What's this? Live Poker? Whiskey?

Thanks to PokerFool calling me a slacker, it's that kind of a kick in the ass we need sometimes to realize we need to get up and do something. Who's had time to write anything? I've been actually busy playing live poker...damn it :) Oh, and watching the all-powerful Buehrle make history completing 45 consecutive outs only to cough up a tater in the 6th, and then another and a few more...gawd I love it when the Twins beat the White Sox - sweeps are cool.

The Twins season has been below my expectations, thankfully, my summer has not!

Last Friday night was Bourbonators. Our flavor of the month was Jim Beam Black (you will need to go looking at the site to find it, linking internally to them isn't for the fain't of heart). Described on their website as an 8 year old bourbon, and I quote:

Eight years of aging makes for a complex, sophisticated taste. Mixes well in cocktails. A premium bourbon with a more flavorful character. A must-have for every at-home bar.

Well, we agree, it tasted like Jim Beam bourbon. I touch sweet, definitely smokey oak. I found I liked it very much as a mixer with Coke Zero. This bottle is going to be used for our travelling bottle for a while. It was a great mixer, but if you are looking for something to enjoy neat or on the rocks, this ain't my favorite...not even close.

As for the poker, I was basically card dead the entire night only being helped by the mixing of bourbon and coke zero later and taking advantage of some timely chip ups...out in the middle of the first game, but like you saw in a previous post, first in the last game.

For my birthday, the lovely OhCountess got me a brand new 46" LCD with matching Blu-ray player. Excited, you know it. I hooked up both the blu-ray player and the TV to my wireless network so they could reach out to the Internet. Most of the night, we listened to the Green Day channel I created on Pandora Radio. It could have been the booze, maybe it was we hit critical mass in the loser lounge, but at some point I did demonstrate the YouTube feature of my new TV. If you haven't seen this movie...you need to watch it. This led to the tournament timer being stopped. Easy access to viral videos can stop any home game. You've been warned.

The next day, PokerFool and I headed to Diamond Jo Casino in Northern Iowa for a little $1/$2 NLHE. It's been ages since I played NLHE in a casino. Minnesota only spreads limit, so the hour and 15 minute drive wasn't going to hold us back. PokerFool already wrote up a post about his action, now it's my turn.

I started out pretty well. Took down about $50 pot to start the night when my first BB after my first orbit it walks to the blinds and my LB raises it a bet. This dude had played well over half of the pots on my first orbit so I assumed he was an idiot. In that orbit, he was down about $100 when he'd muck his cards to top or second pair, this made me think his raise (a min raise BTW) meant nothing. Any ways, I had KQo.

The flop comes king high, rainbow. Gin. I lead out and he called, I bet the him all in on the turn and he called. He turned over K2o for a pair of kings and a really tiny kicker. The lack of the deuce sent him packing. The chatter at the table was how unlucky he was, I took this as a good sign since I hadn't seen him get unlucky at all, he just played way to many hands and risked far too much money on a regular basis with questionable holdings.

The nice pot was the last one I saw for the next 5 hours. PokerFool had moved to my table looking for greener pastures but by then, a local pro, Eric, was cleaning up.

Eric admitted it, he was a card rack there for a while. Can't blame the guy, he was hitting top set and the nut flush a lot. Meanwhile, I'm stealing the blinds and limper money with KTo and dreaming about a better hand.

Probably the most notable hand for me was one I was involved with the local pro and a "tourist".

The tourist was someone I had pegged for a loose/passive ego powered guy. I'm not always big on judging people by their appearance, but this was a leisure suit Larry guy. He had the deep dark tan, earring, guy in his 50's with a bad comb-over and big rings. For some reason, I just couldn't stop thinking fish.

The tourist is in the BB. Eric raises from under the gun to $7. Standard raise from him. It gets folded to me in the hijack seat. I look down and find the hand of the devil, (AQo - duh!). I hate playing this hand weak to start and really hate not knowing where I am in the hand so I raised it to $14. This table had been pretty tight and me in particular. I figured this would sent Eric a message that this could get ugly. The tourist just calls.

Eric thinks for only a second, but gets a really serious look on his face. He raises it another $30. That's my reply. He's not gotten out hand in a big pot all night like this. From our conversations, I'm really getting the sense that he respect my game. AQo ain't my favorite hand, as you know, and at this point, I'm quite sure he's got AA or KK and QQ as the only other hand. Seriously, I'm sure he's that big and that big only. According to the tourist, this is where I made the dumbest poker play of the day...I mucked.

Let's look at it. If he's got aces. I'm screwed. If he's got queens, I'm screwed. He'd got kings, I'm still pretty much screwed but a little less. I think the common word of "Screwed" is the key, but the tourist just made a point of calling me out called the raise. The hand continued and the tourist and Eric end up making up a couple of hundred dollar pot. The flop had come ace high all hearts. In the end, Eric shows KK with one of them the king of hearts. The turned heart had given him the nuts. Whew! Bullet dodged!

The tourist was steaming pretty well and took a break...I'll be honest, most of his money was now in front of Eric. Well done :) After he'd left the table, Eric asked what I mucked. I told him AQh. "Nice fold!" he said. He'd told me he very much respected my game and that was raise was to make sure I knew he had a big hand. That felt pretty good. He was very much sincere about it and had a good time making fun of the tourist.

I continued to muck for the next couple of hours and ended the day down a little. For 5 hours of play, I'll take it as a good day at school. I learned a lot and had a great time. I can't wait to head back there...PokerFool??? Let me know :)

When PF and I stood up to head home, Eric kinda stopped the game to shake our hands and say good bye. Since we hadn't lost much money, I have to believe this was a good sign. I thought we both played really well, we just never really had much for cards.

I'm still playing in my weekly bar league. We just completed week 6 of an 8 week league. So far, I've finish 1st, 2nd, 7th and 8th. Not too shabby. Good enough for 1st place in points for the league. With two weeks to go, I'd like to hold on to the lead. Going to state would be a good time. It sounds like state will be up by Drizz at Running Aces. This will be so much better then travelling to Fargo. Not that there is anything wrong with Fargo, it's just that when I drive 6 hours, I'd prefer to be in Chicago...not Fargo.

I'm hoping for a little quiet time this weekend and my laptop and maybe play online. That would be fun...I actually am starting to miss it.

Have a great weekend!