OhCaptain [As 3s] <- Not my favorite hand, but I've been folding for a while so I'll mix it up
Mike_Maloney folds
corron10 folds
turtle0314 folds
OhCaptain raises to 280 <- Mixing it up. I haven't shown much strength
cemfredmd folds
mookie99 folds
Jestocost folds
columbo folds
Evy35 calls 200 <- Been playing a lot of hands and showing A LOT of aggression. Not really sure what the range is.
*** FLOP *** [2h 3c 4s] <- interesting flop. I've made middle pair and a gut shot straight draw
Evy35 checks <- OK...no idea yet
OhCaptain bets 600 <- pot size CB. This is stupid. I don't have a hand and Evy has been going over the top of people for a while, why would this change?
Evy35 has 15 seconds left to act
Evy35 raises to 2,260, and is all in <- Son of motherless GOAT! I have a pair, but its small, I have 4 outs to the straight. Why didn't I just check??????
OhCaptain has 15 seconds left to act
OhCaptain folds <-- What do you think? Should I have called? I know I'm dead to any pocket pair. I really doubt 45 not to mention that would have probably been just called. I can only beat a bluff here. Think Evy had it?
Uncalled bet of 1,660 returned to Evy35
Evy35 mucks
Evy35 wins the pot (1,800) <--Way nicer pot then it should have been. Son of BIATCH!

Congrats to Instant Tragedy for winning the Mookie! Job well done sir!

Love to hear your thoughts on the new Super Turbos or how badly I played this hand!

Don't forget about TripJax and keep him and his family in your thoughts! I know he really appreciates all of our efforts. TripJax - still have you in my thoughts!!

No poker for me lately

With Father's Day and absolutely beautiful weather up here in God's country, I've barely opened my laptop to play poker. I missed the Friday Night Donkament by about 30 seconds. A couple of sit n gos here and there is about it.

I would, however, like to draw your attention to some bloggers in need of good karma. Seeing that this is the blog the whole world goes to for news you are currently reading, make sure you check them out and send some of your good mojo their way.

TripJax mother and father in laws have had a bad motorcycle accident. As a husband, I know all too well the strain this causes on your life, and as a human, my heart goes out to the inlaws and hopes they get heal quickly and completely.

BuddyDank of BuddyDankRadio and LivePokerRadio fame lives in Iowa. Why does he do that? Because he does and normally I'd be the first in line to make Iowa jokes. Its a southern Minnesota thing, we do that. But another long standing Minnesota thing (you east coasters may not understand this, don't worry, many don't) is we will help anyone in need and put aside all differences to do it.

Iowa is hurting. Some areas around me are hurting as well. We had what seems to be 3 weeks of rain around here. I kid you not. It rained almost every day for 3 weeks. Much of Northeastern Iowa and Southern Minnesota is under water. Buddy's basement...is very wet. Some of you may not even know what a basement is, here in the north, we build our house on top of basements, it helps us stay warm in the winter. Having your basement get even a little wet REALLY SUCKS! We keep our stuff down there. Soggy stuff is often ruined.

Buddy, if you need anything let me know.

Send out some good karma. Forget the blogger drama, it is so last week. Let's start rebuilding our image and show the world (and me) that this community isn't just a pile of crap but a wonderful social network of poker degenerates with hearts of gold and honor to match.

Fear

Probably my biggest leak is fear.

I tend to play afraid of losing. Not sure why it is, but I'm afraid of going broke. I'm no where near going broke. Sure, I'm not able to play huge like some people, but if my math is correct, I can buy into a few hundred mirco-limit sngs.

I'm still playing bar poker. Yes, in a lot of ways, its ghey and the play can pretty well suck, but lets face it. I live in an area the HAS NO LIVE POKER FOR MONEY. The nearest casino is an hour from my house. I'd love to hook up with Drizz in the Cities for some limit action, but this is summer in Minnesota. We don't do indoor activities from June to September. Dear God, this is the most beautiful place in the world...get your ass to the lake!

Three months ago, I really didn't care about bar poker. Poker for points is ghey. It really showed in my results. I hadn't made the points in 2 months. I didn't write about here much. OhCountess was even asking me why I was going. Being the neanderthal that I am, it took me a while to figure out what she was asking.

Why was I going to poker league?

I finally figured it out about a month ago. I'm going to poker league because as crappy as some of the play is, I get a real opportunity to play with people of different skill levels. To me, there is a huge difference between online poker and live poker and honing those skills that really help live poker is important.

With that thought in mind, I started going to poker league with a new attitude. I went there to do what it is I think I do best. Read people for weakness and tendencies and put them on a hand and know when they've improved. I also wanted most importantly to learn to trust my skills and play without fear.

The first week I went in with this new attitude, I made the final table for the first time in a couple of months. I was out in seventh, but I could see the change. The next week, I went out on the bubble. Playing without fear also means I've been playing much more aggressively; taking more risk in certain situations to build a stack...we all know that doesn't always work (damn river card).

Last week, I was really beginning to find my stride. I felt I was playing really good tournament poker and making very good decisions. I made the final table and finished 3rd.

I know what some of you are thinking. This is bar poker. These people are inferior, I am learning nothing, but I'll ask you this...when you go play in the World Series of Poker, what are the odds of you sitting at the table with a complete moron? Chances are, when you sit down to the table, you will need to learn the skills necessary to play ANYONE. Even at league, there are people there that are playing LAGy poker and there are people there play TAGy poker. There are also complete idiots playing the two cards they see. I really believe that the best players don't get that way by being able to beat Phil Ivey, they got to be the great player by beating the morons and Phil Ivey at the same table.

Last night, I checked out the leader board to see where I was at. 4 weeks of * as a point total had left me one option. If I win the tournament, I go to regionals and that's just what I did. I felt sharp. I trusted my reads. I played the player and I won the tournament. At no time last night did I have AA, KK, QQ. I just picked my spots and when I played, I played without fear and was very aggressive.

It felt really good to play poker this way. I didn't get all pissed off because I was card dead. I just waited for a spot when weaker players were playing weaker cards and I made them think. I found spots where I could float a guy that didn't like to call large bets with just a pair. I made him pay for that. I flopped a couple of big hands and bet for value every street, maximizing my value on those players that like to chase.

Normally, when I was playing, even pocket aces, my heart would race when I was all in. I feared losing the hand. It was weird, but my heart never raced last night. I also had a tendency to over bet a strong hand for fear someone would suck out on me.

Last night, I trusted my read.

In one hand, I played K2d in a limped pot. The flop came 2A2. I bet the flop, not huge, but enough to find out who the aces were. I got one caller. I was really glad who called too. I know this particular player will call ever medium bet I make and she would have taken control had she had A2. I bled her for most of her chips as she called with just aces up. No fear. I knew if the ace came I was done, but that's really just a two outer. No fear.

To me, this is what poker is all about. Its not about just playing other TAGs and seeing if you can find the smallest of chinks in their armour. Its about finding a way to win, against anyone.

I like winning. I hate losing.

ToC Recap - From the VIP Rail Section

The Tournament of Champions last night turned into some fantastic cyber poker.

Having reserved a rail seat in the VIP section, I got a front row view of the action. My contact fell through at Full Tilt and I wasn't given a lipstick cam view of the table like requested. Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker offer these, so I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

I had spent the day with the family, as you remember from my last post, we were celebrating my youngest daughter's birthday. Good times! I don't remember sniffing glue during the day, but you never know what happens at those 5 year old's birthday parties.

When I finally got to tune in, my friend PokerFool was 2nd on the leader board. We'd missed almost 2 hours of the tournament. I'm always a bit cautious with the girly chat during big tournaments. I played baseball, back in the day, and can slip into a bit of superstition. He was sticking to the top of the leader board. He's an awesome player on his own, my stupid advice won't help.

They got to the final table. The observer chat was just zooming. Just about every blogger seemed to be there offering up booms and gg's. What could make this even better? The poker was getting really exciting! You really got the sense that everyone was giving their best. OSU had moments that appeared drunken, but that could be just the chat window. Hmm...maybe he was sniffing glue? Nah...who does that any more?

Since we were watching the tournament from a decidedly biased point of view, watching the stack of PokerFool was our prime objective. I had joined some others on the girly chat and it was definitely exciting for everyone. Wow. The swings were making every one's hearts just race. Since we were hanging with my parent's having dinner and making preparations for the family birthday party for my 5 year old, I still don't remember sniffing glue.

As is typical for me in a poker tournament of this magnitude, I made a huge miscalculation that ended up costing me big time. I don't exactly remember the details, but the situation went down something like this.

The final table is narrowing down. The pressure is getting intense. One of the really short stacks pushes in with about 3 BBs. Another railbird comments about shoving with such a little stack. I chuckled. I remembered this comment.

A few hands later, the blinds are at 1000/500 with ??? ante, a player pushes the all-in button and raises to the total of all his chips: about 51,000. In my excitement, I miss calculated and fired a comment like "Shoving 51 BBs, priceless"

Damn! What a moron I am!

I should have realized that the two blinds would have needed to reach under the virtual table and pull out 35,000 more chips to make this a shove of 51 BBs. Classic rookie blunder. I just divided the stack by the size of the BB when I should have calculated its +chipEV and realized it was much smaller. I'll never make that mistake again.

wwonka69 bubbles the prizes. Heck of an effort!

oossuuu754 put up a great fight and from his chat, seemed to be really enjoying himself. By the end, I was convinced he hadn't been sniffing glue. He busted and walked away with the 2nd tier prize.

katiemother, OMGitsPokerFool and Loretta8 were now fighting it out for the top prizes. Seats at the ME of the WSOP. The ultimate prize for any of us poker players. The action was fast and furious. I'll be honest, it was difficult keeping up to all the action. Raising, folding, folding and raising. All of them were playing some great poker.

I would check out their recaps for much more detail of the action. They were there and with cards. All I saw was the back of the cards and the doesn't really tell the whole story. Mine are basically black and white with the Full Tilt logo on them.

By this time, my wife had joined me watching and my parents were really getting worried. Their son and daughter-in-law were yelling and screaming and generally just stressed out watching my laptop. I don't think at any time we had the glue out, but you never know.

I don't remember the hand, and I wasn't logging the action, but katiemother busted the big prize bubble by going home early. I'm sure she is disappointed, but let the world know, she put up a great fight. AWESOME JOB!!!!

With the top two spots getting paid the same, one of the remaining players shove and the other called. I'm sure some sick suckout determined the actual winner of the tournament, but they were both tops in my book. Well, actually, they won the same prize so the really both were the champion.

Great job everyone!!! And big thanks to Al, Hoy, Chad and Mookie for getting the BBT3 organized and keeping the stats. I was really impressed at the effort it takes to do this. The prizes were awesome and the action fierce.

It will be a while before we do something this grand again and I think the break will do us some good. This stuff is very stressful. Some of you may even decide to sniff glue. Just Say No!

Congrats PokerFool! Way to bring the championship home!!!!!

See ya on the felt! I'll be glue free in no time!

5 years ago I called a special girl with the news

5 years ago at this very minute, I had just witnessed the most amazing thing. I grabbed my cell phone because there was one person I needed to tell.

Ring, ring.

"Hello!" said my mother-in-law, "well, did it happen? What are the details?"

Still giddy with excitement, I said, "Can you put OhPrincess on the phone. I need to talk to her. It's very important."

"Oh, come on, she won't mind...just tell me!" the MIL insisted.

I'm getting a little anxious here. Gee whiz! Just hand her the damn phone. "May I please talk to OhPrincess?"

I had made a promise to OhPrincess that she would be the first person I would tell about the birth of her new sister. This promise was very important to me and Mom. See, to us, having another child is very much a family activity, well, not the making of the baby, but you know what I mean...

"You aren't going to tell me are you?" she asked with disappointment in her voice.

"No."

"OK, but I'm gonna listen on the other line," she's a persistent one.

"I'd really appreciate it if I could talk to OhPrincess alone. This is a family matter."

"Fine." (Guys, fine is a woman's way of being pissed off. It's never fine)

"OhPrincess, it's Daddy."

"Hi Dad!"

"Honey, you are the big sister of a little baby girl. Her name is OhPrincess2. She weighs 5 pounds 9 ounces and she really wants to meet you. I'm gonna have Grandma drive you to the hospital in a little while OK?"

"Dad? Can I see her when I get there?"

"Absolutely!"

Happy Birthday OhPrincess2! 5 years old. It seems like just yesterday. Daddy's little miracle.

I love you!

Flopping the stone cold nuts

I just finished playing a $2 18 person turbo on Full Tilt. I know this doesn't happen very often, but the flop came 89J all hearts. I had QT of hearts. Near as I can tell, that is the stone cold nuts. The problem was, we were shorthanded and the one maniac at the table folded pre-flop.

The guy to my right bet the flop and the turn, but they weren't his typical pot size bets, but more like 2/3 pot sized. He had position on me, so I was check calling. I wanted to get some value on the river and just wasn't sure what to bet, so I tried the min raise. Against better players this will sometimes induce a raise, but usually just ends up looking suspicious and just gets called.

To all the geniuses that read my blog, which is all of you, how do you bet the nuts?