Wednesday, December 23, 2009

WBPT Trip Report: Part 3 - Playing poker with Teddy "KGB" #WPBT

By now, PirateLawyer has fallen over dead waiting for me to post pictures from the Pinball Hall of Fame. The truth is, I'm just about finished going through the pictures from the trip. Just about. I'm just shocked I've actually gotten to put up post #3. I mean, I really never finished last year's recaps...Bravo! Besides, last night, one of my neighbors invited me over for $.10/$.25 NLHE cash. Degeneracy before all, right? (A tidy profit too :)


In my last post I alluded to my final poker session of the WPBT weekend. I personally found this to be the most fun I had had all weekend at the card table. Gotta thank my buddy Drizz for getting me there. After dusting off my profits the night before, I wasn't sure I was really playing +EV, but he was in the mood to play some donkey poker before we left. How could I say no.

He suggested we head over to the Flamingo and try that card room. He was staying there and I'd never been there, sounded like a winner. It wasn't $10/$20 NLHE at the Bellagio so I figured I didn't need a second mortgage to play.

The card room is another one of these converted space areas on the casino floor like so many other Vegas rooms. When we asked about $2/$4 LHE, wouldn't you know there was no waiting and we could sit right down.

Drizz tried buying in for $400(?) but for some reason the floor staff gave him a ton of static. Sure it was more then most people needed but he was in philanthropic mode...right?

I was determined not to let the play of the previous night distract me or follow me to this game. The first sign I'm about raise into a guy when I put him on the nuts, I was standing up and leaving. This table felt angry when I sat down. There wasn't a lot of fun in these faces. I was in the 8 spot, Drizz on my left, an Asian woman that looked like Mimi Tran was on my right.

2 or 3 spots to my right was a young man that asked if we were from Minneapolis. If you aren't from Minnesota, you might not understand why I asked him if he meant from Minnesota. You might be surprised at how many people think Minneapolis is pretty much the whole state, even though, surface area wise, Minnesota is a pretty big state. I'm not from Minneapolis or even the Twin Cities area, so frankly, I sometimes just answer no, I'm from Minnesota. He snapped at me for having the gall to even do that. He too was from the Twin Cities. He calmed down after some small talk, but I could tell, he was a man on the edge.

Everyone at the table was on the edge and it didn't take long to figure out why. In the 1 spot was a very drunk Russian guy. In my experience at live limit hold 'em at low stakes in casinos, there's one "strategy" you'll see a fair bit of. It's the jerk that raises at every opportunity. He's usually drunk and pisses people off because the price of poker gets spendy and most people just won't keep calling him with top pair all the way down. I've also learned from experience that trapping these guys doesn't do much. You've got to wait for cards that may or may not ever come. What I've found particularly effective is go after them. Reraise them, make it friggin' expensive to keep firing blindly at the pot. Turn their game against them. It does take a complete disregard for the value of the money in front of you and you definitely need to check your ego and fear at the door. You've got to play some pokah.

I mucked the first 3 or 4 orbits, playing only a couple of really cheap hands from the blinds and the button. I think there was 2 times maybe I put money in voluntarily. When I saw the flop for free, I mucked to any raises. Drizz...well his VP$IP was asymptotically approaching 100%.

Teddy "KGB" made a quick comment about how tight I was and I took that as my cue. Time to play some pokah. I figure it was time to change the mood of the table. The frustration over Teddy's constant raising and his growing stack was making everyone so angry.

Sitting up very tall in my chair, I blurted out loudly, "All day with the check, check, check." trying as hard as I could to sound like I had a Russian accent. On the ride side of the table, reserved laughter. Teddy, he laughed and smiled at me. The dealer, had no clue what that was all about. I swear, how the hell do you end up a poker dealer in Las Vegas and don't know the movie Rounders??? I mean really.

From that point on, I tried out a few more quotes from the movie and a little table banter starts. Ah, we might actually have some fun...playing a game! Some side action about the year the movie came out was all it took to bring some smiles back.

Not long after, Teddy raises from UTG+1, still not unusual. The table actually folds to me in the little blind, I looked down and found one of my favorite hands, so I call. Drizz, perks up, makes a confused grunt and calls as well.

We see the flop. KK7 rainbow. I check, Drizz checks and Teddy raises (no surprise there), I was next to act and with supreme confidence and calm, I announce raise and make it $4. Drizz takes a second and mucks his cards like they were covered in H1N1. Teddy seems confused, I can tell from his face he's thinking, "Did I really just check raised?" I looked back at him confident in my play and when he reraises, I grab the chips for one more raise. He reluctantly calls.

The turn is a blank. I grab my $4 a put in my raise. Teddy calls. At this point, he seems reserved to the fact that I made my hand. I'm not sure why he's still in the hand, but he is. I don't remember thinking there were draws.

The river is another blank. I grab $4 more and firmly throw the chips into the pot. Teddy grabbed his cards and declares "I missed my draw, you win." I took my cards and threw them in front of the Russian, "I missed too." My J 10 of spades was complete air. He was not a happy man. The most aggressive and crazy betting man at the table had just been bluffed out of a pot...at $2/$4 limit. I smiled. I played pokah.

"Don't worry, I'll get those chips back. Just wait, I'll do the same to you," he tells me. I felt very confident I could out play this man. I gestured to my stack like Vanna White, "They are right here. Come get them." No fear.

Drizz was just shaking his head. I know, things can go so wrong in a hurry at $2/$4 LHE. Bluffs get called all the time with someone making a pair on the river or ace high, but today, I had a read on Teddy. We talked about ordering him some Oreos, but never did it. Would have been funny, don't you think?

Teddy had some tells. He was obviously drunk and the casino kept serving him. We hypothesized as to what he was really doing there. He showed some definite skills at the table, I mean to lay down to my river bet meant he was at least thinking about something. Was he a better player that was just drinking hard and letting off steam? Was he really just a moron with too much booze? We never did find out. His tells were as thick as his Russian accent.

When Teddy played, he talked like crazy when he had a hand. He was also betting differently. When he had nothing, he just grabbed the bet and threw it when it was his turn, very slow and distant from the game. When he had a hand, he counted his chips carefully and couldn't wait to get them in when it was his turn. These tells were just sitting there. In the open and about as rock solid as I've ever seen.

I played 2 more hands with him and one more with the Asian woman. I bet into Teddy every street with top pair and a medium kicker. He didn't like me doing that with just a pair of kings. The Asian lady called all my bets. She had top pair and an ace kicker. The mortal nuts in LHE, right? Well, if someone had raised preflop, I might not have been there when my 94o hit two pair on the flop. She seemed disgruntled.

The last hand I played with Teddy "KGB" seemed to leave him a little upset. I let him bet every street. He was just grabbing and firing. I like my chances with my hand. On the river he fires the last $4, I grabbed my $4 white chips and tossed them in front of me, turned my cards over and threw them to the middle face up, "My ace high is good, isn't it." His cards were thrown hard into the muck. Ace high? Yeah, he missed. Funny how that works.

Not long after, I was hungry. Vegas is hard on the body. You leave your normal schedule behind and eat when the need arises. There are so many fun things to do.

Stay tuned! More to come: the Pinball Hall of Fame, Gamblers Book Shop, Steel Panther and living the good live at the Palazzo.

Friday, December 18, 2009

WPBT Trip Report: Part Deux - They play poker in Las Vegas

The Winter Gathering is an event that needs to be experienced to be believed. Like I mentioned in the last post, Thursday night is all social for me. Meeting people and drinking way to many Sam Adams is the only item on my agenda. I should apologize to Otis for commandeering his phone to do this. Not sure how many of those Sam Adams where in me, but one should never drunk tweet from another man's phone. Sorry dude.


For the first time in my life, I was in Las Vegas without my better half, OhCountess was home recovering from a tonsillectomy she received two weeks prior. She's an awesome lady, for those of you that have met her, I'm proud to admit I did the blogger thing and married up. I'll be forever grateful to her, but since she wasn't there, I didn't feel any pressure to ever not just sit down and work on thickening my leather ass. On this trip, I actually played 5 session of cash poker and one tournament.

After a lovely breakfast at Bellagio with Astin, Astin's friend, Lightning36, Katitude and JJOK, I played that one and only tournament; the blogger game.

I had high hopes, my team rocked. PokerPeaker and Lightning36. Peaker and I final tabled last year and Lightning is as good as they get in donkaments. Personally, I found the structure a bit steep for my taste, but you usually think that when you are card dead. I never really got anything going and busted out just after Peaker, we were both around the 2 hour range. Lightning fought on for a while, but he too went down early.

My starting table consisted of poker legend Dr. Pauly, Astin (the winner of the whole damn thing...CONGRATS!), Penner3, Melissa Hayeden (Melissa was the only pro in the tournament. She's also Allen Cunningham's girlfriend. If you didn't know, she's currently 17th in All-Time Female Money Winners. - taken from Dr. Pauly's blog- I had to ask who she was, I'm such a noob.), and Joe Speaker. There were a couple of other people at the table, but I had no names. Pauly had a bit more detail.

I basically sucked the life out of poker. When my stack dwindled to ~3200, I shoved the preflop raise of Elissa Harwood, her QQ was more then good against my A7o. She liked my bounties. Pauly and I explained the history of the bottle of Wild Turkey. Good times. Now it's up to her to give it back next year. Hopefully VinNay gets to sign it too.

I think that recap of the tournament took longer to write then I was actually playing. Hm.

I played 5 cash session of $2/$4 LHE. The goal of this trip was to prove to myself I could beat a game. I know, I shoot low but hey, we have to start somewhere.

My first session was Friday night. I had spent some time walking around with Lightning talking about life and stuff and we kinda decided not to head over to the Hard Rock Hotel to play the $1/$2 mixed game hosted by Pokerati. I kinda waffled back and forth on that one. I'm kinda glad I went to the MGM. I didn't want to miss the Blogger Mixed game (even though I did) but I did get to witness #Table16 (also documented here & here) Holy crap that was one wild table. At one point, I believe there was over $3,000 on a table of $1/$2 NLH. Jeebus. I was sitting in the minors one table over playing $2/$4 LHE. Me likey my spot. I finished up a $100 buyin in about an hour and a half.

My next session came after the night out at Steel Panther (this is a whole other post, I took a ton of pictures here - stay tuned). After the concert, DrChako, Drizz, myself, Cuban, F-Train, CK, TheWife and I'd swear I am missing someone or two or three. I'd just like it known for the record that they had Red Stripe beer for sale at the concert for cheap. While I had a good buzz on, I still knew to sit to the left of the Doc and Drizz, they were well lubricate. I made a few sets in this game and walked away up $60. Not too shabby. Blogger money is pretty sweet.

After busting out of the tournament on Saturday, I found myself in uncharted territory. I had no idea what to do with that much free time on a Saturday afternoon. Last year, finishing 5th got me out of the tournament at 11pm. It was 3pm this year so I figured I should go spew some cash since that short run had barely started to scratch my poker itch.

I felt good about the MGM session from the night before and headed back. The table was full of tourists, not like I'm not. I was sitting in the 4 spot. There was a really large English guy on my right and a Dutch kid two to my left and down at the other end were a pair of drunk middle aged guys. One of them kept bragging about how rich he was. I figured him for a Car Dealership owner. He probably had some money, but dude. You are playing $2/$4 at the MGM...whipping out the nice little cigar kit was cute, but...

This session wasn't nearly as good as the night before. I ground it for about 4 hours to lose $7. I guess there are bigger losses to be had in Vegas. I though I had played pretty well. At one point, the drunk guys and the Dutch kid were folding to my raises post flop. The large British guy called every raise of mine to the river with jack high. I had pretty much stuck to TAG poker.

I left the MGM looking to catch the tail end of the tournament but I didn't make it. Everyone at Caesar's had left. BloodyP had been twittering looking for other bloggers. Since I was now wandering alone I suggested he join me for $10/$20 NLHE at Caesar's. Har, har! Yeah, like we are bankrolled for that. Ppfffttt. Without sufficient funds or skill to sit at that game, we headed back to the IP's Geisha Bar. We were back to boozing it up.

I learned a valuable lesson this night. After busting from the tournament playing poorly, grinding to a tiny loss at the MGM, I decided to go over to the IP's $2/$4 LHE game in their poker, um, room? (It's more like a little fenced in area off the floor, not sure what you call that) I should have never gone over there. Feeling toasty and REALLY tired from not sleeping and pretty much going solid for the last 36 hours, I dusted off $80 and left it with some of the world's worst players. I remember one particular hand, I put a guy on KJ. The flop come KKJ...so I cap the flop with him. Not one of my better moments.

I played one more session of cash the last night. It was one of the funnest live session I have ever played. This session was so much fun, I'm gonna save it for another post. Here's the teaser, Drizz and I sat down at a table being run over by Teddy "KGB", a drunk Russian guy. I'l leave you with that and go play a little online poker. Poker After Dark is playing on my DVR and I've got that itch again.

Stay tuned!

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

WBPT Trip Report: Part 1 #WPBT

Holy crap. I haven't slept like that in ages. Monday night was a 9 pm lights out for me and if it was for the fact that I was behind the wheel of a car driving from the Minneapolis airport to my cozy home in southern Minnesota, it would have happened a lot earlier. Do I have any complaints? Nope. The exhaustion was worth every red line in my eyes and my complete inability to focus on any task that took more then 5 seconds.

The Blogger Winter Gathering is like no other adventure. My memories are both vivid and hazy. I'd recommend a tour through real time archives of our collective hast tag #wpbt. It was by the use of Twitter that many people were communicating for the weekend. April had a good idea and maybe we should do it next year, Twitter training. It was essential for much of the shenanigans that occurred.
Drizz and I decided to meet at MSP at around 2pm. Since we are some seriously organized chaps, this gave us time to hang out before we got on our separate flights. Wait, what's this? Oh look, our

tickets have the same flight number. Yeah, we were actually on the same flight.

No fear, food and cocktails aren't a problem at the airport. As we all know, the Winter Gathering is all about celebrating his birthday, so a birthday cap'n & coke were on my agenda...Happy birthday BTW!


As I would soon learn was gonna be typical for the weekend, our flight was delayed. A connecting flight was running behind so we needed to wait. Yawn. We did what any other upstanding Minnesota boys would do, pinball. Seems Drizz is a phenom at this. In the course of a few minutes, he'd lined up a few free games for us to kill. I killed mine quickly and with few points accumulated. He, kept the points rolling. Sigh.

This final shot from the airport is Drizz winning yet another hand of Chinese poker. I had never played it before, shock, I know. The very first hand he dealt me, I had a royal flush, but as someone twittered back to me, your royal flush is only as good as the other 8 cards....they sucked. He went on to win the first 5 hands I ever played. I suck. Need cash? Play me.

In preparation for the weekend, he also introduced me to Pai Gow, minus the casino, and the money and the complete intoxication. This too...I sucked at. Go me.

Our plane boarded almost exactly one hour late. If you ever met the two of us, you will notice that he's a few inches taller then me. He's actually a fairly tall guy...me, I'm average. Seemed only fitting I'd get the exit row and the flight attendant would use a shoe horn to squeeze the big guy in the row behind me. Gotta love fate.

Thursday night of the Winter Gathering is all about the hugs, the howdy's and the booze. There were so many people I looked forward to meeting for the first time and old friends I needed to pick up from where we left off last year. This post went on way longer then I had planned. I used to want to write about Thursday night, but frankly, I don't take notes. You really need to attend this event.

Here's what's on the agenda and these next posts I promise to organize a lot better. I played some poker, stories are plenty. If I don't write about the Pinball Hall of Fame, PirateLawyer will explode, that's coming. Steel Panther Friday night at Green Valley Ranch. Neon Graveyard. Lagasse Sports Stadium for Sunday football and random shots around town.

I've almost finished going through the 800 pictures I took. For some reason I always get hung up on getting this first post out. Some more sleep tonight and probably some more writing tomorrow. More linking to come. I'm still friggin' exhausted. I have no idea why I go back to work right away on Tuesday. Ugh.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Reunions, sleep and transition to normalcy - on hold #wpbt

Immense boredom. Total exhaustion. Sleepy eyes. I'm sitting here at McCarran airport, midway between the surreal life and the quiet home I had left behind. The shuttle I included in my package picked me up an with plenty of time to get here, go through security and find my gate. The little bit of extra padding was magnified as it is again snowing in Minnesota. Deicing planes takes time...like an hour. Sigh.

This past weekend was truly epic in scale. So many little perks added to what is normally a rockin' good time. From the overlay in the tournament's last longer bet provided by PokerStars, to the simply lavish suite and awesome service at the Laggasse Stadium suite in the Palazzo, this weekend was over the top.

I took some ridiculous amount of pictures this weekend (~800). While it was cold, my camera clicking finger was ready to go, even if my stomach was doing some kind of funky chicken dance.


I didn't win the blogger donkament. I did play more cash poker then I ever have in a 3 day window. I did not get my -EV on. I did tilt like there was no tomorrow in one session of cash. I also ran good enough in 3 other sessions for it not to matter.

My flight will be boarding soon and I can't wait to reach new levels of REM sleep. I miss sleep but I think I miss OhCountess and the kids more. Funny, just last Thursday, I couldn't wait to get out of town, hop a plane and fly to Vegas. Today, that friggin' plane can't get here soon enough.

WPBT crew: I miss all of you already.

Stay tuned.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Shuffle up and deal!


The annual blogger tournament has begun. 84 runners and team D-Listers is in the house. In the photo are my bounties.

Hopefully, this will be a long day!

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

Location:Las Vegas Blvd S,Las Vegas,United States

Friday, December 11, 2009

I love the neon




Walking around Las Vegas with Lightning36. Good times.

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

The story of 3 bags and a broken clock

Here they are, 3 bags. My suitcase, camera bag and the bag I'll take to work with a change of clothes.


I'm updating all my blogs with this post because a trip to Las Vegas is when all 3 cross paths. I have poker, photography and fun all planned! The only thing missing will be my bride at my side. This will be my first trip to Vegas without her. Some parts won't be the same without her.

Have fun in Minnesota! While it's not warm this time of year, Vegas is also not 3 degrees. I won't be jealous. Promise!

Many updates to come! Laters!

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Snowed in

No doubt, I'm gonna be here at the house for the forseeable future. We got around 11 inches of snow and top that with a lovely cherry, we now have wind gusts in the 40 mph range.

My street has 3 and 4 foot drifts. Until I see a plow, it's cookie decorating time!


-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

Location:County Road 22,Rochester,United States

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Preparations and Plans #wpbt

Snowmageddon is bringing with it the 4 horsemen here in Minnesota. Loads of fun. Our local weather people have promised me that my plane will leave MSP as planned barring the freezing solid of the planes fuel. The forecast for Thursday is a balmy high of 9°F, that's -13°C for our Canuck friends. Those highs in Las Vegas of mid 50's sounds FANFRIGGINTASTIC!

Not to sound too excited, but I finished packing Sunday, a full 4 days early. Here's a sample checklist for the weekend:

  • Pocket Purell
  • Camera, lens and select gadgets
  • Chargers
  • Ibuprofen
  • Tums
  • Imodium
  • Bounty (Part 1)
  • A couple of books

Yeah, packing for this thing ain't all that hard, it just that when I rush at the last minute, I forget all my chargers. I know me.

The rest of this week has been all about building up my anxiousness. One way I've found to get me really in the mood has been listening to the Gambling Tales Podcast. I'll make it real simple for you, here's the iTunes link. This podcast is brought to us by WPBT bloggers Falstaff and Special K. Their 3rd episode is out. Awesome stuff. What makes the show so fun is these guys are pretty well read in the gambling history and use that converse on more modern topic. Very cool.

Twitter has been buzzing this week as well. If you are looking for the best way to follow the live action of this weekend, I'd suggest following Peacecorn's list. As far as I've heard, she's got the most comprehensive list any where. Go check it out! I stopped using Tweetdeck for iPhone a few months ago. The damn thing was as buggy as it gets. I've heard it's gotten a lot better, but it also sports the ability to have columns for searches. #WPBT should be your hash tag of choice.

One addition to my preparations this year was purchasing a portable battery for my iPhone. I'm still sporting one of the first units that came off the assembly line. The aluminum jacketed iPhone 2G. The biggest problem I've had when traveling with it has been battery life. This year, I bought the 3GJuice iPhone/ iPod Battery Charger. It should give me a double long day without having to crawl under the table looking for an outlet. Let's just see how it does.

After all that, now we wait.

So here's my plan for the weekend. To avoid outrageous parking fees, I'll be meeting my brother at he'll drop me off at the airport. Unfortunately, his only free time to do this is a little under 4 hours before take off. So I'll be getting to the airport at 2 where I should also be running into Drizz. His flight leaves just a few minutes after mine. Yeah, we planned that well, but I should be buying him his first tasty birthday beverage(s) before take off and discussing the opportunity to wager on our arrivals.

Thursday night: drinks at the Imperial Palace's Geisha Bar. I should arrive there around 8? My plane is scheduled to land at 7, so we will have to see. I believe Colombo described this as EXTREME networking. Actually, it is, and it's a ton of fun. New for me this will hopefully be drunken pai gow. I'm really looking forward to meeting people I've been connecting with over the last year through twitter, facebook and their blogs. More massive link dumps coming soon!

Friday, I'll be joining Kat and others at the Neon Graveyard. Vegas continues to be one of my favorite places to photograph. This trip will be now different. I need to go to the Pinball Hall of Fame sometime too. Not exactly sure when everyone is going. I need to figure this out Thursday night.

Friday night, we head over to the MGM, more drunken games. The WPBT Mixed game table is something I really want to try that this year. Not saying I'll avoid the cowboys at the limit hold'em tables, but mixed games it is.

Saturday, the only thing planned is the Blogger Tournament. This year, Otis hooked up the Luckbox Last Longer Challenge with a surprise from PokerStars. They are juicing the pot with an extra $2,000. Even before that big news hit the intertubes, we had created Team D-Listers: Lightning36, PokerPeaker and myself. Should be really fun. Guys, let'show those A, B, C listers how this game is played!

After this, my weekend is pretty open. I'd like to check out the private box Luckbox has set up for the sports betting day on Sunday. Kat has suggested she'd like to rent a car and go shoot more of the Las Vegas and surrounding, I think maybe it was to head up to Red Rocks or even Hoover Dam. Kat, I've brought with about 100 GB of storage. Let's do this.

Monday morning, my adventure ends. I'll get back in a tin can and prepare to be flash frozen, but I'm not thinking about that right now. I'm about 36 hours away from leaving the office and getting the hell out of Dodge. You going too? Looking forward to see all of you again!

Tick tock, tick tock...

###UPDATE###
Crap! Forgot to mention...Saturday, 12:30AM - STEEL PANTHER! I'll be there! Rock on!

Monday, December 7, 2009

The return of Kenny Tran

Kenny Tran was back at the microscopic stakes LHE tables. I just found it right when he sat down and got to be first in line on the waiting list. It didn't take long for me to get the seat on his right. Yo, the pro's got position on me. Bring it! :)

The last time I sat down with him, people asked if I played any hands with him. I didn't really remember much. This time, I tried a little harder.

The first hand, I called from the BB and went heads up against him. When playing limit like this, many players will defend their BB with any two cards. I have a strong hands for heads up, but I'll be out of position for the entire hand. I called to keep the pot small. No reason to raise only to completely whiff the flop and dump a bunch.



Yeah, that sucked. I probably lost the minimum to him.

This next hand was the only other hand I played with him. Not sure what he's doing down here, but I think I know how you might get the nickname "Sick Call". To me, calling with Q high is just kinda stupid, but then again, I'm not a well known, red letter pro.



Yeah, ace high is the winner for me. Let this be a lesson. Bet your flush draws. Kenny "Sick Call" Tran will call you with queen high.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Just when you think the doom switch is fully engaged

I've had a really unfun run of cards lately. Actually, I found away to give back a few buy ins in just a matter of a couple minutes at limit hold 'em. You know when AKs flops AAX and some donkey decides it's positive EV to cap every street with you and that damn deuce on the river just had to give him a full house, right? Of course you knew that. Friggin' deuce on the river gives the donkey a full house A2o is the gawd damn nutz...fricka fracka...why I oughta...

Anywho. This time next week, I should be lining up to see Steel Panther with a group of bloggers at the WPBT winter gathering. I'll just say it now, sorry for any drunken tweets or posts that might show up. Dude..it happens.

So, I really did figure the doom switch had been engaged the last couple of days. I probably shouldn't be playing poker exhausted, but we all know, we don't play bad, there's evil people that run these poker site that are out to get us. That's why they invented the doom switch. To get us. (I kid...I'm pretty sure I was WAY too tired to play poker)

Well, tonight, I felt like I got a little bit of my karma back. Check out this screen cap -


Now, before you go and think, "Well, OhCaptain, did he slow play those aces all the way to the river?" The answer, of course, is absolutely, positively, no way. We got it all in on the flop cuz I think diamonds are purdy.

Here's the replay:



I'd love to hear some theories or explanations of how I had a suspicion that he had a big pair and this was some awesome play. He was not normally not that passive early, but why do I care, I'm trying to shake off a doom switch and pretty much just tilting the night away. I suppose I really should be writing about Vegas. I said I'd write about Vegas...but but but, no excuses, I was just wasting my time playing cards.

***UPDATE***
Doom switch is still fully engaged. The most passive bubble play you've ever seen. I went artic card dead after the straight flush. Doing my best to stay afloat with stealing and position play. I finally ran KQh into KK and then did this sick orbiting for like forever watching the most passive moronic play. Sigh. It finally took KK to take down my QJ. Sigh.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

168 Hours but who's counting? #wpbt

WPBT Winter Gathering is 168 hours away from beginning for me, but who's counting?


Questions that need answering:

Who's Team D Listers?
Will Drizz be standing at the Geisha bar with drink in hand before me?
What's gonna be the line on the race to Vegas?
Will I forget something?
Will I remember something I really don't want to?
How long will it take me to drink the first beer? the second? the third?...
Can I really get it all done in 4 days without puking on my shoes?
Can I invert my biological clock and make it to Steel Panther?
Why so many friggin' questions when the clock ain't moving?
Can I learn Pai Gow and Craps and continue to pay my mortgage on time?

Answers coming soon...stay tuned!